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The document discusses advancements in Wireless Heat Treating technology by Team, which offers cost-effective, high-quality solutions for the power industry. It highlights the capabilities of the Wireless SmartHeat 400 system, allowing technicians to monitor and control multiple heat cycles remotely. Additionally, it features various boiler solutions from RENTECH and air pollution control products from the SOLVAir Products Group, emphasizing efficiency and emissions reduction.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)

19 views74 pages

PE 20100301 Mar 2010

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A

A s the world leader in f ield heat treating, Team now

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March 2010 • www.power-eng.com

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Select 300, a sodium bicarbonate-based product, shows significant results when used in DSI. It performs best
at power plants that have an ESP and need to reduce SO2 . Use Select 200 trona in DSI systems and you have one
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Copyright 2010, Solvay Chemicals, Inc. All Rights Reserved For info. http://powereng.hotims.com RS# 1 Chemical and Phamaceutical Group

Vol. 114, No. 3, March 2010

1421 South Sheridan Road

Tulsa, OK 74112
P.O. Box 1260, Tulsa, OK 74101
Telephone: (918) 835-3161
Fax: (918) 831-9834
E-mail: [email protected]
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CHIEF EDITOR—David Wagman

(918) 831-9866 [email protected]

SENIOR EDITOR—Nancy Spring

(918) 831-9492 [email protected]

ON-LINE EDITOR—Sharryn Harvey

(918) 832-9339 [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR—Robynn Andracsek, P.E.

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(918) 832-9378 [email protected]

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VICE PRESIDENT, NORTH AMERICAN POWER ________________

GENERATION GROUP—Richard Baker
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NATIONAL BRAND MANAGER—Rick Huntzicker
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March
2010
Featu
ures
2
24 O&M
& FEATU URE: Usin
ng GI
G S for Powe
weer Plan
an
nt
Maintenance
M
The 400 MW Dworshak Dam on the North A constant companion in the field to ttrrac
rac
ack
k an
nd mana age
Fork Clearwater River in Idaho. Photo by Ted
J. Clutter www.ArtComPhoto.com a sets, Great River Energy broughtt Geo
as eo
eogr
ogr
graphi
h c Info
ormat
rm
ma io
ion
System technology into the power pla antt to helpp wit
ih
maintenance issues.

COVER STORY
266 Keeping Cool
A new study from Alden Labob ratory and EPR
PRI anal
a yz
yzes
ess the
h
Departments sources of cooling water intake blocka
kage
ka es.
4 Opinion
6 Peak Load 3300 Power Plant Personnel: The Outsourccin
ingg Option
Op on
Op
8 Clearing the Air Cost-control efforts are leading many pow werr gen
e errat
ator
orss to
or
12 View on Renewables outsource jobs. Senior Editor Nancy Sp pring
gc con
o siders
r the e
14 Nuclear Reactions t end and surveys leading staffing firms for an em
tr e ploymement ntt
16 What Works market assessment.
22 Startup
60 Products 40 Riverside Repowering Project
68 Generating Buzz The story of how Xcel Energy converted it itss Ri
Rive
vers
verside plant
rs
Look for our 15-month list of upcoming global f om coal to natural gas and
fr n in the processs updated the e
events at www.power-eng.com p ant’s combined cycle arr
pl r an
nge
g ment, made de steam turbine
u grades and implementted cha
up h nges to the e circulating
Power Engineering Online w ter system.
wa
(www.power-eng.com)
48 Fish-friendlyy Hyd
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binee
E-newsletter: A weekly news update delivered to Fish inju
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Newscast: A concise, weekly update of all the
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Co-firing biomass fuels with h co
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2 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

______________________

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Opinion

Can Natural Gas Displace Coal?

By David Wagman, Chief Editor

A
recent report from the Congressional displacement idea, including transmission, system dispatch and
Research Service looks at some of natural gas supply, price, transportation and storage.
the issues involved in displacing To illustrate one transmission problem, the report considered
coal-fired generation with natural gas- a hypothetical 1,000 MW of surplus combined cycle capacity
fired generation as a way to reduce carbon in the northern part of the Electric Reliability Council of
emissions. Texas. Although available, that capacity may still not displace
The report follows a hearing last October Oklahoma-based coal-fi red capacity due to transmission
by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. At interconnect issues. “Although the regions are adjacent, from
that time, Dennis McConaghy, executive vice president with the standpoint of the power grid they are electrically isolated
TransCanada Pipelines, told Senators that natural gas can from each other,” the report said.
provide “meaningful, immediate and verifiable” carbon dioxide The report also looked at natural gas and coal-fi red power
emission reductions. plants that geographically are close enough to one another to
At the same hearing, Jack Fusco, president and CEO of be substitutes. Deeper analysis showed that displaceable coal
Calpine Corp., said in written testimony that the increased use generation and related emissions amount to “only a fraction”
of existing natural gas-fi red power plants could “meaningfully of total U.S. coal generation and carbon dioxide emissions. The
reduce the CO2 emissions of the power sector, immediately and hypothetical displaced coal generation and emissions equaled
for the foreseeable future.” 5 percent to 9 percent of total U.S. coal generation. For the
William Hederman, senior vice president of Concept Capital’s associated CO2 emissions, the percentages dropped to 3 percent
Washington Research Group and former director of FERC, said to 5 percent of the U.S. total from coal generation.
in an email to me that the follow-up Congressional Research The report said displacing coal-fi red generation on a large
Service (CRS) report “illustrates the massive potential for scale could result in a “significant” increase in U.S. natural gas
natural gas to offer a relatively low cost path to significant and demand. Total natural gas consumption for 2007 was 23,692
relatively rapid CO2 emission reductions.” He called the report a TBtu, the third highest on record. To displace coal, natural gas
“positive development” for natural gas producers and pipelines. supply would have to increase by 5 percent to 20 percent above
But what might it mean for electric power producers? those levels.
The CRS report pointed out that one consequence of the That could be problematic, however. A 2009 assessment by
combined cycle building boom and bust is that the fleet of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission called long-term
natural gas combined cycle plants has a large amount of unused gas production a story “of abundance.” It said natural gas
generating capacity. The report estimated that 13 percent production is becoming more like mining and manufacturing
of combined cycle capacity operated as baseload in 2007. (It with “high probability of production from each well drilled.”
defi ned baseload as operating at an annual capacity factor of 70 This environment “should have profound effects on the
percent or greater.) That 13 percent amounts to around 22,151 traditional boom and bust cycle of gas production,” FERC said.
net summer megawatts and 42 generating units. That optimism was tempered by testimony before the Senate
By contrast, more than one-third of 2007 combined cycle panel last fall by Edward Stones, director of risk management
capacity had a capacity factor below 30 percent. That equaled for Dow Chemical. He said that in 1998, 2002-2003 and in
almost 58,000 net summer megawatts and 114 generating units. 2005 new production came online from Canada, the Gulf of
As a group, combined cycle plants had an average 2007 Mexico and the Rockies, respectively. “In each case, the initial
capacity factor of 42 percent. That included 314 plants with hopes were too high and production increases were not as large
almost 171,000 MW of net summer capacity. as initially expected.”
Coal plants, on average, had a much higher capacity factor The CRS report said a rapid change from coal to gas could
in 2007, around 75 percent. The CRS report said the apparent involve a jump in gas demand growth compared with current
mismatch between combined cycle and coal plant operating estimates from the Energy Information Administration. It left
patterns creates the perceived opportunity for displacing coal the door open, however, for Congress to study the potential
power with gas generation from existing plants. for displacing coal with existing gas-fi red power plants. At the
The report suggested that if combined cycle capacity could same time it didn’t address the potential cost such a conversion
be doubled to 85 percent the power output would equal around might represent. If Congress sets a carbon price, as many in the
32 percent of all coal-fi red generation in 2007. It also would industry advocate, then any switch from coal to natural gas may
displace 19 percent of CO2 emissions associated with coal-fi red be rapid. The difficulties of such a conversion, some of which are
generation. outlined in the CRS study, warrant thoughful consideration by
The report highlighted a number of problems with this policymakers.

4 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Peak Load

Wärtsilä Power
Scenarios 2023
By Frank Donnelly, President, Wärtsilä North America Inc.

T
he energy markets are in world, powered by large utilities. Policy is driven by two key
unchartered territory. Not factors: the need for economic growth and curbing emissions.
since Westinghouse and Carbon capture and storage allows us to continue using coal.
Edison fought over AC vs. DC grids The Grey World Scenario is ruled by governments. Scarcity
have there been as many fundamental of resources and energy security are major issues–climate change
changes and challenges. In order is not. Scarcity leads to considerable changes within society and
to be successful in these turbulent political tensions run high due to the uneven geographical
times, we must think about what the distribution of energy resources.
future may hold. Behind each of these Power Scenario summaries is a more
To support our strategy work complete, plausible story of the future. As the future unfolds
and help answer the question of what might lie ahead, Wärtsilä with uncertainties becoming realities and new issues arising, we
has challenged itself to develop scenarios about what electricity will seek to expand our views and evolve our Power Scenarios.
production and use could look like in 2023. These scenarios are Creating Power Scenarios has helped us make sense of a
in fact narratives describing alternative, plausible futures and how complex and changing environment. Wärtsilä Power Scenarios
they might come about. Our scenario development has been a are fact-based, challenging, but plausible descriptions of what
collaborative effort with wide participation of our stakeholders might lie ahead. They provide alternative views of the future of
and energy industry experts. We are pleased to share our process power generation in a complex and changing global environment,
and results with the hope of expanding this collaboration. taking into consideration significant trends, events and actors,
First, to make sense of the complex contextual issues, we and try to model how they might interact.
created a structure consisting of eight layers. The layers are Today, two major global challenges top the economic, social
essentially issues broadly influencing electricity production and and environmental agenda of the world. On the one hand
use, from climate change and geopolitics to public opinion we have to produce enough electricity to improve the living
and technological development. These issues were thoroughly standards of a growing population. On the other hand, we must
researched and discussed with academics, non-governmental preserve our environment.
organizations, business leaders, government representatives and These issues are more than relevant for Wärtsilä, as we believe
other experts. We spent more than 8,000 hours analyzing how that the power sector has a key role to play in solving these
electricity is likely to be produced and consumed in 2023. challenges. As a provider of complete lifecycle power solutions
After this thorough research, we defined which developments for our customers, we need to make the right decisions regarding
and influences we could be certain of, and which not. In the end, long-term product development in order to be the preferred
we were sure of only two things: that oil production is peaking partner for future investments.
and the share of renewables will increase. Through the analysis of Power Scenarios support our strategy work and help answer
key uncertainties, we developed three rather different narratives, the question of what might lie ahead. Wärtsilä does not favor
revolving around the issue of power (“Power Scenarios”) not a single Power Scenario, but designs its strategy in a way that
only in terms of energy, but also influence: Who has it and why? ensures success in any of the Power Scenarios. Each year we are
And what are its impacts? tracking our Power Scenarios to validate the trends, uncover
At the end of 2009, the fi rst phase of the Wärtsilä Power new trends, expose scenario framework development and
Scenarios project was completed with the publishing of a highlight early warnings of new directions. Also, through this
Power Scenario report on three future alternatives for global tracking we are updating our Power Scenarios to reflect the
power and electricity production: Green Earth, Blue Globe realities and new uncertainties that arise.
and Grey World. The very nature of scenarios is that of a multi-dimensional
The Green Earth Scenario is shaped by individual citizens discussion. We invite you to share your views! Governments,
who have decided to tackle the challenge posed by climate companies and individual citizens all have the power to make
change. The world economy grows at a modest pace and the use choices that affect our common future. Challenge us and give
of renewable energy sources increases. People accept the scarcity us feedback about our Power Scenarios at powerscenarios@
of resources and live sustainably. wartsila.com or through the Power Scenarios fansite on
The Blue Globe Scenario is a market-oriented, prosperous Facebook.

6 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Clearing the Air

Stealth Attack
By Robynn Andracsek, P.E., Burns & McDonnell and Contributing Editor

C
oal-fi red utilities are under at- The 1-hour NO2 NAAQS is the lesser of the two problems.
tack from multiple environmen- Here the standard is 100 ppb (188 mg/m3). This is based on
tal fronts: greenhouse gases, a 3-year average of the 98th percentile of daily values. This
mercury and “routine” maintenance vio- essentially means the monitored values can exceed the numerical
lations, to name a few. But these regula- value of the standard on eight separate days within each year
tions and initiatives are too slow to sound of any three-year period before a violation occurs. Based on
coal’s death knell. Lawsuits and enforce- existing monitor data, only Cook County, Ill. (Chicago) is
ment settlements
take years to move from the fi rst Section Figure 1 LIKELY CANDIDATES FOR 1-HOUR
114 request to a triumphant Environ- SO2 NON-ATTAINMENT
mental Protection Agency (EPA) press
release. Likewise, the Clean Air Mercury
Rule (CAMR) spent three years travel-
ing from proposal to vacatur. And I re-
fuse to speculate on how long it might
take future greenhouse gas regulation
to resolve all legal opposition and reach
full implementation. No, the immediate
threat to coal utilities is implementa-
tion of the 1-hour National Ambient Air
Quality Standards (NAAQS) for NO2
and SO2.
A fundamental provision of the Clean
Air Act requires EPA to set NAAQS
for pollutants considered harmful to
public health and the environment. It
is from this underlying principle that
most air regulations are evolved (for Hawaii
NOX
example, Title V, New Source Review, SO2
non-attainment designations). EPA is
required by the Clean Air Act to review
all NAAQS every five years. Revising the
NAAQS is a well-established process. Any controversy exists predicted to become a new NO2 non-attainment area. The
in the numerical value and averaging periods of the standards target of the 1-hour NO2 NAAQS is pollution near major
(and the fact that EPA rarely meets the deadline) and not in the roads. The revised standard requires more NO2 monitors to be
practice of change itself. placed near major roadways. Eventually this will lead to more
Let’s revisit the concept of an “averaging period.” Each non-attainment areas. However, even today NOX emissions
criteria pollutant has one or more standards which are assessed from small diesel generators, such as those located at utilities
over a defi ned time period. The longer the averaging time, the or local hospitals, can easily result in modeled exceedances of
more resilient the standard is to short-term upsets. Previously, the 1-hour standard due to their typical low stack heights and
NO2 had only an annual averaging period. However, as of Jan. poor dispersion characteristics.
22, 2010, NO2 also has a 1-hour standard. Additionally, a Unsurprisingly, the proposed 1-hour SO2 NAAQS is the
1-hour SO2 standard was proposed in November 2009, which greater threat to coal-fi red boilers. This is because its target
would replace the annual and 24-hour SO2 standards (while is “high short-term (five minutes to 24 hours) concentrations”
retaining the 3-hour average). These new 1-hour NAAQS of SO2, such as from upset conditions. This NAAQS is
threaten both grandfathered and modern power plants. relatively stricter than the NO2 1-hour NAAQS. The 1-hour

8 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

________________________

Clearing the Air

SO2 NAAQS as proposed will be based on a 3-year average of run from 76 ppb to 18 ppb, which in itself can comprise a
the 99th percentile, not the 98th. This means four days with considerable fraction of the allowable total. Wisconsin changed
exceedances of the numerical limit within each year of any its background concentrations in late 2008 from a highest
three-year period will be allowed before a violation occurs; this monitored basis to statistical analysis. The effect was to adjust
is half the number for 1-hour NO2. the backgrounds to lower, less conservative values. In one
The range of values proposed for the SO2 standard is 50 instance, the background for 3-hour SO2 fell from 48.9 ppb
to 100 ppb. Usually, the value is higher for shorter averaging to 16.5 ppb. The result is more representative of the area as a
periods. The existing SO2 standards are 500 ppb, 140 ppb and whole and not a single facility.
30 ppb for 3-hour, 24-hour and annual averages, respectively. It will be nearly impossible for an unscrubbed coal-fi red
Based on existing monitor values, there are dozens of likely boiler to demonstrate compliance with the proposed 1-hour SO2
candidates for non-attainment with the 1-hour SO2 NAAQS. NAAQS. Even the modeled impacts from a recently permitted
EPA will make actual non-attainment designations within but cancelled project for a proposed coal-fi red boiler controlled
two years of the fi nal standard’s promulgation. The highest with a wet scrubber and adjusted to a 1-hour averaging period
monitored 1-hour SO2 values are in Hawaii and result from were 40 percent above the new 1-hour SO2 standard (assuming
volcanic activity. (I’d like to see the size of that FGD!) it is set at 100 ppb). A scrubbed boiler, especially one using
One factor in modeling 1-hour SO2 NAAQS compliance spray dryer FGD technology, may typically have a one-hour-
will be the background concentrations set by each state. long period of uncontrolled emissions during the routine
These are added to the modeled concentrations to estimate changing of its slurry atomizers. Therein lies the vulnerability
total air quality impact. Most states use the highest or second of many coal-fi red boilers, controlled and uncontrolled, to the
highest monitored value in the region to set the background new 1-hour NAAQS.
level. A survey of modeling guidelines shows that 1-hour SO2 It won’t take long for the effects to be felt around the utility
background concentrations (adjusted from 3-hour values) industry.

