POWER

Australia considers seabed sequestration legislation / ElectraTherm installs its first commercial waste-heat generator / Mass. researchers achieve dramatic increase in thermoelectric efficiency / Nuclear power option for developing nations gaining steam / The great green wall of China / POWER digest / Correction

Assess your cooling tower’s condition / Proper technique for vertical-up stick welding / Move material with a sonic horn

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) recently issued its long-awaited draft Climate Change Scoping Plan (Draft Plan) for implementing Assembly Bill (AB) 32, California’s ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-reduction initiative. AB 32 requires California to reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020—roughly a 30% reduction in projected “business-as-usual” emissions levels or 168 million metric […]

A conventional coal plant’s CO2 emissions can be reduced either after combustion (see Part I of this article in POWER, June 2008) or before. In the latter case, typified by integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) plants, the fuel used is synthesis gas (syngas), which contains mostly hydrogen (H2) and CO. A water-shift reactor converts the CO […]

It is rare indeed to witness, at an otherwise staid industry forum, the public rebuke of the country’s most prominent supplier to the electric power industry. But at the Keynote session and Power Industry CEO Roundtable of the 2008 ELECTRIC POWER Conference & Exhibition in Baltimore this May, Milton Lee, general manager and CEO of […]

“Once it’s enacted, the impact of climate change legislation on the electric power industry will be ten times bigger than that of the Clean Air Act,” said Dan Adamson, an attorney with the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine and chair of the opening session at the 2nd Annual Carbon Constraint Conference (Figure 1). 1. […]

A week before the Preakness and two weeks after the Kentucky Derby, it was an atomic horse race in Baltimore. Reactor vendors trotted out their technologies at the ELECTRIC POWER Conference & Exhibition in sessions that filled the nuclear track’s 96-seat room at the Baltimore Convention Center. The reactor makers were also soliciting help from […]

The 2008 Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group (PRBCUG) set new records for attendance again this year with more than 400 registered members for the three-and-a-half-day event, 268 of whom were from operating companies. The meeting’s Grand Sponsor was Benetech and its Plant Professionals group. The meeting began with the Power Plant Awards Banquet on […]

No doubt some power plant engineers feel that tackling environmental problems is a lot like dealing with the Hydra, the ancient mythological serpent monster with multiple heads. When an attacker would cut off one of the Hydra’s numerous heads, two new ones would grow back in place of the head that was removed. All too […]

Documenting changes to the distributed control system and other digital plant applications should be considered a critical element of managing risk—and of safe, efficient daily operations and maintenance. Coming up with a practical configuration management approach, though, isn’t easy.

What, if anything, distinguishes the three major presidential candidates on energy and environmental policy? Not much, based on papers posted on their web sites, public comments, and interviews reported on in the nation’s newspapers. Let’s split some hairs on the candidates’ energy and climate change policy positions.

Modern ocean power systems look to convert the mechanical energy of waves or tidal movement to electrical energy. But that’s not all the sea has to offer. It may also be possible to capture and convert the enormous quantities of heat produced by magma escaping through seafloor vents—an undersea version of geothermal energy.

—Dr. Robert Peltier, PE Editor-in-Chief The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (L-W) that proposes to cut carbon emissions by two-thirds by 2050 was delivered stillborn on the Senate floor in early June, as expected. Faced with public outcry over record-high gasoline prices, no senator was able to breathe life back into a bill that is estimated […]

By Jim Rogers, Duke Energy Corp. The climate change debate has been dramatized in movies, on Hollywood’s red carpets, and in documentaries featuring melting ice caps. The collective effect is extraordinary, and positive. America now stands ready to address one of its toughest challenges since the industrial revolution—decarbonizing our energy supply and economy. Now the […]

Yucca Mountain plan sent to NRC/ CPV cells get cooling chips from IBM/ StatoilHydro to pilot test first offshore floating wind turbine/ U.S. rivers next massive power source?/ Siemens delivers 500-MW gasifiers/ Algae: A green solution/ POWER digest

Protection against arc flash more important than ever; Laramie River Station uses new coating technology; Protecting power plant pipes: Basics you must know

By Steven F. Greenwald and Jeffrey P. Gray David Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy, was recently quoted in a widely disseminated publication as saying: “It is a moral imperative that we take steps to reduce CO2 concentration in the earth’s atmosphere.” One might expect those reacting to Crane’s comments (made in a February 2007 […]

In our April 2008 issue, the article “The aging workforce: Panic is not a strategy” focused on how to reconfigure human resource practices in order to find enough well-trained new personnel to replace the large number of baby boomers who will be retiring in the next few years. This month we profile several utilities that are using innovative approaches to recruit younger technical staff and skilled craft labor to fill positions being vacated in growing numbers by retiring employees.

