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I couldn’t help but marvel at the synchronicity of two unrelated events over the past few weeks. The first, on January 12, was the rare cancellation of a major military acquisition program with problems called “too expensive to fix.” It takes an Act of Congress to kill most military contracts due to the pork flowing […]

Southern California Edison (SCE, Rosemead, Calif.) closed the 1,580-MW coal-fired Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., on December 31. In a filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), SCE said it expects the plant to remain off-line for four years—the time it will take for the utility and the plant’s other owners to battle […]

Fluor Corp. (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) has finished building and commissioning the 620-MW Jack County power plant (Figure 2) near Jacksboro, Texas, for Waco-based Brazos Electric Cooperative Inc. The natural gas–fired, combined-cycle plant officially came on-line on February 1. 2. Texas 2 x 1 step. The gas-fired, 620-MW, combined-cycle Jack County Generation Plant was built and […]

The Russian Federation plans to start building a floating nuclear power plant this year. According to the country’s atomic energy agency (Rosatom), the first plant will be small (3 MW) but could lead to the development of offshore plants with capacities of several hundred megawatts. The pioneering plant will be sited off the coast of […]

A new, mile-long submarine transmission cable in Pearl Harbor (Figure 3, p. 10) will facilitate the U.S. Navy’s plan to renovate and expand historic Ford Island. Honolulu-based Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. (HECO) recently laid two new 46-kV lines beneath the bridge connecting the island to Oahu. The trickiest part of the installation was avoiding the […]

One of the distinguishing characteristics of deregulated power markets is variable demand. The ability to operate efficiently at partial loads can determine whether a plant is profitable or not. This need creates special challenges for hydroelectric turbines, because at partial loads they often exhibit strong swirl in the draft tube at the outlet of the […]

The Combined Cycle Users’ Group (CCUG) was formed to address issues of importance to users, particularly the interactions among the major systems of combined-cycle power plants: the steam turbine, combustion turbine(s), and heat-recovery steam generator. The added value of becoming a CCUG member is the opportunity to interact with other operators, as well as designers, […]

Sliding-pressure, supercritical plants are all the rage. They generally include certain design features developed for markets and operating environments outside the U.S., where new coal-fired plants have been built in recent decades. U.S. market conditions are different, and considerable capital cost savings—with negligible operating cost differences—are possible if technology options are considered for the next wave of supercritical and ultra-supercritical steam plants.

In 2002, the Bush administration launched the Clean Coal Power Initiative in the hope that it would develop the missing technology piece of the cleaner energy puzzle. Four years and two rounds later, the U.S. electric power industry is seeing the first usable clean coal technologies emerge before its eyes.

Compared to most pieces of a power plant, refractory costs very little to install. Yet, if improperly manufactured, specified, stored, mixed, installed, cured, or dried, refractory may cause problems that can significantly decrease a plant’s operating efficiency and flexibility. Like Rodney Dangerfield, refractory design and installation deserve more respect.