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View on Renewables

Rush for Solar Gold

By Jean Wilson, Vice President and General Manager of Utilities and Power Plant, SunPower Corp.

I
n the 21st century, many Americans have plants in good sun conditions. Some tracking systems don’t
jettisoned the belief that solar power require ground penetration making them ideal for underutilized
cannot contribute significantly to serving brownfield sites.
this country’s electricity needs. Replacing that With global PV production growing by about 50 percent a
myth is the oft-cited fact that 100 square miles year, solar technology has become increasingly more efficient
of solar panels in Nevada could supply the U.S. and cost competitive. According to a report issued by Lazard
with all of its electricity. Capital Markets last year, the levelized cost of electricity
Utility companies and other large-scale power plant developers (LCOE) for a solar PV power plant (taking into account the
are convinced. By the end of 2009, almost 2 GW of solar installed system price, the benefits of the federal investment tax
photovoltaic (PV) power plants ranging in size from 10 to 600 credit and associated costs such as fi nancing, land, insurance,
MW were planned or under construction in the United States transmission, operation and maintenance and depreciation) is
alone. In October 2009, Florida Power & Light and SunPower now $87 to $196/MWh. A natural gas peaking plant operating
commissioned the largest operating solar PV power plant in the at a 10 percent capacity factor and using $6 per MMBtu natural
country, the 25 MW DeSoto Solar Energy Center. gas would yield an LCOE in excess of $200/MWh. Solar LCOE
What change inspired the solar gold rush among this business- costs are on a downward trajectory, while costs for gas plants are
savvy yet typically conservative industry? generally on the rise and highly volatile, since they vary with the
Government mandated renewable portfolio standards in 29 commodity cost of natural gas.
states and the 30 percent federal investment tax credit (ITC) The proven performance over time of silicon-based solar
available to utility companies are certainly at the root of the technology has convinced the fi nancial community that solar
growing adoption of solar. However, solar PV has unique offers a predictable, low-risk return on investment. Financiers
attributes that make it perhaps the most cost-effective way for have looked to the performance of plants such as Germany’s
utilities to match the pace of increasing regulatory requirements 10 MW Bavaria Solarpark plant, the fi rst solar PV power
while managing peak load. plant in the world, which was completed in 2004. Each year
Consider the following: Solar PV generates power whenever since its completion, the plant has produced an average of 106
there is light in the sky, even on cloudy or rainy days. It generates percent of expected electricity. The five solar power plants that
the most power, however, when the sun is shining most SunPower built in Spain and Portugal in 2007 and 2008 all
strongly, which corresponds with peak load demand. During exceeded expectations last year, achieving between 106 percent
those peak hours of the day, a solar power plant maximizes its and 114 percent of expected output. As a result of this kind
energy production, reducing the need for power from costlier, of performance data, along with studies showing that some
traditional sources. During the hottest summer days, when air silicon-based panels degrade as little as 4 percent after 20 years
conditioner use and power demand is at its highest, the value of of outdoor exposure, the capital markets have financed the
solar as a peak resource is even greater. development of approximately 5 GW of global silicon PV power
Solar PV is fast to install and can be installed at virtually any plant capacity. This compares with approximately 1 GW of thin-
scale and in any location. The DeSoto Solar Energy Center was fi lm PV capacity, which is a newer technology, and approximately
commissioned about nine months after the start of construction. 500 MW of concentrating solar thermal trough technology.
Sun-tracking technology further enhances the peak resource Solar PV power plants can help reduce our dependence
value of solar. Trackers that use GPS to follow the sun east to on foreign energy sources and allow us to capture the clean,
west throughout the day can increase the capacity factor of a solar renewable power of the sun. Combining those benefits with
power plant by up to 30 percent over fixed-tilt solar technology. the bottom line advantages of peak load support, competitive
Absolute capacity factors on an average cost basis can exceed LCOE and speed to market, it is no wonder that U.S. utility
30 percent on an annual basis from tracking solar PV power executives are quickly becoming advocates for solar.

12 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Nuclear Reactions

Raiding the Decom Bank

By Brian Schimmoller, Contributing Editor

O
ne unintended consequence of the would be compelled to make the adjustments within three months
economic recession was a widespread of the end-of-year calculation, instead of the two years currently
decline in the fund balances nuclear allowed.
power plants must maintain to pay for decom- The nuclear power industry objected to this change in a letter
missioning. Although the issue arguably has been from the Nuclear Energy Institute to NRC last September and
overblown by the media, the attention sheds light raised several points:
on a largely unknown topic. Recent regulatory • Demonstrated decommissioning success: Every nuclear reactor
actions could impose significant additional burden on nuclear plant that has shut down has been able to fund and safely perform
licensees regarding decommissioning planning and preparation. decommissioning activities, even in cases such as the Zion
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations require Nuclear Power Station, which did not operate to the end of
nuclear plant licensees to submit data every two years to ensure its license.
funds are sufficient for radiological decommissioning of the reactor • Previous regulatory treatment: NRC is making a significant
when permanently shut down. In large part due to the recession, shift in interpreting decommissioning regulations. After 20
27 plants had projected funding shortfalls at the end of 2008, some years of not requiring annual adjustments, NRC is imposing a
more than $150 million. By Nov. 30, 2009, however, the NRC modification with substantial repercussions. While the courts
determined that 20 of the licensees had resolved their shortfalls. acknowledge the legal rights of agencies to adjust interpretation,
“A decommissioning fund is like a defined benefit pension such changes are supposed to proceed as if one were changing
fund,” said Paul Dabbar, managing director, J.P. Morgan. “You the regulation itself, requiring public notice and comment.
estimate the extent of liability in the long term and establish a • Flexibility: Requiring fund adjustments over shorter time
fund today that will be able to meet those obligations in the future periods could force fund managers to take actions that lead
through growth in various investment vehicles.” He said the NRC to poor performance; for example, more frequent conversion
requires these funds to be fairly conservative in their investment of stable, long-term investments into higher-risk, shorter-term
philosophies, heavily weighted toward debt instruments. investments.
The required biennial adjustments must account for changes • Timing horizon: With more nuclear plants achieving, and
in the decommissioning inflation rate, which reflects underlying pursuing, license renewal to 60 years, most plants will have
changes in labor, energy and low-level waste disposal costs. For the a longer time horizon over which to build decommissioning
most part, decommissioning fund investment growth has exceeded funds. Moreover, because nuclear plant owners are able to
the decommissioning inflation rate, allowing funds to build value place their facilities into “SAFSTOR” mode upon shutdown
over time. The recession and resulting market declines upset this (providing time to allow shorter-lived nuclear species to
balance. The NRC felt compelled to act, although the situation has decay prior to decontamination) a side benefit is a longer time
essentially self-corrected, said Dabbar. horizon for fund growth.
“If one looked at decommissioning funds in the aggregate at Beyond the justification, or lack thereof, for the proposed
the low point of the market, the future value still exceeded the regulatory guidance, real and significant costs would be
minimum required as calculated by the NRC’s formula,” said associated with the new requirements. For example, licensees
Thomas Magette, senior vice president with EnergySolutions. could be required to obtain a letter of credit or parent guarantee
“Acknowledging that funds are held by each individual licensee as to make up for a fund shortfall. In the case of a parent guarantee,
opposed to being collected in a pool still gives an indication that the the licensee must set aside assets worth six times the value of the
industry-wide situation was not as bad as assumed.” Since the time guarantee: a $300 million guarantee, for example, would tie up
when the funds are to be used remains many decades in the future, $1.8 billion in assets.
he said “I believe the sense of urgency was misplaced.” Parent guarantees are not just pieces of paper, they must be
While the NRC’s concerns about decommissioning fund balance accounted for on the books, said Magette. “The NRC’s proposed
stability caused a stir in the nuclear power industry, a pending NRC change to require a parent guarantee to cover the full amount of
regulatory action could cause even greater commotion. In Draft the required funding level rather than just the shortfall is simply
Regulatory Guide DG-1229 issued in June 2009, NRC proposed not justified.”
a number of changes to increase the assurance that sufficient funds The Regulatory Guidance remains in draft form, so changes
will be available for future decommissioning. remain possible. To its credit, NRC is attempting to respond to
The most contentious change relates to the amount of time what was a serious drop in fund value and maintain confidence in
during which owners of merchant nuclear plants would be allowed the long-term viability of decommissioning plans. The cure may
to make necessary adjustments to restore decommissioning funds be worse than the illness, however. Despite the worst financial
above minimum required levels. Merchant plants—those plants crisis in 80 years, decommissioning funds for 70 percent of the
that cannot recover decommissioning costs through ratemaking— reactors remained at or above required minimum levels.

14 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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What Works

Rebuilding Aging
Feedwater Heaters On-Line
By David Rizzo, technical writer

T
oday’s feedwater heater rebuilding companies can Advanced rebuilding techniques
rebuild aging units in a matter of weeks, while new Engineering staff at plants without built-in redundancy
replacement units can take a year or two to manu- traditionally thought they would have to go offline to repair a
facture. In many cases, rebuilding can proceed with feedwater heater problem. Their only option was to order a new
the plant online, so even plants with only one string heater, which can take more than a year to build. In the meantime,
of heaters can continue to generate electricity—and rebuilt units the plant was operating in derated status, burning more coal and
can save 25 percent to 50 percent of the cost of a replacement unit. driving down efficiency. Now, rebuilding companies can overcome
“It required four weeks to completely rebuild two heaters and any lack of redundancy within the facility.
by rebuilding over buying new feedwater heaters, we saved about
one-third the cost,” said Nick Samford, engineering supervisor at
NRG’s Limestone Generating Station in central Texas.

Rebuilding cost-savings
Located between Houston and Dallas, NRG’s Limestone
station is a coal-fired plant with two units, one 836 MW unit and
one 864 MW unit. Both of the original equipment manufacturer
(OEM) heaters had been in service for more than 20 years.
However, the desuperheater was a little too large, resulting in
saturated water exiting at excessive velocities that caused tube
erosion.
“We initially considered buying completely new heaters but
ultimately decided not to because of the additional cost,” said
Samford.
Rebuilding the feedwater heater at NRG’s Limestone station in Texas. Photo,
American Power Services (APS) in Erlanger, Ky., a heat transfer American Power Services.
equipment services provider, undertook the rebuilding job. The
process started with a failure analysis that identified vibration in “For about half of the heaters we rebuild, we isolate the heater
the desuperheating zone. APS then redesigned the desuperheater and re-tube it onsite while the unit is online, by isolating the
to eliminate the wet wall condition of the tubes and to reduce the defective heater,” said David Grimes, an engineer at APS. “Bypass
velocity of the steam entering the desuperheater while maintaining lines can be installed so that the rebuilding can proceed without the
original design thermal and operational parameters. plant having to wait for an outage.”
Work began in late February 2009. The internal structure Rebuilt units can match the thermal efficiency of new
was rebuilt while changing the steam inlet location and the replacement units since the original tube material can be changed
desuperheater flow path was rerouted during the rebuilding during a rebuild to actually improve the thermal performance of
process. To speed up the process, a specialized motor-driven the original design. A rebuild or retubing can extend the life of
plasma arc cutter was used to remove the hemi head to facilitate an existing heater by 20 to 30 years, just as long as the extension
better access to the tubesheet during the rebuilding process. with a total replacement but at less capital expense. Additionally,
This additional space led to a more efficient rebuilding project by many components that were once considered obsolete and/or not
providing full access to the tubesheet, rather than working inside reusable such as the tubesheet, channel and shell can be returned
the hemi head. This allowed the use of efficient tools to quickly to as-new condition.
pull the tube stubs, weld the new tubes to the tubesheet and The rebuilding process begins with testing and troubleshooting
mechanically expand the tube ends into the tubesheet. analysis. Equipment determines the exact location, nature
The job was finished within 25 days, completed per code and and severity of a problem with eddy current, ultrasonic, dye
insurance regulations within the time frame of a scheduled four penetrate, magnetic particle, hydrostatic and boroscopic testing
week inspection outage. The rebuilt feedwater heater allows the procedures. With testing data in hand, a rebuilding company can
Limestone plant to facilitate superheat at exit of the desuperheater, make recommendations on cost-effective options for remedial
thereby eliminating the wet wall condition. As a result, either correction, retubing to original specification or rebuilding to
one of the two units can be taken offline and the plant can still improve performance.
generate 100 percent power output. Since the condensing zone Hydraulic tube pullers, power tube strippers, tube joint milling
steam velocity was increased, thermal efficiency improved slightly. tools and plasma arc ID tube cutting facilitate the rebuilding

16 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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What Works

process. New technology allows for defective or leaking tubes may not be sufficient room to physically get a new heater into
to be explosively plugged with the unit online by utilizing a position. Over the years as a plant expands around the original
robotic arm to install the required tube plugs, a safer method installation, extra equipment is installed and the heater that was
of installing tube plugs. once in the wide open is now behind three walls. A rebuilding
Sometimes a complete replacement is difficult because there project can still take place within the same space constraints.

Upgrading Older Steam Turbines

By Colin Ellis, Engineering Manager, NVision Inc.

