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This is a piss poor article... of course it has a tacky and plebian Simpsons reference... I'll fix it, since it seems everyone else of worth has ignored it... 130.156.169.248 20:34, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
This section needs the terms defined in non-technical terms. While some are self-explanatory, some are not. For example, what is "draw-off" rate? Remember, this article use to reference the Simpsons, so it has to make sense to a technical, but non-specialist audience! Samw 21:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I have revised the lead-in discussion of why large industrial cooling towers are used. As noted in that discussion, a circulating water system with a cooling tower in a typical 700 MW coal-fired power operates at a water flow rate of about 71,600 cubic meters per hour and only a small part of that is lost to the atmosphere as evaporated water from the cooling tower and as blowdown, amounting to a makeup rate of perhaps a total of 4-5 percent. That compares to about 100,000 cubic meters of once-through water which must continuously be returned to the ocean, lake, or river and be replaced by fresh supply water. In other words, the amount of makeup water using a cooling tower is about a 95% reduction of the makeup supply water needed in a once-through system. In areas which are not near to an ocean, a large lake or a large river, the cooling tower is clearly a better choice than trying to supply once-through water from a well.
That is the reason why cooling towers are used despite the cost of building a cooling tower and despite the cost of chemicals used in a cooling tower system to control scale, pH, algae and biological growths. - mbeychok 06:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Whilst it's great to have all of the equations and the details of exactly what concentrations of disinfectant you need to clean them, some REALLY basic information is missing:
Please think of all the really mundane questions a mere mortal might ask!
SteveBaker 03:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to User:Copeland.James.H and User talk:199.82.243.73 for their contribution about air-conditioning cooling towers and Legionella disease. However, the result has been that such information is spread about in too many different places in the article.. Therefore, I plan to create a new section entitled "Cooling towers and Legionnaires' disease" and consolidate all of the Legionella information in that section. - mbeychok 20:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with moving the "Maintenance, inspection and other guidelines for control of Legionella" to into the existing Wikipedia article Legionella. There is some information currently in the Wikipedia article cooling tower that is not in the Wikipedia article Legionella. I recently updated the the Legionella Outbreak section to say Cooling Towers 149 Cases of Legionella during Jun-06 in Pamplona, Spain. They shut down at least 6 cooling towers after rapid tests for Legionella antigen were positive in four of the towers. A review of outbreaks in the past year, suggests that cooling towers remain prime suspects, so I suggest some strong links and references from the Wikipedia article cooling tower to the Wikipedia article Legionella. -- Copeland.James.H 16:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
As discussed above, I have now removed a great deal of the information on the detailed maintenance guidelines for controlling Legionella. I am now in the process of inserting much of the removed information into the Legionella article. I think this article is now much more balanced and yet still stresses the importance of controlling Legionella in cooling towers. - mbeychok 21:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I met a older structural engineer on the roof of an large industrial plant in Tupelo, MS. He asked me if I had ever seen a cooling tower fall through a roof? I said that I had not. He said that he had, and that it was almost impossible to put enough steel under a frozen pyramid of ice [of unlimited size] to support it. -- Copeland.James.H 18:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree this lacks information on more typical units as well as general information. Whilst the huge hyperbolic towers are interesting, they make up relatively few in the overall installation base of towers. more typically at least in the US are cooling towers used in the HVAC market. More likely than not, a cooling tower is used in the air conditioning of one's office building (provided it's in a fairly large city).
And while Legionella is important topic, it's very rare.
I propose to add a section on definitions classifying different type towers and the components making up the equipment systems as well as the terms used in discussion.
Materials of construction (and methods ie factory assembled or erected on-site) and the basic principals of how/why they work will follow. Edreher 13:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of starting something like the Industrial v. Comfort tower discussion, I have started compiling a list of pros and cons of each form of tower (cross- & counter- flow). Anyone with more experience is welcome to chime in, I have limited experience in specifying towers. LightRobb ( talk) 21:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Mbeychok, I'm happy my changes seem to be acceptable so far. I'll look into creating this User page as you state. (I did find I forgot a copyright tag and have since corrected it. I only intend to use photos of my own. I've got quite a few.)
