Power Air Quality Insights No

Power Air Quality Insights
No. 110 June 6, 2013

WELCOME

The following insights can be sent to you every week. This alert contains the details on the upcoming hot topic hour, breaking news, and the headlines for the Utility E Alert for the previous week. This is one of a number of free services. You can sign up for any of these newsletters and of course request to be removed from the mailing list at any time. See registration following the newsletter.

· European Fossil Power Market Taking a Surprising Turn toward Coal and Wood

· “Monitoring and Optimizing Fuel Feed, Metering and Combustion in Boilers” is the Hot Topic Hour on June 13, 2013

The U.S. coal and logging industries are booming thanks to exports to Europe. Alternatives to these two fuels are much more expensive in Europe. At the same time, the carbon credit price has fallen to insignificance. The result is a great incentive for European power plants to burn solid fuels. These trends are being analyzed in the McIlvaine Fossil & Nuclear Power Generation: World Analysis & Forecast. (www.mcilvainecompany.com) The impacts on industrial boilers are being tracked in Air Emitters. The impacts on the FGD, DeNO_x, precipitator, and fabric filter markets are also being analyzed in McIlvaine market reports.

· The number of new coal-fired power plants in planning or construction in Europe is rising,

· The electricity production of existing coal-fired power plants is up substantially,

· Major investments are being made to convert coal-fired power plants to burn combinations of biomass and coal,

How did the region, most dedicated to reducing CO₂ emissions, do an about face? A major contributing factor is the cost of electricity. Solar and wind are expensive and do not generate as much power as had been anticipated, so Europe has to rely on other fuels. Germany is shutting down nuclear facilities and is planning on lignite (brown coal) to fill the gap. France is renovating three large coal-fired boilers and plans to operate them for another thirty years. The economics dictate fossil fuels because the penalties for CO₂ emissions have become negligible.

In 2007, the EU set a goal by 2020, of reducing Europe’s greenhouse-gas emissions to 20 percent below their 1990 level. It also set a goal of moving Europe to 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. To accomplish this, it set up a plan for carbon trading. Emitters have to pay for their CO₂ emissions. As they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, they often go astray. A drastic drop in industrial activity has sharply reduced the need for companies to buy emission rights, causing a gradual fall in the price of carbon allowances. On April 16, the European Parliament was on the verge of temporarily tightening the supply of allowances to boost the price of carbon and shore-up the market. But opposition by countries led by Poland defeated the measure. The result is the price of carbon plummeting to a historic low of $3.60.

A new supercritical coal-fired power plant generates 30 percent less CO₂ than an old subcritical power plant. With the relatively high price of coal, the cost per kW hr of coal-fired generation is lower with the more efficient new power plants. The result is a program to replace existing old power plants with new ones. Germany, in particular, has followed this course.

European power producers realize that the carbon credit situation could change with another decision regarding the carbon allowances, so they are looking for renewable solid fuels which do not generate net carbon increases. One of the results is an expanded focus on biomass. Forty-nine percent of renewable energy generated in the EU came from wood and wood waste in 2010. This percentage is now rising rather than falling.

European power generators are importing agricultural waste from Asia and wood pellets from the U.S. They are developing biomass farms to provide a continuing supply of biomass. The justification of burning biomass is that it is carbon neutral. When a tree grows, it absorbs CO₂. When it is logged and burned, it emits the CO₂ back to the atmosphere, so it is carbon neutral. Here is the math showing we need to increase biomass growth by 5 percent to offset all of manmade emissions.

World Annual Flows in Billion Tons of Carbon (multiply by 44.5 for CO₂)
Medium	Emissions	Absorption
Soil and biomass	122	123
Ocean	91	92
Man made	6
Man made %	3%
Bio uptake % needed to balance man made		5%

Soil and biomass presently absorb 123 billion tons per year of carbon. If the absorption were increased to 129 billion tons per year, it would offset all of manmade emissions. This makes lots of sense in the short-term. But let’s look at the long-term. Soil and biomass presently hold 2,300 billion tons of carbon. Under the biomass burning strategy, this would increase by 0.2 percent per year. Sometime in the next fifty years we would have 2,600 billion tons in inventory. Inevitably, this resource will start emitting carbon at greater than 122 billion tons per year. Eventually, all the excess storage will result in excess emissions.

