316B RULE

TELEPHONE LOG

Name of Caller: John Sunda, SAIC

Date: January 15, 2010

Company Name: SPX Cooling Technologies, Inc.

Street Address: 7401 W 129 Street

City/State/ZIP: Overland Park, KS 66213

Person Contacted: Kent A. Martens, P. E.

Title: Chief Technical Advisor - Evaporative Cooling

Contact Info: Tel: 913/664-7501

Fax: 913/693-9522

Cell: 913/302-7234

kent.martens@spx.com

Questions: Inquired about plume and noise abatement cooling towers including 

questions about operating problems cited by others with the plume abated towers at 

Newington Energy Facility

The Newington plume abatement cooling tower is an obsolete cooling tower design 

called “Clear Flow” that they no longer sell. The dry cooling portion of this design used 

corrugated PVC sheets with air and water flowing between alternating sheets. He was not 

sure of the problem but thinks it involved some leaking of cooling water in this part of 

the system. This design of corrugated PVC sheets and alternating flow is somewhat 

similar in design to their new Clear Skies technology but in this case the alternating flow 

is ambient air and wet cooling exhaust. This technology was originally designed as a 

water conservation technology but has demonstrated an ability to function as plume 

abatement as well. He agreed that it may take some time for this technology to acquire 

more public acceptance. They have performed a successful full scale demonstration in 

New Mexico.

Regardless, they do have plume abatement towers that use conventional coils that are 

suitable for saltwater applications. He suggested they would need to be constructed using 

high grade stainless steel or titanium.

I asked about cycles of concentration for saltwater systems and he said that typically they 

operate in the range of 1.3 to 1.7. I mentioned that the Newington NPDES permit fact 

sheet indicated that the tower could operate at a COC of 2.0 and he said that 2.0 was 

possible but it was pushing the limit. 
Regarding increased energy usage for plume abatement – although the dry coils are 

higher than the wet tower spray nozzles, once the system fills up with water the head loss 

is primarily due to friction losses and the increase in pumping head will range from 5 to 

10 ft with 8 ft being a typical value. There will also be a slight fan energy increase on the 

order of about 5 to 10%. This is due to the fact that the system needs to account for some 

damper air leakage. Dampers are used to close off the dry cooling coil portion in winter 

when it is not needed. He said that an increase in capital costs for a plume abated tower 

of 2.5 to 3.5 can be expected. 

Regarding the ability to use plume abatement in back-to-back configurations, it isn’t that 

it can’t be done but rather that since the coils must be placed in a vertical configuration, it 

is difficult to get full mixing of the dry cooling airflow coming in on one side with the 

wet cooling airflow. So you don’t get sufficient dryer airflow mixing towards the back 

side resulting in partial plume abatement (i.e. only front half of plume is fully abated).

Regarding noise attenuation, he though that a 10% increase in capital costs might be low 

especially if the noise abatement requirements are aggressive. I suggested an aggressive 

design target of 50 dBA at 500 ft. He did a quick calculation of an 18 cell back-to-back 

tower showing the non-abated design producing 63.3 dBA at 500 ft and the same abated 

tower producing 47 dBA at 500 ft using numerous additional features resulting in nearly 

double the cost of the towers. I requested that he provide me with some design and cost 

estimates for comparable towers with different features including aggressive noise 

abatement, moderate noise, and plume abatement. 

Some noise abatement points he made:

Noise abatement requires a sophisticated analysis by a specialist. 

 Some of the additional technologies may only be necessary on one side of the 

tower limiting costs.

Low noise fans can cost orders of magnitude more than conventional fans

Barrier walls work well for close up receptors but not as well for far off 

receptors

They have an array of technologies such as splash baffle, inlet and outlet 

attenuators, aluminum frame baffles, etc.

Follow-up on May 5, 2010

Inquired about degree of increase in O&M costs for plume abatement. I said that my

calculations showed a total fan & pump power increase of about 15% and he said that 

would be a reasonable estimate. I noted that our cooling tower and basin capital costs 

were about $80/gpm. He said that his quick calculation was $40/gpm but if you included 

installation, controls, mechanical & electrical equipment that this figure was reasonable. I 

then noted that using a factor of 2.5 resulted in a capital cost increase of $200/gpm for 

plume abatement.. 

I then noted that O&M costs for conventional towers was often cited as 1%-2% and that 

our EPA cost estimate includes about $1.25/gpm (about 1.5% of $80) for non-power 
maintenance and another $1.25 for chemicals to operate at high COC. He said that there 

would also be an increase in non-power O&M costs due to the larger tower and 

maintenance of coils and dampers. He said a 50% to 100% increase in the non-power 

O&M over that for the conventional tower would be reasonable.