Let me re-phrase some proposed organization as:
Edreher 20:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Mbeychok, both of your points make good sense. The cross referencing makes complete sense in this format to the point of "I should have thought of that" I appreciate the comments. I see what minor changes you made to my additions, I'll try to keep a closer eye on the changes to avoid trivial mistakes. I will be pleased if I can provide enough to make this a little more complete. I'll try not to overdo it. Edreher 22:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that something which should be stated right off in this article is that a "linear structure," approximated by a cylinder, will have the greatest surface area to volume ratio. This is as opposed to a sphere which has the smallest surface to volume ratio. This is the reason to use towers in the first place as heat exchangers, evaporators, etc. The article needs this overlying theme! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.111.227.123 ( talk • contribs) 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Sometime in the 60's a cooling towers "farm" (not sure of the collective noun) in the UK collapsed because they had been built too close together. Does anybody have a reference for this in the design section? 193.130.175.129 15:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
hi, i have a question about cooling towers. what's the economical kind of the cooling towers in saving energy with more value of cooled water? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.218.251.15 ( talk) 08:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) a It really depends on your application and climate but wet/dry or adiabatic/dry hybrids often offer the best energy savings for closed circuit applications. Crossflow axial-fan open cooling towers offer the best energy savings for open towers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 李艾连 ( talk • contribs) 01:54, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
I deleted this section, and added a reference to the Cooling tower system article. It is inappropriate for the same info to be placed in two locations. Fireproeng 02:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree that two copies of the same material will rapidly become confusing as the texts evolve separately. I'd say the material from Cooling tower system should remain in this article, and then Cooling tower system should redirect to this page. Kindest regards, AlphaEta T / C 19:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I like to think of myself as being semi-smart, but for the life of me I cannot reason out why cooling towers are needed for nuclear power plants. To me it seems like a massive waste of energy. Why can't the steam be fed directly back to the reactor after it passes through the turbine? I would think that it would be a major benefit to have water that is already hot going in so that less energy has to be added to turn it into steam again. The only reason that I can come up with is that the steam has to be cooled enough for it to condense back to liquid water. Does anybody have any insight into this? Ratsbew ( talk) 02:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I think the OP is misunderstanding some elements of the Rankine cycle. No offense :)
The turbines turn because the pressure is high on one side and low on the other. The pressure is low at the outlet because the steam is immediately cooled and condenses into a liquid. The gas-liquid transition causes a much larger change in pressure than simply changing the gas temperature while remaining gas. Plus, the condensed liquid is still pretty hot, and gets heated up to just below boiling before getting sent back to the main heat source. Most modern turbines have several stages where the steam gets re-heated a couple times before getting condensed and sent back to the boiler or reactor or whatever. Steam quality limits this, since water droplets in a turbine act like marbles in a blender. :(
What you described above is more like a Brayton cycle, where the working fluid is just gas at different temperatures, with no phase changes. This is efficient only when you have a large temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the turbine (necessary to create an acceptable pressure difference), which is difficult to accomplish with a coal fired boiler, or with a nuclear reactor. Natural gas power plants use a once-through variant of this cycle, which is easy since the combustion takes place basically inside the turbine. Like a jet engine. Some of the newer nuclear plants also operate hot enough to make this work, though they use a closed-cycle loop with helium or something as the working fluid.
The stuff coming out of a cooling tower is not steam, btw. It's air mixed with water that was sprayed into the base of the tower and which got absorbed by the rushing air, taking a lot of heat with it. The rest of the water falls like rain and gets collected. So basically a cloud is coming out of the tower, at a few degrees above ambient temperature. The cooling tower water is the water that's used to cool the water that goes through the actual turbine, and isn't allowed to mix with the turbine water. If that makes any sense... This separation is important, since for some nuclear plants the turbine water is radioactive. Maybe its different in coal plants idk. Probably not since they want the condensed steam to be at lower than atmospheric pressure.