The initiative toward supercritical coal and biomass makes sense if one believes that solid fuels can be an interim solution while other renewables such as wind and solar are given time to develop to provide more economical power than they do now. For more information on Fossil & Nuclear Power Generation: World Analysis & Forecast

Over 80 percent of the flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems installed around the world utilize limestone as a reagent and spray towers to recirculate the limestone slurry and capture the SO₂. The McIlvaine Company predicts that after forty years of use, this approach will give way to newer technologies. These technologies will achieve higher efficiencies, consume less energy, capture multiple pollutants and generate more valuable byproducts. Forecasts by system type are included in the McIlvaine report FGD World Markets. (www.mcilvainecompany.com)

Power plants will spend $4 billion for new FGD systems this year. They will spend $18 billion to operate and maintain over 1.6 million MW of installed systems. Many of these systems are either obsolete or unable to meet the latest environmental requirements. In some cases, corrosion has been extreme and major replacements of segments are necessary.

The first scrubbers applied at commercial scale in the 1968-72 period were tray and mobile bed scrubbers. These were very efficient but required careful chemistry control to avoid scaling. At the time there was not enough known about chemistry control, so power plants looked for a solution in a simple spray tower with no internals other than nozzles. This solution became a standard and most scrubbers sold now are of the spray tower design.

Limestone is much less expensive than lime or sodium compounds. It is less reactive. However, if you design the spray tower with enough height and recirculating slurry, it is possible to achieve efficiencies in excess of 95 percent. The problem is that the size and flow to achieve 98 percent is more than double that to achieve 90 percent. Many systems were installed to achieve efficiencies as low as 80 percent. The average efficiency requirement has been 90 percent. The latest environmental regulations are requiring higher efficiencies. In some cases, the efficiency requirement is 99 percent.

For more information on these options and predictions as to which will dominate, click on FGD World Markets

Northern Power Systems Turbines Weather the Challenge of Hurricane Speed Winds

With turbines operating in extreme wind regimes such as the Caribbean and northern Scotland, Northern Power Systems announced that its fleet of gearless turbines that experience hurricane-speed winds has achieved 1 million run time hours, all without incident. That is equivalent to a cumulative 114 years of continuous, safe, high-performance operation.

As a testament to the design and engineering behind Northern Power turbines, all 74 units in the path of Hurricane Sandy when it blasted through in November 2012 were undamaged by the high winds. Once conditions returned to normal, each turbine started generating electricity again.

SolarCity, Forest City Team to Install Solar on up to 6.500 Homes in Project at Navy, Marine Corps Bases in Hawai’i

Construction has started on the first phase of a massive solar project by Forest City Military Communities and SolarCity® to provide solar electricity to 6,500 military family residences at Ohana Military Communities (OMC), which serves Navy Region Hawaii and Marine Corps Base Hawaii. The latest SolarStrong™ project is scoped for a planned 24 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity, which would make it the largest SolarCity has undertaken to date. SolarCity and Forest City have finished installing the first 700 kilowatts of solar capacity at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and will soon initiate the first installations on Navy Region Hawaii.

Primarily financed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the new project at Marine Corps Base Hawaii and Navy Region Hawaii is expected to reduce Hawaii’s dependence on the imported oil it uses to produce the majority of its electricity.

