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China embraces technology to produce cleaner coal power
The first, breathlessly awaited, summit with his US counterpart Donald Trump will of course receive massive attention in China.
But that has had to wait its turn.
The visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida comes after Xi has visited one of China’s oldest diplomatic partners.
More importantly today, Finland is a burgeoning partner in the development of nuclear power.
China is about to open at Taishan in Guangdong province the first such power station using the EPR system — with Finland well advanced in building the second.
With four nuclear plants already operating, Finland is building at Onkalo a huge underground storage facility for tonnes of waste material, intended to bury it for more than 100,000 years — longer than even China’s ruling Communist Party may conceive of staying in power.
So, the leaders have much to talk about considering how central to a modern economy is the availability of comparatively cheap, reliable energy.
China is operating 35 nuclear power generating units, and building another 21. Work on a further 36 is due to start by 2020.
It is also operating a large number of wind turbines, and its solar capacity is already enormous. It is expanding its access to renewable energy on an unprecedented scale.
But there is little debate inside China about whether the country should move to rely totally on renewables. It can’t, without disappointing most of the nation about their expectations of lives of “moderate prosperity”.
Instead, the country’s energy program is moving forward not on one but on all fronts — with two political imperatives uppermost.
First, China is still developing, and needs more energy. Second, that energy needs to be cleaner than in the past, since air pollution tops public concern in almost every city.
This is too urgent a priority to attempt to go it alone. It is collaborating with some of the world’s leading engineering companies — Siemens, Hitachi, Alston (now part of GE) and Mitsubishi — in developing technology for the new wave of boilers and turbines used in clean coal power generation.
China is now manufacturing such generation equipment under licence. This has given its 21st century coal-powered electricity industry a headstart in terms of efficiency and reduced emissions.
Then, crucially, Chinese experts led by Professor Feng Weizhong and his team in Shanghai, based at Waigaoxiao No 3 power station, developed advanced technologies to integrate these new units more productively, to improve their efficiency.
As the temperature has steadily been pushed up in modern generators to increase the intensity of their output, achieved through the burning of less coal, so have engineering problems emerged to challenge the industry worldwide.
China is tackling them as a key priority of its energy program.
An example is the pipes from the power unit. As new technology enhances the temperature and thus steam pressure, oxidation becomes a serious challenge. If a unit is shut down, the oxide will peel off and block the tube altogether, causing overheating that could lead to an explosion.
The oxide carried by the steam into the turbine also causes a big problem, Feng explained, breaking into small particles and rapidly decreasing its efficiency.
Feng’s answer is a system of blades, which since being introduced eight years ago have left the interior of the Shanghai generators looking new. “First we increase efficiency,” he said. “Then we maintain that efficiency. Then we reduce emissions.”
An electronic display board at the entrance to his power station on the edge of Shanghai’s Pudong area shows the plant’s output of electricity and emissions. The dust emissions during The Australian’s visit were below measurability.
In overall emissions, Feng said, the plant was already achieving results well below those the central government has targeted for gas-powered turbines by 2020.
For nitrogen dioxide, the government reduced the standard from 450mg per cubic metre to 100 in 2014. In Australia, 400 remains a common figure for coal plants. The cap in Europe and Japan is 200, in the US 135. At Shanghai, they are averaging well below 20.
Carbon dioxide emissions have been cut to 635 grams per kW hour, compared with an average at US power stations of more than 1000. But Feng said a further reduction awaited the development of a new material that could raise the boiler heat to 1100C.
Feng is discussing with Siemens and GE technology transfers in both directions. Those companies make the boilers and turbines, but China now has the technology to improve the entire system.
The smoke that appears to emerge from the chimneys at the Waigaoxiao plant is steam, evaporating from the water used by the scrubber that restricts sulphur dioxide emissions. A new technology is about to be introduced that will transform the steam to water, which becomes a productive resource for the plant.
The boiler is operating at 600C and the next step-up will take that to 700C.
While that prospect has been available for some time, the cost has been prohibitive since the pipes taking the steam from the boiler to the turbine — which could at lower temperatures contain steel — need to be made 70 per cent from nickel and more than 20 per cent from chromium and other expensive substances.
It would raise efficiency by 3 per cent, but at an unrecoverable cost, Feng said, since it typically involves 200 metres of pipes, costing more than $600,000 a metre.
Feng’s answer is to reposition the turbine next to the boiler, reducing the piping to a few metres.
Waigaoxiao is operating at more than 46.5 per cent efficiency. The team’s next new technology will take the plant past a previously undreamed of 50 per cent efficiency — the amount of energy expended to create electricity.
With China expecting to depend on coal for 55 per cent of its energy for many years to come, renovating coal power’s efficiency and its emissions is crucial.
For like nuclear energy and like gas — much of which comes from Australia — coal is driving China’s foreseeable future.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r/news-story/f8803ed830f96895987a7c8638d4e2db
- ROWAN CALLICK
- The Australian | 12:00AM April 6, 2017
The first, breathlessly awaited, summit with his US counterpart Donald Trump will of course receive massive attention in China.
