The 90-day test is part of a $1 million pilot program sponsored by Los Alamos' Nuclear Weapons Infrastructure and Facilities Construction Program and managed by Los Alamos' Environmental Stewardship Office. The Facility and Waste Operations Division also is actively involved in the pilot project and is responsible for implementing the chosen solution(s).
The four companies are Water and Energy Systems Technologies, Inc. of Anaheim, Calif.; U.S. Filter of Pittsburgh; Aquatech International Corp. of Anonsburg, Pa.; and NALCO Chemical Company of Scottsdale, Ariz. They were selected from more than 10 companies that submitted proposals to Los Alamos late last year. Two of the four competing companies are small businesses.
Currently, Los Alamos cooling towers use treated sanitary wastewater and water supplied from a deep regional aquifer. However, the water contains a high concentration of silica, approximately 88 milligrams per liter.
Because about 90 percent of the silica is soluble, it can deposit in large concentrations on heat transfer surfaces in the cooling systems during normal evaporation processes, clogging passageways and causing system failures. To avoid this, Los Alamos typically discharges the water after two cycles.
"We are trying to find a new technology or chemical process that will keep the silica in solution, dramatically reduce the amount of silica in the water or eliminate it altogether. This will allow us to increase the number of cycles to at least four and decrease our water usage by 150 to 200 million gallons annually," said D'Ann Bretzke of the Environmental Stewardship Office. "Right now, our cooling tower water efficiency stands at about 50 percent. We want to increase that to at least 75 percent."
The tests will be conducted at Mission Research Corp. on Main Hill Road in Los Alamos, where three small cooling towers have been installed so the companies can test their proposed solutions.
Cooling towers maintain proper temperatures for facilities and equipment. Los Alamos has about 40 such towers, which use more than half of the potable water consumed by the Laboratory annually. The pilot program focuses on five cooling tower areas that are or will be major water consumers: those for the onsite power plant, Laboratory Data Communications Center, Central Computing Facility, Los Alamos Neutron Science Center and the Strategic Computing Complex currently under construction.
"When the Department of Energy recently transferred management of its local water rights to Los Alamos County, it agreed the Laboratory would emphasize water conservation and try to use no more than 1,662 acre-feet of water annually," said Bretzke. An acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons, enough water to cover one acre to a depth of one foot.
"We already use about 1,500 acre-feet of water annually, and that is projected to increase by an additional 145 acre-feet by 2001, due to the new Strategic Computing Complex and new mission needs," she said.
The $1 million in project funding will be used to pay the four companies to run the pilots, procure the equipment, pay Mission Research Corp. for support and pay onsite Laboratory costs.
"Once the testing is complete, we will analyze the results and choose those solutions that offer the best technical value compared to their costs," Bretzke said. She added the chosen technologies or processes also may be applied to other cooling towers at the Laboratory. Los Alamos will select its preferred solution(s) by this fall.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.