Soil-warming for waste heat disposal, crop growth enhancement and waste water renovation. Final technical report

Technical Report · Fri Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1978

OSTI ID:5776325

DeWalle, D R; Fritton, D D; Kardos, L T; Knievel, D P; Norman, J M

To examine the feasibility of utilization and dissipation of reject heat from power production, the effects of year-round soil-warming on subsurface and surface heat exchange, crop growth and development and renovation of municipal waste water were determined in central Pennsylvania. The soil in a 0.09 ha test plot was artificially heated by circulating water heated to 38C through a buried, parallel pipe network. Both the heated plot and an adjacent unheated control area were irrigated weekly with about 1.5 cm of municipal sewage effluent. Measurements of soil heat flow, pipe heat loss, soil temperatures, pipe temperatures, and soil thermal conductivity were used to test theoretical steady-state models describing heat loss from a buried pipe network. The fraction of pipe heat loss dissipated by evapotranspiration was determined through the use of weighing microlysimeters. A horizontal atmospheric advection model was used to scale the small plot heat loss data to a full-sized area. Crop phases of the research focused on the effect of the warm soil on winter survival, maturation, development, yield, quality and pest relationships for alfalfa, orchardgrass, tall fescue, winter wheat, winter barley, snapbeans and sudangrass.

• Research Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park (USA). School of Forest Resources
• OSTI ID: 5776325
• Report Number(s): PB-290902
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320304* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Industrial & Agricultural Processes-- Waste Heat Recovery & Utilization
COOLING
CROPS
ENERGY TRANSFER
EVALUATION
FARMS
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FOOD
GROWTH
HEAT TRANSFER
HEATING
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
IRRIGATION
LIQUID WASTES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
POWER PLANTS
PRODUCTION
SEWAGE
SOILS
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
VEGETABLES
WASTE HEAT UTILIZATION
WASTE PRODUCT UTILIZATION
WASTE WATER
WASTES
WATER