Many claim that wind generation is beneficial because it reduces pollution emissions and does not emit carbon dioxide. This isn’t necessarily the case. When wind is introduced into a generation system that uses carbon technologies to back up the wind, it actually reduces the energy efficiency of the carbon technologies.

Every power engineer must have a firm grasp of the rudiments of how fuel is processed to produce electricity in a power generation facility. With this article, we conclude our three-part series on the essentials of recovering heat from flue gas to dry and process coal, with the goal of improving overall plant operating efficiency.

Progress Energy has incorporated online combustion optimization/tuning to eliminate furnace reducing atmospheres at its Asheville Plant. The optimization project utilized individual burner airflow measurement and continuous burner coal flow measurement to adjust burner air/fuel ratios. The result: significantly improved boiler combustion.

The EPA, determined to regulate U.S. carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, found that the low limits set by the Act for any “regulated pollutant” led to, in the EPA’s words, “absurd” results. Undeterred, the EPA developed the “Tailoring Rule,” which reinterprets the Act to apply to only larger emissions sources. Texas eloquently rejected the EPA’s legal gymnastics.

When—not if—we pass climate legislation, we will put the U.S. on a path toward a low-carbon electric generation sector. As part of this shift, we’ll need more transmission, including lines to wind and solar power plants that are sometimes located far from today’s power grid. The question is: How do we plan for these new lines and how should we pay for them?

There is an idea that has been around for a long time, at least since the fall of 1973: All that stands between the U.S. and an abundant energy future is a lack of spending on research and development. It is as though the Knights Templar could find the Holy Grail, if only the Pope would commit just a few more resources to the hunt.

California, New Mexico, and three Canadian provinces—partners of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI)—last week released a detailed plan for a regional cap-and-trade program to curb greenhouse gases (GHG) starting in January 2012. If the plan reaches fruition, it would be three times larger than a program under way in 10 eastern states.

Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) last week denied a request by Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) to extend pilot testing for its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) project to 5,000 more smart meter because of cost concerns. The move poses a major hurdle for the utility’s overall smart grid initiative.

Only 700 MW of wind power were added in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2010—a drop of 57% and 71% when compared to second quarter numbers from 2008 and 2009, respectively, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported last week.

New York state and Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) plan to sue Homer City Station, a 1,884-MW coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania, for its alleged contributions of the region’s sulfur dioxide emissions.

The Department of Energy last week finalized a $117 million loan guarantee for a 30-MW Hawaiian wind power plant, and this week it said it would offer a $17.1 million loan guarantee to support construction of a 20-MW energy storage system using lithium-ion batteries.

This May, following two years of construction, Siemens Energy put into operation Irsching 5, an 847-MW advanced combined-cycle power plant near Ingolstadt, Germany. The plant’s owner, Gemeinschaftskraftwerke Irsching GmbH—a joint venture of E.ON, Mainova, and HEAG Südhessische Energie—features two SGT5-4000F gas turbines, one SST5-5000 steam turbine, three hydrogen-cooled generators, electrical systems, and Siemens’ SPPA-T3000 instrumentation and control system.

The competitive push for more efficient power generation prompted the management of East Kentucky Power Cooperative’s Spurlock Station to provide training and to implement standardized work processes in order to achieve higher productivity. To that end, Spurlock’s management collaborated with salaried and hourly personnel to design and implement work process optimization. Two years later, their proactive, operations-driven culture is promoting continuous improvement at this facility.

Nearly a quarter-century after the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in Soviet Ukraine, Russia has been making deals with energy-starved nations all over the globe to help them build new nuclear power plants using Russian second-generation reactor technology.

Steve Elonka began chronicling the exploits of Marmaduke Surfaceblow—a six-foot-four marine engineer with a steel brush mustache and a foghorn voice—in POWER in 1948, when Marmaduke raised the wooden mast of the SS Asia Sun with the help of two cobras and a case of Sandpaper Gin. Marmy’s simple solutions to seemingly intractable plant problems remain timeless. This Classic Marmaduke story, originally published more than 50 years ago, illustrates that although solutions may be easy to identify, the challenge is often in the implementation. Sometimes a little horse sense is all that is necessary.

While the U.S. awaits congressional action on a cap-and-trade program that could possibly be limited to just the utility sector, Canada is moving, starting in 2011, to phase out older coal power plants and replace them with natural gas–fired plants. The announcement, made this June by Environment Minister Jim Prentice prior to the G8 and G20 summits, could have serious implications for coal-fired generators in the country.

