ENME Webcast Archives

LEADERS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING LECTURE SERIES - FALL 2007

Fossil Fuel Based Electricity Generation in a Carbon Constrained World

Lecturer: Jonas Beer - MIT

Original Air Date: Friday, October 5th at 1:00pm

Abstract: Fossil fuels ,especially coal and natural gas (NG) will continue to play major roles for the future in electric power generation world wide; coal ,because of its low cost, broad availability with large reserves over the world , and natural gas ,a premium fuel with no ash ,no sulfur or mercury content and of low C/H ratio, that makes its utilization capable of low CO2 emission. High efficiency power generation combined with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the long term technology objective leading to the Near Zero Emission coal plant. In the interim, before CCS becomes commercial, new plants can be built with the highest thermal efficiency that is economically justifiable, to reduce pollutant and GHG emissions.

For Rankine thermodynamic cycle plants higher efficiency means advanced steam parameters of elevated pressure and increased superheat and reheat temperatures; for natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) Brayton/Rankine thermodynamic cycle plants increased gas turbine firing temperatures and sequential combustion, and for coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants improved gasification technologies suitable for a wide range of coal qualities and gas turbines capable of burning syngas with high hydrogen concentration, all in increased operational availability of the plant.

Performance characteristics and costs of clean coal technology options are discussed with special reference to information from the recently released MIT Study: The Future of Coal.