COOLING IT

In the condenser, the steam turns to water on hitting cold metal the surface of tubes filled with cold water. It would not stay cold for long if it were not continuously cooled, and this is done in a cooling tower. From the cooling tower, the water returns into the condenser to form a closed coolingwater circuit.

Cooling towers are of several types; the top figure in the next column shows the most common kind "wet" (water in direct contact with the air) and "natural draft" (no fanforced air currents). The warm water drips over baffles in colder air; some of the water will evaporate, cooling the remaining water. The air around the baffles becomes warm and moist, and as it rises cool air is drawn into the tower through the bottom side openings.

When the moist warm air rising from the tower hits colder air, the moisture will condense into a white mist in the form of a plume. How high the plume will rise depends on the temperature and humidity of the air at the time. In cold humid air, the plume will rise to great heights and extend over some length before the tiny droplets of the mist evaporate once more and turn into invisible water vapor.

The top right photo shows the unusually large plumes rising from the three cooling towers at the Amos plant near Charleston, W . Va., on a chilly April morning with air temperature 28 degrees F and 55% humidity (both at the plume height of 5,000 ft).

In warm, dry weather, the plumes are almost absent - only a few feet of white mist are visible at the top of the cooling towers.

The water, of course, is there all the time whether as invisible vapor on warm, dry days, or as white mist on cool, humid ones. But in all cases it is pures distilled water the composition of the mist is not "similar" to the natural white clouds that sail in the sky, it is identical with them.

Verses have been written about them by poets.

And hilarious hogwash has been written about them by Jack Anderson.