justoffal
Senator
Coal plants are still the single largest source of electric power to the US to date but they are rapidly being displaced by natural gas facilities. Nat-Gas is now so abundant and so cheap that Coal can hardly compete with the process.
It is tempting for the conservative mind to blame the EPA for the demise of coal...but the truth is that economics and the abundance of Cheap Natural Gas are really the culprit here.
Gas turbine HRSG Plants are easy to build, burn cleanly, producing less C02 per btu than a coal fired plant and can come online in as little as one hour in a pinch. The machinery is much easier to maintain and frankly to run and it would appear that we have enough NAT GAS to last us for centuries without any interruption at all.
Now let us remember that even Nat Gas combustion is still combustion.
Combustion must and always does include the consumption of O2.....O2 is the catalyst in all combustion reactions and Co2 is always the product because C is the most abundant fuel on earth whether it be in the form of Coal of in the structure of methane gas. The bonus with Methane is the combustion of Hydrogen which produces 62,000 btu per pound of burning and produces in the end...simply water vapor! Nice!
New Stack Technologies for gassified coal burning have come far but still cannot burn quite as clean as a nat gas plant set up to use both gas turbine generation as well as steam turbine generation.
It is good to know however that gassifed coal process is successful and provides the type of competition that will keep the nat gas suppliers honest going forward.
JO
It is tempting for the conservative mind to blame the EPA for the demise of coal...but the truth is that economics and the abundance of Cheap Natural Gas are really the culprit here.
Gas turbine HRSG Plants are easy to build, burn cleanly, producing less C02 per btu than a coal fired plant and can come online in as little as one hour in a pinch. The machinery is much easier to maintain and frankly to run and it would appear that we have enough NAT GAS to last us for centuries without any interruption at all.
Now let us remember that even Nat Gas combustion is still combustion.
Combustion must and always does include the consumption of O2.....O2 is the catalyst in all combustion reactions and Co2 is always the product because C is the most abundant fuel on earth whether it be in the form of Coal of in the structure of methane gas. The bonus with Methane is the combustion of Hydrogen which produces 62,000 btu per pound of burning and produces in the end...simply water vapor! Nice!
New Stack Technologies for gassified coal burning have come far but still cannot burn quite as clean as a nat gas plant set up to use both gas turbine generation as well as steam turbine generation.
It is good to know however that gassifed coal process is successful and provides the type of competition that will keep the nat gas suppliers honest going forward.
JO