W
hen a turbine manufacturer wanted to get
more power out of hundreds of turbines that
were originally built and installed in the 1950s,
the basic idea was to use the original outer cas-
ing but upgrade internal components such as
the blades and diaphragm.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology gives engi-
neers the opportunity to understand how flow affects the perfor-
mance of turbine blades and evaluate alternative geometries by
determining their impact on energy efficiency. To run CFD simula-
tion, it’s essential to have a computer-aided design (CAD) model
that accurately depicts the as-built turbine geometry. But nearly all
of the turbines that are prime candidates for design upgrades were
designed without a CAD model. Reverse engineering is an essential
first step to improve the turbine blade design. MAXOS scanning a turbine blade. Photo, NVision.
In this case, all of the components of the manufacturer’s tur-

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What Works

bines needed to be reverse engineered so that CAD models could neering service division, which reverse engineered the turbine in six
be created and used as the basis to analyze and optimize turbine weeks at a lower cost than the turbine manufacturer had budgeted
design. Parts ranged from small components to the case, which for the project. The resulting CAD geometry was used for a CFD
weighs 30,000 pounds. Using the traditional approach to reverse simulation, the results of which helped improve the performance of
engineering, a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) would have the turbine. The geometry was also used as the basis for designing
the new internal components of the turbine.
required an estimated six months to capture all of the points need-
ed to fully define the turbine’s geometry. In the past, the turbine manufacturer could choose between
Instead, the turbine manufacturer contacted NVision’s engi- two primary methods to perform reverse engineering. The simplest
used height gauges and other man-
ual measuring instruments to mea-
sure discrete points on the surface,
but a technician can get only critical
dimensions such as the location of
Get more efficiency from hole centers, the diameters of holes
and wall thickness. The alternative

your water screen method uses a CMM that has a

probe that must physically touch the
part, but the operator must manual-
ly move the steering system to track
each point to be measured and the
device captures points one at a time.
For this project, NVision techni-
cians scanned turbine components
on site, including the case, inlet
chamber, blades, rotors and dia-
phragm. The scanner is attached to
a mechanical arm that moves about
the object, freeing the user to cap-
ture data. At NVision’s engineer-
ing center, smaller blades up to 12
inches in size were scanned with
the MAXOS non-contact measure-
ment system. The MAXOS makes
measurements with a concentrated
light rather than a touch probe. The
system eliminates the inaccuracies
inherent in contact probe measure-
ment on small radii or sharp edges,
caused by ball-offset geometry,
sometimes known as “the cosine er-
ror.” The accuracy of the system is
+/- 0.0004” on polished and ma-
chined services and +/- 0.0001” on
matt finished surfaces.
Software converts the point
clouds to STL file format and the
From underwater video assessment to complete rebuild services, Siemens STL model was converted to a fully
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Startup

Go Online for Even More News & Features

The magazine of power generation is also the industry’s online source!
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Emissions Control: H. Robert Goltz, Ph.D.
and Gregg Poppe of Dow Water & Process
Solutions outline the range of media avail-
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22 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Using GIS for

Power Plant Maintenance
By Jeffrey Grussing and Nathan Domyahn, Great River Energy

T
raditionally, geographic information systems out rate of the ceramic heat shield tiles during the fi rst few years
(GIS) have been thought of as a system used of operation. Many tiles in these units were not making the
for mapping physical land base objects such as manufactures’ 4,000 equivalent operating hour (EOH) interval
parcels, lakes and roads along with storing the between inspections. The number of tiles that were failing was
attribute data about these features. Many utili- causing problems with the outage frequency, duration, inventory
ties use GIS for managing their electric facility and the cost of operating these units. Long lead times to get
data by creating connected networks and maps the replacement tiles and not knowing which tiles to order until
that model the flow of their electric grid. All of the asset informa- we opened the turbine for inspection made it hard to keep the
tion for these facilities is stored in the GIS system, sometimes as right number of tiles needed to complete the overhauls. We were
detailed as every nut and bolt. These traditional uses of GIS have either ordering more tiles then we needed or not enough. We
proven to be useful tools for utilities to manage their infrastructure needed a way to keep track of what tiles were failing, how often
in relation to their location on earth. and where they were located in the turbine. The solution, an
application designed around a two-dimensional model of the
Figure 1 HEAT SHIELD MODEL heat shield tiles developed in ESRI’s ArcView GIS system. We
used the manufactures specification drawings and entered all of
the inventory and maintenance records. Figure 1 is an example of
the two-dimensional model.
By combining several years of inspection and maintenance
data and layering it together in one display using color we were
able to quickly see high failure rate areas within the heat shield
tile array. Figure 2 offers an example of a graphical report from
the application. Additional tabular reports are also available to

Figure 2 GRAPHIC
REPORT FROM
THE GIS APPLICATION*

Upper Section

Nabe Hub

Have you considered that GIS can be used for modeling

anything that has both a physical component and attribute
information? Smaller-scale detailed models can be created for
facilities like combustion turbines or power plant boilers. These
models can be two- or three-dimensional models depending
Failures
on the users need for detailed visual information. Maintenance
and inspection data can be tied to the model. With the spatial >10 5
component GIS provides you may perform analysis on several 0 6 Lower Section
1 7
years of historical maintenance information. Here are a couple
2 8
of examples of modeling two different types of power plant
3 9
infrastructure using GIS. 4 10
In 2001 Great River Energy (GRE) brought online two
Siemens V84.3A2 simple cycle combustion turbine generators *Total for years 2001-2006
(176 MW each) to help with our peaking needs. These units,
fueled by both natural gas and fuel oil, experienced a high fall

24 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

After trying several two-dimensional options we decided we

Figure 3 2-D OF BOILER TUBE BANK were not really getting the results we were looking for, so we
tried a three-dimensional drawing. In the process of developing
a three-dimensional drawing it was decided this was not going
123456 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 12 14 16 to be a cost effective way to manage this data and we scrapped
the project. Figure 3 illustrates the two-dimensional model
of one bank of the boiler tubes. Figure 4 shows what a three-
dimensional model would have looked like if we would have
further developed our in-house system.
While the outcomes of these two examples were drastically
different, the concepts for both were sound. GIS is a powerful
modeling environment that can enable its users to visualize
things that other modeling environments cannot. If you have
GIS software in place, utilize it to its full potential. Think outside
the box. Come up with new and innovative ways to leverage GIS
technology for more than just mapping. Remember GIS can
be used to model anything that has both a physical or spatial
component and data about that component.

Authors: Jeffrey Grussing is leader of GIS development for

Great River Energy’s United Services Group. Nathan Domyahn is
manager of Peaking Generation at Great River Energy.

Figure 4 3-D MODEL OF A BOILER

TUBE BANK

help keep track of inventory and EOH data. Digital pictures of

cracked tiles and inspection work are hyperlinked to the exact tile
in the model. This gives us a visual history of what the tile failure
looked like for each year of operation. Data for the number of
starts the unit has and what type of fuel was used for each start
is stored in the system. This data is used to help identify if one
type of fuel is more likely to cause tile failures in these units.
The application has helped us with several key issues, such as
identifying high fall out areas, and assisted us with inventory
and parts ordering, RCA identification and optimizing outage
durations all in a simple to use standard environment.
After seeing the benefits GIS had to offer in tracking heat
shield tiles for combustion turbines, GRE decided to try using it
to keep track of power plant boiler tube maintenance data. Our
maintenance contractor had software in place to track this data
but did not have a visual display. As in most power plants, boiler
tube thickness measurements are made during routine boiler
inspections. This data is used to identify potential failure areas in
the boiler tubes and replace them before they fail or leak. GRE
developed a two-dimensional orthogonal view drawing of one
bank of the primary and secondary tube sections of the boiler.
This model was then tied to maintenance inspection data to try
to show the location of the inspection measurement on each tube
along with the thickness values.

www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 25

Plant personnel often receive inadequate training on how water

intake blockage can affect operations. Photo courtesy EPRI.

Keeping Cool
A new study analyzes the sources of cooling water intake blockage
By Norman Perkins, Alden Research Laboratory and Kent Zammit, Electric Power Research Institute

C
onsumers put a lot of attention on what comes A 2006 study by the World Association of Nuclear Operators
out of power plants. Plant managers are even (WANO) found were 44 such events at nuclear plants since
more concerned with inputs, including an un- 2004. The most common material causing blockages was
interrupted supply of clean water for steam aquatic life, including algae and aquatic grasses, mussels,
generation and cooling purposes. One issue jellyfish, crustaceans (shrimp and crabs) and fish. These materials
that affects nearly all plant designs is the block- contributed to 37 of the 44 events. The remaining events were
age of cooling water intakes by storm debris, created by accumulations of frazil ice (ice crystals forming in a
silt, grass and other materials and organisms. And, with the new body of water), depositions of sand and silt and ingress of crude
regulations to keep fish out of the intakes, finer mesh screens pose oil. WANO’s analysis indicated these types of problems persist
an even greater risk of blockage, with the potential need to shut at generating stations and that industry efforts to reduce their
down or de-rate the plant. frequency have not been effective. Additionally, the analysis
To address this problem, EPRI created a project to analyze confi rmed that these circumstances frequently affect plant safety
the extent of the problem and determine best practices for and reliability. More than 80 percent of the events analyzed by
predicting, preventing and mitigating intake blockages. EPRI WANO affected power generation capacity. Many of the events
selected Alden as the principal investigator for the projects. resulted in multiple unit transients, unit shutdowns or unit
To complete the project, the research partners collected written power reductions.
data from 77 different nuclear, fossil and biomass plants, in The EPRI survey found such occurrences were also common in
addition to visiting 11 facilities to determine both what problems other types of plants: 55 percent of respondents had experienced
they were experiencing and what actions they had found effective either plant shutdown or unit de-rating due to debris-related
in dealing with blockage. The survey was combined with a Debris issues, 42 percent had experienced screen failures and 85 percent
Management Workshop, which included presentations from required condenser cleaning.
vendors on existing and emerging technologies, and developed Despite the seriousness of the issue, it hasn’t received adequate
a best management practices guidance manual. attention. WANO’s analyses indicated that plant operators, intake
system engineers, maintenance personnel and contractors were
Scope of the Problem not provided adequate procedural guidance or training to handle
Power outages and load reductions related to intake blockages intake blockage situations, even though these events could cause
occur at thermal power plants throughout the world, regardless degradation of safety-related systems, entry into site emergency
of fuel type or cooling water body source. The reduction or loss plans and multiple-unit shutdowns or loss of the ultimate heat
of cooling water can impact plant safety and reliability while sink. EPRI research numbers indicate that 14 percent of plants
reducing revenue. have studied their debris problems to develop solutions.

26 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Further complicating the matter, debris to adjustments in land-use practices and EPRI Survey Results
issues and sources are constantly chang- to alternations in the water body, includ- The EPRI survey consisted of responses
ing due to changes in the environment. ing all manner of aquatic and terrestrial from 24 utilities covering 77 generating
The causal mechanism associated with flora and fauna. In addition, U.S. power facilities. Of these, 64 percent were coal-
intake blockages, for example, is subject plants need to comply with Clean Water fi red plants, 15 percent were nuclear and
Act §316(b) regulations the remainder natural gas, petroleum or
which require that biomass. Rated capacity varied widely:
“Any standard ... appli- 28 percent were less than 500 MW, but
cable to a point source four units were over 3,000 MW. Results
shall require that the showed that 70 percent of the units
location, design, con- required less than 1,000 mgd for cooling
struction, and capacity water. The most common water source
of cooling water intake was deep rivers (more than one-third),
structures reflect the but others received water from shallow
best technology avail- rivers, estuaries, the Great Lakes, smaller
able for minimizing lakes or reservoirs and the ocean. About
adverse environmental 80 percent of the information came from
impact.” This includes facilities in the South and Midwest United
installing fish screens to States.
minimize the impinge- The survey found that:
ment and entrainment • Debris Issues are Common - Nearly
fish in the cooling wa- 50 percent of facilities have de-rated
ter. Such screens, how- due to debris issues and slightly more
Rake head covered in gracillaria, a type of warm water seaweed. Photo
courtesy EPRI. ever, can add to the risk than 10 percent have shut down due
of blockage. to debris.
• Multiple Debris Sources - Two of the
eight plants that reported shutdowns
were affected by two types of debris
with the remaining six facilities shut
down by one kind of debris. Nearly
8 percent of facilities reporting
de-rating indicated problems with
four different debris varieties,
approximately 8 percent with three
different types, 37 percent with two
types and the remaining 47 percent
experiencing only one type of debris.
• Frequency Related to Water Source-
Deep river and estuary-sited facilities
experienced the greatest percentage
of shutdowns (15 percent and 17 per-
We put our energy into helping you produce cent, respectively) while reservoir/
energy more efficiently. lake-sited facilities did not report any
shutdowns. Over 56 percent of gener-
The Dura-Bilt 5i Medium Voltage drive controls flow and ating stations located on deep rivers,
saves energy. With an exceptional product lifespan and estuaries, oceans and shallow rivers
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have de-rated due to debris issues.
TMEIC GE produces variable speed drives, motors, Less than 25 percent of facilities lo-
and automation systems for ID fans, boiler feed pumps, cated on Great Lakes and reservoir/
recirculation pumps, and many other applications. lakes have de-rated due to debris.
• Impact of Flow Rates - Plants with
At TMEIC GE, we believe conserving energy is everyone’s flow rates up to 500 mgd have the
job. Especially when you’re producing energy. highest percentage of shutdowns (19
percent). Facilities with flow rates
ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 mgd
experience the fewest shutdowns (0
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percent). The same pattern does not
exist for de-rating since the highest
metals | cranes | paper | oil & gas | utilities | cement | mining | rubber & plastics percentage of de-rating occurs at flow
For info. http://powereng.hotims.com RS# 18 rates between 500 to 1,000 mgd (70

28 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

percent) and 2,000 to 3,000 mgd shutdown due to debris and two problems connected with the type of
(67 percent). The lowest percentage facilities were de-rated due to leaves. cooling water source they are using.
of de-ratings was reported at flow Shallow river facilities reported EPRI and Alden will continue to gather
rates between 3,000 to 4,000 mgd shutdowns due to mussels/Asiatic data from additional plants to expand the
(25 percent). Plants requiring 3,000 clams and storms and numerous de- database and the guidance document, as
to 4,000 mgd reported the least im- ratings due to leaves and ice. well as assist individual plants in devising
pact (75 percent of facilities requiring their own strategies. EPRI is setting up
this flow rate indicated no impacts). Mitigating the Damage a Debris Best Management Practices
Between 26 percent and 46 percent Identifying likely sources of blockage Interest Group for 2010 to continue
of facilities requiring less than 3,000 is a good start, but the real value comes the exchange of expertise (through
mgd reported minimal impact to op- in identifying ways to predict, prevent workshops, webcasts and publications)
erations. and reduce blockages so they don’t result and launch additional research
• Water Source and Types of Debris – in de-rates or shutdowns. Numerous projects into the effective prediction,
Deep river-sited facilities reported plant operators have attempted measures understanding and management of debris
problems with eight of the nine to mitigate generation impacts due to events. Research participation would be
debris types, while reservoir/ cooling water debris with varying success. open to members, public agencies and
lake facilities reported issues with These experiences, if documented, can nonprofit organizations.
three of the nine. Specific fi ndings guide other plant operators in developing Some of the newer screening
include that deep river-sited facilities methods to keep their own plants technologies, such as Hydrolox,
are shut down most frequently by operating through debris events. Passavant-Geiger Multi-Disc and
leaves and de-rated most frequently To this end, EPRI has published a Beaudrey, do not have extensive operating
by fish, sand/sediment and leaves. Best Management Practices Manual histories with debris. In addition, other
Estuary-sited facilities were found to for Preventing Cooling Water Intake technologies, such as the Flow Velocity
have experienced shutdown due to Blockages. The document gives further Enhancement System, offer promising
leaves and have been de-rated most data on the sources of debris blockages, potential to reduce debris management
frequently by ice and fish. One Great as summarized above. The key result, costs impacts.
Lakes facility has been shut down however, is the section detailing what To obtain a copy of the Debris Best
by ice and multiple facilities have actions plants have found effective (or Management Practices Guidance Manual
been de-rated by plants/algae and ineffective) in dealing with specific types or for information on joining the Debris
ice. Multiple ocean-sited facilities of debris. For example, if a plant has BMP Interest Group, please contact
were shut down due to plants/algae trouble with jellyfish, horseshoe crabs, sea Kent Zammit at EPRI (kezammit@epri.
and others reported de-rating due grasses or silt, a section for each type of com). To receive an evaluation of intake
to plants/algae and storm related debris provides an overview of mitigation blockage issues at a specific site, contact
events. As mentioned previously, options and their effectiveness. The user Norman Perkins at Alden (nperkins@
no reservoir/lake facilities reported can also access sections covering common aldenlab.com).

