Modern coal-fueled power plants pulverize coal into an injectable powder. A huge vortex is created from the burning coal powder. The vortex containment vessel is lined with small steel tubes which port water to be superheated by the flaming vortex. That water flash boils onto a steam turbine to drive a 0.82 GW generator.
Not really adaptable to the automotive industry. Terry On 9/4/07, Jones Beene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes - the internal politics of this sound strange, since one report has > TVA as a patent holder; but assuming they were not - the technology > itself sounds very interesting in view of the fact that many thousands > of people (mostly rural) own and swear-by wood pellet stoves... Home > Depot carries the fuel for cheap. > > From the way I understand this - if you start with biomass, and then > grind or reduce that (beyond pellets) all the way down to a powder form, > and then pre-burn the powder in a "cyclone" (vortex cone) then you can > port the gas from the cyclone to a turbine, and not degrade the blades > while at the same time- losing little heat and making the fuel burn much > cleaner. Pellets themselves do not burn clean. > > Since the automobile turbine (turbocharger) is a mass-produced item, > could it not be easily modified, alternator added, and used in a smaller > version of this for cheap home power ? > > ... then why would anyone using wood pellets NOT go off-grid - all or in > part? It would require a grinder to reduce pellets to poweder, a cyclone > and a small turbine, but in the end, you would get both heat and > electricity and less pollution than burning pellets. > > Is that what TVA was afraid of - ultimately? ... i.e. consumers going > off-grid? > > ... doubt it, as it really makes less sense there in the South, but in > the Northern USA, not to mention Alaska, this would make a lot more > economic sense. > > Jones > > > > > Horace Heffner wrote: > > > > On Sep 4, 2007, at 9:33 AM, Jones Beene wrote: > > > >> Ever heard of BioTen? (not to be confused with the vitamin, biotin) > > > > Looks like the TVA didn't like the competition: > > > > http://topics.energycentral.com/centers/gentech/view/detail.cfm?aid=19 > > > > http://tinyurl.com/yuhe3d > > > > Moved to Portland at one time? (nice photo): > > > > http://tinyurl.com/2bbb38 > > > > > > Horace Heffner > > http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ > > > > > > > > > >
