Category Archives: Power Generating Technology – Fossil

What are the Sources of Electric Power in the USA?

Peter Lobner

The sources of electric power used in California have changed significantly between 2004 and 2014. The distribution of California’s energy sources, among natural gas, renewables (wind & solar), hydroelectric, and nuclear is shown in the following chart. California does not use coal or petroleum to generate electric power.

CA energy use 2004 - 2014  USA energy use 2004 - 2014

Nationally, on a percentage basis, coal use is on the decline and use of natural gas and renewables is on the increase in most states.

Check out the following NPR website, which is the source of the above charts, to see similar charts for all 50 states.

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/10/319535020/coal-gas-nuclear-hydro-how-your-state-generates-power?utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

EPA Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule Does Not Adequately Recognize the Role of Nuclear Power in Greenhouse Gas Reduction

Peter Lobner

On June 2, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed what they called, “a common sense plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants.”  You can access the Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule and many related documents at the following EPA link:

http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-power-plan-proposed-rule

This Plan proposes to limit carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel fired electric generating units, including steam generating, integrated gasification combined cycle, or stationary combustion turbines (in either simple-cycle or combined-cycle configuration) operating or under construction by January 8, 2014. Main points of the Clean Power Plan include:

  • Wind and solar power are the preferred EPA options.
  • Natural gas is an interim solution.
  • New nuclear capacity is not a compliance option.
  • The EPA allows compliance credit for:
    • New nuclear plants currently under construction, and
    • Preservation of existing nuclear plants that might otherwise be retired

I’ve already formed my opinion on the Clean Power Plan. To help you form your opinion, I recommend that you refer to the following recent analyses by four respected government and industry organizations that have reviewed the Clean Power Plan.

Institute for Energy Research (IER)

On 15 June 2015, the IER issued the results of their analysis entitled, EPA’s Clean Power Plan Ignores New Nuclear as a Compliance Option. IER concluded that the compliance formulae in the Clean Power Plan are biased toward new wind and solar power development. Deployment of these technologies, which currently are not capable of delivering reliable capacity, will decrease the reliability of the electric grid. IER also concluded that the Clean Power Plan will result in much higher electricity prices for all American consumers, while having only a marginal impact on global temperature based on EPA’s computer models.

You can read the IER analysis at the following link:

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/epas-clean-power-plan-ignores-new-nuclear-as-a-compliance-option/

National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA)

On 21 May 2015, the NACAA issued a report entitled, Implementing EPA’s Clean Power Plan: A Menu of Options, containing 25 chapters, each of which explores a particular approach to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction in the electric power sector.  NACAA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit association of air pollution control agencies in 41 states, the District of Columbia, four territories and 116 metropolitan areas.  Each chapter of their Menu of Options includes a brief descriptions of: (1) the option and it’s pros and cons; (2) the regulatory backdrop, policy underpinnings, implementation experience, and GHG reduction potential associated with the option; and (3) benefits of the option to society and the utility system, including costs and cost-effectiveness. In the last chapter, a variety of emerging technologies and other policy options for reducing GHG emissions are addressed.

An interesting table and two figures included in Chapter 6 of the Menu of Options are reproduced below.

NACAA Table 6-1 Source: NACAA

In 2012, electric power generation technologies with zero or low GHG emissions accounted for 31.4% of the USA’s total generating capacity. The data in Table 6-1 shows that 82.2% of the zero or low GHG emission generating capacity came from nuclear and hydroelectric power plants. The remaining low-emission generation capacity came from biomass, wind, geothermal, and solar power plants.

NACAA Figure 6-3Source: NACAA

In Figure 6-3, “life cycle GHG emissions” include those associated with operation as well as construction, fabrication, and fuel processing.  While nuclear power is not included among the “technologies powered by renewable resources”, it’s clear in Figure 6-3 that nuclear power meets the GHG reduction performance of the other technologies using renewable resources.

NACAA Figure 6-7  Source: NACAA

In Figure 6-7, note the relative cost-of-energy differential between nuclear power and fossil power. This difference makes it difficult for nuclear power plants to compete head-to-head with coal and natural gas merchant power plants and encourages the early retirement of some nuclear power plants on economic grounds.  While most renewable power sources have even higher costs-of-energy, various financial schemes subsidize their power generation.

You can download individual chapters or the entire NACAA Menu of Options at the following link:

http://www.4cleanair.org/NACAA_Menu_of_Options

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

On 22 May 2015, the EIA released their analysis of the Clean Power Plan. The EIA analysis supports the IER finding that the Clean Power Plan will result in much higher electricity prices for all American consumers, even in a scenario that allows GHG reduction credit for new nuclear generation.

You can read the EIA press release at the following link:

http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/powerplants/cleanplan/

You also can download a PDFs copy of the May 2015 EIA report, Analysis of the Impacts of the Clean Power Plan, at the following link:

http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/powerplants/cleanplan/pdf/powerplant.pdf

Nuclear Energy Institute’s (NEI)

To address the “clean power” attributes of nuclear power, I refer you to an NEI Knowledge Center webpage: Environment: Emissions Prevented, which you will find at the following link:

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/Environment-Emissions-Prevented

Here you’ll find a link to data on the amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide emissions avoided in the U.S. during the years 1995 to 2014 by virtue of having about 20% of U.S. electric power generated by nuclear power plants instead of fossil power plants. NEI reports the total avoided emissions for this period as follows:

  • Sulfur dioxide: 57.75 million short tons (52.4 million metric tons)
  • Nitrogen oxides: 22.92 million short tons (20.8 million metric tons)
  • Carbon dioxide: 13,063.6 million short tons (11,851 million metric tons)

On this website, NEI states:

“Nuclear energy facilities avoided 595 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2014 across the U.S. This is nearly as much carbon dioxide as is released from nearly 135 million cars, which is more than all U.S. passenger cars. The U.S. produces more than five billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Without the emission avoidances from nuclear generation, required reductions in the U.S. would increase by more than 50 percent to achieve targets under the Kyoto Protocol.”

2013 paper, “Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power”.

Supporting the above NEI position on the GHG reduction merits of nuclear power, there is a related 2013 article by NASA scientists from Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University entitled, “Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power”.  You can read a short article on this paper on the Scientific American website at the following link:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/

You also can read the complete paper at the following link:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es3051197

In their study, authors Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen used historical production data from 1971 to 2009 and calculated that global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. From their analysis, the authors drew the following conclusion:

“In conclusion, it is clear that nuclear power has provided a large contribution to the reduction of global mortality and GHG emissions due to fossil fuel use. If the role of nuclear power significantly declines in the next few decades, the International Energy Agency asserts that achieving a target atmospheric GHG level of 450 ppm CO2-eq would require “heroic achievements in the deployment of emerging low- carbon technologies, which have yet to be proven. Countries that rely heavily on nuclear power would find it particularly challenging and significantly more costly to meet their targeted levels of emissions.”

So, what do you think about the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan? Is this the “common sense plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants” promised by EPA; a politically motivated piece of crap designed to kill the nuclear and coal power industries; or something in between?

Efficiency in Electricity Generation

Peter Lobner

On 9 March 2015, Siemens announced that it had achieved a generation efficiency record at the Cengiz Enerji Samsun combined-cycle gas turbine power plant in Turkey. With an installed capacity of 600 MWe, this plant achieves a net efficiency of almost 61%. This makes Cengiz Enerji Samsun the most efficient fossil-fired 50 Hz power plant in 2015, not only in Turkey, but in the world.

You can read more at the following link:

http://www.globalenergyworld.com/news/15838/Siemens_Achieves_Record_Efficiency_With_The_Samsun_H-class_Power_Plant.htm

If you wonder how this level of generation efficiency compares to other types of electric power generators, then I recommend that you read the July 2003 report, “Efficiency in Electric Power Generation,” drafted by Union of the Electricity Industry – EURELECTRIC (Brussels, Belgium) and VGB PowerTech (Essen, Germany).

Report cover page

While this report is 12 years old, I think it remains one of the best single sources of comparative efficiency information on a very wide range of generator types. You can download a pdf version of this report by doing an Internet search for:

Efficiency in electricity generation – Eurelectric

The link you need should be at or near the top of your search results.

Eurelectric pdf document search result

One of the key results presented in this report is a chart showing comparative efficiencies. The new Cengiz Enerji Samsun power plant raises the bar a few percentage points for “Large gas fired CCGT power plant”.

5 July 2016 update:  New record for fossil plant efficiency

On 17 June 2016, General Electric (GE) and Électricité de France (EDF) began operating the first ever combined-cycle power plant equipped with GE’s 9HA large gas turbine.  GE advertises the 9HA as the “world’s largest and most efficient heavy duty gas turbine”.  There are two models, 9HA.01 and 9HA.02 that have claimed simple cycle outputs and net efficiencies of 397 MWe @ 41.5% net efficiency, and 510 MWe @ 41.8% net efficiency, respectively.  In a combined cycle application, the power outputs and efficiencies increase substantially.  GE claims the 9HA.01 delivers 592 MWe @ 61.6% net efficiency, while the 9HA.02 delivers 755 MWe @ 61.8% net efficiency.  You can download a GE specification sheet on the 9HA at the following link:

https://powergen.gepower.com/content/dam/gepower-pgdp/global/en_US/documents/product/gas%20turbines/Fact%20Sheet/9ha-fact-sheet-oct15.pdf

With regard to the new 605 MWe combined cycle 9HA.01 power plant at Bouchain, France, GE announced that this plant has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s most efficient combined-cycle power plant, with a demonstrated net efficiency of 62.22% (better than advertised by GE).  You can read the GE announcement at the following link:

https://powergen.gepower.com/about/insights/bouchain-grand-opening.html