________

For info. http://powereng.hotims.com RS# 19

www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 29

Inside Westar Energy’s 665 MW natural gas-fired Emporia

Energy Center in Emporia, Kan. Photo, Westar Energy.

Power Plant Personnel:

The Outsourcing Option
By Nancy Spring, Senior Editor

U
tilities have been concerned about the people replacing today’s retirees are getting younger and younger,
shortage of skilled workers for years. said Rita DeHart, president of Reliant Engineering, PA. Reliant
Today, the aging workforce issue has Engineering has been designing training programs for industrial
been somewhat tempered by the eco- and power generation facilities since 1997.
nomic downturn but the problem hasn’t DeHart taught a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) class
gone away. in 2000 at a plant site and the first audience was shift supervi-
Some projects have been put on hold sors and experienced control room operators in their 50s. “By the
or cancelled, so new hires aren’t needed. On the coal side, many time a year had gone by, the age had dropped dramatically as they
plants are only doing the required clean air upgrades because hired new people.”
demand is low, said Mike McMahon, president of the engineer- Employees are being brought up to speed faster than in the
ing, construction and maintenance group at Day & Zimmer- past, too.
mann, and some plants are even being “parked.” “A power plant employee can reach the control operator posi-
Nuclear power plant construction has its own set of issues, tion a lot faster than it would have taken years ago when people
among them the low price of natural gas. “You cannot justify were promoted by experience,” said DeHart. “You miss out on a
building anything but gas,” said McMahon. lot of experience only time can give you.”
Some older employees are staying on longer than they had Gary Mignogna, president of Areva DZ, a joint venture be-
anticipated as they wait for the economy (and their 401k) to im- tween Areva and Day & Zimmermann, said it’s difficult to find
prove, said Paul Fergus, senior account manager at PIC Group superintendent and foreman-level people, craft people and enough
Inc. This has helped the major utilities out for the short term, of the more experienced professional site management people be-
but eventually a shortage of employees will occur. cause there is a gap in the workforce of 35- to 45-year-olds.
“That’s when most people are in their prime for those kinds
The Demographics of positions and that’s where the demographic is the lowest,”
More that 50 percent of the workforce is age 45 and older. The said Mignogna.

30 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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The skilled crafts jobs pay well. With looking for one person who has experi- to the workplace as contract employees.
proper training, welders, pipe fitters or ence maintaining and operating the in- This delay in retirement within the in-
electricians can be making $60,000 to strument controls at the facility.” dustry is a temporary fi x to the increased
$100,000 a year before they’re 25 years While the economy has slowed de- demand for qualified workers. To meet
old. Areva has become active in training mand for electricity and some power this demand, colleges and universities are
and college programs and has developed plants have cut back, Smith said because currently investing in curriculums specif-
mentoring programs for younger workers. there’s a small pool of people with the ic to power and energy. This investment
“Still, five years from now there will right skills, there usually is a job waiting could have a positive return within the
be a big demand that won’t be easy to if a person is willing to relocate. industry.
meet,” said Mignogna. “I would say for 80 to 90 percent of Aerotek Energy Services recently placed
the positions we fi ll for direct hire for a team of engineers and designers at a nu-
Why Outsource? permanent positions we are relocating clear power plant to work on a service water
Power generators have a number of someone and that number is 95 percent project. The team was responsible for de-
options available to help them fi ll their for contract work,” said Smith. veloping solutions and providing detailed
workforce needs, including outsourcing Many power generation and utility engineering design packages to resolve a
recruitment and hiring to companies companies offer good relocation pack- long-term sewer water system issue.
that have developed their own networks ages. Finding the right person is the hard Areva DZ, a joint venture between
of skilled workers. part. Areva and Day & Zimmermann, offers
For example, a mid-sized utility in “We headhunt,” said Smith. “Every engineering, construction and mainte-
the Midwest hasn’t built a power plant day my job is networking, talking to the nance services to the U.S. nuclear utili-
ties sector. In October 2009, the compa-
ny announced a 5-year exclusive alliance
“Every day my job is networking, with the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) to provide specialized services to
talking to the plant managers, TVA’s fleet of nuclear power plants. Are-
knowing who is available and who va DZ will provide boiling water reactor
(BWR) and pressurized water reactor
is looking. I talk to hundreds of (PWR) refueling services, outage opti-
people a week and that would be mization, specialized non-destructive
examination services, parts and materi-
hard for an HR department to do.” als and PWR refueling tool maintenance
and steam generator services.
in 10 years, said PIC Group’s Fergus, plant managers, knowing who is available Day & Zimmermann specializes in
and lacking the necessary people for that and who is looking. I talk to hundreds of maintenance and modifications of nu-
single project but with no plans to build people a week and that would be hard for clear and coal plants, said engineering,
another power plant for years, it doesn’t an HR department to do.” construction and maintenance group
make sense to hire for a two-year period president Mike McMahon. “We have a
and then let the people go. PIC is provid- Variety of Services construction capability that is defi ned
ing staff augmentation for all the utility’s A survey of some of the top personnel by major modifications to existing pow-
project construction and startup manage- companies working with power genera- er plants; we are not into building new
ment. tors reveals a variety of options and ser- plants at this point.”
Sometimes seasoned, skilled workers vices. D&Z services more than 50 percent
are needed immediately for a short time. Aeroteck Inc. provides full-service of the U.S. nuclear power plants. The
PIC has been tracking everyone who staffi ng solutions throughout the U.S., company’s workforce is transient; work-
worked for them for the past 12 years, including nuclear, fossil and delivery and ers must be willing to travel, not just re-
so the company can recommend people business services within the utility sector. locate. Most projects run from 30 to 90
quickly to fi ll available jobs. Skills that are currently in high de- days, with employees going from outage
Different kinds of skills and expertise mand include engineering and project to outage for four months in the spring
are needed in today’s utility industry. management for both transmission and and four months in the fall. The com-
For example, environmental compliance delivery. In addition, engineers with re- pany typically employs between 3,000 to
positions are in demand now, especially newable energy experience have increased 5,000 people. During the peak outage
in California, said Brian Smith, Edge in demand over the past year. seasons in spring and fall, that number
Dynamic business solutions executive. Aerotek’s recruiters have built a net- swells to 20,000.
Environmental, health and safety (EHS) work of current and former contract em- “We have access to a workforce that
managers and environmental technicians ployees in the energy industry. Aerotek is nuclear qualified and experienced and
also are in demand. recruiters fulfi ll most openings through we keep a record of those qualifications,”
Where there used to be three posi- referrals of current, former and potential said McMahon.
tions—operations (control room or plant contract employees. D&Z typically take on alliance-type
operators), maintenance technicians and Many utility workers are working a work: multi-site, system-wide agreements
instrument and control—Smith has seen few extra years toward the end of their with clients, based on long-term relation-
a consolidation. “Plant managers are careers, while others are coming back ships.

32 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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“We have been doing the maintenance craft manpower for major boiler over- said Adam LeVrier manager, marketing
at the western half of TVA’s fossil fleet hauls, from waterwall tube and header and communications.
since 1995,” said Brian Hartz, senior vice replacement to air quality management Irwin crews are currently performing
president, business development. “They system installation. six large-scale outages at power plants
decided to entrust their nuclear fleet to Tube welders, because of their highly across the U.S.
us and continue to do the fossil mainte- specialized skills—such as “buddy weld- PIC Group Inc. provides services to
nance.” ing” and “mirror welding”—along with the power energy industry ranging from
Recently, D&Z has been involved with the great scrutiny paid to their work by operations and maintenance to instal-
TVA’s Watts Bar, a nuclear plant that was authorized inspectors using x-ray, linear- lation, outages, startup and commis-
mothballed in the mid-80s when more phased array and other testing methods, sioning and project support services for
than 90 percent complete. TVA has de- are always in demand. Likewise, experi- utilities and non-utilities. PIC also works
cided to complete construction. enced project managers capable of suc- with contractors and small municipali-
“It’s a really significant project, to put cessfully managing the stressful demands ties, OEMs and major EPCs.
a new nuclear plant on the grid,” said of overseeing safety, quality, schedule, “We are helping to recruit and staff for
Hartz. “Construction of nuclear plants is budget, client relations and so on, are a the entire company, which can be any-
a lost art. Processes and procedures and rarity in the industry. thing from high level management posi-
people’s expertise has been lost and it’s a The company’s two main approaches tons to engineers to the craft level,” said
challenge to recreate.” to developing key management and field Dawn Gehring, director of staffi ng and
recruiting services. “Probably the most
difficult to fi nd is the well-qualified and
...experienced project managers skilled manager level and the craft level.”
PIC tracks more than 5,000 people
capable of successfully managing every month, whether they are working
the stressful demands of for the company at the time or not, to
know who is available and who has the
overseeing safety, quality, schedule, right skill set.
PIC doesn’t staff permanent positions,
budget, (and) client relations are a but provides personnel who move from
rarity in the industry. project to project. The company said it
recruits by networking. Referrals from
Edge Dynamic Power Source staff are developing talent from within key employees on a job bring in new
works with all kinds of power plants— the company and committing to be the people.
nuclear, renewables, natural gas, coal employer of choice through a combina- Recently, PIC won a contract to supply
and hydro—to provide contract staffi ng, tion of competitive wages and benefits, 60 percent to 70 percent of the workers
direct hire, payroll services and training, development and advancement oppor- for a large coal-fi red power plant project.
construction and startup, retrofitting tunities and an engaged and supportive The utility had decided to take an ac-
and design and engineering prior to company culture. tive role and not use an EPC. Instead, it
construction. Staffi ng projects with a sufficient num- broke the project into four contracts and
One position that is always in demand ber of qualified craft professionals—until retained PIC to help secure needed man-
is instrument and controls (I&C) for en- recently, a great challenge for the indus- power.
gineers and technicians, someone who try—has eased over the past 24 months. ProEnergy offers a range of contract,
can design the control systems that run As a result, previously skyrocketing wag- direct hire and contract-to-direct hire
the plant and install and maintain them. es have stabilized. services in support of the company’s cus-
“It’s a big niche,” said Brian Smith, In recent years, ever larger scopes of tomers in the power industry.
business solutions executive, “everyone is work have been shoehorned into ever “The acronym DECCO (design, en-
always looking for a good I&C techni- shrinking project schedules. This trend gineering, construction, commissioning
cian.” has necessitated a stronger focus on up- and operations and maintenance) defi nes
Smith worked with a large combined front planning and scheduling, develop- the stages of personnel we provide,” said
cycle facility in the Southeast that was ment of more timely and effective project Al Simon, vice president of professional
equipped with GE 7FA gas turbines and controls and the documentation and dis- services. “We also support our customers
GE D11 steam turbines and used GE semination of lessons learned following in the global marketplace.”
Mark controls. He found someone with each project. ProEnergy has found that transmis-
the right experience who the company “In our experience, power generation sion and design engineers, high voltage
hired. companies typically staff their facilities technicians and linemen are the positions
Irwin Industries is a leading in- with employees who are highly knowl- most in demand, while the industry still
dustrial construction and maintenance edgeable about plant operations and day- urgently needs technical advisors, sched-
company serving the power generation to-day maintenance but may not have ulers and entry level plant staff.
industry. Irwin’s power plant services the experience or resources necessary to “Having a global work force, we fi nd
business unit primarily serves coal-fi red undertake a major boiler overhaul with a the majority of our people through word
generation, providing supervision and large scope of work and a tight schedule,” of mouth, standard recruiting methods

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and a referral system,” said Simon. “In engineers, middle and senior plant man- ter of 2009 demand shifted to project
addition, we have an internal database agement.” managers,” said Mike Bradbury, market-
that supports our global operations.” SCR fi nds that candidates can be iden- ing manager. This supports fi ndings of
Simon said the trends he’s tracked over tified only through focused penetration a recent survey of 2,300 clients, which
the past five years include the aging work of the company’s networks of actively indicated that signs of hiring growth are
force, the lack of funds to hire and train employed personnel. This has been ac- beginning to appear. Historically, when
entry level people or support apprentice- complished through proactive actions companies begin hiring project manag-
ship programs and increased use of au- such as memberships in industry associa- ers, new positions for engineers and tech-
tomated vendor management systems tions, investment in tradeshows and ex- nicians are not far off.
(VMS). hibitions and “reaching out” to success- As an engineering staffi ng fi rm with
“More and more utilities are turning ful industry personnel. access to a database of 2.8 million tech-
toward VMS and that adds one more “Success in recruiting and staffi ng nical candidates, fi nding the right candi-
hurdle to supporting the customer di- necessitates constant communication date hinges on getting the word out to
rectly and removes the human element of and interaction within the power indus- the right people, usually electronically.
communication with the customer,” said try,” said Huckeba. “We view ourselves But twice as often as any other medium,
Simon. as knowledgeable industry participants the right candidate hears about the open-
One of ProEnergy’s more recent proj- along with being well-trained recruiters/ ing because of the relationships he or she
ects involved supporting a utility cus- staffers.” builds with Think recruiters by phone or
tomer to ensure the owner’s projects were SCR sees a trend toward reductions e-mail, said Bradbury.
built to specification, including local and in experienced talent as the workforce Although overshadowed by reces-
state permitting, schedule, quality, safety ages. While some companies have made sion, a labor shortage continues to loom
and reliability. an effort and prepared for the upcoming for the energy industry. Think Energy
helped staff-up a Midwest greenfield
power plant EPC project, providing sev-
Although overshadowed by eral construction specialists for the fol-
recession, a labor shortage lowing areas: project manager, construc-
tion manager, project controls manager,
continues to loom for the QC manager, safety manager, lead su-
energy industry. perintendent, construction field engineer
and materials manager.
Reliant Engineering has been design- talent vacuum most have not invested in “Our consultants helped ensure that
ing training programs for industrial and recruiting and training the next genera- the project was completed on time and
power generation facilities since 1997, tion of power industry worker. In agree- under budget and we were able to iden-
with a focus on boiler training programs, ment with many industry experts, SCR tify some local talent to help provide jobs
system descriptions, operating proce- predicts a deficit of available talent is to the local community,” said Bradbury.
dures, equipment assessment and boiler looming. The United Brotherhood of Car-
operator certification. Reliant Engineer- Currently, SCR is fi nalizing the start- penters offers its utility customers a
ing also prepares documents such as up of Constellation Energy’s Hillabee skilled workforce on an as-needed basis.
system descriptions and operating pro- Project. Constellation bought the proj- Members possess skills to install, main-
cedures and integrated flow and control ect and brought it out of mothballs, said tain, modify or repair mechanical equip-
diagrams. Huckeba. SCR supplied the construction ment such as bulk conveyors, ball mills,
The company recently completed a set manager and several of the startup team pumps, compressors and rotating equip-
of the piping and instrumentation draw- members including the start-up manager, ment including turbines and generators,
ings for a large pulverized coal-fi red plant lead electrical, lead mechanical and oth- regardless of fuel.
and provided wet flue gas desulfurization er positions. “Our union is a recognized leader in
(FGD) training at two different power SCR has placed direct-hire candidates the green energy industry with respect to
stations. Reliant Engineering President as plant managers, engineering manag- training, installation and maintenance of
Rita DeHart said she is making prepa- ers, O&M managers, shift supervisors, solar, wind, hydroelectric and geother-
rations to do more wet FGD training in environmental directors and other power mal units,” said William G. Luddy, di-
May. industry-related positions. rector, special projects.
Strategic Contract Resources (SCR) Think Energy Group is an energy- Technical direction, project managers,
provides human capital in the form focused division of Think Resources, a field superintendents, foremen, experi-
of direct-hire candidates and project- Randstad company. Think provides staff- enced turbine millwrights, millwright
to-project consultants to utilities and ing services to electric utilities including machinists and apprentices are in high
supporting vendors. direct-hire, temp staffi ng, payroll ser- demand. “We believe that our superin-
“We have experienced heavy demand vices, vendor management and managed tendant and foreman training helps our
over the past year at all levels and disci- services. signatory contractors manage projects
plines,” said David Huckeba, director of “In 2008, we saw the most demand for more efficiently, saving the end user time
power project personnel. “This includes a variety of different electrical engineer- and money and increasing demand for
operators and maintenance personnel, ing positions, however in the last quar- their skills,” said Luddy.

