Coal-Fired Electricity and Emissions Control: Efficiency and Effectiveness

Coal-Fired Electricity and Emissions Control

Efficiency and Effectiveness

David A. Tillman

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Chapter One. Introduction: The Overarching Issues

1. Introduction

2. The Development of Technologies for Using Electricity

3. Overall Consumption of Electricity in the United States

4. Overarching Issues

Chapter Two. The Regulatory Framework for Coal-Fired Electricity Generation

1. Introduction

2. The Business Regulatory Climate

3. The Environmental Regulatory Climate

4. Conclusions

Chapter Three. Setting the Technical Foundation for Modern Power Plants—1 (1900–1920)

1. Introduction

2. Emergence and Development of the Turbine

3. Boiler Improvements

4. Conclusion

Chapter Four. Setting the Technical Foundation for Modern Power Plants—2 (1920–1945)

1. Introduction

2. Pulverized Coal Firing

3. Increased Boiler Pressure

4. Electrostatic Precipitators

5. Consequences for Power Generation of the Period 1920–45

Chapter Five. The Emergence of Modern Coal-Fired Generation: 1945–75

1. Introduction

2. General Trends

3. Capitalizing Upon the Engineering and Commercial Advances Developed Before World War II

4. New Technologies to Improve Electricity Generation Efficiency

5. Consequences and Conclusions

Chapter Six. Conventional Power Plant Technology Advances at the End of the 20th Century (1970–2000)

1. Introduction

2. Environmental/Economic Technology Strategy: Fuel Selection and Management With Low-Rank Coals

3. Combustion System Innovations for Pulverized Coal and Cyclone Boilers

4. Development of Additional Plant Improvements

5. Conclusions

Chapter Seven. Development of New Approaches to Coal Utilization for Electricity Generation

1. Introduction

2. Fluidized Bed Combustion

3. Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Power Generation

4. Conclusions

Chapter Eight. Coal-Fired Power Plants: 2000–Present and Beyond

1. Introduction

2. Ultrasupercritical Power Plants

3. Fluidized Bed Technology Maturation

4. Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Technology

5. Turbine Technology and Other Advances

6. Conclusions

Chapter Nine. The Development of Postcombustion Control Technology

1. Introduction

2. The Control of Particulate Emissions

3. Control Systems for Sulfur Oxides and Other Acid Gases

4. NOx Control Technologies

5. Mercury Control Technologies

6. Carbon Capture Technologies

7. Conclusions

Index

Copyright

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Cover photograph is a picture of the John W. Turk Jr. power plant, the first ultrasupercritical (USC) power plant built in the US, at Southwest Electric Power Co., an American Electric Power Co. Utility. It is the most efficient power plant in the US while burning Powder River Basin coal and also exhibiting very low emissions. (Photograph courtesy of American Electric Power Co.)

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Dedication

In memory of my late father, James L. Tillman.

A career engineer and a lifelong student of history.

This book is for him.

Preface

Coal fueled the industrial revolution in the United States, England, Germany, Russia, and elsewhere around the globe. It is no stretch to say that coal use in the United States served an environmental protection function; in the late 19th century, a vast amount of the forestland was being harvested for both material and fuel purposes. By the late 19th century, Vermont was only 10% forested, raising some environmental alarm. Similar issues existed in parts of Pennsylvania and other states. The transition from wood fuel to coal began at about 1850 and gained real momentum at about 1880. Coal quickly became the fuel of the process industry—dominated by iron and steel—and transportation—dominated by the railroads.

When the electricity generation industry came along in the 1980s and beyond, it was natural for coal to fuel the thermal plants starting with Pearl Street Station and growing from there. Stoker boilers and steam engines originally dominated the industry. In the course of about a century, turbines of increasing size (capacity) and complexity replaced steam engines. Pulverized coal, cyclone, and fluidized bed boilers replaced stoker-fired units, and boilers grew in capacity, complexity, height, and cross-sectional area. Pollution controls included the methods of firing coal, the selection of coals, and the addition of postcombustion control technologies (e.g., electrostatic precipitators). Ancillary technologies from pulverizers to regenerative air heaters aided in this use of coal. Integrated coal gasification combined cycle power plants also experienced some technological advances.