IDK112 ( talk) 23:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
I think this needs to be discussed in more detail, with better references and description of the once-through vs. closed cycle environmental debate. Water consumption vs. water withdrawal, wildlife impinging/entraining, thermal effects of once through cooling and blowdown pollution should all be mentioned. Or at least more prominent links to the appropriate pages. IDK112 ( talk) 00:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
The good industrial practice of 50 ppm drift loss for cooling towers with sea water application is not adequate. It should be 5 ppm for sea water application. Otherwise the PM10 particulate emission of Sodium chloride is exceesive which would degrade the agriculture land, corrode the structures and also cause respiratory & health problems in the visinity. I request to diffentiate the drift emission limits based on sea water and fresh water make up. If possible, please include the environmental standards applicable for drift emissions from cooling towers in various countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.123.206.236 ( talk) 20:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I removed 11 of the 23 images and the article still has 12 images.
The caption of one of the removed photos emphasized water flow from the bottom of the hyperboloid tower ... but the water could not be seen.
One was an inside view of an abandoned hyperboloid tower by someone who must have lying on hos back to take the photo ... but it did nothing to enhance the technology of the article.
Another was a "cute" photo of a windmill in front of a hyperboloid tower ... but again nothing to enhance the article's textual content.
Another was a photo of the stairs at the bottom of a hyperboloid tower ... that one was neither "cute" nor instructive in any way.
One photo of the Legionella bacteria is sufficient ... no need to have two of them, so removed one of them.
Another hyperboloid tower loomed over a two-story house ... bu did nothing to enhance the article's textual content.
Two of the photo's illustrated the water vapor fog created by some hyperboloid towers. No need to show the same thing twice, sone one of them was deleted.
Another photo of hyperboloid towers in the Ukraine was in the "See also"section. They looked essentially the same as the towers in the introductory section ... so it was deleted.
Another photo was of a crossflow, rectangular cooling tower (which I had placed in the article about 4 years ago) that seemed now not to add anything of substance to the article.
And so forth. I think the 12 remaining articles are more than enough. After all, this is a technical article about cooling tower technology ... it is not a cooling tower photographic gallery. mbeychok ( talk) 04:54, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
The section entitled "European market" consists of one table based on Reference 15. When I click on that reference, my Firefox browser warns me that it is not a website to be trusted.
When I conducted a Google search for other sources of European cooling tower markets, I found that all such reports were confidential and only available for purchase (in the hundreds of Euros). I am led to believe that even the data in Reference 15 came from one such confidential, costly report ... which means that the "European market" section may be violating someone's copyright.
In brief, Reference 15 cannot be accessed to verify the tabulated data ... and if it could be accessed, it may be violating a copyright. What should we do?? In my opinion, Reference 15 should be deleted since it cannot be accessed. That means that the "European market" section would need to be deleted as well since it would contain no content. Again in my opinion, deleting that section would not be removing any content of great significance.
What do others think? mbeychok ( talk) 18:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Dry cooling towers or Heller dry cooling system and Air cooled condensers (ACC) and fin fan coolers are also relevant to be included in this article ‘Cooling towers’. The present content is totally about the wet cooling towers. ACCs are more and more used in thermal power stations due to the scarcity of perennial cheap water supply, no land required for makeup water storage, water & air pollution from wet cooling towers, lesser overall auxiliary power consumption, no chemicals (water & effluent treatments, biocides, anti scaling and anti corrosion) and fog problems in both tropical and cold countries equally though their cooling approach temperatures are not comparable to wet cooling towers. Sometimes fin fan coolers are provided with evaporative cooler as accessory to achieve enhanced cooling in dry and hot ambient conditions if water is available. It is requested to add content about dry cooling in this article. 124.123.220.131 ( talk) 12:47, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
(Conversation copied from
User talk:Morgan Riley and posted here for full disclosure of off-talk page discussion):
That anonymous user added an external link to a company website. When an anonymous newcomer to WP makes only one edit, the addition of a link to his/her company's website, the odds are that he/she is only interested in advertising that company's website. I therefore removed the link ... and 117.192.117.123 added it in again. I removed it a second time and 117.192.117.123 has again added that link.
I don't want to continue this edit "warring" any further. Would you take a look and see what you can do? mbeychok ( talk) 15:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
(End of user talk discussion:) Morgan Riley ( talk) 16:40, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
This article now has 22 images which strikes me as too many by far!! Everyone having a photo of a cooling tower seems to have posted it in this article. mbeychok ( talk) 16:54, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Cooling tower/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
HVAC use of a cooling tower pairs the cooling tower with a water-cooled chiller or water-cooled condenser. A ton of air-conditioning is the rejection of 12,000 Btu/hour (3517 W). The equivalent ton on the cooling tower side actually rejects about 15,000 Btu/hour (4396 W) due to the heat-equivalent of the energy needed to drive the chiller's compressor.
