February 1885 The cover story examined the latest in reciprocating engine technology: the Greene automatic cut-off engine (Figure 1). Here is how the editors described it: "The engine has a girder frame; guides case separate and dowelled and bolted to the bed plate; four-part main boxes; Porter governor. There are two steam and two exhaust […]

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order No. 689, issued on Nov. 16, 2006, established requirements and procedures for granting permits to build transmission facilities within "national interest electric transmission corridors" designated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). After summarizing the statutory and regulatory background, this opinion piece addresses jurisdictional conflict between FERC and states, […]

The January call for a national policy on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by a coalition that includes some of America’s largest companies and electric utilities—GE, Alcoa, Dupont, Duke, FPL, and PG&E—makes clear that carbon management is now as much of a raison d’être for CEOs as it has been for environmentalists. The momentum to reduce […]

China to buy four AP1000 reactors / Midwest Gen, Blagojevich reach pollution deal / Behold, the carpet gasifier / AREVA casks green-lighted by NRC / Brookfield Power upgrades Oswego Falls / Korea fires up 50-MW landfill gas project / Alstom lands big Russian deal / POWER digest / Correction

One expert has called it the "digital delta"—the seemingly endless challenges in refurbishing U.S. nuclear plants with digital instrumentation and controls. But it appears more like a deep ditch, where even those seeking to license new reactors could get stuck. Here’s the latest on the issues, experience, and results—plus recommendations for getting the industry out of the mud and back on the road.

Ongoing maintenance is critical to the performance and longevity of underwater structures such as cooling water intake tunnels. Commercial divers or robotic vehicles can do the needed inspections, but such manual methods require a costly plant shutdown and provide only qualitative results. ASI Group Ltd. has designed and built an advanced, dual-axis sonar system that works in fast-moving water and can deliver quantitative data about the extent and location of debris buildup on submerged assets.

A healthy and productive workforce is one that has been thoughtfully recruited and properly trained. Understanding the role and relationships of those and other attributes in the overall workforce supply chain is an essential management function. Here’s a roadmap for your consideration.

The conflicting challenges of operating a plant beyond its prime and Exelon’s commitment to manage carbon emissions from its power system are pushing the company’s plant engineers to innovate. An example: Fairless Hills Generating Station was given a complete overhaul and now burns landfill gas that otherwise would be treated as waste.

Safety issues related to the use of gaseous chlorine for disinfecting cooling water are pushing plant operators to examine other alternatives. Two units of Cardinal Generating Station recently switched to a liquid chlorination system, with pumpless vacuum injection, that was easy to install and has proven reliable. That switch has resulted in one less safety headache for the operations staff and one less invitation to regulatory scrutiny.

January 1885 The cover story of this issue reviewed the latest power generation technology then entering the market. "The Fishkill vertical direct acting condensing engine . . . has a heavy bed-plate of box form, with pillow-block for main journal cast on. The upright frames are A-shaped, with hollow cylindrical legs, which rest on the […]

The recently published Long-Term Reliability Assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) found that several areas of the U.S. and Canada risk falling below minimum capacity target levels within three years, as demand continues to outpace new supply. This risk of supply shortages requires action. In addition to the usual solutions of more […]

DOE walks the clean coal talk / For Swedish nuke, a case of mistaken identity / Siemens completes big CHP plant / E.ON bets big on coal / BP Solar expands Maryland plant / GE scores big turbine deals / PSNH switches from coal to wood / EPRI tests solid-state current limiter / POWER digest

Mandatory standards advance / To drain or not to drain / Practical aspects of burning landfill gas / Time management

U.S. demand for natural gas is projected to increase by more than 50% by 2020. Companies are building—and the public is opposing—receiving terminals on three coasts that would increase imports of liquefied natural gas. The pros and cons of "opening up" Alaska, coastal waters, and federal lands to drilling are still being debated. These politically […]

Forecasting the direction of the U.S. electric power industry for 2007, much less the distant future, is like defining a velocity vector; doing so requires a direction and speed to delineate progress. In this special report, POWER’s first stab at prognostication, the editors look at current industry indicators and draw conclusions based on their more than 100 years of experience. To borrow verbatim the title of basketball legend Charles Barkley’s book: I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It.

