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WELCOME
Weekly selected highlights in flow
control, treatment and combustion from the many McIlvaine publications.
· Market Briefs
· Lots of Water Reuse Discussion at WEFTEC
·
Food Flow and Treat Multi-Client Reports in
Preparation
· The Compromise Solution in the Climate Change
Debate
·
World Wide Tree Planting and Biomass Ready Coal
Plants are the Compromise Climate Change Solution
·
Why can India Justify Coal-fired Power Plant
Expansion?
· Biomass
Capable Coal-fired Plants are the Answer for Developing Countries
· Drax
Plans to Suck Out 50 Percent of the Needed UK CO2 Tons
and Sequester It
· Planting
Trees can Greatly Reduce the CO2
· CFB
Technology has the Biomass Capability and Needed Efficiency
· Teesside’s
CFB-based 300 MW Biomass Plant
· How CFB
Addresses the Challenges of Biomass Burning at Utility Scale
· The Value
Proposition for CFB Power Plants in Indonesia and Broader Asia
Market
Briefs
Lots of Water
Reuse Discussion at WEFTEC
WEFTEC
has held in Chicago this week. Many
of the stands and speeches dealt with water reuse. There is a major trend to purify
municipal wastewater and return it to drinking water sources. There was a tertiary membrane mobile
session with stops at Toray, Pall, and
Suez. McIlvaine prepared tour
guides on membrane bioreactors, blowers for aeration, and dryers. These
will be updated to reflect information gathered at the stands and speeches.
Food
Flow and Treat Multi-Client Reports in Preparation
The food
industry has a number of distinct flow and treat processes. Each segment
has unique requirements. A few thousand operators account for 75 percent of
the purchases. The report will analyze the processes and provide forecast
of purchases not only by country but by purchaser. Individual segmentation and analysis will
be provided for
- Beer
- Wine
- Distilled
spirits
- Soft
drinks
- Dairy
- Corn/Grain
- Fruit/Vegetable
including juices
- Meat/Poultry/Seafood
- Oils
- Sugar
Cane/Beet
- Confectionery
The
report is being customized to some extent depending on the specific
products which are of interest.
Presently the scope includes decanter centrifuges, basket
centrifuges disk centrifuges, belt filters, filter presses, cross flow
membranes and cartridges. The
potential scope includes dryers, pumps, valves, instrumentation and air
pollution control products. Clients will receive excel files with specific
product forecasts for each segment in each country and forecasts by
purchaser. In each case this report will be a supplement to the product
market reports which already
includes food but as one industry.
For more information on this initiative contact Bob McIlvaine at rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com or by cell 847 226 2391.
The Compromise
Solution in the Climate Change Debate
World
Wide Tree Planting and Biomass Ready Coal Plants are the Compromise Climate
Change Solution
Biomass
ready coal fired plants and a worldwide tree planting program are the best
path forward to dealing with climate change issues.
· The concern by advocates of fossil
fuel elimination is that the damage will occur 50 years from now but the
path will be irreversible. But a new
technology to suck the CO2 out of the air means that the crisis can be
abated.
· Massive tree planting now will take
out CO2 for the next 40 years but when these trees die there needs to be
biomass combustors which use the energy and sequester the CO2.
· Analyses
by Drax shows how one 4000 MW former coal plant can burn biomass, sequester
CO2 and create 50% of the CO2 reduction goals for the entire country.
· Analyses
by researchers show planning 1.2 trillion trees is the best way to reduce
CO2 emissions in the atmosphere.
· The
McIlvaine analysis shows that 30-40 years from now when the 1.2 trillion
trees start to die, they can be a cheap source of biomass for combustors.
· Breakthroughs
on CO2 capturing solvents and use of CO2 in fracking and other new
applications will make sequestration economic.
· CFB
boilers are capable of handling a wide variety of fuels from coal to
relatively poor quality biomass.
· India
has already determined that CFB boilers are a cost effective option.
· This
compromise program will result in better life quality for citizens of the
world than any other and can be evaluated based on a common metric to
measure all harm and good.
If
developing countries move ahead with their coal fired boiler plans but make
those combustors biomass ready in the future and if the tree planting
program moves forward, this provides a cost effective approach which should
receive wide spread support.
This
support will be even broader if logic is applied to the options and if
there is agreement that people should have what they want and not
necessarily what someone 5,000 miles away thinks they should have. People
can be relied upon to make rational choices with the adoption of a common
metric to measure all harm and good. This is explained in an article
below.
Why can India Justify Coal-fired
Power Plant Expansion?
India is expanding coal-fired power capacity and can justify
it based on the Sustainability Universal Rating
System.
India expects coal-fired power capacity to grow by 22 percent
in three years. That’s according to the Chief Engineer at the country’s
Federal Power Ministry, Ghanshyam Prasad, who Reuters reported as stating
coal capacity is likely to reach 238 GW by 2022.
