Regarding the use of water in coal transportation and/or coal fired power generation, the idea of creating transportation fuels from coal via liquification plants in Wyoming, Montana, et al may be of greater value to the nation in the near term than electricity generation.
Does anyone have any insider information on how much (if any) water is required for coal liquification vs coal fired electricity generation?
Forget the water. The railroads will have done something by the time this is finished. Think of how dang long this would take to build.
There is. The Wyodak plant outside of Gillette is such a plant. It uses virtually no water for the cooling system, beyond the initial charging of the system. It’s similar to the radiator cooling system on your car. It costs much more to build a plant this way, and results in a less efficient plant.
Most steam turbine power plants use a closed loop system for the “clean” water which is recurculated between the boiler and the steam turbine. They then use cooling towers to condense the steam and pump it back into the boiler. Some use a “once through” system where they use river water to cool the steam, and then cool the river water back down before dumping it back into the river.
Most plants in Utah and drier locations recurculate the cooling tower water. This results in the water becomming loaded with solids, which requires a periodic purging of the water, treating of the water to remove the high solids, etc. before it’s dumped into a local river or pond. Some plants use the water, experimentally, to irrigate some nearby alfalfa, which can handle higher salt loads.
Mark in Utah
It would appear that futuremodal tends to take himself much too seriously and has never taken time to read Mario Puzo, “Fools Die” in particular, which is one of several places in which I have read or heard the term in question.
As far as building excess capacity in advance, it is obvious that futuremodal has not lived in a large metropolitan area for an extended period of time. Highway widening projects don’t occur except in response to congestion problems and several years usually pass between the initial proposal and the beginning of construction. The same applies to rapid transit and suburban rail expansions and extensions. Building in advance is a controversial concept that many feel only contributes to suburban sprawl.
Buffalo Central Terminal was built in advance, a huge grand train station that never reached capacity and is now derelict. A sad waste is what easily happens to building in advance.
Sounds like the bitten dog yelping, to me.
Mark in Utah - The ability to recirculate water seems to be able to work just as easily for a closed loop pipeline as in a generating plant, if not easier. The generating plant needs to keep the water clean to keep from damaging boilers, injectors, et al. The coal pipeline water only needs to be purged of things that might block the pumps. There would be an efficiency cost in such a system, the question then is the overall capital cost of a closed loop coal pipeline vs the overall capital cost of new rail tracks.
CSSHEGEWISCH - Tell us more about that suburban sprawl in the PRB. You need to get out of the projects once in a while.
goat - Of course it was a waste, it was a rail passenger terminal. Could’ve just as easilty thrown their money away on a buggy whip factory, for what it’s worth. I would venture a guess that a new “built ahead” highway, railroad, or pipeline would find it’s value rather quickly.
JOdom - Read the various offerings of the various TRAINS editors over the years, and tell me which one seems most inclined to “aspire” to the level of a Ted Rall. Then go and wipe the brown off your nose.
What keeps the water in the pipeline from freezing?
Dave: You’re a smart guy, and you have a lot to say. Can you please try not to pick fights? I know,Iknow, I have three boys—“he started it”. Think about it, would you rather talk about trains, or have an insult-topping thread?
Thanks
You missed what I said earlier.
The closed loop system is for steam generation for the boiler & turbine. The open loop system is for condensing the steam (cooling) back out so you can pump the clean water back into the boiler. Without the cooling system, which uses “dirty” water, you MUST use once-through clean water for the boiler.
Power plant boiler water is VERY clean. You just wi***hat your drinking water was as clean. Distilled, PH balanced, no solids, etc. The chemistry is tightly controlled to prevent costly corrosion in the boiler and condenser tubes.
The cooling tower water’s chemistry has a tightly controlled chemistry as well to reduce corrosion of the cooling tower. The water just isn’t as clean, and is high in solids due to the partial evaporation of the water.
A pipeline would use MUCH more water than any equivalent power plant.
In your thinking you also must include the power consumption at the receiving terminal of the coal driers, as well as the “pumps” along the pipeline route, which is not inconsequential.
Mark in Utah
What futuremodal is really saying is “WAAAAHHHH!! WAAAAHHHH!! Mommy, he was mean to me”. Like most people arrogant enough to think they know everything, you can dish it out but you can’t take it. When someone punctures your gasbag, you resort to insults. I for one would a hundred times rather hear from M. Hemphill than you, because he isn’t a doctrinaire ideologue constantly beating the same two or three dead horses.
To futuremodal:
A long time ago I was young like you and thought that wonderful new ideas would solve the world’s problems if only the old-timers would accept them without question. That belief is a luxury in which youth can indulge.
When I was young, I thought I knew everything and as I grew older I learned how little that I actually knew. Many of my ideas were challenged, some were adjusted to fit the realities of life and some were thrown out completely. I also learned that challenges to my ideas forced me to think more rigorously, prepare myself better and be ready to yield when my position was not tenable.
Do not take the challenges to your ideas and concepts so personally. Listen to what others have to say and seek to learn from them. Everybody, not just the members of this forum, has something that they can teach you.
In the “future” they might say, of course it was a waste, it was a coal log pipeline.
If it takes long to build, coal might become as dated as the buggy whip. Dirty old fosil fuel. Most of the railroad can be used for other things, maybe even OA in the end.
mark in utah - RE: closed loop coal pipeline. We can assume that the cost of building a mile of closed loop coal pipeline is twice that of a mile of one way coal pipeline. The question then is does that doubling of cost for the coal pipeline approach or even exceed the cost of a mile of new rail line? Does 100 miles of a closed loop coal pipeline (including the pipeline to railcar transfer facility) exceed the cost of 100 miles of new track?
Paul - Words of wisdom, duly noted.
goat - Most energy analyst expect coal to remain a viable energy source for the foreseeable future. Any infrastructure project that aids in getting coal from the mine to the power plant or liquification plant will probably be money well spent, regardless of mode.
JOdom - I would say that Mr. H exihibits the same bent toward ideological indoctrinization for which you accuse me in your sophomoric way. Of course, it’s an ideology that has become status quo for the rail industry, so his offerings are really nothing new. If Mr. H. has ever had an original idea, show me the evidence.
But, how do you keep the water,that you can’t get,from freezing?
Ok, here is some food for thought… I work at a relatively small coal fired power plant (225 Megawatts) and did some calculations based on our operating data and the information given in the article.
One of our cyclone burner uses about 40,000 Lbs per hour at approx 70% of full load
We have three cyclone burners per boiler. (40,000* 3 = 120,000 lbs per hour per boiler)
multiplied by the 2 boilers = 240,000 Lbs per hour for both boilers.
multiplied by 24 = 5,760,000 Lbs per day.
The article states a water to coal ration of 1Lb of water per 3-4 Lbs of coal. (I used 3.5)
5,760,000 / 3.5 = 1.65 million lbs of water per day for transport
The conversion of Lbs of water to gallons is a factor of .11996
1.65 million * .11996 = 197,934 gallons per day to transport coal…
That’s a lot of water… and our largets coal plant is 1300 Megawatts it uses about 6 times as much fuel so figure it would require about 6 times as much water.
The simple fact is that our plant isn’t that big and still requires a lot of water. A larger plant would almost require it’s own pipeline, just on the basis of the amount of coal and water.
Me thinks this has way to go before we see anything like this on a commercial basis…