power produce

Opponents of massive new energy taxes and regulations breathed a small sigh of relief in June when the Lieberman- Warner climate-tax bill went down in flames on the Senate floor. Even 10 Democrats broke with the party and voted against it, writing that they would have opposed the bill on final passage. Unfortunately, power-mad bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) remain undaunted.

Worse than Lieberman-Warner
The EPA released in mid-July a document that blueprints a dizzying array of greenhouse-gas regulatory programs under dozens of different provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act.The document,

British Columbia began collecting increased tax revenue on fossil fuels on July 1 with a promise to rebate those taxes through reduced income and business tax rates. This “revenue recycling” plan makes little progress toward the province’s goal to reduce CO2 emissions 33% by 2020, yet it is hailed by proponents as a legislative milestone. Others believe B.C. residents are victims of another governmental “bait and switch” program. Does it matter to the rest of the world?

Many of today’s advanced steam generators favor either an all-volatile treatment or oxygenated treatment chemistry program, both of which require strict maintenance of an ultra-pure boiler feedwater or condensate system. Those requirements are many times at odds with the lower-quality water sources, such as graywater, available for plant makeup and cooling water. Adding a condensate polisher can be a simple, cost-effective solution.

Lamar Light and Power is a municipal utility that has been generating the southeastern Colorado city’s electricity since 1920. Rising natural gas and oil costs pushed LL&P to retire its steam plant five years ago and begin hunting for more economic power sources. The answer: repower the existing plant with a state-of-the-art coal-fired circulating fluidized-bed combustor and cross-connect old and new steam turbines. The $120 million project will stabilize the region’s electricity rates for many years to come and is the winner of POWER’s 2008 Marmaduke Award for excellence in O&M—named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer/plant troubleshooter par excellence.

Wisconsin Public Service Corp. placed its world-class Weston 4 into commercial service on June 30 and is now enjoying the benefits of coal-fired supercritical technology’s inherently higher efficiency, operating flexibility, and lower CO2 emissions. For its unequalled environmental protection credentials, well-integrated project team, and employing without a doubt the most advanced coal-fired steam generation technology in the U.S. today, Weston 4 is awarded POWER magazine’s 2008 Plant of the Year award.

A sonic horn (also called an acoustic horn or acoustic cleaner) produces and amplifies low-frequency sound vibrations at high intensity to fluidize and remove material buildup. Because the sonic horn doesn’t apply mechanical vibration, it doesn’t compact material or segregate it by particle size and is less likely to cause vessel failure than a continuously operating mechanical vibrator.A sonic horn is also used to start bulk

News items of interest to power industry professionals.
Basin Electric and Powerspan Corp. complete CCS feasibility study

A feasibility study for a project to add carbon capture controls at Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s 900-MW coal-fired Antelope Valley Station (AVS) in North Dakota has been completed with positive results, Basin Electric and project partner Powerspan Corp. have announced. (See the “R.E. Burger Plant” Top Plant story in POWER, October 2007, for details on the Powerspan CO2 removal technology.) The project to demonstrate the commercial viability of CO2 capture in conventional coal-fired power plants was announced earlier this year by Bismarck-based Basin Electric and Powerspan, a clean-energy technology company.

Since winning the bid in 2001 for the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer, China has sought to make over its image of heavyweight industrial pollutant to one of environmentally responsible, clean energy supporter. Beijing, a city with a population of 17.4 million, has implemented 20 costly projects over the past three years to clean up the smog and improve air quality, from installing desulfurization systems at most power generating units to restricting an estimated 3.5 million vehicles from driving on the city’s roads on certain days.

By 2030 global energy demand is predicted to be 40% higher thanit is today, and almost three-quarters of that demand will come from developing countries, the International Energy Agency reports. While the world scrambles to draw up plans for mega-dams and massive wind farms to meet this demand, an international team has been designing nuclear reactors that are cost-effective and a better fit for developing nations than traditional utilityscale plants. Widely known as grid-appropriate reactors, they are smaller in size than the giants installed in developed countries.

If the Australian Parliament passes legislation that was introduced by the minister of resources and energy in mid-June, the country could have the world’s first legislative framework for storing carbon dioxide (CO2) offshore, in subsea geological formations. Australia, the fourth-largest producer of coal in the world, is currently under considerable pressure to find ways to sustain coal-fired power generation—which provides 83% of the country’s electricity—while responding to climate change concerns. One way to do this is to implement policies that aid the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said.

The climate change debate has been dramatized in movies, on Hollywood’s red carpets, and in documentaries featuring melting ice caps. The collective effect is extraordinary,and positive. America now stands ready to address one of its toughest challenges since the industrial revolution—decarbonizing our energy supply and economy. Now the hard work begins. I strongly support federal legislation to create a mandatory and declining national cap on carbon dioxie (CO2) and other greenhouse gases, with a target to reduce these emissions by 60% to 80% by 2050. I also applaud Sens.

Modern ocean power systems look to convert the mechanical energy of waves or tidal movement to electrical energy. But that’s not all the sea has to offer. It may also be possible to capture and convert the enormous quantities of heat produced by magma escaping through seafloor vents—an undersea version of geothermal energy.

Documenting changes to the distributed control system and other digital plant applications should be considered a critical element of managing risk—and of safe, efficient daily operations and maintenance. Coming up with a practical configuration management approach, though, isn’t easy.

Once it’s enacted, the impact of climate change legislation on the electric power industry will be ten times bigger than that of the Clean Air Act,” said Dan Adamson, an attorney with the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine and chair of the opening session at the 2nd Annual Carbon Constraint Conference (Figure). His was just one of many interesting predictions made during the lively presentations and discussions at the event, which is now colocated with the ELECTRIC OWER Conference & Exhibition. This two-day conference focused on the impact of carbon constraint laws and technical solutions for the power generation industry.

Last month, in Part I of this article, we detailed and quantified the impacts of postcombustion CO2 capture on a coal plant’s net output and efficiency. This month we do the same for four other CO2 reduction techniques: oxyfuel combustion, using higher-temperature and higher-pressure boilers, cofiring biomass, and replacing some coal-fired capacity with renewable
capacity.