India’s Coal Minister, Pralhad Joshi previously
said annual coal demand rose by 9.1 percent during
the year ending March 2019, noting the figure hit 991.35 million tons,
driven primarily by utilities, which accounted for three-quarters of total
demand. The anticipated growth is likely to affect efforts to cut emissions
and could risk worsening already poor air quality. India’s electricity
demand rose by 36 percent in the seven years up to April 2019, while
coal-fired generation capacity during the period rose by three-quarters to
194.44GW.
Pralhad Joshi said, despite the growth rate in thermal
capacity outpacing electricity consumption in the last few years, more
coal-fired power plants will still be needed in the future to meet
growth. He added: “If we have to meet demand and address the
intermittencies we have with solar and wind, we have no choice but to keep
depending on coal-based generation in the near future”
India must address the question of balancing the benefits to
the world vs. the benefits to citizens of India. Cardinal Health
contracted with McIlvaine to answer a similar question relative to
single-use surgical garments. Should a hospital throw away surgical
garments after each use or wash them? Washing exposes local hospital
clients to the risks of viruses in the water while manufacturing the
garments generates CO2 somewhere. One risk is personal and
immediate. The other risk is long term and general.
McIlvaine realized that it
was necessary to develop a common metric to measure harm and
good. This metric is labeled Quality Enhanced Life Days (QELD). It
is described in a hospital magazine article https://www.healthcaredevelopmentmagazine.com/.../quality-enhanced-life-days-a-ne... In
terms of decision making, QELD is radically different from the accepted
medical metric Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY).
Let’s say an Indian
without electricity sleeps more hours at night. Without a large income
he eats more fruit and vegetables and less ice cream and pizza. The
Indian without electricity lives to age 90 while the Indian with
electricity only lives to age 88. The QELD metric would rate the
electricity option as superior while the QALY metric rates the “no
electricity” scenario as superior. It is only common sense. Would you
rather be in solitary confinement for the next 50 years or only live 40
years longer leading your present life?
The quality of life
has to be taken into account in any government policy. If coal-fired
power can give reliable electricity to millions 10 years earlier than
a plan that excludes coal, then the quality of life benefits have to be
taken into consideration. Discounted future value has to be
considered. The millionaire in the U.S. setting up a trust fund for his grandchildren
enhances his life quality with this sacrifice. The Indian grandfather
worried about the basic needs of his grandchildren will take satisfaction
from making life better for them now. Since many of the negative impacts of
greenhouse gases are long term, there is the necessity to realize that the
discounted future value is dependent on the personal QELD of the
individual.
It would be
possible for the Indian government to estimate the cumulative QELD for
all Indians for any policy and then choose the one with the greatest
aggregate QELD.
Biomass Capable Coal-fired Plants are the Answer for Developing Countries
Developing countries are building more
coal-fired power plants than ever existed in the U.S. They will not be
dissuaded by arguments about climate change. If the choice is
electricity, ice cream and death through drowning or disease at 85 versus
eating raw vegetables in the dark and living to 90, the vast majority of
people will choose life quality over quantity.
There is a way to have your cake and eat it
too, build biomass-capable coal plants and initiate a worldwide tree
planting program.
This maximum flexibility is achieved with a
program which greatly increases biomass growth and then allows coal-fired
boilers to be converted to biomass combustion if necessary. Here are the
reasons this is the best approach.
- No option, such as wind or
solar, would have the CO2 reduction impact of biomass
combustion and sequestration. If all fossil boilers switched to this
mode, we would take as much CO2 out of the air in the
next 30 years as we added to it in the last 30 years.
- The cost in the near term
is very low. Biomass-capable generators will not cost more than
conventional designs.
- Longer term, when due to
the planting program, there is ample low-cost biomass—the generators
can be converted. CO2 sequestration systems will be
added using the FGD scrubbers already installed.
- New uses for sequestered CO2 such
as hydraulic fracturing is being developed.
Drax
Plans to Suck Out 50 Percent of the Needed UK CO2 Tons
and Sequester It
The first carbon dioxide has been captured
using C-Capture technology at Drax Power Station in their innovative
bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot This moves
Britain further ahead in the race to develop BECCS technologies—essential
in the fight against climate change. The project could enable Drax to
become the world’s first negative emissions power station—reducing harmful
greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere.
The demonstration plant at the power station, near Selby in
North Yorkshire, is using innovative technology, developed by Leeds-based
C-Capture, to capture a ton of CO2 a day, during the pilot.
It is the first-time carbon dioxide has been captured from the combustion
of a 100% biomass feedstock anywhere in the world.
C-Capture utilizes solvent systems with
superior CO2 capture potential compared with current
industry standards and represents step change technologies that can
significantly improve the overall efficiency and economics of the process,
and hence reduce the cost and environmental impact.
If the BECCS pilot can be scaled up to
deliver negative emissions, Drax Power Station would be helping to
remove the gases that cause global warning from the atmosphere at the same
time as electricity is produced.
Engineers began commissioning the pilot
plant in November with the first carbon now being captured, proving that
the proprietary solvent developed by C-Capture can be used to isolate the
carbon dioxide from the flue gases released when biomass is used to generate
electricity.