36 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

© 2009 Swagelok Company

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The Carpenters Union is interested centives to older workers, which causes a to work directly for plant supervisors
in recruiting good men and woman. Its shortage of skilled in-house mechanics. and personnel to help complete assigned
“Helmets to Hardhats” program offers “Our signatory contractors are called tasks. When the project was completed,
veterans returning from duty union mem- in more frequently to supplement the in- the UBC millwrights left the plant for as-
bership and training to help them transi- house workforce with our skilled, moti- signment with another contractor.
tion into the civilian workplace. vated workforce,” said Luddy. When the
The Benefit of Flexibility
The outsourcing option gives The outsourcing option gives utilities
flexibility when it comes to hiring power
utilities flexibility when it comes plant personnel—and helps them avoid
to hiring power plant personnel— having to let people go after a short time,
said PIC’s Fergus. “That’s not the util-
and helps them avoid having ity model: they hire people to work with
them for 30 years.”
to let people go.... Flexibility is a benefit for the workers,
“We visit vocational schools and high job is completed the contract personnel too. They get to choose where and when
schools to explain what career opportu- leave and the utilities save money by not they work—and then take a vacation.
nities are available with our union,” said having additional staff on the payroll. As the economy improves, demand for
Luddy. “We also help maintenance work- When Day & Zimmerman NPS was skilled workers will ramp-up and the in-
ers displaced by plant closures put their awarded a 5-year maintenance contract dustry should be prepared, said Areva’s
skills to productive use.” recently for the Dominion nuclear power Mignogna.
Luddy said there has been an increase plant in Waterford, Conn., the company “We have to have a workforce cultivat-
in the number of utilities deferring sched- called the Northeast Regional Council ed so that we can build for both new con-
uled outages and offering retirement in- of Millwrights and requested millwrights struction and the existing plants.”

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38 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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One of the two new HP steam bypass spargers inside

the existing condenser. Photo, Timothy Rathsam,
Sargent & Lundy

Riverside
Repowering Project
Xcel Energy converted its Riverside plant from coal to natural gas.
By Paul Eiden, Timothy Rathsam and Dawn Buchel, Sargent & Lundy LLC, and Darin Schottler, Xcel Energy

X
cel Energy initiated implementation of the Steam turbine 7 was installed in 1986 as a replacement for the
Metropolitan Emissions Reduction Project original steam turbines 6 and 7. Boilers 6 and 7 went into service
(MERP) with the twofold goal of reducing emis- in 1949 and 1950, respectively. Unit 8 was placed into service in
sions while increasing the amount of electricity 1964 and had a nominal generating capacity of 221 MW. (Units
produced at three Twin Cities coal-fired power 1 through 5 had been retired.) The existing plant had a total
plants. nominal generating capacity of 386 MW.
MERP is a voluntary program created in The Riverside Repowering Project consisted of retiring three
2003 and pursued by Xcel Energy to convert the Riverside and existing coal burning boilers and repowering steam turbine 7 by
High Bridge coal-fi red plants to natural gas combined cycle adding two combustion turbine generators (CTGs), designated
arrangements and to install modern emissions control equipment as Units 9 and 10, each with a heat recovery steam generator
on the Allen S. King plant. This article focuses on repowering (HRSG). The new CTGs and HRSGs were constructed where
the Riverside plant as part of MERP, specifically discussing the the original Riverside Units 1-5 once stood.
new combined cycle arrangement, steam turbine upgrades and Steam is piped from the HRSGs to the existing Unit 7
changes to the circulating water system. steam turbine. The repowered plant has a nominal summer day
generating capacity of 486 MW. The facility is entirely within
Project Scope property contained in the existing Riverside Plant (approximately
The Riverside Plant is in Minneapolis, Minn., on the east bank 77 acres), except for temporary construction facilities.
of the Mississippi River. The facility is close to residences and Xcel Energy managed the project using a multiple-contract
light industry. Before the repowering project began, the Riverside approach. As the owner, Xcel Energy bought the major equipment
plant consisted of two operating steam turbine generators (Units and commodities, executed the construction management and
7 and 8) supplied from three operating coal-fi red boilers (Units performed a number of installation activities itself. Xcel Energy
6, 7 and 8). Steam turbine 7 had a nominal capacity of 165 MW also designed the new plant switchyard and transmission lines
and received steam supplied from boilers 6 and 7. connecting to the existing main substation. The remaining

40 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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construction work was allocated into

separate installation contracts.
Sargent & Lundy (S&L) performed
engineering and design, developed
procurement specifications and expedited
equipment deliveries. Technical design
was coordinated around S&L’s three-
dimensional (3-D) computer model
platform, including modeling existing
equipment and buildings to the extent
necessary to ensure proper interfaces with
the new design.

Combined Cycle Benefits

The new CTGs are General Electric
PG7241 (7FA) machines designed for
burning natural gas in dry low NOX
combustors. There are no plans to burn
fuel oil or other alternate fuels.
Gas is delivered to the site by a new
high-pressure pipeline that does not
require additional onsite gas compression.
Inlet air evaporative coolers are used
to increase combustion turbine output The steam turbine being reassembled with the new blades installed.
during warm weather. Fuel gas heaters Photo, Timothy Rathsam, Sargent & Lundy.

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42 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

using hot water from the HRSG increase To reduce the plant’s visual impact, the
fuel gas temperature prior to combustion three coal-fi red boiler chimneys will be
to improve burner performance. Each removed, leaving the two shorter stacks
CTG has a guaranteed net output of 168 from the HRSGs. The outdoor portions
MW at rated conditions. of the obsolete air quality control system Moving from coal
The CTGs were also provided with and the coal handling equipment will be to biomass to
“peak-fi ring” mode capability, which eliminated, along with abandoned railroad
allows power output to be increased on
hot days but at a less efficient heat rate and
track and miscellaneous foundations. The
property will be fi nished with asphalt
POWER
with an increased frequency of scheduled
maintenance. At an ambient temperature
paving for main roads and crushed
aggregate for maintenance roads, with
TOMORROW
of 97 F, peak fi ring can increase output by landscaping and surface vegetation added
approximately 4 MW per CTG. to prevent erosion and beautify the site.
The HRSGs are from Nooter/Eriksen Steam turbine 7 is in an existing
and are designed as two-pressure, non- building, along with several pieces of
reheat, unfi red, natural circulation equipment that remain in service. The
drum type, with integral deaerator and condenser and two circulating water

Assessment of the Riverside plant

equipment prior to repowering
indicated that many existing
components were sized adequately
for the new plant arrangement.
horizontal gas flow. The high pressure pumps are positioned in the building
(HP) and low pressure (LP) sections both basement and operate in a once-through
consist of an economizer, evaporator and cooling system sourced by the Mississippi
superheater section. A selective catalytic River. The system continues to function
reduction (SCR) system using 19 percent with no change in flow rate. The condenser
aqueous ammonia is used to control NOX was modified to accommodate a full-flow 𰀮𰀢𰀵𰀦𰀳𰀪𰀢𰀭𰀁𰀩𰀢𰀯𰀥𰀭𰀪𰀯𰀨𰀁𰀴𰀺𰀴𰀵𰀦𰀮𰀴
emissions generated by the combustion steam turbine bypass system for both the
turbines. A casing spool section is included HP steam and LP steam generated by the 𰀢𰀴𰀩𰀁𰀩𰀢𰀯𰀥𰀭𰀪𰀯𰀨
for optional future installation of a catalyst HRSGs. This mode can be used during 𰀣𰀪𰀰𰀮𰀢𰀴𰀴𰀁𰀇𰀁𰀴𰀰𰀭𰀪𰀥𰀁𰀧𰀶𰀦𰀭𰀁𰀩𰀢𰀯𰀥𰀭𰀪𰀯𰀨
capable of reducing CO emissions. startup, shutdown or while the steam 𰀢𰀪𰀳𰀁𰀩𰀢𰀯𰀥𰀭𰀪𰀯𰀨𰀁𰀴𰀺𰀴𰀵𰀦𰀮𰀴
Fuel switching to natural gas from turbine is out of service.
𰀤𰀶𰀴𰀵𰀰𰀮𰀁𰀤𰀰𰀯𰀷𰀦𰀺𰀰𰀳𰀴
coal offers significant benefits for plant The steam is fi rst routed through steam
emissions. conditioning valves for pressure and 𰀴𰀵𰀰𰀳𰀢𰀨𰀦𰀁𰀇𰀁𰀶𰀯𰀭𰀰𰀢𰀥𰀪𰀯𰀨𰀁𰀁𰀴𰀰𰀭𰀶𰀵𰀪𰀰𰀯𰀴
Emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) are temperature reduction with water from
decreased 99 percent, NOX is decreased the condensate system used as the cooling
96 percent and mercury is eliminated medium. The steam then discharges into
entirely. the condenser through new spargers
The surrounding area will realize designed for an additional pressure drop.
additional environmental benefits. By (See Photo 1.) The previous arrangement
switching to natural gas, the coal trains included a much smaller sparger sized for
were eliminated, ending dust issues caused boiler startup conditions.
by coal handling systems. Assessment of the Riverside plant
FOR YOUR FREE PROCESS
Several noise mitigation features were equipment prior to repowering indicated DIAGRAM AND CALENDAR
incorporated into the combined cycle that many existing components were sized www.processbarron.com/power
design. The combustion turbines were adequately for the new plant arrangement. 866-307-4318
equipped with inlet silencing. A new The demineralized water system, vacuum
building enclosing the CTGs and HRSGs priming and condenser air removal
was furnished with sound-absorbing systems and air compressors had sufficient
wall and roof materials. For building capability to serve the modified plant.
ventilation, acoustic air inlet louvers and The facility is expected to operate in total systems solutions
low-noise exhaust fans were used. Steam intermediate load service with an annual
vents were fitted with silencers. capacity factor of around 30 percent.
For info. http://powereng.hotims.com RS# 29
www.power-eng.com

The plant is configured to operate over boiler was installed that is capable of condensing, two-casing, doubleflow
the range of maximum generation to the maintaining warm standby conditions down-exhaust with 28.5-inch last stage
minimum output of a single combustion indefi nitely. On average, 150 starts a year blades. Rated conditions at the throttle
turbine operating at 45 percent load. are anticipated. valve inlet are 965 psia and 1,000 F. These
During most periods of operation, the values have not been changed as part of
plant is expected to start five to seven Steam Turbine Upgrades the repowering project.
times a week, primarily for load following The existing steam turbine was The turbine design included three
on weekdays, shutting down on weekends furnished by Westinghouse Electric extractions from the HP casing and two
and weeknights, with an occasional Corp. in 1986 with a nameplate rating extractions from each side of the LP
weekend start. A new gas-fi red auxiliary of 150.5 MW. The turbine is non-reheat, casing for feedwater heating. The five
stages of feedwater heaters were removed
from service and were not included in the
combined cycle configuration.
The HP extractions were cut and
capped. Small bore drain lines were
added at each extraction and routed to
the condenser. A control valve, normally
closed, was included in each line, which
opens if condensate starts to collect in the
drain. For the LP extractions, the lines
were cut and capped inside the condenser
neck. At the low point of each cap, a
1-inch hole was drilled that continuously
drains steam above the condenser tubes
to prevent condensate buildup in the
remaining stub of extraction piping.
Small holes were also added to the steam
turbine LP casing to prevent water droplet
buildup and aid in moisture removal.
At base load, the turbine operates with
the throttle and governor valves wide open
with sliding pressure. After repowering,
design steam flow to the turbine has
decreased from 1,255,000 lb./hr. to a
maximum of 1,130,000 lb./hr. However,
since the extraction lines were removed
and no flow is leaving the turbine, the
amount of flow exiting the HP section has
increased by approximately 10 percent.
As a result, the calculated pressure at the
outlet of the HP casing increases. This
would cause an overstress condition on the
outer casing bolting along the horizontal
joint, so changing the bolting or the flange
was considered, but these options did not
resolve the problem. Therefore, it was
necessary to maintain the same HP casing
exhaust pressure as originally designed.
To achieve this, rows 1 and 2 in the LP
section of the turbine were redesigned
and replaced to enable an increased flow
through the LP turbine at the same inlet
pressure. This work was accomplished by
Mitsubishi Power Systems. (See Photo 2.)
The remaining existing blades, the rotor
and all other steam turbine components
were determined to be acceptable in
the repowered configuration. Leak-off
lines from the steam chest and the HP
___________
section were altered. This piping formerly
For info. http://powereng.hotims.com RS# 30

www.power-eng.com

connected with the extraction steam

lines but is now routed to the condenser.
Temperature in the leak-off lines requires
the use of alloy material (ASTM A335 Gr.
P22).
Low-pressure steam generated by the
HRSGs is routed to a new admission
point on the steam turbine. Maximum
operating conditions for the LP steam
system are 115 psia and 505 F. The new
admission connection is located on the
48-inch-diameter crossover pipe between
the HP casing exhaust and the LP casing
inlet. The new connection is 14 inches
in diameter with 80,000 lb./hr. design
flow rate. (See Photo 3.) Using one of the
extraction nozzles as the new admission
point was considered rather than
installing a new connection. Mitsubishi
advised against this arrangement,
however, citing concerns over possible
non-synchronous (or random) vibration
The new LP steam admission line connection into the crossover piping circulating water system. with the steam entering the flow path in
Photo, Timothy Rathsam, Sargent & Lundy. a nonsymmetrical fashion.

