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ENDING COAL'S CO2        A better idea than 'Clean Coal' 
Basics of repowering a coal burning plant with a small nuclear reactor.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How it Works: In the repowered power plant, reactor (far right), heats water heater located next to reactor full of red and yellow hot nuclear pebbles.  The water is heated to 1,100°F (pressurized to 4,000 psi to keep it from boiling), then piped to a steam generator (center) that makes steam identical to what the old coal-burning boiler made.  The remainder of the power plant remains unchanged with unneeded coal handling equipment, boiler, particulate catcher, and smokestack now faded.

Equipment identification: (Left to right) Cooling tower, Electricity Generator, Low pressure turbine and steam condenser, Medium pressure turbine, High pressure turbine, Condensate water treatment, new Steam Generator, unneeded coal handling equipment, boiler, particulate catcher, and smokestack (faded), new Reactor Silo (right) with Supercritical water heater and PBMR TRISO pebble bed reactor.

Real Life 

(Right) Sometimes there will be a huge old coal turbine that will need more power than a single mininuke reactor can provide.  Two mininuke reactors can be connected in parallel (like batteries) to the turbine's steam generator [used instead of a boiler] to do the job.
 
Sometimes there will be several small old coal turbines that can be driven by a single mininuke reactor. 
In this case, the small turbines' steam generators can all be connected in parallel to the reactor's water heater to drive all the small turbines simultaneously.

 

The Coal2Nuclear concept:

"As my friend Jim Holm at coal2nuclear has pointed out to the world, a pebble bed reactor with inert gas cooling can be a very good boiler replacement at a steam power plant.  I think that is the best way to make use of the investment at existing coal fired facilities for items like steam turbines, electrical distribution, cooling water and personnel.

That concept - especially with pebble bed reactors that are small enough to be inherently safe against melting - takes nearly complete advantage of most of the existing steam power plant systems yet turns a dirty, emission prone system that needs a continuous fuel source delivered by massive trains into a zero emission power plant that can operate for years without new fuel. That is a MUCH easier conversion for me to imagine than the notion of building a chemical processing and compression plant next to a coal burner in hopes of capturing and sequestering the CO2.  Preventing pollution is often cheaper than trying to cure it."
  -- Rod Adams,  http://www.atomicinsights.blogspot.com/  -- ( Rod does a really succinct overview and I love paragraphs with my name in them. - JH :-)

This page is an introduction.  to  Details about this drawing 

 

End Of INTRODUCING The Coal-to-Nuclear Power Plant Conversion