power plants

The 2008 Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) set new records for attendance again this year with more than 400 registered members for the three-and-a-half-day event, 268 of whom were from operating companies. The meeting’s Grand Sponsor was Benetech and its Plant Professionals group. The meeting began with the Power Plant Awards Banquet on Monday night, prior to the official start of ELECTRIC POWER. More than 200 people enjoyed the evening’s two special events. First was presentation of awards, including the PRBCUG Plant of the Year award (Figure) to Luminant’s Big Brown Plant. (An in-depth look at Big Brown begins on page 40.) Awards were followed by an inspiring presentation by astronaut Fred Haise, immortalized by the movie Apollo 13

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It is rare indeed to witness, at an otherwise staid industry forum, the public rebuke of the country’s most prominent supplier to the electric power industry. But at the Keynote session and Power Industry CEO Roundtable of the 2008 ELECTRIC POWER Conference & Exhibition in Baltimore this May, Milton Lee, general manager and CEO of CPS Energy (City Public Service of San Antonio), apparently wanted to make sure representatives from General Electric Corp. heard what he had to say (Figure 1). At one point he asked for a show of hands of attendees from GE. Then he proceeded to describe how GE added risk to the nuclear energy business by backing out of South Texas Project’s (STP) new construction program.

Staff from Luminant’s Big Brown Plant accepted the PRB Coal Users’ Group’s top honor for innovative improvements to coal-handling systems and a sterling safety record. The numbers reveal their accomplishments: an average EFOR less than 4%, an availability factor averaging 90% for a plant that burns a lignite/PRB mix, and staff who worked more than 2.6 million man-hours since March 2000 without a lost-time injury.

Arc flash may be the greatest—yet least understood—danger in today’s power plant. Its danger is not just the risk of electrocution facing technicians when maintaining switchgear but also the equally deadly concussive blast effects and exceptionally high temperatures that instantly occur when a short circuit occurs. In some instances, all three effects occur in chorus, further dropping the survival rate. (See “Arc flash protection should be job No. 1”in POWER, February 2007 for a special report on arc flash causes and technologies available to improve worker safety.)

Celle, Germany-based Motortech GmbH not only manufactures and sells various types of gas engine components, but is also one of a few companies specializing in performing repairs on all types of ignition controllers. Whether it is Motortech’s own devices, or those from other ignition OEMs, the company has built up its knowledge on repairing ignition controllers over the past 20 years.

No single technology will work for every coal-fired power plant. The mercury control options under investigation can be classified into six broad categories:

• Sorbent injection involves injecting a material, usually in powdered form, that adsorbs mercury upstream of a particulate collector such as a baghouse or electrostatic precipitator (ESP). Activated carbon injection currently represents one of the most promising controls on the horizon. It is the only technology that is close to being commercialized.