Following the money invested in projects is a viable way to compare growth trends for power projects using the four major generation types: coal, natural gas, nuclear, and renewable.

Layering NOx control technologies can reduce a coal-fired unit’s NOx emissions to levels achievable by selective catalytic reduction alone. Advanced Combustion Technology Inc. (ACT) (www.advancedcombustion.net) has demonstrated that using several in combination can cut emissions from boilers firing eastern bituminous coal or No. 6 oil to less than 0.15 lb/mmBtu. The following two case studies […]

Large-particle ash (LPA), also called popcorn ash (Figure 1), is a serious concern for many coal-fired utility boiler operators who have retrofitted their unit(s) with a high-dust selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system. LPA formed in the boiler can easily carry over into the SCR reactor (Figure 2), where it often causes catalyst erosion damage and […]

The February 1907 issue of POWER magazine reported on the construction of a new coal-fired steam engine plant on the Merrimac River outside of Lawrence, Mass. According to the plant’s owner, "the simplest and most flexible means for handling coal… to the furnace is by animal muscle… that brings the coal to the firing floor […]

When Charles Dickens began A Tale of Two Cities with, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," he was referring to the French Revolution of the late 18th century. But Dickens’ words apply equally well to the American generation industry of the late 20th century. A decade of overbuilding U.S. […]

To borrow shamelessly from Charles Dickens, one of my favorite authors, for coal in 2006, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." No Escape The year began in horror. On January 2, most likely a result of a severe lightning strike, methane gas in the International Coal Group’s Sago Mine […]

Over the past 17 years — dating back to the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and including the introduction of retail competition — coal-fired power plants have become much cleaner and more efficient. Utilities have spent many billions of dollars to install pollution controls for regulatory reasons, and only slightly less to upgrade turbine-generators and […]

When you receive a shipment, you don’t wait weeks to see whether you got what you paid for — do you? J.M. Stuart Generating Station doesn’t, but it used to. Since coming on-line in the early 1970s, the big plant, on the Ohio River near Aberdeen, Ohio, mechanically sampled coal shipments as they reached the […]

If coal leaving a pulverizer isn’t dry, it may plug up the coal pipes leading to the boiler. The coal-drying process in a pulverizer is similar to that used by flash dryers. Certain coals should be preheated to make them more combustible. Generally, preheating is done on higher rank coals — those with a low […]

Historically, cyclone-fired boilers have been characterized as big emitters of NOx due to the very high temperatures in their primary combustion zone. Uncontrolled levels from 0.8 to 1.9 lb/mmBtu have been typical. The design of cyclone-fired units makes them impossible to retrofit with standard low-NOx burners. Prior to 1997, the conventional wisdom was that cyclone […]

An offshoot of the 1993 Megatons to Megawatts nonproliferation program, the Blended Low-Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project has modified and developed new fabrication processes for converting surplus weapons-grade uranium materials into nuclear fuel for TVA’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. This innovative public/private venture continues to deplete nuclear arsenal stockpiles while reducing storage, security, and disposal costs to U.S. taxpayers.

Utility resource planners are used to viewing new generation in terms of firm, dispatchable capacity. Dispatching a renewable resource such as wind requires a different perspective. Wind capacity can serve as a hedge against fossil fuel price risks and perhaps future emissions restrictions, but it requires a much more structured planning horizon. Integrating wind farms into their portfolios may be the most difficult challenge utilities face today.

The wind energy business is beginning to look as frenetic as the merchant gas-fired power business in the late 1990s—with some critical differences. If the 10 issues listed here are addressed soon, wind power may avoid a crash and burn similar to the one that beset the gas turbine business.

In chemistry, osmosis refers to the movement of water molecules through a selective membrane from an area of low solute concentration to an area of high solute concentration, creating a pressure gradient. Researchers have recently demonstrated that exploiting this natural phenomenon could produce useful amounts of electrical power.

IT project engineering skills aren’t taught in college; they’re developed through on-the-job training with seasoned mentors. Begin honing your project management skills by firmly grasping the fundamentals presented in this article.