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www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 45

New LP steam stop and control valves of the new circulating water intake right conditions, frazil ice can spread
were added near the steam turbine. Each included the shallow river water depths and adhere to objects in the water,
valve has a fast-acting, air-operated, in the vicinity of the existing intake, especially when they are at a temperature
butterfly-style arrangement. periods of heavy river debris and silting, below water’s freezing point. Managing
incorporation of the wedge-wire screens surface ice is not the goal of the warming
Circulating Water System into the existing intake structure and system, as the screens were placed below
Repowering the plant requires avoiding the circulating water discharge the maximum expected ice layer. An
the project to comply with the U.S. pipe directly below the intake that extends ice layer actually helps prevent frazil ice
Environmental Protection Agency’s to the middle of the river. formation by insulating the water surface
(EPA’s) Cooling Water Intake Structures Air burst, silt sluicing and river warming and preventing the large heat loss rates
Phase II regulation, under section 316(b) systems were designed and installed to responsible for supercooled water.
of the Clean Water Act. The Phase II rule
sets national standards for cooling water
withdrawals by large, existing power
producing facilities.
The plant is permitted to reduce
impingement by limiting the maximum
through-screen design intake velocity to
0.5 ft./second or less, which could not
be met by the existing traveling screens.
A study was performed to evaluate the
technical acceptability and economics
of the available technologies for intake
screening. The number of available intake
screening options was limited by the short
timeframe allowed for actual construction
of the intake. Installing the new intake
could not affect the operation of the
plant until Unit 7 went into an extended
outage starting in September 2008 and
had to be completed by the time the
repowered plant initiated startup activities
in January 2009. Plus, all river work had
to be completed before the river froze in
November 2008. One of the modular circulating water intake piping sections being lowered into the Mississippi River. Photo,
Use of underwater wedge-wire screens Timothy Rathsam, Sargent & Lundy.
was the best technically acceptable option.
The versatility of the wedge-wire screens mitigate various types of screen fouling Converting Riverside Plant to a
enabled them to be incorporated into the and to keep the screens operating at peak combined-cycle station accomplished the
existing intake structure with relatively performance. goals of reducing emissions and increasing
minor modifications. Five wedge-wire Air Burst: Periodically releases high- power output. Plant performance met
screens extend into the Mississippi River pressure air inside the intake screens to predicted values for output and heat rate.
and are connected via an underwater pipe remove any debris accumulated on the The combined cycle plant was ready for
header to a new steel bulkhead installed screen surfaces. operation in time for summer 2009.
at the existing Unit 7 intake screenhouse. Silt Sluicing: Periodically “jets” away
The river area in the vicinity of the any sediment buildup in the area below Editor’s note: This article was condensed
Unit 7 intake was dredged and rip-rap the screens. The operation of the sluicing from a paper the authors presented at
was placed during a planned outage in the system is anticipated only during times of POWER-GEN International 2009.
summer prior to installing the new intake. heavy silt loading, typically during the fall Additional topics covered in the paper
During installation of the new intake, and spring. include plant controls, foundation and
piles were driven into the river bottom Warming: Redirects a portion of the building design, electrical integration and
to support the wedge-wire screens and water from the Unit 7 circulating water project schedule.
the piping header. The new bulkhead discharge tunnel to the area around
and all underwater piping were shop- each of the five screens to prevent the Authors: Paul Eiden is a manager at
prefabricated and modularized so that formation of frazil ice near the screens. Sargent & Lundy LLC. Contributing to
underwater installation only involved Frazil ice is a collection of tiny waterborne this article were Timothy Rathsam and
setting the pieces and bolting up the ice crystals that resemble slush and form Dawn Buchel, both members of S&L’s fossil
flanges (see Photo 4), minimizing the in supercooled, turbulent water, which power technology division based in Chicago,
need for underwater welding. can eventually block all or part of the and Darin Schottler, manager for Xcel
Challenges associated with the design wedge-wire screen surface. Under the Energy in Minneapolis.

46 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Fish-friendly
Hydro Turbine
By Nancy Spring, Senior Editor

B
locked passages for fish and turbine-induced The Alden turbine, by contrast, looks like a corkscrew. It has
mortality of downstream migrating fish are three blades, no gaps, is big and rotates more slowly. But the
major environmental issues for hydropower design compensates so energy production doesn’t suffer.
projects. Direct spillage is one method to pro- “When you make it rotate slower you have to compensate by
tect downstream fish passage but can result in increasing the turbine’s size,” said Dixon. “The outside edge
generation loss. Various turbine fish bypass goes at the same speed so that it generates the same amount of
technologies have been developed but gener- electricity.”
ally have been expensive and their effectiveness less than optimal.
A new turbine design that reduces fi sh passage injury and
mortality could change everything. Developed under the U.S.
Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Hydro Turbine
Systems (AHTS) program by Alden Research Laboratory,
results from pilot-scale testing done in 2001 and 2002 were
promising. In 2009, the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI) received an award from the DOE to conduct a multi-
year program to continue the turbine’s development and bring
it to full-scale deployment.
“The Alden turbine is very promising, it offers an alternative
to the mortality that occurs with existing turbines,” said Doug
Dixon, senior program manager for EPRI’s Fish Protection
Program. “It’s new, it’s cutting edge and we are sponsoring
this research because we believe it has something to offer the
industry and the public.”
Utilities are also supporting the project to help make sure
the turbine’s potential is fulfi lled. South Carolina Electric &
Gas, Puget Sound Energy, Dairyland Power, Southern Co. and
Electricité de France along with the New York Power Authority,
the New York State Energy Research and Development Computational fluid dynamic model of the Alden turbine. Full-scale operation of
Authority and Brookfield Renewable Power are funding the the turbine is expected to result in turbine passage survival rates higher than 98
project to augment the DOE grant EPRI received. percent for many fish.

Turbine Technology With this design, fish move down a smooth channel with a
Alden’s goal was to develop a turbine that permitted the few blades that are turning more slowly than traditional hydro
safe passage of downstream migrating fi sh thereby mitigating turbines, resulting in less chance for injury.
either the need for expensive protection technologies or non-
generation spill. The Alden turbine is a new hydro turbine Biological Testing
design. Pilot-scale biological evaluation of the turbine was conducted
The design has some similarities to screw pumps that can at Alden Laboratory in 2001 and 2002 under the DOE’s AHTS
be used to safely transfer fi sh, said Stephen Amaral, senior program, which has since been replaced by a new water power
fi sheries biologist, Alden Research Laboratory, but the Alden program that incorporates improvements to hydro for efficiency
turbine was developed specifically for generation, the reverse and environmental performance. (EPRI was not involved at
of pumping. that time.) It was the fi rst pilot-scale biological evaluation of
Most conventional Kaplan hydropower turbines have five or a turbine. Testing was done using a closed-loop system driven
six blades; other types have many more. A Francis turbine, for by a 2,000 hp pump, with the turbine output absorbed and
instance, will have 14 to 18 blades, increasing the occurrence speed controlled by a dynamometer. Test results and data were
of blade strike and injury to fish, said Dixon. In addition, also collected on the power conversion efficiency of the turbine
typical hydropower turbines have gaps between the blades and using this facility.
the turbine hub where fish can get caught. These turbines are “We injected fi sh into the turbine test loop upstream of
designed to be small and spin fast to extract the most energy at the turbine to determine passage-related injury and survival,”
the lowest initial cost. said Amaral. “It is probably the most intensive and rigorous

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evaluation of turbine passage survival length in many river systems. Length double its flow-handling capability and
that has ever been conducted, with more is an important factor—the longer the a re-design of the runner. EPRI is also
than 40,000 fi sh used in the evaluation.” fish, the greater the probability they’ll be investigating the relationship of turbine
A technical committee of DOE staff, hit by turbine blades. Where they have leading edge blade shape, thickness and
industry professionals and resource done field studies with eels, said Amaral, speed to fish injury and mortality to add
agency biologists and engineers decided survival rates are typically lower than to the environmental performance of the
on the operational parameters and which they would be with a smaller fish. turbine.
species to evaluate. But in the Alden turbine, American “We know at the pilot scale it is effective
“We weren’t really sure at the time eels had the highest survival rate. They and when you take those results and scale
exactly where its application would fall, were the largest fish tested, measuring up them up to full scale, you should have
but to start we wanted to focus on a sort to 18 inches. Within an hour of testing extremely high survival, greater than 98
of prototype design,” said Amaral, who all the eels that passed through survived. percent for most species,” said Dixon.
coordinated the biological testing. When latent mortality rates were factored
Two operational heads and runner in, such as 96-hour post-passage survival, Next Step: Engineering
rotational speeds were selected: 40 feet at the smaller eels had 100 percent survival EPRI, Alden and Voith Hydro
240 rpm and 80 feet at 345 rpm. Testing rate; the 18-inch eels had about 99 will work together to conduct the
was done with and without wicket gates. percent total survival rates. developmental engineering needed to
Biocriteria developed through research “That surprised us, that’s a key prepare the Alden turbine for full-scale
funded under other DOE programs was fi nding,” said Amaral. “Eels are one deployment.
incorporated into the design to minimize of those species that the agencies are EPRI signed a contract with Voith
blade strike, reductions in pressure, flow focused on because there have been Hydro in late December 2009. Over
shear and turbulence. declines in populations.” the next six to eight months, Voith will
take the turbine concept from computer
drawings to engineered design. Dixon
Although the Alden turbine could expects that by the fi rst quarter of 2011
a fi nal engineering design and report for
be used on 1,000 MW projects... the project will be ready.
“We are working on an expedited
its potential use may be greater at schedule,” said Dixon. “As the
smaller hydro projects.... engineering design is developed, they
are also going to build a model about 15
inches in diameter.” Later this year, the
“We used the ‘white lab rat’ of White sturgeon also had statistically physical model will be tested in Voith’s
fi sh, rainbow trout, because they higher survival rates compared to the hydraulic test stand facility in York, Pa.
are representative of many species, other species, including bass, trout, The scope of engineering includes:
particularly salmonids, and readily salmon and alewife. • Refi ning the runner geometry to
available in a variety of sizes,” said “What’s different about them is they increase turbine efficiency, enhance
Amaral. are cartilaginous, less susceptible to fi sh survival and to allow for practical
Other species representative of injury from strike,” Amaral said. Like construction methods based on
important fish that commonly occur at American eels, they don’t have scales, calculated loads.
hydro projects in various areas of the U.S. making them less subject to secondary • Adjusting the spiral case, stay vane
were included in the test program, such as infections. and wicket gate geometries based on
alewife, smallmouth bass, coho salmon, Based on pilot-scale test results, calculated forces and FEA evaluation
American eel and white sturgeon. predictions suggested at least a 96 for structural integrity. Axial thrust
The range of pilot-scale survival rates percent fish survival rate for a full-scale and transient forces will be measured
for American eels and white sturgeon unit. Turbine passage survival depended in the physical model.
were considerably higher than would primarily on fi sh length and operational • Preparing mechanical designs of
be achieved by other turbine designs head, a fi nding consistent with blade turbine shafting, head cover, stay
at many sites, showing the importance strike as the primary cause of fish ring, gate operating system, bearings
of fi sh morphology and physiology in mortality. and seals.
turbine passage survival. “With our turbine, we think we have Testing a “real-world” Alden turbine
One surprising fi nding was the survival designed-out issues related to shear and will take place in a few years. When that
rates of the American eel. Eel behavior is turbulence and pressure,” said Amaral. happens it will mark the fi rst time that
opposite that of salmons: eels migrate as “The primary mechanism for injury federal and state fisheries management
adults from fresh water to the ocean to is blade strike and we think we have agencies have agreed to consider passing
spawn. They have to migrate upstream as reduced that quite a bit because we only fish through a turbine.
young fi sh past the dams and then down use three blades.” Brookfield Renewable Power’s 38
when older. Little is known about them Continued development of the Alden MW School Street hydroelectric project,
once they get into the oceans. turbine that has been funded by EPRI on the Mohawk River north of Albany,
American eels can be 3 to 4 feet in includes a re-design of the scroll case to N.Y., had been proposed as the fi rst test

50 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

site. Uncertainty exists, however, because larger when based on estimates of gener- for downstream fish passage, generating
of some unrelated licensing issues. A ating capacity available for development in capacity is expected to increase while
competing application for the project has the U.S. According to the DOE, 21,000 O&M costs for downstream fish passage
been prepared and EPRI is announcing a MW of generating capacity can be added facilities are expected to decrease. Full-
new program to solicit alternate test sites. at existing dams. Some 19,000 MW could scale operation of the turbine could result
be generated at new small hydro develop- in turbine passage survival rates higher
Benefits and Economics ments of 1 MW to 30 MW. Assuming that than 98 percent for many fish.
Although the Alden turbine could be half of this additional generation is suit- “We think it’s important to the industry
used on 1,000 MW projects like those able for units in the 5 to 20 MW range, and most people recognize it as high
on the Columbia River, its potential use a potential market exists for 2,000 Alden priority,” said Amaral. “EPRI has been the
may be greater at smaller hydro projects turbines with an average capacity of 10 one to pick up the ball after the original
where the greatest gains in fi sh survival MW per turbine. DOE program ended. We wouldn’t be
and additional power production can be “We haven’t quite nailed it down, but where we are today without them.”
achieved. are using a broad guide from about 20
Based on estimates of downstream pas- feet of head up to 120 feet of head,” said Editor’s Note: Stephen Amaral, senior
sage or minimum flow release require- Amaral. The School Street project is still fisheries biologist, Alden Research Labora-
ments at FERC-licensed and non-federal considered the design point. When Voith tory, and Douglas Dixon, senior program
developments under FERC’s jurisdiction engineering is finished, however, they will manager for EPRI’s Fish Protection Pro-
(plus potential projects), as many as 1,000 have an 80 percent design that can be gram, were two of seven authors of a paper on
projects exist where the Alden turbine applied to other sites. the Alden turbine that was presented at the
could be applicable. By using the Alden turbine instead Waterpower XVI conference in July 2009.
The turbine’s potential market is even of screening, spillage or other practices

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www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 51

Feeding the Beast

How coal-fired boilers handle co-fired biomass fuels
By Alexander Akbrut, URS Washington Division
Co-fi ring biomass fuels with coal in PC steam generators, flu- limited application. Typically, the biomass portion in co-fi ring
id bed boilers, cyclones and stockers is a proven technology and with coal in PC boilers is about 5 percent to 15 percent of the
is seeing increased support of power utilities and environmental heat input. These biomass rates are achievable when biomass is
authorities. injected into the boiler furnace separately from the coal.
Co-fi ring biomass with coal presents an efficient means of in- The biomass receiving equipment typically includes truck
troducing a sustainable source of fuel. Biomass may be mixed scales and hydraulic tippers.
with coal at up to 20 percent by heat input resulting in reduc- The biomass storage pile is formed in the coal yard or in a
tions in carbon, nitrogen and sulfur emissions. Co-firing bio- storage/reclaim barn. Biomass is reclaimed from the yard pile
mass in the existing boilers requires modifying or adding to the or the storage barn and transferred by belt conveyors to primary
fuel handling, storage and feed systems. hoggers that are discharging to screening machines which feed
oversized material to secondary hoggers.
Crushed biomass is transferred by ro-
TABLE 1 BIOMASS CONVEYING SYSTEM PARAMETERS tary airlock feeders from the hogger surge
Criteria Dilute-Phase Systems Dense-Phase Systems hoppers to a positive pressure pneumatic
conveyor. This transports the biomass
Load Ratio (5-22) lb of solids to lb Load Ratio (20-80) lb solids to lb of material to a storage silo furnished with
Design Criteria of air 10-30 psig operating pressure air 30-100 psig operating pressure “live bottom” radial screw augers.
2000-3500 fpm starting velocity 600-3000 fpm starting velocity Metered biomass product is trans-
ferred from the storage silo by a positive
The existing biomass resource base is comprised of agricul- pressure conveying system to the boiler furnace where special
tural crop residues, manures from confined livestock and poul- openings are furnished for the biomass conveying pipes. Typi-
try operations, wood and bark mill residues from primary wood cally the conveying pipe is furnished by a splitting pipe arrange-
product manufacturing plants, bark residues from the wood ment in the boiler area allowing several injecting points into the
pulp industry, logging residues from timber harvesting opera- furnace.
tions, noncommercial components of standing forests and the The pressure system engages a positive-displacement blower,
organic fraction of municipal solid wastes. producing pressures up to 20 psig for the conveying system. Sys-
Biomass sizing requirements are as follows: tem capacities in excess of 60 tons per hour (TPH) and convey-
• PC Boiler ≤1/4 in. ing distances of greater than 1,000 feet require higher blower
• Fluid Bed ≤3 in. pressures.
• Cyclone ≤1/2 in. Two types of pressure systems exist: dilute-phase and dense-
• Stoker ≤3 in. phase systems. The parameters of both conveying systems are
Hammer mills, hoggers, spike rolls, disc screens are typically shown in Table 1.
used for sizing the biomass fuels. The dilute-phase pressure system is recommended for convey-
Woody biomass is usually injected into the PC boiler furnaces ing the biomass materials. Abrasion resistant pipes are typically
separately from the coal and petcoke. Blending the biomass with specified for biomass conveyors.
coal prior to feeding the pulverizers is not practical if the bio- Co-fi ring biomass in PC boilers does not impose of limita-
mass portion is above 3 percent by heat input because the pul- tions on boiler capacity while there is a modest reduction in
verizer capacities are limited. Blending the biomass with coal in boiler efficiency. Certain reduction of SO2 and NOX emissions is
coal storage silos will cause material flow ability problems. another benefit of co-fi ring the biomass with coal in PC boilers.
Feeding the biomass fuel to a PC boiler is usually done by us- The circulating fluidized bed boiler technology is developed
ing a positive pressure pneumatic conveying system that injects for combusting mixtures of different coals and biomass fuels to
the properly sized material into the boiler furnace through inde- operate in an environmentally friendly way. Biomass fuels have
pendent feeding ports arranged above the existing coal burners. characteristics which improve the combustion behavior of low
Feeding the biomass fuel to a fluid bed boiler is typically pro- quality coals due to high volatile content and low sulfur, nitro-
vided by a mechanical conveying system furnished by belt con- gen and ash contents. By comparison, about 1,000 tons of Pow-
veyors and/or drag chain conveyors that deliver the fuel to the der River Basin (PRB) coal with 8,750 Btu/lb and 0.2 percent
boiler biomass surge hoppers. Injecting the fuel from these hop- sulfur will produce four tons of sulfur dioxide. To produce that
pers into the fluid bed boiler is usually done by screw feeders. same ton of sulfur dioxide, it takes about 6,800 tons of wood
Despite the fact that PC steam generators represent the ma- with 5,000 Btu/lb and 0.03 percent sulfur. When compared on
jority of utility boilers, co-fi ring of coal with biomass received a a Btu basis, wood-fi red generation produces about one-fourth of