Petroleum Development Oman and GlassPoint Commission the Middle East’s First Solar EOR Project

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the largest producer of oil and gas in Oman, and GlassPoint Solar, the global leader in solar enhanced oil recovery, announced the successful commissioning of the Middle East’s first solar enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project. By harnessing the sun’s energy with GlassPoint’s Enclosed Trough technology, the solar EOR project produces a daily average of 50 tons of emissions-free steam that feeds directly into existing thermal EOR operations at PDO’s Amal West field in Southern Oman. The 7 MW system is in regular operation and recently passed its first performance acceptance test since coming online, exceeding contracted steam output by 10 percent

GlassPoint’s unique Enclosed Trough design encloses parabolic mirrors inside a glasshouse structure, protecting the solar collectors from harsh conditions of high wind, dust, dirt, sand and humidity common to Middle East oilfields. The glasshouse enclosure enables the use of ultra-light, low-cost reflective materials and proven automated washing equipment, further reducing costs. GlassPoint steam generators are designed to use the same low-quality boiler water as once-through steam generators, the industry’s current standard, eliminating the need for costly water pretreatment.

The Kroger Co. has unveiled a clean energy production system that will convert food that can't be sold or donated into clean energy to help power its Ralphs/Food 4 Less Compton distribution center.

The anaerobic conversion system will process more than 55,000 tons of organic food waste into renewable energy annually and provide power for the over 650,000 square foot distribution center. By diverting that food waste —the equivalent of 150 tons per day — the system will also reduce area truck trips by more than 500,000 miles each year.

The Kroger Recovery System utilizes anaerobic digestion, to transform unsold organics and onsite food-processing effluent into renewable biogas. This biogas is then turned into power for onsite operations. The process is carried out in an enclosed, oxygen-free environment, which means the process takes up less space and generates no odors. The system will provide enough renewable biogas to offset more than 20 percent of the energy demand of the Ralphs/Food 4 Less distribution center.

Alterra Power and EDC Complete Joint Venture Agreement for Geothermal Assets in Chile and Peru

Alterra Power Corp. announced the completion of a joint venture agreement with Energy Development Corporation (EDC) for the development of Alterra's Mariposa geothermal project in Chile plus three geothermal concessions held by Alterra in Peru. The agreement calls for EDC to earn a 70 percent interest by funding 100 percent of the next $58.3 million in project expenditures at Mariposa, and $8 million in project expenditures on the Peruvian concessions. Advancement of individual projects will occur under separate shareholder agreements which will follow the commercial terms of the joint venture agreement. Such agreements are expected to be executed later in 2013 subject to final documentation and project evaluation by EDC.

For more information on Renewable Energy Projects and Update please visit:

§ Court of Appeals Maintains Decision stopping 600 MW Coal-fired Power Plant in Subic

§ Czech Government still supports Extension of Temelín Nuclear Power Plant

“Monitoring and Optimizing Fuel Feed, Metering and Combustion in Boilers” is the Hot Topic for Thursday, June 13, 2013

Today, more than ever before, boiler operators are looking at efficiency improvements as part of the solution to some of the regulatory and operating concerns they are faced with. Efficiency improvement may the best solution to keeping older coal-fired units operating economically. Improving efficiency of the combustion process and heat recovery only a few percent can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other material costs. Improving boiler efficiency will also reduce the total CO₂ emissions and help to meet the new regulations for GHG reduction being imposed by states and soon the U.S. EPA as well as reduce emissions of other criteria pollutants.

Optimizing fuel feed rate and distribution in the boiler is one sure way to improve combustion efficiency. The questions that need answers are: What are the available systems, technologies and methods for monitoring and controlling fuel feed, distribution and combustion and who provides them? Have these systems, technology and methods been proven in other plants with the same configuration as mine? What is the impact on maintenance and overall operating cost? Is there a tradeoff between cost and efficiency improvement? How will we get the best bang for the buck so to speak? Should we invest in optimization software and/or additional monitoring instrumentation and/or new fuel prep and injection hardware?

The following speakers will help us understand the process of improving fuel feed, distribution and combustion efficiency, how to obtain the optimum efficiency, availability and performance, describe the technologies available and under development with their applicability, capabilities, and limitations, costs involved and the benefits that can be attained and describe their real world experience with these technologies.

