67-04: Sea Water as an Industrial Coolant

The Texas Division of The Dow Chemical Company is now pumping about 2 million GPM of sea water. Some of this is used for the extrac­tion of magnesium and bromine, but most is for once-through cooling. 
The power plants have a combined maximum capacity of 880 megawatts and 13 million lbs. per hour of steam. The Division has had over 25 years' experience in this area. 
Handling such a volume involves many conditions ranging from near stagnation to high velocity and great turbulence. Naturally there are corrosion problems, but they can be controlled