52 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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the sulfur dioxide of the PRB coal. in the bed by limestone, thus minimizing N2O is reduced while the second stage of
Burning biomass fuel allows an opera- the formation of N2O in the bed. The re- combustion at lower temperatures allows
tor to reduce the amount of limestone duced SO2 level in the fluid bed boiler re- reduced NO emissions. The high reactiv-
injected into the boiler furnace and gen- sults in an increase in the pool of H, OH ity of biomass fuel allows efficient com-
erate less waste that is beneficial to the and/or O radicals, which can effectively bustion at lower than in a PC boiler air
ash handling system size and reduce the destroy N2O. The SO2 gas is not collected excess which is further reducing the N2O
boiler tubes wear. Co-fi ring in a 300 MW in a PC boiler which is not preventing the formation.
fluid bed boiler a blend of 80 percent formation of N2O in the boiler furnace. Measurements of N2O emissions in
PRB/20 percent biomass on a Btu basis The combustion temperature is the fluid bed boilers indicate that N2O emis-
allows the amount of limestone to be re- most important parameter affecting the sions increase with rank of the fuel. For
duced by 21,000 t/yr. These savings will rates of formation and destruction of fuels of higher rank such as coals, concen-
be more significant when co-fi ring bio- N2O and NO. N2O emissions decrease trations of 150 to 200 ppm of N2O have
mass with petroleum coke. The been measured in the flue gases,
low operating temperature in a whereas negligible amounts of
CFB boiler results in low NOX TABLE 2 TYPICAL BIOMASS BULK DENSITIES N2O are emitted from 100 per-
emissions and optimum condi- cent wood combustion.
tions for SOX removal with the Woody Biofuels Bulk Density, lb/cu.ft. Adding the biomass for co-
addition of limestone. The low Log Wood (Stacked): Beech 29.0 firing with coal in a fluid bed
combustion temperature, how- Spruce 19.0 boiler allows to reduce the N2O
ever, allows formation of N2O. emissions. Depending on the
During combustion, nitro- Wood Chips: Softwood 12.0 heat input portion by the biomass
gen oxides NOX and N2O are Hardwood 18.0 fuel, it is possible to control the
formed in CFB boiler mainly Bark: Softwood 13.0 N2O emissions to a level achiev-
from the nitrogen present in Hardwood 20.0 able in PC boilers. The higher is
the fuel. Nitrogen content in the biomass heat input portion,
Saw Dust 11.0
woody biomass is typically the lower are the N2O emissions.
within 0.1 percent to 0.5 per- Shavings 6.0 The best results are achieved at
cent, which is less than in PRB Wood Pellets 34.0-38.0 100 percent biomass combustion.
coal (0.8-1.2 percent) and bi- On average, 1 percent of bio-
Herbaceous Biomass
tuminous coals (up to 1.5 per- mass in fuel blend will reduce the
cent). Upon being fed into the Round Bales: Straw 5.0 NOX emission by 1 percent. At
fluidized bed, the fuel particles Hay 6.0 20 percent biomass heat input
quickly heat up, mix with bed Block Bales: Straw 9.0 portion on Btu basis, the reduc-
materials and release the vola- Hay 10.0 tion of the ammonia quantity
tiles. During devolatilization, injected into the boiler for NOX
Whole Plants 12.0
the originally bound fuel nitro- control is about 2,500 t/yr.
gen is partitioned into volatile Chopped Biofuels: Straw; Miscanthus 4.0 Co-fi ring biomass with pe-
nitrogen and char-nitrogen. In Whole Plants 9.0 troleum coke allows the com-
the volatiles, the major nitro- Straw Pellets 31.0 bustion efficiency of low-vola-
gen intermediates are ammonia tile and low- reactivity petcoke
NH3, and hydrogen cyanide Switchgrass Pellets 33.0 to improve. The presence of
HCN. When the fuel volatiles high volatile biomass in boiler
are oxydized in the gas phase at the fluid- with an increase in the bed temperature bed zone causes local increase of flame
ized bed temperature, NH3 is predomi- and NO exhibits an opposite trend. Con- temperature and better petcoke carbon
nantly converted into NO, whereas HCN verting HCN to N2O is sensitive to tem- burnout.
is an important volatile source of N2O. perature and decreases when the tempera- Co-fi ring the high moisture (up to 50
Both the formation and destruction of ture increases. If the temperature is more percent) biomass with PRB coal of 25 to
N2O in a fluidized bed boiler are catalyti- than 1,750 F, N2O is not formed. Instead 30 percent moisture content is resulting
cally affected by the bed material, includ- HCN is converted mainly to NO. Also, in reduced boiler combustion efficiency.
ing char, calcium oxides, calcium sulfates the increasing temperature accelerates the At a 20 percent biomass portion mea-
and ash. Biomass fuel ash contains up destruction of already formed N2O. sured on a Btu basis, the boiler heat losses
to 55 percent of calcium oxide that has The high reactivity of biomass fuels will increase by about 1 percent. The
a significant impact on N2O reduction supports the use of this fuel as a means additional volume of water vapors will
at lower temperatures. N2O is also af- for reducing NOX emissions. Further, the increase the total flow rate of flue gases
fected by the concentration of SO2 in the fuel nitrogen is also highly reactive which which has to be taken in consideration
boiler: the lower the SO2, the lower the is used in arranging the staged combus- when sizing the ID fans.
N2O. Biomass contains small amounts of tion in a fluid bed boiler. The fi rst stage of
sulfur and the amounts of SO2 generated combustion takes place in the bed where Beneficiation for Combustion
in combustion are also small. About 85 high reactivity of biomass fuel allows to The major types of biomass
percent to 90 percent of SO2 is collected create high temperature “pockets” where beneficiation are drying, comminution

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and densification. In drying, physically density of biomass are increased to of performing the size reduction in the
bound water is driven off (the removal lower transportation costs or processing field is in lowering transportation costs
of chemically bound water is not equipment size by reducing the volume of by increasing the wood bulk density and
included). By comminution, the particle material to be handled. thereby the volume energy density.
size of a biomass is reduced to a desired Comminution equipment used is Thermal drying is performed in di-
range by shredding, cutting, grinding mainly cutting grinders. Systems used for rect type and indirect type dryers (ro-
or pulverizing. In densification, the reducing woody biomass are generally de- tary drums, screw dryers, flash dryers,
apparent particle density and the bulk signed for field operation. The advantage fluid bed dryers and so on). Although it
theoretically requires about 1,000 Btu to
evaporate 1 lb of water, in drying wood it
actually requires 1,500 to 2,500 Btu to
evaporate 1 lb of water, the precise value
depending upon dryer efficiency.
Right Size. Maximum Yield. Biomass has many properties that make
it superior to coal as a fuel, but its bulk
Minimum Fines. Every Time. density is low, thus increasing shipping
and collection costs and reducing conver-
sion rates in boilers
The densification process takes advan-
tage of the physical properties of two of
the major components of biomass materi-
als, cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is sta-
ble to 480 F, while lignin begins to soften
at temperatures as low as 210 degrees.
Densification is carried out at tempera-
tures that ensure the cellulosic material
remains stable but that soften lignin frac-
tion, making it act as a “self-bonding”
agent that gives the fi nal pellet its me-
chanical strength.
Gundlach Roll Crusher Densification of biomass is a process
High Capacity – Coal up to 10,000 TPH
when the material is pressed or extruded
Size Control – Adjustable while operating
Non-Crushables – Automatic passing and reset
to form pellets, briquets or logs. These
have a specific gravity of 1.0 to 1.3 de-
pending on the process, as compared to a

That’s a Gundlach Roll Crusher. specific gravity of 0.4 to 0.6 for wood and
even less for other biomass forms. Den-
When precise coal product sizing with fewer ﬁnes and maximized yield is sification of biomass allows the biomass
important, Gundlach Roll Crushers get it right. Every time. Every day. Day bulk density to increase from 5 to 15 lb/
after day. And with its patented Nitroil® Adjustment and Relief System, cu.ft to 32 to 40 lb/cu.ft.
Gundlach Roll Crushers even let you produce different sized, precisely Some 50 pellet plants operating in the
sized product on-the-ﬂy. United States today with a combined
Find out why Gundlach Roll Crushers and CAGE-PAKTOR® cage mills production of about 1 million tons/
are the preferred crushing solutions for coal, year. One of the world’s largest wood
potash, salts and lime. pellet plant is in Florida and is scaled to
produce 550,000 tons of wood pellets a
Learn more at year from regionally sourced yellow pine
GundlachCrushers.com/pe roundwood. The roundwood is deliv-
ered to the plant by trucks. The wood
Precise Product Sized for Maximum Yield is de-barked and the stripped wood is
processed in a chipping system and the
chips are piled. The bark is sent to a fur-
nace for combustion to produce the heat
needed to dry the wood chips in single-
CRUSHERS pass rotary drums. Once the wood chips
Gundlach Equipment Corp., One Freedom Drive, Belleville, Illinois 62226 USA are dried, they are transferred to a silo
TOLL-FREE: 1-877-GUNDLACH • Phone: 618-233-7208 • Fax: 618-641-6974 for temporary storage. From the silo, the
Email: [email protected] • www.GundlachCrushers.com chips are conveyed to hammer mills that
will pulverize the wood before injecting
it into the pellet presses. A total of 13
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56 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

presses will be used to generate 550,000 material along the length of the drum.
tons of pellets per year. No binders or Fuel oil or natural gas are usually used in
chemicals are added in production of the drying the biomass.
pellets. Pellets are loaded into rail cars for If the average size of the raw material
shipment to the port for transshipment to is larger than 1/8-inch, a grinding pro-
Europe. The pellets are 0.3” in diameter, cess is required to reduce the size prior to
1.3” long and contain 7 to 10 percent pelleting. The fi nal grind hammer mill is
moisture and 0.5 percent ash. typically capable of handling the product.
Biomass pelletization performed at To bind the wood fiber into a pellet
power plant off-site facilities reduce the during the extrusion process, the temper-
number of truck deliveries and transpor- ature of the feedstock must be raised to
tation costs. Assuming that a 300 MW 220 to 240 F so that the wood’s natural
fluid bed boiler will be co-fi ring PRB coal lignins begin to bind the fibers together.
with biomass fuel at 90 percent heat input Conditioning by steam or water is
by coal and 10 percent heat input by bio- applied to the pelleting process. Pellet
mass, the biomass feed rate will be about formation takes place in the pellet mill
32 t/hr at minimal HHV of 4,400 Btu/ where conditioned feedstock is extruded
lb (undried fuel). Consider that a 20-ton through a ring die. As the pellets begin
truck sized for bulk material of 50 lb/ to extend through the outside of the die,
cu.ft. density will hold 6 tons of biomass they are broken off either with adjust-
material with a density of 15 lb/cu.ft. able cutoff knives or by centrifugal force
density. The 768 t/day of biomass fuel of the die speed. The pellet size require-
will be provided by 128 truck deliveries. ments are typically specified by the boiler
Densification of the biomass to 40 lb/ manufacturer.
cu.ft. would reduce the number of truck The following main equipment compo-
deliveries to about 39. At a biomass heat nents are typically included in a pelleting
input of 20 percent (1,536 t/day of 4,400 facility:
Btu/lb) for co-fi ring with coal, the bio- • Roundwood de-barking system
mass densification will reduce the number • Bark storage building
of truck deliveries from 256 trucks a day • Streeped round wood chipping sys- HGHVFKLK
HVF DV EHHQ
HQ GHVL
V JQLQJ
J
%HGHVFKLKDVEHHQGHVLJQLQJ
PDQXIDFWXULQJDQGPDUNHWLQJLQGXVWULDO
to about 79. tem (bark-burning furnace with HTXLSPHQWIRUWKHSRZHUFHPHQWEULFNV
Biomass pellets could be also trans- AQCS and stack chip rotary dryers/ PLQLQJPLQHUDOVZRRGSXOSSDSHUDQG
ported by rail cars. Assuming the mini- material transfer conveyors ELRPDVVLQGXVWULHVIRURYHU\HDUV
mal HHV of 7,500 Btu/lb of the bio- • Suspended magnets 2XUOLQHRI SURGXFWVHQFRPSDVVHV
mass pellets, the burn rate of the pellets • Hammer mills HTXLSPHQWIRUUDZPDWHULDOVKDQGOLQJ
(at 20 percent heat input in co-fi ring with • Pneumatic conveying system (ham- GHVLJQHGWRÀWWKHVSHFLÀFQHHGVRI RXU
coal) is 37.6 t/hr (902.4 t/day). A rail car mer mill take-away); FOLHQWV
holds about 75 t of pellets of 34 lb/cu.ft. • Ducting, elbows, pipes, couplings, $SURQ)HHGHUV
density. Twelve rail cars of biomass pel- supports &UXVKHUV
lets will support the daily consumption of • Surge bins 6WDFNHUV OLQHDUDQGFLUFXODU
5HFODLPHUV OLQHDUFLUFXODUDQGEOHQGLQJ
this fuel by the 300 MW fluid bed unit. • Wood mills 6KLS/RDGHUVDQG8QORDGHUV
• Wood presses
The densification, or actual pelleting • Pellet storage building :HGHVLJQDQGHQJLQHHUDOORI RXU
process, includes drying, size reduction, • Oil fuel storage tank. HTXLSPHQWZLWKRXULQKRXVH
HQJLQHHULQJGHSDUWPHQWXVLQJWKH
storage, screening and materials han- ODWHVWVRIWZDUHV\VWHPV:HIDEULFDWH
dling. Raw material must be free of tramp Biomass Storage and Handling Options DVVHPEOHDQGWHVWDOORI RXUPDFKLQHV
materials such as stones, glass, metal and Sizing biomass storage and handling LQRXUIWñPDQXIDFWXULQJIDFLOLW\
2XUFRPSDQ\LQFOXGHVDVHUYLFH
dirt. The moisture content of the raw facilities and equipment is based on typi- GHSDUWPHQWRI ÀHOGWHFKQLFLDQVZKR
fiber must be between 8 percent and 10 cal bulk densities of biofuels as shown in IROORZWKHHUHFWLRQDVVHPEO\SKDVHRQ
percent for effective pelleting. Table 2. VLWHDORQJZLWKSURYLGLQJVWDUWXSDQG
Drying adds a significant operational Delivery of biomass fuels (wood chips, FRPPLVVLRQLQJDVVLVWDQFH³DOORZLQJ
XVWRVXSSO\PDFKLQHVDQGSODQWVWR
expense to the plant’s overall cost. The wood pellets and switch grass/stover pel- FOLHQWVDQGHQJLQHHULQJFRPSDQLHV
most common type of dryer for wood lets) to the power plant is done by trains DURXQGWKHZRUOG
and other biomass fuels pelleting is the and/or trucks. Rail cars and trucks are
rotary drum dryer. Raw material is usu- unloaded into unloading hoppers fur- %('(6&+,$0(5,&$,1&
ally fed into the dryer inlet by a rotary nished with bottom/auger systems from :+LOOVERUR%OYG6XLWH
valve where the hot gas/air stream from where the belt conveyor(s) are transport- 'HHUÀHOG%HDFK)/
the burner is also introduced. The gas/ ing the biomass materials to biomass stor- 3K
LQIR#EHGHVFKLDPHULFDFRP
air stream and the fl ighting around the age/reclaim facilities. ZZZEHGHVFKLDPHULFDFRP
_______________
inside diameter of the drum moves the A variety of biomass fuels storage
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www.power-eng.com

