Fossil fuel power station
The results of a recent study[3] show that the net income available to shareholders of large companies could see a significant reduction from the greenhouse gas emissions liability related to only natural disasters in the United States from a single coal-fired power plant.
Multiple generating units may be built at a single site for more efficient use of land, natural resources and labor.
The second law of thermodynamics states that any closed-loop cycle can only convert a fraction of the heat produced during combustion into mechanical work.
In a steam turbine power plant, fuel is burned in a furnace and the hot gasses flow through a boiler.
Emissions from the boiler include carbon dioxide, oxides of sulfur, and in the case of coal fly ash from non-combustible substances in the fuel.
One type of fossil fuel power plant uses a gas turbine in conjunction with a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG).
Emergency (standby) power systems may use reciprocating internal combustion engines operated by fuel oil or natural gas.
Rarely used generator sets may correspondingly be installed as natural gas or LPG to minimize the fuel system maintenance requirements.
Sometimes coal-fired steam plants are refitted to use natural gas to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions.
Distillate oil is still important as the fuel source for diesel engine power plants used especially in isolated communities not interconnected to a grid.
Thermal power plants are one of the main artificial sources of producing toxic gases and particulate matter.
Fossil fuel power plants cause the emission of pollutants such as NOx, SOx, CO2, CO, PM, organic gases and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
[12] World organizations and international agencies, like the IEA, are concerned about the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels, and coal in particular.
Modern day coal power plants pollute less than older designs due to new "scrubber" technologies that filter the exhaust air in smoke stacks.
In these modern designs, pollution from coal-fired power plants comes from the emission of gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide into the air, as well a significant volume of wastewater which may contain lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium, as well as arsenic, selenium and nitrogen compounds (nitrates and nitrites).
Concerns regarding the potential for such warming to change the global climate prompted IPCC recommendations calling for large cuts to CO2 emissions worldwide.
As of 2019[update] the price of emitting CO2 to the atmosphere is much lower than the cost of adding carbon capture and storage (CCS) to fossil fuel power stations, so owners have not done so.
The results of similar estimations are mapped by organisations such as Global Energy Monitor, Carbon Tracker and ElectricityMap.
[27] A recent study indicates that sulfur emissions from fossil fueled power stations in China may have caused a 10-year lull in global warming (1998–2008).
These ponds use gravity to settle out large particulates (measured as total suspended solids) from power plant wastewater.
In 2015 EPA published a regulation pursuant to the Clean Water Act that requires US power plants to use one or more of these technologies.
[13] Technological advancements in ion exchange membranes and electrodialysis systems has enabled high efficiency treatment of flue-gas desulfurization wastewater to meet the updated EPA discharge limits.
[29] Coal is a sedimentary rock formed primarily from accumulated plant matter, and it includes many inorganic minerals and elements which were deposited along with organic material during its formation.
[30] In comparison, a 1,000 MW nuclear plant will generate about 30 metric tons of high-level radioactive solid packed waste per year.
The study brought to 137 the number of ground water sites across the United States that are contaminated by power plant-produced coal ash.
[35] Coal ash contaminants are also linked to respiratory diseases and other health and developmental problems, and have disrupted local aquatic life.
Besides simply converting to run on a different fuel, some companies also offer the possibility to convert existing fossil-fuel power stations to grid energy storage systems which use electric thermal energy storage (ETES)[42] Coal pollution mitigation is a process whereby coal is chemically washed of minerals and impurities, sometimes gasified, burned and the resulting flue gases treated with steam, with the purpose of removing sulfur dioxide, and reburned so as to make the carbon dioxide in the flue gas economically[citation needed] recoverable, and storable underground (the latter of which is called "carbon capture and storage").
James Hansen in an open letter to then U.S. President Barack Obama advocated a "moratorium and phase-out of coal plants that do not capture and store CO2".
In his book Storms of My Grandchildren, similarly, Hansen discusses his Declaration of Stewardship, the first principle of which requires "a moratorium on coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester carbon dioxide".
Initial factors considered are: These costs occur over the 30–50 year life[clarification needed] of the fossil fuel power plants, using discounted cash flows.