15,000 Btu/hour is no longer valid for the 21st century. 15,000 Btu/hour heat rejection would be correct when water cooled chillers were invented in the early 1900. 12,000 Btu/hr = 1 ton + 3,000 Btur/hr of heat of compression = 15,000 Btu/hour. 3,000 Btu/hr heat of compression is equivalent to an electric efficiency of 0.90 kW/ton. Water cooled chillers at these electric efficiencies are no longer manufactured. That is based on technology of the past century.
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Nobody gives a shit about coal or HVAC cooling towers - this article should really focus on nuclear power plants. Then maybe add a little filler about all those thermal stations — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.207.202 ( talk • contribs)
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Hi All
I think I have found an error in the page. The "heat transfer methods" section says the following:
"Approximately 420 kilojoules per kilogram (970 BTU/lb) of heat energy is absorbed for the evaporated water."
This I believe is referring to the latent heat of vaporization of water. In which case the number 420 kJ/kg looks wrong, a number more like 2,256 kJ/kg would be more appropriate (@ 100 deg C) [1]. The BTU/lb number looks OK to me.
If this is a stupid mistake/comment I apologize.
Thanks,
Jords787 ( talk) 11:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
In Quebec, where the average of those who have died is 79, the outbreak's source is believed to be water cooling towers. Towers are being inspected and disinfected with bromine, according to Canadian media reports.
https://www.livescience.com/22760-5-things-you-should-know-about-legionnaires-disease.html
Zezen (
talk)
21:29, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
The line
> Studies have found Legionella in 40% to 60% of cooling towers.
Cites this pdf:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210513193135/http://www.cti.org/downloads/WTP-148.pdf
which just states that "Various studies have shown that some 40 to 60% of cooling towers tested contained Legionella." without any proof or further citation. Panosfirbas ( talk) 14:54, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
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This is a piss poor article... of course it has a tacky and plebian Simpsons reference... I'll fix it, since it seems everyone else of worth has ignored it... 130.156.169.248 20:34, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
This section needs the terms defined in non-technical terms. While some are self-explanatory, some are not. For example, what is "draw-off" rate? Remember, this article use to reference the Simpsons, so it has to make sense to a technical, but non-specialist audience! Samw 21:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I have revised the lead-in discussion of why large industrial cooling towers are used. As noted in that discussion, a circulating water system with a cooling tower in a typical 700 MW coal-fired power operates at a water flow rate of about 71,600 cubic meters per hour and only a small part of that is lost to the atmosphere as evaporated water from the cooling tower and as blowdown, amounting to a makeup rate of perhaps a total of 4-5 percent. That compares to about 100,000 cubic meters of once-through water which must continuously be returned to the ocean, lake, or river and be replaced by fresh supply water. In other words, the amount of makeup water using a cooling tower is about a 95% reduction of the makeup supply water needed in a once-through system. In areas which are not near to an ocean, a large lake or a large river, the cooling tower is clearly a better choice than trying to supply once-through water from a well.
That is the reason why cooling towers are used despite the cost of building a cooling tower and despite the cost of chemicals used in a cooling tower system to control scale, pH, algae and biological growths. - mbeychok 06:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Whilst it's great to have all of the equations and the details of exactly what concentrations of disinfectant you need to clean them, some REALLY basic information is missing:
Please think of all the really mundane questions a mere mortal might ask!