TABLE 3 VEHICLE REQUIREMENTS FOR 300 MW FLUID BED UNIT

Max. Haul Max. Haul Density of Biomass # Vehicles # Vehicles
Vehicle
tons/vehicle cu.ft. lbs/cu.ft. per hour per day
Wood Chips 41(at 20% Heat
Bottom Dump Rail Car 4200 18 1.7
37.8 t Input)
Wood Pellets 13.4(at 20% Heat
Bottom Dump Rail Car 4200 34 0.56
71.4 t Input)
Switchgrass/
3.84 (at 5% Heat
Bottom Dump Rail Car Stover Pellets 4200 34 0.16
Input)
71.4 t
Wood Chips
Large Bottom Dump Truck 1242 18 5.7 137
11.2 t
Wood Pellets
Large Bottom Dump Truck 1242 34 1.9 45
21.1 t
Switchgrass/
Large Bottom Dump Truck Stover Pellets 1242 34 0.54 13
21.1 t

and handling arrangements could be wood chips by belt conveyors that are
considered. Flat-bottom silos are designed transferring the material from the under-
for mass flow of wood chips with up to ground hoppers furnished with “live bot-
50 percent moisture content and switch toms.” The barn will be furnished with an
grass/stover pellets are recommended overhead tripper stacker that is fed by the
based on substantial industry experience belt conveyor system. An in-barn portal
in using these facilities. The flat-bottom reclaiming machine, horizontal reclaim
radial auger unloader sweeps around the belt conveyor and pocket elevator will be
floor undercutting the entire mass while feeding the belt conveyor transporting
pulling the wood chips/pellets to the the wood chips to transfer tower adjacent
center of the silo where the chips/pellets to the boiler building where the chips will
are dropping into the exit hopper. The be discharged onto drag chain conveyor
exit hopper is discharging to an adjustable feeding the boiler wood chip surge bins.
speed screw conveyor that is controlling (The number of vehicles required for de-
the flow rate. livery of biomass fuels to a 300 MW fluid
REACH YOUR Wood chips/pellets are discharged to bed unit is shown in Table 3.)

AUDIENCE
two parallel drag chain conveyors that Co-fi ring biomass fuels is a proven
are common conveyors for all silos. Each technology that provides environmental
silo could discharge to either of those two benefits, primary among them being the
ADVERTISE your career opportunities,
equipment, services and training drag chain conveyors. lowering of emissions that are key air pol-
programs in Power Engineering’s The drag chain conveyors are feed- lutants. Relative to coal and petroleum
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wood chips and one for pellets) that are sulfur, contain lower amounts of ash and
GET RESULTS discharging onto two parallel belt con- trace metals, and being burned in steam
Put your message in front of North veying systems transporting the biomass generators will result in lower gas emis-
America’s most qualified circulation with fuels to the boiler feed surge bins. sions. Biomass fuels dedicated for energy
Power Engineering classifieds. The 300 MW fluid bed boiler will be production are CO2-neutral.
furnished with two surge bins for wood Technical and economic analysis
chips and two surge bins for pellets. indicate that meeting the 20 percent
CALL NOW FOR DETAILS: Wood chips and pellets will be unloaded biomass heat input requirements is
HEATHER WALKE from those bins and injected into the achievable with biomass fuels. And
Phone: 918.831.9441 boiler by independent conveying systems. biomass materials handling systems and
E-mail: [email protected] An alternate storage and reclaim system equipment are critical components in
is the barn option. A wood chips storage arranging the co-fi ring of the biomass
and reclaim barn will be receiving the fuels in steam generators.
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58 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Products

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60 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

Supplier’s Showcase
Air Pollution Control Products Bolting Solutions Coal Feeder, Posimetric®
The Posimetric® Feeder replaces all types
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Solve Bolting Problems:
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RS# 300 RS# 301 RS# 302

Control Valve Actuator Engineering Facility Maintenance Repair

Electric Control-Valve
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RS# 303 RS# 304 RS# 305

www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 61

Heat Transfer Equipment Iso Phase Bus Maintenance/Repair

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Pumps Silencers Training, Online

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Silencers
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Power Industry Content for:
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Mechanics Environmental
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LM6000
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__________________
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62 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

Supplier’s Showcase
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F 281.444.3529 RS# 312
Toll Free: 1-800-453-4761 E [email protected]
[email protected]
Product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks mentioned herein are the property
of their respective trademark holders. These trademark holders are not afﬁliated with
Allied Power Group, nor do they sponsor or endorse any of the products, services or
chromalloy.com
chromalloy.com
RS# 311 methods supplied or used by Allied Power Group.
RS# 313

Valves
SILO CLEANOUT
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x Noise and pipe vibration will
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x Valve’s first costs and mainte-
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800.322.6653
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www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 63

____________________

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205-590-3505
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WORLDWIDE BOILERS - 200,000#/HR Combustion Engineering Package Boilers - 630 lbs.

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Classifieds
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Advertisers’ Index

RS# COMPANY PG# RS# COMPANY PG# RS# COMPANY PG#

25 Abidance Consulting 38 37 Gundlach Equipment Corporation 56 35 Roberts & Schaefer Company 53
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13 Allied Power Group 19 20 Hadek Protective Systems 31 14 Siemens AG 20
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34 AP & M 51 30 Harco 44 1 Solvay Chemicals, Inc C2
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31 Applied Bolting Technology 45 4 Hitachi Power Systems America, Ltd. 3 23 Swagelok Company 37
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10 Areva Enterprises, Inc. 15 15 Iberdrola Ingenieria y Construccion SAU 21 42 Team Industrial Services C4
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11 Barco Rent-A-Truck 17 12 Jeffrey Rader Corporation 18 21 Thermo Fisher Scientific 33
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38 Bedeschi America, Inc. 57 8 Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas, Inc. 11 18 TMEIC 28
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Belzona, Inc. 9 26 MWH Americas 39 28 Turbo Parts, LLC. 42
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6 Chromalloy 7 7 NanoSteel Company 10 22 Turbocare 35
www.chromalloy.com www.nanosteelco.com www.turbocare.com
17 ConocoPhillips Lubricants 27 2 Nexus Engineering 1 40 World Energy Congress 2010 59
www.conocophillipslubricants.com/power www.nexus-tech.com www.wecmontreal2010.ca
19 Fastenal 29 16 Omicron Electrics Corporation 23 9 SPX Heat Transfer, Inc. 13
www.fastenal.com www.omicronusa.com www.yuba.com
41 Flexco C3 36 POWER-GEN International 55
www.flexcoengineeredsystems.com www.power-gen.com Advertisers and advertising agencies assume
5 GE Environmental 5 33 NUCLEAR POWER INTERNATIONAL 49 liability for all contents (including text representa-
www.ge-energy.com/turbinefiltration www.nuclearpowerinternational.com
tion and illustrations) of advertisements printed,
and also assume responsibility for any claims
27 General Physics Corporation 41 32 Hydrovision International 47
arising therefrom made against the publisher. It is
the advertiser’s or agency’s responsibility to obtain
3 Goodway Technologies Corporation 1 29 Process Barron 43 appropriate releases on any items or individuals
www.goodway.com/utility www.processbarron.com/power pictured in the advertisement.

Sales Offices
1421 S. Sheridan Rd., Tulsa, OK 74112 Brand Sales Manager Melissa Roberts European Sales Asif Yusuf
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e-mail: [email protected] Tulsa, OK 74112 Horseshoe Hill
Phone: 918-831-9403; Fax: 918-831-9834 Upshire, Essex EN9 3SR
Vice President North American Power Group e-mail: [email protected] United Kingdom
Richard Baker AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, IA, ID, MN, MT, ND, Phone: +44 1992 656 631
NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD UT, WA, WI, Fax: +44 1992 656 700
WY, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, e-mail: [email protected]
Reprints Account Executive Northwest Territory, Yukon Territory,
Glenda Harp Europe and Middle East
Manitoba
Phone: 918-832-9301 Classifieds/Literature Showcase Account
e-mail: [email protected] International Sales Mgr Anthony Orfeo Executive Heather Walke
Warlies Park House 1421 S. Sheridan Rd.
National Brand Manager Rick Huntzicker Horseshoe Hill Tulsa, OK 74112
Palladian Professional Park Upshire, Essex EN9 3SR Phone: 918-831-9441, Fax: 918-831-9834
3225 Shallowford Rd., Suite 800 United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected]
Marietta, GA 30062 Phone: +44 1992 656 609
Phone: 770-578-2688, Fax: 770-578-2690 Fax: +44 1992 656 700
e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]
AL, AR, DC, FL, GA, KS, KY, LA, MD, MO, Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, Middle
MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV East, South America

Brand Sales Manager Dan Idoine

806 Park Village Drive
Louisville, OH 44641
Phone: 330-875-6581, Fax: 330-875-4462
e-mail: [email protected]
CT, DE, IL, IN, MA, ME, MI, NH, NJ, NY,
OH, PA, RI, VT, Quebec, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ontario

www.power-eng.com MARCH 2010 POWER ENGINEERING • 67

Generating Buzz Vermont Yankee nuclear generating station.

A TRITIUM TRIFECTA

H eadlines were made in January and

early February when elevated levels
of tritium, a naturally occurring radioactive
EPA said people are exposed to tritium
every day, since it is widely dispersed in
the environment and in the food chain.
closer to the source because its concentra-
tion is 774,825 picocuries per liter,” Wil-
liams wrote in the e-mail.
substance, were found in test wells near An independent research fi rm hired by He also said test results can fluctuate
Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear station Exelon after its 2005 incident said the with the flow of groundwater through
in Vermont and Duke Energy’s Oconee highest concentration of tritium found the area being tested. The well in which
nuclear station in South Carolina. near Braidwood was equal to 1,524 pCi contamination was first reported was over
The events brought back memories of per liter of water. Drinking two liters 36,000 pCi per liter, up from 17,000 when
a 2005 incident involving tritium at Ex- of this water every day would result in first reported. A second well, which showed
elon’s Braidwood nuclear station in Illi- a radiation dosage of about 0.3 mrem a a reading above about 85,000 pCi per liter
nois. And it presented an opportunity to year, the consultant said. This is roughly had dropped below 70,000.
offer a reminder that tritium is a naturally equal to radiation from eating a banana or At Duke Energy’s Oconee station, el-
occurring isotope of hydrogen. In fact it drinking a glass of orange juice each week. evated tritium levels were reported at two
fi nds commercial use as a luminant for Both fruits contain naturally occurring of 54 monitoring wells. The wells were
building exit signs, watch dials, aircraft radioactive potassium 40. The dosage not used for drinking water so there was
equipment panels and luminous paint. is also equal to the radiation received by no health risk to the public or plant em-
According to the Environmental Pro- flying at 30,000 feet for one hour. ployees. And no EPA violation occurred
tection Agency, tritium occurs naturally (By comparison, eating a large order of because the water is not for human con-
in the environment in low concentrations. French fries every day packs a radiation sumption, said Dave Baxter, Oconee site
Most tritium in the environment is in the punch of 4.7 mrem. Eating one cup of vice president.
form of tritiated water, which EPA said eas- raisin bran cereal every day has a dosage of The two Oconee monitoring wells are
ily disburses in the atmosphere, water bod- 1.8 mrem. And cigarette smokers get an between the plant’s turbine building and
ies, soil and rock. In the mid-1950s and annual radiation dosage of 2,000 mrem, switchyard. They are in the reactor area,
early 1960s, tritium was widely dispersed according to the Exelon consultant.) but levels at other monitoring wells closer
during above-ground nuclear weapons Officials at Vermont Yankee, the state to the reactors were within limits, indicat-
testing. The quantity of tritium in the at- Health Department and the federal ing that the tritium hasn’t migrated off the
mosphere from weapons testing peaked in Nuclear Regulatory Commission said a plant site in groundwater.
1963 and has been falling ever since. monitoring well at the reactor turned up “Because tritium is naturally occurring
Today, sources of tritium include a reading of nearly 775,000 pCi per liter. in water and is a byproduct of nuclear op-
commercial nuclear reactors, research Plant spokesman Robert Williams said erations, we have always seen some tritium,
reactors and weapons production plants. in an e-mail to the news media that the but this is the first time we have found lev-
Tritium may be released as steam from these reading was “good news” because it could els in our groundwater monitoring samples
facilities or may leak into soil and ground indicate plant technicians searching for above the nuclear (industry’s) voluntary
water. However, such releases are usually the leak were zeroing in on the source. reporting level of 20,000 picocuries,” a
small and must meet federal environmental “The good news is that one newly in- Duke Energy spokeswoman said. Samples
standards. The EPA drinking water safety stalled well, located just to the east of the from the two Oconee monitoring wells
limit is 20,000 picocuries (pCi) per liter plant’s condensate water storage tank and showed 24,400 and 35,400 pCi per liter,
(California’s standard is tighter, at 400 pCi.) some underground piping, appears to be Duke reported.

68 • POWER ENGINEERING MARCH 2010 www.power-eng.com

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Controlled Flow Material Transfer Systems ™

The Industry’s Cleanest, Fastest, and Most Effective Way to Transfer Material.

For more than 25 years, our Engineered Systems Group has

been solving transfer point challenges with the most powerful
controlled ﬂow technology on the market. Our Controlled Flow
Material Transfer Systems™ (CFMTS®) not only improve your
throughput, but are also easy to maintain and last for decades.
And of course, CFMTS is the only transfer point system backed
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