Hard work was required at the 2,600-MW Rockport Plant to make improvements to equipment, materials, and processes. But that hard work has paid off: The plant’s units operate much better, employee safety has improved, the facility is setting generation records with both of its 1,300-MW units, and it earned the PRB Coal Users’ Group Large Plant of the Year honors.

A reusable organic liquid developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) or sulfur dioxide (SO₂) from power plant emissions could one day replace current scrubbing methods and allow power plants to capture the gases in a cost-efficient way that uses no water and less energy.

Complying with a corporate environmental policy requires much more than just writing a check for equipment upgrades. It takes a dedicated and knowledgeable staff that’s willing to invest years of work to permanently reduce a plant’s environmental footprint. The staff of Seminole Generating Station have completed multiple, incremental plant improvements over the past decade that have significantly reduced air emissions and minimized solid waste disposal.

Since Robert Stirling invented the Stirling engine in 1816, it has been used in an array of specialized applications. That trend continues today. Its compatibility with clean energy sources is becoming apparent: It is an external combustion engine that can utilize almost any heat source, it encloses a fixed amount of a gaseous working fluid, and it doesn’t require any water — unlike a steam engine.

Italy’s Enel said in August that it has successfully begun operating a power plant in Fusina, near Venice, in the Veneto region of Italy, that is fueled 100% by hydrogen. The industrial-sized plant’s building site was officially opened in April 2008, after which infrastructure and technology work was carried out on schedule. Initial testing of the turbine using methane gas was conducted in the spring of 2009, and now — after completion of the special pipeline — the plant has switched to 100% hydrogen fueling, Italy’s largest energy company said.

Limestone composition and reactivity are critical factors that determine the performance of limestone-based wet flue gas desulfurization systems. Limestone quality affects sulfur dioxide (SO₂) removal, reaction tank sizing, limestone consumption rate, and composition of the gypsum product and waste streams. Reactivity is a direct measure of how readily a limestone will provide alkalinity to neutralize the acid resulting from SO₂ dissolution in water. In this article we review your limestone analytic measurement options and discuss their relative accuracy and limitations.

Africa is emerging as a prominent voice in calling for a global nuclear renaissance. Driven by chronic shortages from population explosions, decades of drought, and dependence on hydropower — and spurred by discoveries of significant uranium reserves on the continent — several countries are considering nuclear power as a viable option.

Boiler tube failures continue to be the leading cause of downtime for steam power plants. Is your boiler tube failure reduction program showing improvement when compared to programs at peer plants? The EUCG’s recent update of its boiler tube failure study can help you answer that question. The full study is available only to members, but this POWER exclusive presents many of the key results, which could help you improve the operation of your plant.

A solar thermal demonstration power plant in Jülich, Germany, that was developed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), was formally handed over to its future operator, the Jülich Department of Works this August.