I've been inside a bunch of clean coal plants, and I've seen experimental boilers for things like pressurized fluidized bed technology. The technology works, but it is very expensive compared to traditional coal-fired power plants. Technologies that are employed:
1. Fluidized-bed boilers - A boiler is a big furnace with a vertical housing inside it that holds water. The heat from the furnace boils the water, which turns into steam and drives a turbine, generating electricity. These boilers use injectors to shoot pulverized coal into the furnace, creating a vortex. The combination of very high temperatures, the pulverization of the coal, and the vortex action burns a substantially higher percentage of the combustible material than in traditional boilers. 2. Coal Pulverization - The coal is turned into a fine-grained powder to burn as much of the material as possible. 3. Scrubbers - The exhaust from the furnace passes through a series of scrubbers that remove particulate matter and chemicals. There are some plants where the by-product from the furnace is used to create gypsum for wallboard. All of this technology is great, but as I said, it is expensive. You might expect to pay a few hundred million to a billion dollars to retrofit an existing plant with clean coal technology. Energy companies only invest the money if they can pass the costs along to their customers, but since utility rates are regulated almost everywhere in the country, it is very difficult for providers to raise rates, so they stick with older technology. So, if you are worried about coal pollution in electricity generation, push your state's regulatory body to allow the local utility to raise rates in order to either build new clean coal plants or retrofit existing ones. On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Michael wrote: > I was reading a report a few years back about the various 'games' companies > were playing to get certain moneys from the govenment for developing clean > coal tech. Most of them were out and out fakes. I hope they've come closer > to reality since then. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:270727 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
