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WELCOME
Weekly selected highlights in flow
control, treatment and combustion from the many McIlvaine publications.
· The Opportunistic Antidote to the Climate Change
Doomsday Scenario
·
Urgent Answers for Flow and Treat Suppliers
·
Determining Flow and Treat Market Shares and
Rankings
· U.S. Coal Fired Flow and Treat Market will be
Diminished but Significant
The
Opportunistic Antidote to the Climate Change Doomsday Scenario
The
U.S. Administration will support a trillion tree planting campaign along
with many other nations. However, the U.S. still believes that warming may
be caused by solar activity and that increased CO2 levels are a result and
not cause of the warming. What if the U.S. government officials are wrong
and the doomsday predicters are right?
They say we are reaching a tipping point and it will be difficult if
not impossible to prevent the catastrophic floods and fires without
immediate cessation of fossil fuel burning.
Fossil
fuel elimination will certainly threaten economic prosperity throughout
Asia. If Asian nations are not
participants any reductions in Europe and the U.S. will be insignificant.
The
solution to this dilemma is a Doomsday antidote which is Opportunistic
Biomass Combustion and Sequestration. A UK consortium is already
generating a significant amount of its electricity from biomass burning and
will be distributing CO2 and hydrogen to industrial facilities and
sequestering the remaining CO2 underground.
In Canada the SaskPower Boundary Dam 3 coal fired plant has now
supplied 3 million tons of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.
So
there is no doubt that biomass combustion and CO2 sequestration is a
legitimate option. The question is
how costly will it be? It will not
be cheap but on the other hand if the doomsday believers are correct then
it could be the only option. This biomass combustion/sequestration will
“suck the CO2 out of the air”. Wind
and solar are just neutral. So the biomass option is the antidote for the
doomsday scenario.
The
greater the impending doom the greater the amount of biomass which should
be grown, combusted and sequestered.
But to be opportunistic why spend the money if it is not
needed. So the opportunistic
approach is to build and retain biomass capable fossil fuel boilers. Should
the coal fired boilers being retired in the U.S. be scrapped or should they
be mothballed and ready for conversion to biomass firing if needed?
Should
utilities reconsider scrapping the coal plants and building natural gas
fired units? Or should they design
natural gas fired plants for eventual biomass gasification and
sequestration?
Should
the Philippines make its new fleet of coal fired boilers biomass ready? It
is a major target of the trillion tree initiative. There needs to be an
optimization of four initiatives
· Tree planting for long term
sequestration (hundred years)
· Biomass fuel growth with the most mass
in the shortest amount of time
· Biomass combustion
· CO2 use and sequestration
Due
to the uncertainties the wise course is to spend modest amounts to make
combustion plants ready for biomass combustion while continuing to develop
new sequestration strategies including substituting CO2 for water in
hydraulic fracturing.
A
biomass capable electricity generator becomes the highest ranking choice
with wind, solar, hydro and other options falling behind. Biomass may never be burned but if the
doomsday scenario becomes part of the strategy then it is the antidote.
Details
on the strategies, projects, and on all coal fired generators around the
world are included Utility Tracking
System. http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/databases/42ei-utility-tracking-system
Urgent Answers for Flow and Treat
Suppliers
The
CEO may be evaluating an acquisition and needs a question answered
immediately. The valve salesman
covering BASF may be bidding a large project and want to know which
companies have supplied control valves for condition monitoring. The Asian
sales manager may want to plan his next trip to India so that he visits the
most important prospects. The business development manager may want an
opinion as to the impact of the U.S. endorsement of the trillion tree
program.
These
are all questions which require answers immediately. The McIlvaine Company has nearly 100
services which provide answers to these types of questions. However, they are only available to
subscribers and they take time to search.
An
alternative is the “Urgent Answer” program.
The response can be a phone call, webinar or report. The client does
not have to be a subscriber.
Answers
are available for both market and technology questions. If it is important to know the size of
the market in California or Thailand for valves, pumps, filters,
centrifuges, etc. it is instantly available. If you want to know market share by FGD
scrubber type in India it can be provided.
The
Urgent Answer Program can be expanded to include monthly webinars on
predetermined subjects or speeches at sales meetings.
For
more information on this program contact Bob McIlvaine at 847 784 0013 or rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com
Determining Flow and Treat Market
Shares and Rankings
Flow
and treat suppliers set a high priority on determining the market share for
their products as well as their ranking among competitors. There is
promotional as well as strategic value. The research needed to generate
promotional value is modest. The research needed to maximize the strategic
value is considerable.
Scope:
To create promotional value it is relatively easy to pick a market
scope which favors the company. To create strategic value, it is desirable
to carefully assess the following definitions
· Product which is being evaluated
· Application
o Industry
o Process
o Medium (gases,
liquids, free flowing solids)
· Geographic scope
· Time frame
· Customers (the largest purchasers with
centralized flow and treat purchasing are larger customers than half the
countries of the world.)
Market Share and Rankings Analysis
Needs
Market Size: The true market size often requires
understanding of the industries, the applications and even the equipment
choices. What percentage of sewage sludge is dewatered in belt filter
presses, centrifuges, or recessed chamber filter presses? If you sell filter cloths or filter belts
this is an important investigation.
Determination
of the future market is very important.
If the supplier can gain market share in an expanding market the
impact on revenues is substantially greater than gaining market share in a
stable or shrinking market.
Competitor
Sales: It is desirable to not only assess the
present sales of the major competitors but also predict their future sales
and market shares. This requires considerable effort but there are multiple
values. McIlvaine analyzes the participation of flow and treat companies in
hundreds of exhibitions around the world.
Some are industry oriented such as ACHEMA. Some are equipment oriented such as Valve
World or FILTXPO. Exhibitions such
as PowerGen are held in Asia, the U.S. and Europe. So, insights on geographical strategy can
also be ascertained.
It
is also desirable to conduct SWOT analyses for major competitors and to
assess their product development activity. The McIlvaine company has
services on air pollution control, water pollution control, combustion,
drying, separation and other processes which provide unique insights on
product development progress and needs.
Market
share is impacted by mergers and acquisitions which are resulting in larger
and larger companies with increasing market share. Suppliers need to keep
analyzing the consequence of a merger among competitors. In some cases,
market ranking may drop but market share will increase. For example, two
smaller competitors could merge but then their combined sales do not reach
the level that they would have reached as independent companies.
With
the broad range of market and technical services offered the McIlvaine
Company is uniquely qualified to assist flow and treat companies with
market share and ranking analysis.
For more information contact Bob McIlvaine at 847 784 0013 or rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com.
U.S. Coal
Fired Flow and Treat Market will be Diminished but Significant
Flow
and treat product suppliers should not overlook the U.S coal fired generator
market. It will be significant through 2040. The U.S. coal fired capacity
will shrink to less than 50 percent of the 2010 peak. Operating hours will shrink even further
as coal plants are used in conjunction with solar and wind. However, coal
can maintain a contribution equivalent of 40 percent of that in 2010 if
wise upgrade investments are made.
U.S. Coal Fired Power Operating Hours
as a % of 2010
There
are many uncertainties but the variables which are under control of the
industry are more important than the political variables. The biggest factor affecting coal use in
the U.S will be the price of natural gas which in turn will be closely tied
to world oil prices as LNG plants are built in the U.S. and create a big
gas export market.
Impact of Factors on U.S. Coal
Megawatt Hours
Assuming
that any movement to prohibit hydraulic fracturing would be rebuffed the
continued low price of oil and gas is highly predictable. As a result, the gas price will be a
large but predictable factor reducing coal use. Climate policy over the
period through 2040 is likely to be a minor factor regardless of whether
there is a Democratic or Republican Congress and Administration. There are
not going to be any new coal fired plants.
There will be continuing pressure to operate existing plants more
efficiently to reduce CO2 and with reduced air pollution.
Investments
in combustion and air pollution control technology will have more impact on
operating hours than will climate change. These investments can make coal
plants more flexible and able to operate more efficiently at reduced loads
and in a cycling mode.
China
is taking the approach of upgrading coal fired plants to make them equal to
gas fired plants in terms of emissions.
This includes upgrades to ultrasupercritical operation. Given an assumption of retirement in 2040
only a minority of U.S. plants will be able to justify this
investment. However, there are many
investments with a high return over just a few years.
Injecting hydrated lime ahead of the
SCR and the air heater can lower the SO3 concentrations enough to avoid
maintenance and turn down issues. Injecting enough sorbent further upstream
in the flue gas means utilities can lower load and capture waste heat that
would typically escape from the stack. This also gives utilities flexibility
to run the coal-fired units at a lower load, typically at night, and be
more efficient. Buckeye Cardinal
Unit 2 in Brilliant Ohio initiated this change in 2017 and is experiencing
a high ROI.
There are many other initiatives which can be
pursued. Here are some.
· Catalytic filters with DSI ahead of
the air heater and capture of heat and water which otherwise is lost
through the stack (ideal where hot precipitators are still being used)
· Byproducts such as rare earth
feedstocks, hydrochloric acid, pure white gypsum to compete with
precipitated calcium carbonate, ammonium sulfate, and sulfuric acid all
have potential for certain site-specific situations
· CO2 as a product: SaskPower supplies CO2 for enhanced oil
recovery from its Boundary Dam plant. BHE in Utah directs CO2 from its gas
turbine stack to a commercial tomato greenhouse on site. Most commercial
greenhouses purchase CO2. Hydraulic fracturing with CO2 is promising as a
way to reduce water consumption and sequester greenhouse gases.
All
of these initiatives and the fate of each coal fired plant is being
analyzed and tracked in the McIlvaine Utility
Tracking System: http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/databases/42ei-utility-tracking-system
Bob
McIlvaine can answer your questions at 847 784 0013 or rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com
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