Fuel choice power plants

Massachusetts (2001) passed four-pollutant Emissions Standards for Power Plants (310 CMR 7.29) to reduce emissions of SOj, NO, Hg and COj from older fossil-fuel fired power plants in Massachusetts. The standards will require six power plants to make 10% reduction from 1997-1999 COj levels. Power plants have the choice between switching fuels, changing generation technologies or trading emissions-reductions credits with other plants. They can also invest in certified offset projects. ... 

Electric utihties are therefore expected to build new power plants or to extend the Hves of existing, older ones. Ready availabiUty, secure supply, and low price are expected to make coal the fuel of choice for most of the new baseload generating capacity. 

Natural gas is the fuel of choice wherever it is available because of its clean burning and its competitive pricing as seen in Figure 1-30. Prices for Uranium, the fuel of nuclear power stations, and coal, the fuel of the steam power plants, have been stable over the years and have been the lowest. Environmental, safety concerns, high initial cost, and the long time from planning to production has hurt the nuclear and steam power industries. Whenever oil or natural gas is the fuel of choice, gas turbines and combined cycle plants are the power plant of choice as they convert the fuel into electricity very... 

In the future, if the criterion for selecting new generating capacity was solely fuel cost, coal will be the number one choice. But the much greater costs of coal-fired plants (primarily to meet local and federal emission standards), as well as the potential of tighter standards, will make gas more attractive in many cases. And although natural gas prices may rise, the fuel costs per kilowatt-hour for gas-fired power plants should remain unchanged as efficiency gains offset the rise in fuel prices. 

Thermal power plant is more commonly associated with very large central power stations. The capital cost for thermal power plant, in terms of cost per installed kilowatt of electrical generating capacity, rises sharply for outputs of less than some 15 MW. It is for this reason that thermal power plant is not usually considered for industrial applications unless it is the combined cycle or combined heat and power modes. However, for cases where the fuel is of very low cost (for example, a waste product from a process such as wood waste), then the thermal power plant, depending on output, can offer an excellent choice, as its higher initial capital cost can be offset against lower running costs. This section introduces the thermal power cycle for electrical generation only. 

Where replacement of pretreatment and purification equipment is required, RO is often the technology of choice to supplant softeners, dealkalizers, and demineralization units, whether the boiler is a 100 psig unit for HVAC, an aging 1,000 MW fossil-fuel power plant, or a 2,000+ MW supercritical supplying power and district heat. 

The fuel choice for small stationary power plants is pipeline gas due to its availability for multiple commercial, light-industrial, and residential applications. Some users request that the fuel processor convert at least one additional fuel, i.e., a light distillate. 

The benchmarks are independent of actual fuel choice and actual operation pattern. Thus a strict ex-ante allocation principle is applied. In case of, for example, a new power plant, the operator receives 1710 allowances per MW of installed capacity per year of operation. An allocation of 1710 allowances is what the operator will need, if the plant has an electrical efficiency of 60%, runs on natural gas and has 5,000 annual equivalent full-load operating hours. If, in actual operation, the plant runs 6,000 or 4,000 hours, it still receives 1710 allowances per MW. If the plant uses coal and/or has a lower efficiency than 60%, the operator still receives 1710 allowances per MW. Benchmarks to industrial installations are constructed according to the same ex-ante principle and based on already existing key numbers applied under the voluntary agreement/C02 tax exemption regime. The benchmarks are listed in Annex 2 of the Danish law on the implementation of the... 

When the fuel—typically coal or natural gas—burns, chemical energy is released as heat. The goal of the power plant is to convert as much of this energy as possible into electricity. The critical step in this process is to trap the heat given off in the combustion reaction. Water is the material of choice for this process... 

Both these factors, the (in practice) limited number of fuel fabricators and changing national policies, have led some countries to make national self-sufficiency in fuel supply a high priority, calling for the early establishment of uranium prospecting and mining and fuel fabrication. It can also lead to the choice of a power plant type which can be fuelled with natural uranium (HWR or MAGNOX). Fuel fabrication is a fairly easy technology, but its introduction locally for an SMPR is hardly justifiable from an economic point of view. 

The Papers have shown that there is a considerable choice of design for heavy water reactors. Moreover, it is claimed that natural uranium can be used as fuel, albeit with some penalty in fuel bum-up and in extra capital cost for the plant. Isotopic enrichment of uranium is thus not essential to a heavy water reactor programme. Typically the Inventory of heavy water in these reactors is about 0.5-1 ton/MWe output for power plant of a few hundred megawatts capacity, depending upon the type of system selected. 

The estimated costs per ton CO2 for the methanol and dectridty cases are higher than for the power plants with similar capture capacities. This is due mainly to the choices of credits for methanol and electric power. Both these credits reflect natural gas-based production, which is less complex and therefore less costly than when solid fuels—biomass and/or coal—are used. At the same time, the capture costs per MWh (electricity + methanol) become about the same or lower as for the power plants. The main reason for this is that substantial fractions of the total fuel inputs... 

For generation of electrical power only, the overriding influence in the choice of generating plant is fuel availability. In this respect the following categories can be applied ... 

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