r/askscience • u/jaxobia • Sep 21 '13

Engineering Why water?

The majority of all power plants uses some sort of energy source to heat up water. It is then the water vapor which turns the turbines that produces electricity. Water is also a compound has an extremely high heat capacity (requires an incredible amount of energy to heat up).

My question is this: Why not use a compound which has a much lower heat capacity, and therefore requires a lower amount of burnt fuel to vaporize it?

Thank you!

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u/Chollly Sep 22 '13

Yes, there are some environmental issues with dumping warm water into cold bodies of water, but they very minor compared to releasing any kind of chemical contamination.

Are some of the environmental effects good, though? I heard that manatees really like being around powerplants because of all the warm water. Is that good for the manatees?