Hi Top 8 Recommendations For Keeping Your Cooling Tower Clean.!

Hi Top 8 Recommendations For Keeping Your Cooling Tower Clean.!

It’s time to start thinking about cooling tower maintenance again. The top two reasons we bring up this topic at least yearly is because a dirty cooling tower; 

1) affects system performance and 2) can affect occupant health.

We often discuss the seriousness of Legionnaires’ disease, and a cooling tower’s role in the transmission of Legionella pneumophila, the bacteria that causes the disease.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends visual inspection and regular maintenance as the best ways to control the growth of organisms in a cooling tower. 

The organization discourages the use of water quality measurements (total bacterial counts, total dissolved solids and pH) to monitor Legionnaires’ disease bacteria (LDB) levels.

Here are more of OSHA’s top recommendations for keeping your facility’s cooling tower clean and free of LDB:

1. Use chemical biocides to control microorganisms.
2. Keep sump water around 68°F or lower.
3. Inspect the cooling tower equipment monthly.
4. Clean and disinfect your facility’s cooling tower quarterly or twice a year if the unit is not in operation year-round. It’s important to clean it at the beginning of each cooling season and after it’s shut down in the fall.
5. Systems with high levels of LDB may require more cleaning.
6. Clean and disinfect systems any time they are out of service for an extended time.
7. Clean and disinfect new systems to remove any construction material residue.
8. Keep detailed records showing all dates and details of operations and maintenance, a description of the operating system, and procedures for operation and maintenance including the use of any corrosion inhibitors, biocides, or other chemicals.

You can read the complete list of cooling tower maintenance recommendations from OSHA here.

- "The process of cleaning your facility’s cooling tower used to require a total shut down, but that’s no longer the case. All cleaning may be completed while the tower is still online."

Click Here To View Mesan Group Cooling Towers Homepage.

Hi Financial Incentives For Green Retrofits.!

Hi Financial Incentives For Green Retrofits.!

"Did you know a green roof not only helps you cut your facility’s cooling bills in the summer but it can also help you reduce your heating bills in the winter."

In fact, a green roof  can help you reduce your cooling bill by up to 75% compared to conventional roofing, and it can help you save between 5.63% and 5.95% – up to 61% for upper floors – on your heating costs.

A green roof is a “living roof.” It’s either fully or partially covered with vegetation and a growing medium, and it has a waterproofing membrane. 

Additionally it may contain drainage and irrigation systems.

Green roofs can be installed on a range of commercial buildings. 

Thanks to some new financial incentives, green roofs may become increasingly affordable for more facilities.

Building.com

Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School turned its original rooftop (left) into a green roof (right) with help from a DEP grant.
PHOTO CREDIT: DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION.

" Green roofs serve several purposes, but first and foremost they offer shade and remove heat from the air through evapotranspiration – the movement of water to the atmosphere from places like the soil or vegetation. This reduces the temperature of the surface of the roof as well as of the surrounding air."

The "EPA" says these are the benefits of a green roof:

1. Reduces energy usage: Because green roofs absorb heat and insulate buildings, they reduce the energy needed for heating and cooling.
2. Reduces pollution and greenhouse gas emissions: When air conditioning demand is lessened, so is the production of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
3. Improves occupant health and comfort: Green roofs reduce heat transfer, lowering the heat stress usually experienced during heat waves and improving indoor comfort.
4. Better stormwater management and water quality: Greens roofs slow stormwater runoff and filter rain water pollutants.
5. Quality of life: Green roofs provide habitats for many species.

Download EPA .PDF Document.

Green Roofs Chapter (PDF) (29 pp, 4.2MB) from EPA’s Reducing Urban Heat Islands: Compendium of Strategies.

One example of a green roof financial incentive program is the Green Infrastructure Grants from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). 

The grants can cover the startup costs for commercial building owners to retrofit their facilities with green roofs.

Two projects serve as examples of what’s possible with the grant funding.

Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, a Catholic high school in Brooklyn, installed 13,300 square feet of vegetated mats on its building after receiving a $235,700 Green Infrastructure Grant. About 90% of the roof is covered in green material that will help the building handle the expected 435,000 gallons of stormwater that falls on the school’s roof every year.

The South Bronx nonprofit Osborne Association installed a green rooftop system to absorb rainwater and improve air quality. The system is expected to reduce runoff by 32% during a typical storm. The NYC DEP contributed $288,000 to the project via a Green Infrastructure Grant.

The upfront costs of a green roof retrofit are higher when compared to the installation of conventional materials, but facility owners can offset the costs over time through the savings achieved by using less energy and saving stormwater management costs.

Read more about..., "NYC’s Green Infrastructure Grant Program."

Consult your local government office for more information on what incentives may be available to facilities that invest in green roof retrofits.

NYC Green Infrastructure Video.

Hi Green, - "Green energy plans in Saudi Arabia to result in eco-friendly mosques."

Hi Green, - "Green energy plans in Saudi Arabia to result in eco-friendly mosques."

Green mosques: the future of Saudi Arabia;

As part of a bid to gain green building initiatives national attention, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is planning to make over 90,000 mosques friendlier to the environment through the use of solar power and other green energy sources.