Eliminate waste in coal, gas, or nuclear power plant construction through a holistic application of lean principles.

This June, AREVA installed the reactor pressure vessel (Figure 6)—the core of the unit—at the world’s first EPR project, which is under construction in Finland. Now the company will engage in a flurry of installation activities for heavy nuclear components, including lifting into the reactor the first of the four steam generators. Most of the work is expected to be completed by the end of 2012, with power production beginning in 2013.

ABB’s new 266 series is an optimized pressure transmitter family that combines modern electronic pressure measurement with the company’s unique human machine interface (HMI) in one common product series, providing base accuracy from ±0.025% to ±0.06%. The series offers the industry’s best draft range, ABB claims. For combustion airflows, this means exceptional resolution with tighter […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year awarded its first Section 10 permit ever to a commercial wave-powered demonstration facility planned for installation in the Gulf of Mexico. The novel offshore platform, dubbed the SEADOG, will use a buoy and piston mechanism combined with a water wheel to generate electricity and desalinate water.

HD Electric Co.’s Phase Rotation Meter (PRM) is used to determine the leading phase of any two phases in a three-phase conductor system. The PRM is a dual-range 0 to 5 kV and 0 to 15 kV device that can be used as high as 45 kV when optional resistor sticks are added. It consists of two […]

Sweden Reverses Ban, Approves Nuclear Reactor Replacements Sweden’s parliament on June 18 reversed an earlier decision and passed the center-right coalition government’s landmark proposal, made last year, that allows for the replacement of the country’s nuclear reactors at the end of their life span. The country had voted in 1980 to phase out its 12 […]

The SEL-734P Portable PQ Meter is a new metering solution from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) that addresses the need for complete and portable power quality monitoring. In addition to the meter, the kit includes three-phase voltage and current inputs, voltage leads, and split-core CTs, all secured in a ruggedized case. ACSELerator QuickSet SEL-5030 software, included […]

A new family of Rotating Line Moles (RLM) from NLB gives users more than 40 choices for cleaning pipes and tubes with high-pressure water. Designed for tubes with diameters from 0.5 inch to 1.5 inches (1.27 cm to 3.81 cm), the family features operating pressures of 10,000 psi or 20,000 psi (700 bar or 1,400 […]

When heat exchanger tubes—sometimes numbering a thousand or more per unit—begin to crack or wear, the effects can lead to a cascade of subsequent failures in adjacent tubes. If too many tubes are plugged, heat exchanger effectiveness is compromised, and power generation may be curtailed. If conventional mechanical plugs are used, they can break loose, leak, and fail. At that point, the replacement of a very costly heat exchanger is imminent.

LUDECA has introduced VIBXPERT II, the latest addition to its PRUEFTECHNIK family of portable route-based vibration data collectors. VIBXPERT II is rugged and lightweight and combines the advantages of a rapid processor with an energy-efficient color VGA display. Enhanced with an Fmax of 51KHz and up to 102,400 lines of resolution, all machinery problems can […]

Power plant operators, especially those located in countries with enforceable carbon emissions standards, are concerned about their CO₂ emissions. But for Helsingin Energia—which provides power, heating, and cooling for Helsinki, Finland’s 300,000 residents—the main concern is local warming, not global warming. In Helsinki, temperatures on midsummer afternoons only reach an average 21C, and for half the year daytime temperatures are below 10C.

Heise precision pressure instruments provide the high-accuracy measurements required for critical test, calibration, and process applications. The unique blend of product configurations includes the Heise 0.1% precision dial pressure gauge, the modular PTE-1 handheld calibrator, and high-accuracy digital pressure indicators and transducers. With ranges from 0.25 inches of water to 100,000 psi and accuracies to […]

Stacks at power generating stations may be low maintenance, but they are not no maintenance. The cost of preventing corrosion may be as little as $10,000, but the cost of repair or replacement could be many times that or even put your plant out of commission until the stack problem is corrected.

A proven solution for immediate and long-term job creation came from President Barack Obama and his administration earlier this year: investment in U.S. nuclear energy. Bulldozers in Georgia are already on the move and making preparations for expansion of a nuclear plant that has achieved several approvals, and long-awaited jobs in the skilled labor sector could materialize there within months.