Cooling Tower Cleaning From a Watery Perspective — Dive, Dive, Dive
One recurring challenge for every utility plant cooling system is cooling tower cleaning. That’s mainly due to deposits of particulates being brought into the cooling system from outside the system as well as particulates generated from within the system itself. This challenge is exasperated when the cooling tower is submerged in water. The types of particulates can vary greatly depending on the treatment, nature of the water and the location of the plant. For example, below is a video of a diver cleaning a potable water tower filled with sediment.
A few years ago, while transiting the Prussian Gulf and stopping off in Bahrain, (home of the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet), I was asked to assist in the evaluation of a cooling problem at a major power plant. As I worked my way methodically through, the issue became obvious to me – major inefficiency of the cooling towers!
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How New EPA Rules For Power Plants Affect Cooling Tower Maintenance – Part 2
Yesterday’s post discussed the winding path to new Clean Air Act greenhouse gas standards implementation being taken by the EPA’s updated rules for power plants. Now we want to firmly establish the tie-in to the cooling tower maintenance that you’re involved with every day. It’s important that we all understand the linkages between these ever-evolving regulations and our industry.
The cooling tower connection
What all of these new rules has to do with you, dear Just Venting reader, was already stated in Part 1′s introduction: cooling towers are vital to the power generation industry. They’re also near and dear to our hearts here at this blog. Their effective maintenance and efficient operation is crucial to the generation of ample and affordable power in this age of rising energy costs and impending energy scarcity. And anything that materially impacts the power generating industry, such as the EPA’s ongoing efforts to create and enforce new regulations on power plants, therefore materially impacts your business and ours. Energy efficiency and conservation in all areas is of paramount concern right now, including, somewhat ironically, in the power generation industry itself. More than ever, they have to make sure the equipment at their plants is running at maximum effectiveness.
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How New EPA Rules For Power Plants Affect Cooling Tower Maintenance – Part 1
In addition to the many great reasons for maintaining your cooling towers that we’ve been blogging about, now there’s another reason — and an industry-specific one at that — looming on our cultural horizon. We’re talking about the advent of new EPA legislation that affects the operation of America’s power plants. Cooling towers have always played a crucial role in America’s power industry. Now their significance, and therefore the importance of making sure they’re in tip-top shape, has just received the equivalent of a steroid injection from the federal government.
Or rather, this is about to happen. It hasn’t happened yet. And as announced by the EPA in mid-June, it won’t happen quite on schedule. The reason for the delay is a story of much dithering and debate. We’ll relate the story to you first, and then return to the cooling tower focus.
Brace for a twisty tale…
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