Coal-fired power generation experienced dramatic improvements in efficiency. These efficiency gains, coupled with commercially proven postcombustion controls, have led to the production of significantly fewer airborne emissions in lb/kWh. They also experienced radically reduced emissions in tons/yr. This included particulates, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, hazardous air pollutants, and carbon dioxide. With respect to carbon dioxide, the coal-fired power plant community is producing the same amount of CO2 as of this writing (2017) as it did in 1980. Efficiency has much to do with that. And there is more that can be gained through efficiency if the permitting process allows new coal-fired power plants to go forward.

This book focuses on commercially proven technologies; as a consequence, it passes over some of the developments that did not come to commercial fruition. Principle among these could well be magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), where a stream of exceedingly hot gas seeded with potassium iodide or a similar compound is passed through a magnetic field to produce direct current that can be converted to alternating current. The waste heat from this open channel (at, for example, 3500°F) can then be passed through a conventional waste heat boiler series. Efficiencies >50% can be achieved, particularly if the MHD channel is coupled with an ultrasupercritical boiler. The Russians built a 27  MW open-channel MHD test unit. Avco and others in the United States also built systems. The Achilles heel of this technology, when developed in the 1960s and 1970s, was extremely high rates of NOx generation; selective catalytic reduction was not available at that time. Perhaps it should be reexamined.

This book focuses on commercially proven technologies using a historical track as one principle analytic tool. It follows the principle: you can't tell where you are going if you don't know where you have been. The historical track is of critical importance. It documents many of the critical developments that have improved power generation efficiency (coal-to-kilowatts) some 20-fold. It shows how one technology builds on another to achieve the ultimate state of technology that we now have. This approach provides a means to evaluate emissions generation and release. Because the book uses history as an analytical tool, it must address Dr. Robert Heilbroner's questions of Do machines make history? and Does technology drive history? These questions are also posed by Dr. Merritt Roe Smith and Dr. Leo Marx. In the broadest sense, the answer to both questions must be a resounding yes. The creation of electricity as a near-universally available, cheap, and widely useful source of energy has made history over and over again and has driven history. Inventions of the electric light bulb and the electric motor are sufficient proof. This book, however, drills down beyond the broadest spectrum to evaluate the specific trends of the technology. This proves more interesting and more complex.

Because this book provides a means to evaluate technologies for power generation and emissions management, it required the active support of many individuals, and many are acknowledged here. Certainly, the book would not have been possible without the active support of Bruce Miller of the Pennsylvania State University. Other contributors as reviewers and data suppliers included Dr. N. Stanley Harding, Donald Kawecki, Director for the Americas of Hamon (including Research Cottrell), Dao N.B. Duong of Amec Foster Wheeler, Dr. Evan Hughes, and Jeffrey Nelson. Suppliers of much information and photography included Claudia Banner, Tammy Ridout, and Sarah Garwood of American Electric Power; Michael Dunlap II, Andrew Dobrzanski, David Nordstrand, Dominic Martino, and Jason Wong of DTE Energy; Tom Johnson of Southern Company; Leonard Allen of Weststar; William Kitto; Greg Tomei and Greg Golub of Babcock & Wilcox; James Kaufman of Tacoma Public Utilities; Chris Catalano, commercial artist; Patricia P. Andersen of Sargent & Lundy; Tanveer Kahn of Amec Foster Wheeler; Neil Raskin; and Donald Bonk. Without their amazing help, including permissions to use photographs and critiquing of chapter drafts, this book would not have happened. They are responsible for many of the insights; I take full ownership of the mistakes and shortcomings of this effort.

Given all of that, this book is an attempt to show what progress has been made in coal-fired power plant technology, and how efficiency can be a critical technology in emissions management.

