In reply to Jones Beene's message of Fri, 9 Jan 2009 08:30:06 -0800 (PST): Hi, [snip] >Robin, > >Excellent suggestion. > >Oz should be a candidate for this kind of improvement as well, since your >apparently have lots of coal and little methane.
I hesitate to suggest it, first, because I suspect someone else has already thought of it, and second because talking to power plant operators in this country is like talking to a brick wall, and I try to avoid that as much as possible. > >Another more advanced option - assuming that powdered coal still has too much >engrained ash to burn as cleanly as we would like -- is a two-step process >using a "cyclone" type of preburner (modified for the purpose, of course). > >The powdered coal would be burned with a little pure oxygen (made at night >during off-peak hours) to form hot CO (carbon monoxide) which is then burned >with air in the topping turbine. The monoxide gas can be produced almost >ash-free this way without expensive pre-processing. There are apparently a number of methods around already that utilize some form of gasification pre-stage. See e.g. http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
