Wintertime Dissipation of Heat from a Thermally Polluted River

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Abstract
To test a method for predicting water temperature downstream from a source of thermal pollution on a cooling river, field observations were made below the Dave Johnson power plant (steam‐electric, 350 megawatts) at Glenrock, Wyoming, on the North Platte River. Roughly 30% of the average winter flow of 28 cubic meters per second is diverted through the plant, and the temperature of the cooling effluent is raised about 20°C. The site is ideal for heat balance studies because the amount of sheltering by either high banks or vegetation is minimal and there are no thermal pollution sources or major tributaries for 65 km below the plant. Meteorologic parameters were recorded at two sites on the river and water temperature profiles were measured at five cross sections located up to 28 km downstream from the plant. Above the plant, the river was ice covered and the water temperature was constant at 0°C. The observed temperature decreases below the plant were compared with the temperature decreases calculated by a previously developed method. Very satisfactory agreement between observed and calculated values was achieved when relations suggested by Rimsha and Donchenko were used to estimate the evaporative and convective heat losses. Other relations either gave a larger scatter or systematically underestimated the actual cooling.

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