Data being obtained about the CO2 capture
process will continue to be analyzed throughout the pilot to fully
understand the potential of the technology and how it could be scaled up at
Drax. Part of this will include identifying and developing ways to store
and use the carbon dioxide being captured.
Drax has invested £400,000 in the pilot,
which could be the first of several projects undertaken at the power
station to deliver a rapid, lower-cost demonstration of BECCS.
Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said:“
Proving that this innovative carbon capture technology works is an exciting
development and another important milestone in our BECCS project. Climate
change affects us all so this is of real significance – not just for us at
Drax, but also for the UK and the rest of the world.
“The successful deployment of BECCS requires
us to identify ways in which the carbon dioxide we’re now capturing can be
stored or used in other processes and we’re working with the government and
other businesses on that.
“We’re focused on working together to make
the progress required for us to tackle climate change and enable a zero
carbon, lower cost energy future.”
The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have estimated that BECCS
could enable us to capture 50 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by
2050—approximately half the nation’s emissions target.
Planting Trees can Greatly
Reduce the CO2
Natural forests can be supplemented by
plantations. This concept has been successfully demonstrated in the UK,
Uruguay, Finland and the Southeast U.S. There are many benefits beyond the
sequestration and fuel supply.
https://www.draxbiomass.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ASSESSMENT-BENEFITS-SUSTAINABLE-FOREST-MANAGEMENT-Poyry-report-for-Drax.pdf
Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and
cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists, who
have made the first calculation of how many more trees could be planted
without encroaching on crop land or urban areas.
As trees grow, they absorb and store the
carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating. New research
estimates that a worldwide planting program could remove two-thirds of all
the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human
activities, a figure the scientists describe as “mind-blowing.”
The analysis found there are 1.7 billion
hectares of treeless land on which 1.2 trillion native tree saplings would
naturally grow. That area is about 11% of all land and equivalent to the
size of the US and China combined. Tropical areas could have 100% tree
cover, while others would be more sparsely covered, meaning that on average
about half the area would be under tree canopy.
The scientists specifically excluded all
fields used to grow crops and urban areas from their analysis. But they did
include grazing land, on which the researchers say a few trees can also
benefit sheep and cattle.
“This new quantitative
evaluation shows [forest] restoration isn’t just one of our climate change
solutions, it is overwhelmingly the top one,” said Prof Tom Crowther at the
Swiss university ETH Zürich,
who led the research. “What blows my mind is the scale. I thought
restoration would be in the top 10, but it is overwhelmingly more powerful
than all of the other climate change solutions proposed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions
CFB Technology has the
Biomass Capability and Needed Efficiency
The Central Electricity Authority in
India has concluded that CFB technology has many advantages for new
coal-fired boilers. The ability to deal with Indian coals plus biomass, the
low NOx emissions and other features are attractive.
Progress in increasing the size and efficiency of CFB units over the last
decade has made them more cost-effective.
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Decision_Tree/subscriber/Tree/DescriptionTextLinks/Article_Indian_Mkt_Ripe_for_CFBs_TEIT_Sep19.pdf
Teesside’s CFB-based 300 MW Biomass Plant
Historically, the utility scale power plant
design has been determined by scale economics, fuel availability and
environmental impact. The world’s first 300 MW class, 100 percent
biomass-fired Tees renewable energy plant (Teesside) is being constructed
based on these parameters.
The 299 MWe plant located in the Tee-sport
Estate near Middlesbrough, UK, will become the world’s largest circulating
fluidized bed (CFB) technology-based plant firing only virgin biomass
sourced from international sustainable sources. http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Decision_Tree/subscriber/Tree/DescriptionTextLinks/Article_Bigger_and_Better_Renew_Watch_Mar2018.pdf
How CFB Addresses the Challenges of Biomass Burning at Utility Scale
Combustion of biomass poses a number of
problems, particularly in utility scale boilers. The circulating fluidized
bed has features that control ash agglomeration, fouling and corrosion, and
therefore make it particularly suitable for biomass applications, with
inherent characteristics that favor low emissions. The technology also has
considerable potential for greatly improved steam conditions.
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Decision_Tree/subscriber/Tree/DescriptionTextLinks/Article_CFBs_overcome_challenge_of_utility_scale_biomass_MPS_May18.pdf
The Value Proposition for CFB Power Plants in
Indonesia and Broader Asia
The use of circulating fluidized bed (CFB)
technology has steadily increased in large scale power generation
principally because of the technology’s inherent ability to burn a very
wide range of fuels, such as low-quality coals and lignites as well as
opportunity fuels like petcoke, waste coal washings, biomass and peat.
CFB is the only technology proven to fire
these fuels fully or in unlimited combinations while maintaining high plant
reliability and low plant maintenance. Its ability to fully fire or co-fire
biomass and other carbon neutral waste fuels offers power producers a low
risk and affordable path to carbon reduction.
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/Decision_Tree/subscriber/Tree/DescriptionTextLinks/CP_CFB_VP_for%20_Asia%20_PGAsia_19Sep18.pdf
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