Most of the ones I had seen were coal fired plants. There was an interesting one near Orlando however, that burned mainly swamp and landfill gas. The idea was it would save money, and generate power from useless waste. The main problem however was the nasty wear and emissions they had to deal with. Those boiler walls eroded in strange patterns, and experienced different caustic issues. Not to mention the scrubbers that were used for emissions cost them a bundle. I wonder if they really saved money at all.
Most plant managers were complaining about the high cost of the mandatory scrubbers that are to be in place because of the clean air act. They would just love for someone to repeal that, so they could get away with the cost issues of scrubbers, and the additional maintenance and testing they required.
It was pretty amazing to stand inside a 12 story firebox, surrounded by walls of nothing but small tubing that carried the water to be turned into steam. Natural gas plants are of course much cleaner, but still require maintenance.
From the chatter I heard here and there from plant managers and operators is, they are all aware of the energy issues we face, as well as grid issues. Of course, this doesn't matter to them as their main job is a bottom line. I also talked to a customer about 6 months ago, who was an electrical engineer for Ohio Edison/First Energy. We go to talking after I saw various things around his house that told me what he did. I told him I was NDE, and it went from there. He as well was vehement about the problems of today, and how most people are simply indifferent to the real issues we face with fuel for an economy that needs to grow at a constant rate.
Well that's it, just felt like dropping that out there, was going to reply to another thread, but I figured I'd not mess anyone else's thread.
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