SteveBaker 03:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to User:Copeland.James.H and User talk:199.82.243.73 for their contribution about air-conditioning cooling towers and Legionella disease. However, the result has been that such information is spread about in too many different places in the article.. Therefore, I plan to create a new section entitled "Cooling towers and Legionnaires' disease" and consolidate all of the Legionella information in that section. - mbeychok 20:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with moving the "Maintenance, inspection and other guidelines for control of Legionella" to into the existing Wikipedia article Legionella. There is some information currently in the Wikipedia article cooling tower that is not in the Wikipedia article Legionella. I recently updated the the Legionella Outbreak section to say Cooling Towers 149 Cases of Legionella during Jun-06 in Pamplona, Spain. They shut down at least 6 cooling towers after rapid tests for Legionella antigen were positive in four of the towers. A review of outbreaks in the past year, suggests that cooling towers remain prime suspects, so I suggest some strong links and references from the Wikipedia article cooling tower to the Wikipedia article Legionella. -- Copeland.James.H 16:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
As discussed above, I have now removed a great deal of the information on the detailed maintenance guidelines for controlling Legionella. I am now in the process of inserting much of the removed information into the Legionella article. I think this article is now much more balanced and yet still stresses the importance of controlling Legionella in cooling towers. - mbeychok 21:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I met a older structural engineer on the roof of an large industrial plant in Tupelo, MS. He asked me if I had ever seen a cooling tower fall through a roof? I said that I had not. He said that he had, and that it was almost impossible to put enough steel under a frozen pyramid of ice [of unlimited size] to support it. -- Copeland.James.H 18:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree this lacks information on more typical units as well as general information. Whilst the huge hyperbolic towers are interesting, they make up relatively few in the overall installation base of towers. more typically at least in the US are cooling towers used in the HVAC market. More likely than not, a cooling tower is used in the air conditioning of one's office building (provided it's in a fairly large city).
And while Legionella is important topic, it's very rare.
I propose to add a section on definitions classifying different type towers and the components making up the equipment systems as well as the terms used in discussion.
Materials of construction (and methods ie factory assembled or erected on-site) and the basic principals of how/why they work will follow. Edreher 13:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of starting something like the Industrial v. Comfort tower discussion, I have started compiling a list of pros and cons of each form of tower (cross- & counter- flow). Anyone with more experience is welcome to chime in, I have limited experience in specifying towers. LightRobb ( talk) 21:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Mbeychok, I'm happy my changes seem to be acceptable so far. I'll look into creating this User page as you state. (I did find I forgot a copyright tag and have since corrected it. I only intend to use photos of my own. I've got quite a few.)
Let me re-phrase some proposed organization as:
Edreher 20:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Mbeychok, both of your points make good sense. The cross referencing makes complete sense in this format to the point of "I should have thought of that" I appreciate the comments. I see what minor changes you made to my additions, I'll try to keep a closer eye on the changes to avoid trivial mistakes. I will be pleased if I can provide enough to make this a little more complete. I'll try not to overdo it. Edreher 22:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that something which should be stated right off in this article is that a "linear structure," approximated by a cylinder, will have the greatest surface area to volume ratio. This is as opposed to a sphere which has the smallest surface to volume ratio. This is the reason to use towers in the first place as heat exchangers, evaporators, etc. The article needs this overlying theme! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.111.227.123 ( talk • contribs) 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Sometime in the 60's a cooling towers "farm" (not sure of the collective noun) in the UK collapsed because they had been built too close together. Does anybody have a reference for this in the design section? 193.130.175.129 15:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
hi, i have a question about cooling towers. what's the economical kind of the cooling towers in saving energy with more value of cooled water? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.218.251.15 ( talk) 08:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) a It really depends on your application and climate but wet/dry or adiabatic/dry hybrids often offer the best energy savings for closed circuit applications. Crossflow axial-fan open cooling towers offer the best energy savings for open towers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 李艾连 ( talk • contribs) 01:54, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
I deleted this section, and added a reference to the Cooling tower system article. It is inappropriate for the same info to be placed in two locations. Fireproeng 02:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree that two copies of the same material will rapidly become confusing as the texts evolve separately. I'd say the material from Cooling tower system should remain in this article, and then Cooling tower system should redirect to this page. Kindest regards, AlphaEta T / C 19:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I like to think of myself as being semi-smart, but for the life of me I cannot reason out why cooling towers are needed for nuclear power plants. To me it seems like a massive waste of energy. Why can't the steam be fed directly back to the reactor after it passes through the turbine? I would think that it would be a major benefit to have water that is already hot going in so that less energy has to be added to turn it into steam again. The only reason that I can come up with is that the steam has to be cooled enough for it to condense back to liquid water. Does anybody have any insight into this? Ratsbew ( talk) 02:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I think the OP is misunderstanding some elements of the Rankine cycle. No offense :)
The turbines turn because the pressure is high on one side and low on the other. The pressure is low at the outlet because the steam is immediately cooled and condenses into a liquid. The gas-liquid transition causes a much larger change in pressure than simply changing the gas temperature while remaining gas. Plus, the condensed liquid is still pretty hot, and gets heated up to just below boiling before getting sent back to the main heat source. Most modern turbines have several stages where the steam gets re-heated a couple times before getting condensed and sent back to the boiler or reactor or whatever. Steam quality limits this, since water droplets in a turbine act like marbles in a blender. :(
What you described above is more like a Brayton cycle, where the working fluid is just gas at different temperatures, with no phase changes. This is efficient only when you have a large temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the turbine (necessary to create an acceptable pressure difference), which is difficult to accomplish with a coal fired boiler, or with a nuclear reactor. Natural gas power plants use a once-through variant of this cycle, which is easy since the combustion takes place basically inside the turbine. Like a jet engine. Some of the newer nuclear plants also operate hot enough to make this work, though they use a closed-cycle loop with helium or something as the working fluid.