Sincerely,

David A. Tillman, PhD

Chapter One

Introduction

The Overarching Issues

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the general history of electricity supply, by source (e.g., coal), and consumption. It considers those technologies and inventions that drove electricity demand upward, even through the depression, and made electricity consumption a primary measure of standard of living. It considers the influence of generation efficiency on cost of electricity. It considers the influence of energy generation efficiency on CO2 emissions.

Keywords

Energy consumption; Energy demand; Household use of electricity; Industrial use of electricity; New technologies; Standard of living

1. Introduction

Electricity! The very term has come to mean not only the form of energy that we receive and consume when we flip the switch on our wall, but it also connotes excitement and—to a very large extent—progress. The phrase, its electric has a very positive connotation. Society's mastery of electrons and their versatility has come to be a sound measure of our very standard of living. From the machinist in the factory, to the automobile mechanic, to the parent performing household chores, to the young and old alike seeking communication with friends and entertainment both within and outside of the home, electricity utilization as a measure of our standard of living and the quality of our employment is obvious.

1.1. Characteristics of Electricity

Ignoring, for the moment, the technical characteristics defined in Ohm's law and other properties taught and learned in physics lectures and texts, there are very important functional characteristics of electricity. These characteristics or functional properties are critical both to the user and the supplier of electricity. These characteristics are the basis for the phenomenal growth of this commodity in our everyday life.

1.1.1. Beneficial Attributes of Electricity

Electricity can be used to produce light. The invention of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879 is frequently considered as the seminal invention ushering in the age of electricity. Although the first successful light bulbs had a functional life of 40  h, by 1880 Edison's incandescent light bulbs had functional lives of 1200  h [1–3]. But Edison was not the only inventor and developer of electric light technology. Europeans had used arc lamps for theater lighting since 1849 [2]. Charles Brush developed arc lamps for outdoor use that generated very bright light; these were used first for street lighting in Cleveland, Ohio, and were then used in Detroit [4] and in other cities across the United States. Subsequent inventions included fluorescent light bulbs, mercury vapor lamps, and more.

Electricity can be used to generate motion, and force, through the operation of motors. Electric motors have become ubiquitous in society and have been so for many years. Today they come in all sizes from the tiny fractional horsepower motors used to drive household appliances to the giant motors of industry (e.g., the twin 5000-kW motors used to produce thermomechanical pulp for the manufacture of newsprint and other papers [5]).

Electricity can be used to generate heat, or cold, through a variety of technologies. These include resistance heating, heat pumps, and a variety of other devices. Air-conditioning and refrigeration use electricity to cool (or make cold) certain defined spaces.

Electricity can be used to drive industrial processes such as the Hall–Heroult process for smelting of aluminum. Electrowinning also applies to other nonferrous metals, such as copper, lead, zinc, and more. Even gold can be obtained by such processes. Although a discussion of electrowinning techniques is well beyond the scope of this text, an excellent discussion of copper production by leaching or solvent extraction can be found in Beukes and Badenhorst [6].

Electricity can also be used to power electronics (e.g., the television), generate vibrations for sound, transmit information (starting with the telegraph and telephone), and a host of other applications. In short it is the most versatile form of energy that exists today. These applications will be explored in more detail in subsequent sections of this chapter.

1.1.2. Limitations of Electricity

Electricity has one limitation, however: storage in large quantities is not practical and, for the most part, not possible today. Batteries can be used for small- and moderate-sized uses up to and including automobiles with limited transportation ranges. However, unlike fossil and combustible fuels or water used in hydroelectric generating stations, electricity does not store. Generate it, transmit it to the point of use, and use it. This creates the need for a vast and complex infrastructure of transmission and distribution systems.

1.2. Electricity Intertwined With Coal

From the very first central station power plant, the Pearl St. Station built by and operated by the business interests of Thomas Edison in New York City, electricity generation has been connected closely to coal. At the dawn of the electrical age numerous very small generating stations were built near the markets for power; many were direct current (DC) stations, although the innovations of Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, promoting alternating current (AC) stations were beginning to take hold. Electricity was generated largely either in hydroelectric installations such as the power station at Niagara Falls or in these small coal-fired power plants (see, for example, Refs. [1,2,7]). And throughout the 20th century, and to the present day, coal remains the most common source of energy used to generate electricity as is shown in Fig. 1.1.