Green building focuses on promoting resource efficiency and pro ecological practices.

Following a joint meeting that took place between Saudi Green Building Forum and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, it was agreed to make mosques more eco-friendly. “This was a strategic decision when compared with other buildings, because mosques are buildings which have the most influence on people’s lives due to the large numbers of worshipers who visit them”, the secretary general of the Saudi Green Building Forum, Faisal Al-Fadl told the Arabic national newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

Green building technologies involve the use of practices that are resource-efficient and are ecologically beneficial and these practices are utilized throughout the entire life cycle a prospective building may have. It begins with the planning, carries through into the construction phase and continues once the building has been built and in how it is used. According to Al-Fadl, “Green building has qualities that are more pertinent to mosques than other forms of construction”.

Green energy may lower electricity consumption in 

mosques by 40%;

In addition to reducing power consumption by an estimated 40%, Faisal Al-Fadl also said that if advanced green technology is utilized in building, it may be able to decrease consumption by as much as 80%. Furthermore, by equipping mosques with water filtration systems, water use may be lowered by anywhere from 30 to 40%. Likewise, air filtration systems could improve the overall health environment of a mosque by decreasing the risk of contamination and transmitted infections.

Al-Fadl has confirmed that an agreement to implement the green building initiative that will convert mosques into green energy buildings exists. This will help make sure current mosques that have been well established for years can become more environmentally friendly. He also presented Sheikh Saleh Al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Islamic Affairs, with the green building initiative and its goals, for which the minister has expressed his support.

Hi Court; "Upholds EPA Emission Standards."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's first emission standards for mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

In its ruling, the court rejected state and industry challenges to rules designed to clean up chromium, arsenic, acid gases, nickel, cadmium as well as mercury and other dangerous toxins.

The EPA's determination in 2000 that regulating emission standards is appropriate and necessary, and the agency's reaffirmation of that determination in 2012, 'are amply supported by EPA's findings regarding the health effects of mercury exposure,' said the court.

Congress did not specify what types or levels of public health risks should be deemed a hazard under federal law. 

By leaving this gap in the statute, Congress delegated to the EPA the authority to give reasonable meaning to the term 'hazard,' said the court.

In the majority were chief judge Merrick Garland and judge Judith Rogers, both appointees of President Bill Clinton. 

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an appointee of President George W. Bush, joined most of the decision, but he parted company with his colleagues on the issue of cost - specifically, whether the EPA is obligated to consider industry costs in deciding whether regulation of hazardous air pollutants from power plants is appropriate.

'The problem here is that EPA did not even consider the costs,' Kavanaugh said. 'And the costs are huge, about $9.6 billion a year - that's billion with a b - by EPA's own calculation.'

In response, the majority said the EPA properly decided that the decision whether to regulate mercury should be based on health risks, not compliance costs. 

The majority added that the EPA had determined that benefits of the rule exceeded costs by a factor of at least 3 to 1. Some industry groups have said the EPA was overstating the benefits.

It is only in the first stage of rulemaking that the EPA doesn't industry costs, said the majority opinion. 

It added that the second stage leads to standards that are more restrictive and that, when setting those, the EPA does consider costs.

The new regulations are designed to remove toxins from the air that contribute to respiratory illnesses, birth defects and developmental problems in children.

Most companies operating power plants will have until March 2015 to meet the standards, but a state could grant an additional year and the EPA could extend the deadline until 2017 if the unit was critical for reliability.

- "The EPA proposed the rules in 2011."

Tuesday's ruling is 'a giant step forward on the road to cleaner, healthier air,' said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, which was a party in the case.

The EPA called the decision 'a victory for public health and the environment.'

'These practical and cost-effective standards will save thousands of lives each year, prevent heart and asthma attacks, while slashing emissions of the neurotoxin mercury, which can impair children's ability to learn,' the EPA said.

Laura Sheehan, senior vice president of communications for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said that due in part to regulations like the one in Tuesday's ruling, almost 300 coal-fueled generating units in 33 states have announced they will shut down, costing the electricity sector roughly $200 billion in compliance costs and destroying at least 544,000 jobs.

Sheehan said that impacts of EPA's rulemaking processes aimed at coal have already been seen this past winter, with coal power plant retirements leading to increased reliance on natural gas - a just-in-time fuel source subject to volatile price spikes that many consumers and small businesses bore the brunt of. 

She said such impacts will only increase as more coal units are retired, especially next spring, the deadline for complying with the mercury standard.

The coalition says industry has invested $130 billion to reduce major emissions from coal-fueled power plants by nearly 90 percent and that it plans to invest another $100 billion over the next decade on clean coal technology.

National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn said the federal rule 'imposes enormous costs upon households and businesses but provides little additional environmental benefit. The court recognized the EPA has the authority to consider costs but upheld EPA's decision to ignore them.'

Hi Artificial Cooling Tricky Topic for Climate Panel!.

Hi Artificial Cooling Tricky Topic for Climate Panel!.

