> They've got egress cooling water limits of 26-30C (78-86). It's an entirely manufactured problem.There is nothing "manufactured" about not wanting to cook natural water bodies and the flora and fauna that live in said water.
Even very minor changes can have massive effects for everything living in, and around, such waters, as they are part of a bigger ecosystem these changes will also end up affecting wildlife outside of those waters.
> They could easily solve this just by offering giant 38-40C (100-104F) pools open to the public near their plants.
Did you do the math how big they would need to make these giant pools to effectively dissipate the heat? Where is the water for those giant pools supposed to come from?
> Or, just have a parking lot sized winding halfpipe before draining into the river, or otherwise easily make up for the missing cooling tower capacity.
From what material will that winding halfpipe be made, to have good thermal conductivity, while still having the stability to support such a massive structure and the pressurized water going trough it?
> In Iceland thermal plants will release boiling temperature water into rivers that didn't have it before, nobody thinks twice about it, as people are used to the natural equivalent.
Iceland is also not exactly known for its summer heatwaves, even without those I'm pretty sure they still monitor the temperature of those rivers to make sure it doesn't pass certain thresholds.
> You'll want to make sure to give the fish a way out, but otherwise the only notable side effects are some algea buildup.
Algea that will deprive the water of oxygen, thus killing a lot of other flora and fauna if they build up too much.