Figure 1.1  Sources of energy for the generation of electricity, 1947–2015. Note that the category all other includes hydroelectric, petroleum, biomass, geothermal, wind and solar power. Based on H. Enzer, W. Dupree, S. Miller, Energy Perspectives, US Department of the Interior, Washington, DC, 1975; US Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review: November 2015, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 2015; W. Dupree, H. Enzer, S. Miller, D. Hilllier, Energy Perspectives 2, US Department of the Interior, Washington, DC, 1976.

1.2.1. Early Developments of Electricity and Coal

Note that, in the early years of electricity, there was significant competition for the lighting market between electricity, natural gas if available, and town gas generated from coal, coke, or heavy oil. Until natural gas became available throughout all of the major markets of the United States—the major urban areas—town gas made from coal was a fixture. The famed gas house gang of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1934 with Dizzy and Paul Dean, Leo Durocher, Frankie Frisch, Joe (Ducky) Medwick, Enos (Country) Slaughter, and more was named to reflect the town gas plant supplying coal gas to that city. Virtually every major city had its own coal gasification plant; the one serving Seattle, Washington, is preserved as a public park (see Fig. 1.2). Electricity came to dominate the lighting market and become competitive in terms of heating and cooking (household thermal) applications.

Figure 1.2  The coal gasification plant in Seattle, as it now stands as a centerpiece in Gasworks Park.

In the United States, electricity became the dominant market for coal in about 1960 (see Fig. 1.3) and became the overwhelming market for coal by 1980 [8]. In Great Britain, electricity became the primary market for coal in about 1968; it then became the near exclusive market for coal shortly thereafter [10]. Electricity became the dominating market for coal in Germany, Denmark, and other northern European nations as well. The same holds true in China and most of Asia as well. The symbiotic relationship between electricity supply and the use of coal in power plants is thus well beyond debate.

1.2.2. Coal Production in Response to the Electricity Market

The growth in the use of electricity within the US economy and within other developed economies throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries has been spectacular, as will be discussed in the subsequent section of this book. At the same time, coal has been—and remains—the backbone of the electricity industry. Coal is abundant in the United States and found in virtually every region as is shown in Fig. 1.4. The United States has the most abundant coal resources and reserves in the world.

Figure 1.3  Relative markets for coal in the United States. Based on US Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review: November 2015, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 2015.

There are several classes or ranks of coal defined by numerous characteristics including percentage fixed carbon and percentage volatile matter from the proximate analysis, calorific value or higher heating value, and agglomerating tendency. They are also characterized by age, by maceral composition (i.e., vitrinite, exinite), by percentage sulfur and ash, by ash chemistry, by reactivity measured by pyrolysis and char oxidation kinetics, and by numerous other parameters. A complete discussion of coal characteristics by rank and by other parameters can be found in Miller and Tillman (eds) [11]. Table 1.1 presents calorific values of coals as a function of rank, defined by American Society for Testing and Materials Standard D 388.

Coal fueled the industrial revolution both in Europe and in the United States. By the turn of the 20th century, the United States had emerged as the dominant coal producer and consumer as is shown in Table 1.2. It was followed by Great Britain, Germany, and other developed economies. By this time, Germany and Austria were already mining both bituminous coal and lignite.

Figure 1.4  Deposits of coal in the United States [9] .

Table 1.1

Classification of various ranks of coal (ASTM D 388)

a Moist, mineral matter free. Moist is defined as containing inherent moisture but not including visible moisture on the coal particle surface.

b Typical HHV values for anthracites are 12,800–14,000+ Btu/lb.

Adapted from J.B. Kitto, S.C. Stultz (Eds.), Steam: Its Generation and Use, fourty-first ed., Babcock & Wilcox Company, Barberton, OH, 2005.

