Features

Modern heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) design must balance operating response with the reduction in life of components caused by daily cycling and fast starts. Advanced modeling techniques demonstrate HRSG startup ramp rates can be accelerated without compromising equipment life.

URS recently performed a combined cycle repowering study to determine the feasibility and economics of repowering an existing steam turbine that went into service in the 1950s. The competing option was building a new combined cycle unit. The results of the study provide insight for others considering the same alternatives.

Only through proper troubleshooting and then solving the underlying problems can control loop performance be improved. Process design certainly plays a role in control loop performance, but experience has shown that the majority of control loops can perform better—provided that the root cause of the poor performance is found and corrected.

Lawrence J. Makovich, PhD, IHS CERA’s vice president and senior advisor for Global Power, predicts a rebound in electricity consumption from recession levels. Specifically, the rebound will be stronger than government projections, led by growth in electricity use by industry.

As the book title Too Dumb to Meter: Follies, Fiascoes, Dead Ends, and Duds on the U.S. Road to Atomic Energy implies, nuclear power has traveled a rough road. In this POWER exclusive, we present the 20th and 21st chapters, “Out of Sight and Mind” and “Holey Kansas,” the first two chapters of the “Waste Is a Terrible Thing to Mind” section.

Germany has chosen to transform its energy system within a few decades—an ambition that has evoked equal admiration and confusion. Has Europe’s largest economy embarked on a rational path to an energy future that will make it the bellwether for global acceptance of renewables, or will the complex array of current challenges encumber its grand transformation?

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has issued a License to Prepare Site for Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington station expansion. This is the first of a series of licenses required to prepare, construct, and operate new nuclear reactors and the first of its kind issued in Canada in over a quarter-century.

Small-scale hydro generation stands to benefit from recent congressional action aimed at streamlining what historically has been a challenging federal approvals process. That action, along with technology innovations, could make it easier to develop hydro generating capacity in sources as diverse as navigable rivers, man-made conduits, and water distribution systems.

Historic low prices for natural gas and slow demand recovery are the principal barriers to new nuclear power construction in the U.S. Small modular reactors (SMRs) may break through those barriers, but only if installed cost targets are met.

Christofer Mowry, president of Babcock & Wilcox mPower Inc. and CEO of Generation mPower LLC, a joint company of Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel to design and build the mPower small modular reactor that won a competition for a Department of Energy cooperative funding agreement, discusses the machine and the market.