The diesel prime mover will be the most efficient prime mover for such plants (and yes they come in all sizes and big enough to compete with any turbine if need be). Depending on the application (cycle design, heat recovery - cogen, etc.) and the application (base loading, peaking, standby, etc.), the diesel prime mover is sometimes the preferred.
As far as Biodiesel is concerned, current costs of the fuel will not allow it to compete effectively with fossil fuels. Some "green power" programs that will pay a premium may qualify Biodiesel - although often it runs into issues with regard to not being totally green. Peaking applications where hours are limited and the customer wants a green source of same is where Biodiesel has a chance for stationary power. There are some niche markets where petroleum and/or other fossil fuel costs are high for various reasons and where there is a source of good low cost feedstocks (indigenous energy crops for example) and other conditions are right that will support Biodiesel as a powerplant fuel. They are rare. SVO and/or WVO as fuel (w/o conversion to Biodiesel) can be a different story. In a message dated 9/18/2002 11:12:28 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Big steam turbines are efficient and can be run on biofuel. > Coal is cheap and the energy companies are in it for the money. > > Kirk > > -----Original Message----- > From: Andrew Lowe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 11:19 PM > To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com > Subject: [biofuel] Big diesel engines > > > Hi all, > Any ideas on the BIGGEST diesel engines out there? I > recently saw the end of an eposide of Robbie Coltrane's "Engine > Power" series about diesels and he was standing next to what he > called the biggest diesel in the world. It was supposedly in Italy and > looked to be about the size of a couple of houses - in all directions. > He said that it was also about the most efficient diesel engine there > is, running at about 40%. Anyone have any links to "big diesel" stuff. > > Just to get this back on topic, after seeing this TV show, I > was wondering about the possiblity of replacing coal fired power > stations with massive diesel driven gen-sets, which would of course > be fueled with biodiesel. I have done work at one coal fired power > station which is rated at 1600MW and burns 4Mt of coal a year, > therefore dumps about 12Mt of CO2 into the air. I was just > wondering if it would be possible to replace this with clean, green > biodiesel powered diesels. > > Any thoughts, > > Andrew Lowe [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Sell a Home for Top $ http://us.click.yahoo.com/RrPZMC/jTmEAA/MVfIAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