The stuff coming out of a cooling tower is not steam, btw. It's air mixed with water that was sprayed into the base of the tower and which got absorbed by the rushing air, taking a lot of heat with it. The rest of the water falls like rain and gets collected. So basically a cloud is coming out of the tower, at a few degrees above ambient temperature. The cooling tower water is the water that's used to cool the water that goes through the actual turbine, and isn't allowed to mix with the turbine water. If that makes any sense... This separation is important, since for some nuclear plants the turbine water is radioactive. Maybe its different in coal plants idk. Probably not since they want the condensed steam to be at lower than atmospheric pressure.
IDK112 ( talk) 23:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
I think this needs to be discussed in more detail, with better references and description of the once-through vs. closed cycle environmental debate. Water consumption vs. water withdrawal, wildlife impinging/entraining, thermal effects of once through cooling and blowdown pollution should all be mentioned. Or at least more prominent links to the appropriate pages. IDK112 ( talk) 00:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
The good industrial practice of 50 ppm drift loss for cooling towers with sea water application is not adequate. It should be 5 ppm for sea water application. Otherwise the PM10 particulate emission of Sodium chloride is exceesive which would degrade the agriculture land, corrode the structures and also cause respiratory & health problems in the visinity. I request to diffentiate the drift emission limits based on sea water and fresh water make up. If possible, please include the environmental standards applicable for drift emissions from cooling towers in various countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.123.206.236 ( talk) 20:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I removed 11 of the 23 images and the article still has 12 images.
The caption of one of the removed photos emphasized water flow from the bottom of the hyperboloid tower ... but the water could not be seen.
One was an inside view of an abandoned hyperboloid tower by someone who must have lying on hos back to take the photo ... but it did nothing to enhance the technology of the article.
Another was a "cute" photo of a windmill in front of a hyperboloid tower ... but again nothing to enhance the article's textual content.
Another was a photo of the stairs at the bottom of a hyperboloid tower ... that one was neither "cute" nor instructive in any way.
One photo of the Legionella bacteria is sufficient ... no need to have two of them, so removed one of them.
Another hyperboloid tower loomed over a two-story house ... bu did nothing to enhance the article's textual content.
Two of the photo's illustrated the water vapor fog created by some hyperboloid towers. No need to show the same thing twice, sone one of them was deleted.
Another photo of hyperboloid towers in the Ukraine was in the "See also"section. They looked essentially the same as the towers in the introductory section ... so it was deleted.
Another photo was of a crossflow, rectangular cooling tower (which I had placed in the article about 4 years ago) that seemed now not to add anything of substance to the article.
And so forth. I think the 12 remaining articles are more than enough. After all, this is a technical article about cooling tower technology ... it is not a cooling tower photographic gallery. mbeychok ( talk) 04:54, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
The section entitled "European market" consists of one table based on Reference 15. When I click on that reference, my Firefox browser warns me that it is not a website to be trusted.
When I conducted a Google search for other sources of European cooling tower markets, I found that all such reports were confidential and only available for purchase (in the hundreds of Euros). I am led to believe that even the data in Reference 15 came from one such confidential, costly report ... which means that the "European market" section may be violating someone's copyright.
