Studies for Nuclear and Pumped-Storage Power Plant Zarnowiec

In the 1970s in Poland, there was a shortage of electric energy. In 1972, preliminary decision was undertaken to build nuclear power plant and pumped-storage power plant. Nuclear power plant was designed to use the Lake Żarnowiec as a cooling water reservoir and pumped-storage power plant to use this lake as the lower reservoir. Such technical solution required comprehensive hydrological, hydrodynamic, and ecological field investigations of the lake. Also meteorological studies of the lake region were conducted. Apart from field measurements, several studies on physical and mathematical models were performed, which concerned the dispersion of heated water on lake surface and lake water balance as well as the failure of upper reservoir of pumped-storage power plant. All this information is presented in this chapter. In 1983, the pumped-storage power plant was put into operation and in 1989 the government decided to suspend the construction of nuclear power plant. Now the idea of nuclear power plant construction in the same location returned. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.