Table 1.2

Major coal producers in 1905

a Includes both bituminous coal and lignite.

Based on Anon., History of Coal Mining, Undated. Wilipedia.

Within the United States, Pennsylvania led all states in coal production until 1931, when West Virginia became the leading coal producer [14–16]. During the 1990s and at the turn of the 21st century, Wyoming eclipsed all other producers with the maturation of the Powder River Basin coal fields, effectively opened up in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mining techniques improved dramatically during the 20th century. The powered drill, introduced in 1910, was the harbinger of things to come. Although mining was largely underground in the first half of the 20th century, it became increasingly mechanized. In the room and pillar system, where 50% to 70% of the coal is/was left behind to avoid subsidence on the surface land, the coal is undercut by large powered saws capable of cutting 20′ into the seam, at the working face. Holes are drilled for blasting by powered drills. After the coal is blasted from the seam, powered vehicles with long arms gather the coal and place it in electric carts; and these carts carry the coal to conveyor belts, removing the coal from the mine. Alternatively, continuous miner machines rip the coal from the face and load it into the carts. Late in the 20th century, longwall mining underground replaced much of the room and pillar mining. High productivity with fewer workers became the key.

Even more dramatic was the rise of surface mining techniques with large electrically powered walking draglines, trucks, and electrically powered shovels. The Powder River Basin mines exemplify such approaches. In mines such as the lignite or brown coal mines in Germany, bucketwheel excavators are used as an alternative. Such equipment is reported to produce as much as a million tons of coal every 3  days. Where coal mines began as relatively small, labor-intensive operations; they have become large mechanized (and electrified) production systems. The largest US surface and underground coal mines of the United States as of the year 2015 are shown in Table 1.3. The US coal industry production rose from a level of 350  million  tons/year in 1905 to a level of over 1  billion  tons/year in 2012 and has since declined to 982  million  tons/year in 2013 and then to a level of 897  million  tons in 2015 [16–18].

Coal transportation changed accordingly. In the 1960s, after power plants were built in ever larger sizes, railroads began adopting the practice of unit trains—100+ coal cars that would proceed from the mine to a given power plant. Coal cars also changed, with increased capacity in tons coal/car. The traditional coal car up until the 1950s was the bottom dump 50  ton car shown in Fig. 1.5. With the advent of unit trains from both east and west, and the heavier rail, cars grew to 100  ton steel cars and then 125  ton aluminum cars as shown in Fig. 1.6. For those destined to power plants with rotary car dumpers, coal cars no longer had bottom dump capability but used that area for increased coal capacity. Unit trains began in the east but were dominant in the west. And aluminum body cars became the norm to decrease the tare weight on the cars to increase the coal-carrying capacity. Rail transportation still dominates coal shipments [19].

Table 1.3

Representative large surface and underground coal mines in the United States, 2015

Based on US Energy Information Administration, Annual Coal Report 2015, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 2017.

Figure 1.5  The traditional 50   ton coal car on display at Steamtown, United States, a museum devoted to railroading up to the 1950s.

Figure 1.6  A 125   ton aluminum Johnstown Coal Porter coal car designed for rotary car dumping. This car had just been emptied at the Oak Creek Power Plant of WE Energy.

The importance of coal to electricity is best shown by the Chinese economy. China has become an industrial powerhouse. It consumes about 3  billion  tons of coal annually, which is over three times as much coal annually as is consumed in the United States. Most is used for electricity.

2. The Development of Technologies for Using Electricity

Given the overview presented above, it is instructive to survey the history of electricity: its scientific development and the engineering marvels that expanded its utilization into nearly every facet of our lives. This provides a basis for understanding the importance—the criticality—of the engineering developments in coal-fired electricity supply.

2.1. A History of Scientific and Engineering Progress

Electricity is the form of energy that sprung from science and engineering, perhaps more than any other form of energy. A timeline of early scientific discoveries and initial engineering breakthroughs is shown in Table 1.4.

Table 1.4

Initial scientific and engineering developments of electricity