In brief, Reference 15 cannot be accessed to verify the tabulated data ... and if it could be accessed, it may be violating a copyright. What should we do?? In my opinion, Reference 15 should be deleted since it cannot be accessed. That means that the "European market" section would need to be deleted as well since it would contain no content. Again in my opinion, deleting that section would not be removing any content of great significance.
What do others think? mbeychok ( talk) 18:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Dry cooling towers or Heller dry cooling system and Air cooled condensers (ACC) and fin fan coolers are also relevant to be included in this article ‘Cooling towers’. The present content is totally about the wet cooling towers. ACCs are more and more used in thermal power stations due to the scarcity of perennial cheap water supply, no land required for makeup water storage, water & air pollution from wet cooling towers, lesser overall auxiliary power consumption, no chemicals (water & effluent treatments, biocides, anti scaling and anti corrosion) and fog problems in both tropical and cold countries equally though their cooling approach temperatures are not comparable to wet cooling towers. Sometimes fin fan coolers are provided with evaporative cooler as accessory to achieve enhanced cooling in dry and hot ambient conditions if water is available. It is requested to add content about dry cooling in this article. 124.123.220.131 ( talk) 12:47, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
(Conversation copied from
User talk:Morgan Riley and posted here for full disclosure of off-talk page discussion):
That anonymous user added an external link to a company website. When an anonymous newcomer to WP makes only one edit, the addition of a link to his/her company's website, the odds are that he/she is only interested in advertising that company's website. I therefore removed the link ... and 117.192.117.123 added it in again. I removed it a second time and 117.192.117.123 has again added that link.
I don't want to continue this edit "warring" any further. Would you take a look and see what you can do? mbeychok ( talk) 15:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
(End of user talk discussion:) Morgan Riley ( talk) 16:40, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
This article now has 22 images which strikes me as too many by far!! Everyone having a photo of a cooling tower seems to have posted it in this article. mbeychok ( talk) 16:54, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Cooling tower/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
HVAC use of a cooling tower pairs the cooling tower with a water-cooled chiller or water-cooled condenser. A ton of air-conditioning is the rejection of 12,000 Btu/hour (3517 W). The equivalent ton on the cooling tower side actually rejects about 15,000 Btu/hour (4396 W) due to the heat-equivalent of the energy needed to drive the chiller's compressor.
15,000 Btu/hour is no longer valid for the 21st century. 15,000 Btu/hour heat rejection would be correct when water cooled chillers were invented in the early 1900. 12,000 Btu/hr = 1 ton + 3,000 Btur/hr of heat of compression = 15,000 Btu/hour. 3,000 Btu/hr heat of compression is equivalent to an electric efficiency of 0.90 kW/ton. Water cooled chillers at these electric efficiencies are no longer manufactured. That is based on technology of the past century.
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Nobody gives a shit about coal or HVAC cooling towers - this article should really focus on nuclear power plants. Then maybe add a little filler about all those thermal stations — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.207.202 ( talk • contribs)
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Hi All
I think I have found an error in the page. The "heat transfer methods" section says the following:
"Approximately 420 kilojoules per kilogram (970 BTU/lb) of heat energy is absorbed for the evaporated water."
This I believe is referring to the latent heat of vaporization of water. In which case the number 420 kJ/kg looks wrong, a number more like 2,256 kJ/kg would be more appropriate (@ 100 deg C) [1]. The BTU/lb number looks OK to me.
If this is a stupid mistake/comment I apologize.
Thanks,
Jords787 ( talk) 11:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
In Quebec, where the average of those who have died is 79, the outbreak's source is believed to be water cooling towers. Towers are being inspected and disinfected with bromine, according to Canadian media reports.
https://www.livescience.com/22760-5-things-you-should-know-about-legionnaires-disease.html
Zezen (
talk)
21:29, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
The line
> Studies have found Legionella in 40% to 60% of cooling towers.
Cites this pdf:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210513193135/http://www.cti.org/downloads/WTP-148.pdf
which just states that "Various studies have shown that some 40 to 60% of cooling towers tested contained Legionella." without any proof or further citation. Panosfirbas ( talk) 14:54, 25 July 2023 (UTC)