But that has had to wait its turn.
The visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida comes after Xi has visited one of China’s oldest diplomatic partners.
More importantly today, Finland is a burgeoning partner in the development of nuclear power.
China is about to open at Taishan in Guangdong province the first such power station using the EPR system — with Finland well advanced in building the second.
With four nuclear plants already operating, Finland is building at Onkalo a huge underground storage facility for tonnes of waste material, intended to bury it for more than 100,000 years — longer than even China’s ruling Communist Party may conceive of staying in power.
So, the leaders have much to talk about considering how central to a modern economy is the availability of comparatively cheap, reliable energy.
China is operating 35 nuclear power generating units, and building another 21. Work on a further 36 is due to start by 2020.
It is also operating a large number of wind turbines, and its solar capacity is already enormous. It is expanding its access to renewable energy on an unprecedented scale.
But there is little debate inside China about whether the country should move to rely totally on renewables. It can’t, without disappointing most of the nation about their expectations of lives of “moderate prosperity”.
Instead, the country’s energy program is moving forward not on one but on all fronts — with two political imperatives uppermost.
First, China is still developing, and needs more energy. Second, that energy needs to be cleaner than in the past, since air pollution tops public concern in almost every city.
This is too urgent a priority to attempt to go it alone. It is collaborating with some of the world’s leading engineering companies — Siemens, Hitachi, Alston (now part of GE) and Mitsubishi — in developing technology for the new wave of boilers and turbines used in clean coal power generation.
China is now manufacturing such generation equipment under licence. This has given its 21st century coal-powered electricity industry a headstart in terms of efficiency and reduced emissions.
Then, crucially, Chinese experts led by Professor Feng Weizhong and his team in Shanghai, based at Waigaoxiao No 3 power station, developed advanced technologies to integrate these new units more productively, to improve their efficiency.
As the temperature has steadily been pushed up in modern generators to increase the intensity of their output, achieved through the burning of less coal, so have engineering problems emerged to challenge the industry worldwide.
China is tackling them as a key priority of its energy program.
An example is the pipes from the power unit. As new technology enhances the temperature and thus steam pressure, oxidation becomes a serious challenge. If a unit is shut down, the oxide will peel off and block the tube altogether, causing overheating that could lead to an explosion.
The oxide carried by the steam into the turbine also causes a big problem, Feng explained, breaking into small particles and rapidly decreasing its efficiency.
Feng’s answer is a system of blades, which since being introduced eight years ago have left the interior of the Shanghai generators looking new. “First we increase efficiency,” he said. “Then we maintain that efficiency. Then we reduce emissions.”
An electronic display board at the entrance to his power station on the edge of Shanghai’s Pudong area shows the plant’s output of electricity and emissions. The dust emissions during The Australian’s visit were below measurability.
In overall emissions, Feng said, the plant was already achieving results well below those the central government has targeted for gas-powered turbines by 2020.
For nitrogen dioxide, the government reduced the standard from 450mg per cubic metre to 100 in 2014. In Australia, 400 remains a common figure for coal plants. The cap in Europe and Japan is 200, in the US 135. At Shanghai, they are averaging well below 20.
Carbon dioxide emissions have been cut to 635 grams per kW hour, compared with an average at US power stations of more than 1000. But Feng said a further reduction awaited the development of a new material that could raise the boiler heat to 1100C.
Feng is discussing with Siemens and GE technology transfers in both directions. Those companies make the boilers and turbines, but China now has the technology to improve the entire system.
The smoke that appears to emerge from the chimneys at the Waigaoxiao plant is steam, evaporating from the water used by the scrubber that restricts sulphur dioxide emissions. A new technology is about to be introduced that will transform the steam to water, which becomes a productive resource for the plant.
The boiler is operating at 600C and the next step-up will take that to 700C.
While that prospect has been available for some time, the cost has been prohibitive since the pipes taking the steam from the boiler to the turbine — which could at lower temperatures contain steel — need to be made 70 per cent from nickel and more than 20 per cent from chromium and other expensive substances.
It would raise efficiency by 3 per cent, but at an unrecoverable cost, Feng said, since it typically involves 200 metres of pipes, costing more than $600,000 a metre.
Feng’s answer is to reposition the turbine next to the boiler, reducing the piping to a few metres.
Waigaoxiao is operating at more than 46.5 per cent efficiency. The team’s next new technology will take the plant past a previously undreamed of 50 per cent efficiency — the amount of energy expended to create electricity.
With China expecting to depend on coal for 55 per cent of its energy for many years to come, renovating coal power’s efficiency and its emissions is crucial.
For like nuclear energy and like gas — much of which comes from Australia — coal is driving China’s foreseeable future.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r/news-story/f8803ed830f96895987a7c8638d4e2db
