ELI5• Why you cannot use methanol or even ammonia inbpower plants instead of water. water takes more energy to boil and thus requires more coal burnt. You can condense the methanol by passing it through a waterbody of some sort so it doesn’t get lost in the atmosphere like steam does?

Question

ELI5• Why you cannot use methanol or even ammonia inbpower plants instead of water. water takes more energy to boil and thus requires more coal burnt. You can condense the methanol by passing it through a waterbody of some sort so it doesn’t get lost in the atmosphere like steam does?

In: 3

Answer 1

Using flammable liquids to cool a reactor would generally be a bad idea due to the possibility of reaching its flash point. Furthermore, water also acts as a radiation shield, which other liquids may not. Overall, there are probably more reasons why water is the best choice, but these are the ones that come to mind.