BERLIN (AP) -- It's Plan B in the fight against climate change: cooling the planet by sucking heat-trapping CO2 from the air or reflecting sunlight back into space.

Called geoengineering, it's considered mad science by opponents.

Supporters say it would be foolish to ignore it, since plan A - slashing carbon emissions from fossil fuels - is moving so slowly.

The U.N.'s expert panel on climate change is under pressure from both sides this week as it considers whether geoengineering should be part of the tool-kit that governments use to keep global warming in check.

Russia, in particular, has been pushing the panel to place more emphasis on such techniques in a key document for policymakers being finalized in Berlin this week.

Drafts leaked before the conference only mentioned one of the options, removing CO2 from the air and storing it underground. Russia, a major oil and gas producer, said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should also mention solar radiation management, which could include everything from covering open surfaces with reflective materials or placing sun-mirrors in orbit around the Earth.

'It is expedient to give a short description of the approach and mention the major 'pro and contra',' Russia said in comments submitted to the IPCC and seen by The Associated Press.

But even advocates of studying geoengineering express doubts.

'Really at the present moment there is a high level of uncertainty surrounding all of these options,' said Steve Rayner, co-director of Oxford University's geoengineering program. Still, he said it's worth continuing to research geoengineering 'to get a better sense of whether there's any merit in pursuing these technologies further.'

After discussions among governments and scientists, a mention of geoengineering was added last year to the first of four summaries of the IPCC's authoritative assessment on climate change. They are now working on the third one, which deals specifically with fighting climate change.

The document is important because it will be used as scientific guidance for governments as they negotiate a new global climate pact, set to be adopted in 2015.

Some environmental activists watching the talks in Berlin want the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to scratch references to geoengineering altogether. They worry that such technologies would be ineffective, possibly harmful and delay efforts to shift the world's energy system from oil and coal to low-carbon energy sources like wind and solar power.

'It seems like a dangerous gamble to hold up this technology that may not work,' said Jim Thomas, of the Canada-based ETC Group.

However, the IPCC's draft document says that unless emissions are cut much faster than currently projected, measures to scrub CO2 from the air will be have to be deployed to avoid potentially dangerous levels of warming.

The problem is those technologies don't exist yet or are in an experimental stage. 

- "No one knows whether they will be successful."

Ideas include spraying clouds with seawater to make them more reflective or pumping aerosols into the air to mimic the cooling effect from major volcanic eruptions.

Each is associated with unknown risks, including potentially shifting weather patterns or damaging the ozone layer that protects the Earth from ultraviolet sunrays.

One technology that is currently being tested at a small scale is called 'bioenergy with carbon capture and storage,' or BECCS. 

The idea is to grow crops that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere then burn them in a power station to generate energy. 

The resulting CO2 emissions are captured at the plant and then stored deep underground. The net effect of that process is that CO2 is removed from the air.

In a scientific report underlying the summary for policy-makers being discussed in Berlin and obtained by AP, the IPCC notes that BECCS could play a key role in curbing the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere, which scientists say is the main reason for global warming. 

However, it would have to be deployed at a large scale, which would require major investments. 

There could also be negative impacts if food crops are replaced by bio-crops.

Right now the carbon removed through this technique is only a fraction of the 30 billion tons of CO2 emitted annually from the combustion of fossil fuels.

'BECCS faces large challenges in financing and currently no such plants have been built and tested at scale,' the IPCC says in the draft report.

Hi Scope; - "OSHA schedules meeting of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health."

Hi Scope; - "OSHA schedules meeting of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health."

WASHINGTON -- The Occupational Safety  & Health Administration will hold a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health May 7-8, 2014, in Washington, D.C. Work groups will meet May 7 and the full committee will meet May 8.

ACCSH(Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health),established under the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act and the Occupational & Safety and Health Act of 1970, advises the secretary of labor and assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health on construction standards and policy matters.

Click Here Or Image Above For Further Information On ACCSH.

The full committee agenda includes remarks from Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, updates on rulemaking projects from OSHA's Directorate of Construction, discussion on the proposed rule on Beryllium: Alternatives for Construction and on updates to OSHA's standard on eye and face protection in construction and proposed amendments and corrections to OSHA's Cranes & Derrick standards. 

In addition, the committee will discuss items from the proposed Standards Improvement Project IV and a presentation on 29 CFR 1926, Subpart V, Power Transmission and Distribution.

Work groups and the full committee will meet in Room N-3437 A-C, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20210.The following work groups will meet May 7: Health Hazards, Emerging Issues, and Prevention through Design from 10 a.m. - noon; Temporary Workers from 1-3 p.m.; and Training and Outreach from 3:15-5:15 p.m. 

The full committee meeting will be held from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., May 8. All meetings are open to the public.

Comments and requests to speak may be submitted electronically at http://www.regulations.gov, the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. 

Click Here Or The Image Above To Access the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. 

Comments may also be submitted via mail or facsimile. 

See the Federal register notice for details by clicking the link here.

Comments and requests to speak must be submitted by April 18, 2014.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. 

OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. 

For more information, visit www.osha.gov.

Click Here Or Image Above For Further OSHA Information By Visiting OSHA Website.