INTERACTIVE EXAMPLE
© Copyright, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Nuclear Power Plant



A nuclear power plant has a core temperature of 5000 K, and a cooling tower temperature of 373 K, and is able to produce 1.21 gigawatts of power. Assume that the plant operates at its maximum efficiency [Carnot efficiency].

giga = 109
1 watt = 1 J/s
the Latent Heat of Vaporization (LV) of water is 2.26×106 J/kg


How much water is evaporated per second at the cooling towers?

mass of water evaporated per unit time = kg/s