An assessment is provided of selected environmental effects of operating the cooling towers and stacks of Units No. 3 and No. 4 of the Potomac Electric Power Company's generating station at Chalk Point, Maryland. The emphasis is on the magnitude of salt deposition to the area surrounding the cooling tower due to saline water drift. A secondary but important consideration is the magnitude of salt loading due to saline drift from the stack which uses saline river water in scrubbing flue gases. This salt loading together with that of the ambient salt background is assessed for its effects on soils, crops, native vegetation and man-made structures. Other atmospheric effects examined are: enhancement of ground level fogging and icing, enhancement of precipitation, and the flight hazards to aircraft. A numerical model of drift deposition has been developed and validated against the data collected in the Dyed Drift Experiment at Chalk Point. Use of the available data model predictions indicate that with fulltime, full load operation of both 600 MW(e) units significant levels of salt deposition occur only on the plant site within 0.4 km of the source. The predicted maximum salt deposition rates are given. The effects on soils, crops and …

The objectives, methodologies, data, and analytical results of the Chalk Point Cooling Tower Program are reviewed. The overview intergrates the concepts and activities of the various program elements to provide a coherent view of the program in its entirety. Samples of the various data acquired are included together with very brief summaries of the conclusions. The report is extensively referenced to provide specific directions to the more extensive treatments of the program, data tabulations, and tape libraries available in the complete library of Chalk Point reports. The Chalk Point data is a resource for the study of cooling tower salt deposition processes and impacts in general. The methods used, while developed to facilitate the assessment of salt drift impact at Chalk Point, also have applicability to cooling tower impact analysis at other sites.

In order to develop an initial estimate of the potential competitiveness of low temperature (45 degrees C to 100 degrees C) geothermal resources on the Eastern Coastal Plain, the Center for Metropolitant Planning and Research of The Johns Hopkins University reviewed and compared available energy price projections. Series of projections covering the post-1985 period have been made by the Energy Information Administration, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and by private research firms. Since low temperature geothermal energy will compete primarily for the space and process heating markets currently held by petroleum, natural gas, and electricity, projected trends in the real prices for these fuels were examined. The spread in the current and in projected future prices for these fuels, which often serve identical end uses, underscores the influence of specific attributes for each type of fuel, such as cleanliness, security of supply, and governmental regulation. Geothermal energy possesses several important attributes in common with electricity (e.g., ease of maintenance and perceived security of supply), and thus the price of electric space heating is likely to be an upper bound on a competitive price for geothermal energy. Competitiveness would, of course, be increased if geothermal heat could be delivered for prices closer to …