Ed Collet, Field Service Engineer for Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, will discuss the benefits of the Even Flow System for balancing fuel flow to burners. B&W has successfully balanced coal flow in a roll wheel style pulverizer using a system of internal elements known as the Even Flow System. By affecting the coal flow in the turret of the pulverizer, there is a lesser impact on the primary air distribution when moving the solid stream. Two methods have been used to determine the needed bias of Even Flow elements, Flame Doctor flame quality and air/fuel index along with overall CO emissions from the plant. Using this methodology, Even Flow was able to reduce CO emissions by over 100ppm by improving coal distribution to the burners.

Dave Early, Co-founder of Combustion Technologies, will discuss control of coal feed to the burners in a boiler. Proper metering of coal to the boiler is critical not just to load control but to emissions, efficiency and reliability. Accurate fuel feed to the mills, combined with accurate fuel feed to the burners, will result in the best controllability of the boiler as well as the ability to reduce CO, NO_x and LOI. This paper will focus on the bulk control to the mill as well as control of the coal in the individual pipes to the burners. The use of real time, continuous burner line coal flow measurement and precision control coal valves are some of the highlighted products used to achieve these goals.

Robert E. Sommerlad P.E. Consultant, will present “The Case for Fuel Delivery System Upgrades for Utility Boilers.” Boilers 50 years and older comprise about 53 GW or 20 percent of the total fleet capacity and 40 percent of all coal-fired units. Most of these will be retired due either to normal business decisions or to mandated upgrades to the air pollution control systems. The next age group, the 30- to 45-year old units, comprise 216 GW and 63 percent of the fleet with an average capacity of 500 MW. These units will bear the burden of ensuring the usual high standards of performance, availability and reliability. A vital part of any coal-fired unit is the Fuel Delivery System (FDS), comprising the equipment from the silos to the burners, including feeders, pulverizers, coal piping and burners. A committee of users, suppliers and architect/engineers under an ASME Research Committee has investigated a three typical 500-MW wall-, cyclone-, and tangential-fired boilers originally designed for eastern coal and now firing PRB coals, selecting retrofit upgrades to various parts of the FDS, determining costs and the value of the ensuing benefits. The comparison of costs and benefits show surprisingly near-term breakeven costs of 1, 2 and less than 1 years, respectively for the wall-, cyclone-, and tangential-fired boilers.

On Thursday at 10 a.m. Central time, McIlvaine hosts a 90 minute web meeting on important energy and pollution control subjects. Power webinars are free for subscribers to either Power Plant Air Quality Decisions or Utility Tracking System. The cost is $125.00 for non-subscribers. Market Intelligence webinars are free to McIlvaine market report subscribers and are $400.00 for non-subscribers.

	2013
Date	Subject
June 13	Monitoring and Optimizing Fuel Feed, Metering and Combustion in Boilers	Power
June 20	Dry Sorbent Injection and Material Handling for APC	Power
June 27	Power Generation Forecast for Nuclear, Fossil and Renewables	Market Intelligence
July 11	New Developments in Power Plant Air Pollution Control	Power
July 18	Measurement and Control of HCl	Power
July 25	GHG Compliance Strategies, Reduction Technologies and Measurement	Power
August 1	Update on Coal Ash and CCP Issues and Standards	Power
August 8	Improving Power Plant Efficiency and Power Generation	Power
August 15	Control and Treatment Technology for FGD Wastewater	Power
August 22	Status of Carbon Capture and Storage Programs and Technology	Power
August 29	Pumps for Power Plant Cooling Water and Water Treatment Applications	Power
Sept. 5	Fabric Selection for Particulate Control	Power
Sept. 19	Air Pollution Control for Gas Turbines	Power
Sept. 26	Multi-Pollutant Control Technology	Power

§ Court of Appeals Maintains Decision stopping 600 MW Coal-fired Power Plant in Subic

§ Czech Government still supports Extension of Temelín Nuclear Power Plant