Thermal Pollution

 Thermal pollution from power plants and factories is relatively easy to control.
 Instead of discharging heated water into lakes and streams, power plants and factories can pass the heated water through cooling towers or cooling ponds, where evaporation cools the water before it is discharged.
 Alternatively, power plants can be designed or refitted to be more efficient and to produce less waste heat in the first place.
 Where homes or other buildings are located near industrial plants, waste hot water can be used for heating.
 Landowners can leave strips of trees and vegetation along streams and shorelines.
 Grazing livestock can be kept away from stream sides by fencing.
 All efforts to control erosion also have the effect of keeping water clearer and, thus, cooler. As a practical matter, however, thermal pollution from devegetation is quite hard to control because it is caused by the cumulative effect of many peoples’ actions, most of which are individually minor.

Resource summary

	Created by oitt_aa over 12 years ago