Research and analysis are being conducted to evaluate and develop cost-effective approaches to using non-traditional (aka impaired or alternative) sources of water to supplement or replace freshwater for cooling and other power plant needs. Opportunities exist for the utilization of lower-quality, non-traditional water sources. Examples of non-traditional waters include surface and underground mine pool water, coal-bed methane produced waters, and industrial and/or municipal wastewater.

IEP research in this area has focused on a variety of issues including feasibility studies for a variety of non-traditional water types and research into developing advanced water treatment technologies to enable coal-based power plants to use impaired water in recirculating cooling systems without notably increased scaling and without significant decreases in cycles of concentration. Feasibility studies involve multiple issues such as the flow of different non-traditional waters available in different regions, costs associated with collecting and treating each of the variety of non-traditional waters, and consideration of the variety of state-specific regulations pertaining to non-traditional water use.

IEP sponsored research includes the following: analysis of the use of water from abandoned underground coal mines to supply cooling water to power plants; analysis of the use of natural gas and oil produced waters to partially meet power plant cooling water needs; development and demonstration of mine water usage to cool thermoelectric power plants; development of membrane separation and scale-inhibitor technologies to enable power plant use of impaired waters; and pilot-scale demonstration of a variety of impaired waters for cooling.

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