Staff from Luminant’s Big Brown Plant accepted the PRB Coal Users’ Group’s top honor for innovative improvements to coal-handling systems and a sterling safety record. The numbers reveal their accomplishments: an average EFOR less than 4%, an availability factor averaging 90% for a plant that burns a lignite/PRB mix, and staff who worked more than 2.6 million man-hours since March 2000 without a lost-time injury.

Control systems used by utilities and other operators of America’s industrial infrastructure increasingly rely on an Internet connection that makes them as vulnerable to hackers as any computer or network. One reason many utility control systems are vulnerable is that, unlike your ISP’s systems, they don’t record an audit trail that reveals the source of the attack.

Ethanol and biodiesel have become mainstream fuels that are increasingly used in combination with gasoline or petroleum diesel in automobiles. Now these same versatile fuels are starting to be used to power gas turbines. LPP Combustion LLC has developed a fuel preparation and delivery system that converts liquid fuels such as No. 2 fuel oil, biodiesel, ethanol, and coal liquids into substitute natural gas, which existing natural gas hardware can burn while enjoying reduced emission rates similar to those of natural gas.

Burning spot market fuels can reduce plant fuel costs, but it can also introduce unexpected operational problems throughout the boiler island. Orlando Utilities Commission’s Stanton Energy Center optimized its Unit 2 combustion system and improved O&M practices as part of a project to increase the unit’s fuel flexibility without degrading reliability or heat rate. OUC’s attitude: If you can measure it, you can manage it.

I believe there are three basic objectives for the energy industry in the modern era. First, to provide a reliable and ample supply. Second, to ensure that the supply is provided at the least cost to consumers. And third, to accomplish the first and second objectives with the least possible adverse effects on the environment. […]

—Dr. Robert Peltier, PE Editor-in-Chief In the late 1880s’ “War of the Currents,” Thomas Edison used every outrageous tactic to promote direct current (DC) as superior to alternating current (AC), which was championed by George Westinghouse. Edison’s most overblown public display was the electrocution of Topsy, a Coney Island circus elephant, to prove the dangers […]

Artificial photosynthesis for solar power? / Poultry litter to fuel 55-MW N.C. plan / First fuel cell-powered plane takes flight / First HTS transmission cable energized / PTC powers wind power industry / Renewing Greensburg / GAO deems coal-to-gas switch impractical / Assessing the Congo River’s power potential / POWER digest / Corrections

Power plant training: New techniques required

By Steven F. Greenwald and Jeffrey P. Gray These should be good times for environmentalists who focus on “green” energy policy. More than half the U.S. states have adopted renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require utilities to meet specific renewable generation targets, and many are considering additional actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Such […]

Last month, POWER explored the growing importance of the smart grid, which is envisioned as using digital technologies to enable integrated, real-time control of all the system’s elements, from generation to end use. This month we focus on the emerging technology of microgrids: controlled groupings of dispersed generation sources that are connected to the main electrical grid but that can function independent of it. We examine their benefits and their potential impact on 21st-century utilities and their customers.

Caps on greenhouse gas emissions are imminent in the U.S., and they will change how we design tomorrow’s coal-fired power plants. Efforts are already under way to develop alternative capture and sequestration technologies, mainly for CO2. Unfortunately, the proposed processes all consume lots of energy, reducing plants’ net output and efficiency. In Part I of our look at these technologies, we list and quantify the negative impacts of postcombustion removal of CO2 from a coal plant’s flue gas. Next month, in Part II, we’ll do the same for four other CO2 reduction techniques: oxyfuel combustion, using higher-temperature and higher-pressure boilers, cofiring biomass, and replacing some coal-fired capacity with renewable capacity.

Boiler water wall leaks have been a major cause of steam plant forced outages. But conventional nondestructive evaluation techniques have a poor track record of detecting corrosion fatigue cracking on the inside surface of the cold side of waterwall tubing. EPRI is performing field trials of a prototype direct-digital radiographic system that promises to be a game changer.