Opinion

Culture

Vol. 2,  No. 5           July-August  2007

Marketing Contacts

Handbook for Building Zero-Emission Power Plants (and other types, too)

You want a better world,
YOU roll up your sleeves and do it. 
If not now, when?


The following downloadable files and links provide useful reference sources for understanding the practical realities of power plant design, construction and operation in their basic forms.  For those not aware at all of the niceties of what is involved in power plant construction and commissioning, your minimum participatory team members must be a registered and licenced professional mechanical engineer, a registered and licenced electrical engineer, a qualified and licenced and experienced mechanical and electrical contractor, the appropriate construction management team, and a utility contracts, regulatory,  and approvals specialty legal firm, to get the job done, as well as an experienced an d specialist financial partner. All need to be able to post bond, and must possess omissions and errors insurance from the appropriate specialist insurance provider.  I recommend the Hartford Boiler Insurance Company at http://www.hsb.com, as they invented the business in 1866. The best, the only.

Disclaimer

No guarantees or warranties are implied or explicit in the presentation of these documents, and this provider certifies none of the data nor processes described herein as of utility nor as accurate.

General power plant design:

Design Handbook One: contains information on general power plant design principles and applications, including general calculations

Diesel Design Handbook:  Diesel generator handbook, including electrical and energy efficiency considerations.  Useful for Biodiesel power plant specification  writers and cost estimators

Design Handbook 2:  Addresses the current trend in the design and specification of combined heat and power energy systems: costs, design desiderata and equipment operational principles are addressed in detail.

IGCC XLS Costing Model:  IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) Gas turbine generators use coal or municipal waste as fuel for making methane gas to drive GT gennies.  This spreadsheet gives you an idea of the practical economics of construction costs, commissioning costs, and expenses associated with  power plant operation for this type of power generation facility.  The instructions for its use  are located here.

Trade Association Directory


The Institution for Engineering and Technology

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

Edison Electric Institute

American Public Power Association

National Association of Construction Boilermakers Employers

National Hydropower Association

UK Combined Heat and Power Association

US Combined Heat and Power Association

Geothermal Resources Council

Geothermal Energy Association

Intern ational Geothermal Association

Pertinent Vendors of Equipment and Services

Plasco Energy Group provide magnetohydrodynamic based thermal municipal refuse fueled plasma gasification arrays which are both practical and operational on a commercial basis.

BioKing Biodiesel Refinery Equipment 
Off-the-shelf gear for making BioDiesel from whatever usable agwaste feedstock you have to hand.

Bechtel

Tahal

Rolls Royce

General Electric

Alstom

Caterpillar

Evolution Markets, Emissions Trade rs

CO2e, Emissions Traders

PLEASE NOTE:  Solar and wind power are not part of the range of options presented on this page, as A) they require huge governmental offsets to even be considered as a power generation option and B) there is no such thing as either a solar nor a wind array which can be throttled or regulated in a stand-alone manner to match the fluctuating user load or demand.  My definition of a power generation option which doesn't work is any option which does not pay for itself. You want to rip off the taxpayer, go open a casino or church. Otherwise put, there is no such thing as something for nothing.

Power industry business ethics resources:
Canad a's Leading Ethics Guru

Alstom's downloadable model for development of carbon-free power generation: this corporate statement of scope of work is predicated on the assumption that the engineering solution to carbon emissions which costs less is retrofitting existing power plants rather than newbuild.  Their approach makes especially good sense, as capital funding options are rapidly shrinking owing to increasingly skeptical and over-leveraged capital and bond markets (Can you say "Weimar Republic ?").  This firm richly deserves the Branson Award, as what they propose is the least cost and least disruptive and most corrective of existing emissions sources.

This download covers Alstom's first test plant for carbon sequestration using coal plant technology:  this work was done at the Sundance plant in Wabamun, Alb erta back earlier in this decade. The above diagram makes this technology easier to understand.

ALL the supercooled and sequesterable CO2 from this process can be used as feedstock for making ammonium sulfate fertilizers so that the CO2 is sequestered in plant life.  You want green, you got green. Eat hardy.

The following links describe ammonium sulfate fertilizer (and other fertilizer) production technology using sequestered CO2, and natural gas, methane made from gasified coal or MSW, and sulfur removed from the coal from standard and IGCC types of coal plants as feedstock.  Here also are links to specialty shops which routinely design, manufacture and commission production facilities for such fertilizer plants. 

International Fertilizer Association

Crimtech Services Limited

Gas and Oil Engineering Limited

Gas Liquid Engineering Limited

Ammonia Library--Source of Useful Ammonia and Ammonia-based Compound Production Data

Bromley Mechanical Contractors Limited

Midrex Corporation   These engineered product vendors make iron and steel mills function on a reduced or zero-carbon basis, and also make the best steam/hydrogen reformers on the planet, which complex bundle of tubes and valves you will need to make ammonium sulfate. You must be persistent with Midrex, as they are more interested in the steel business than in fertilizer manufacturing, but they are the best. Period.