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 Chapter  18-A        Power Plant Examples:  TAICHUNG          Directory
 The purpose of this page is to explore converting the world's largest emitter of coal CO2 to totally clean thorium.

Taichung, Taiwan
Coal-Burning Power Plant.   The world's largest single emitter of CO2.
Let's begin with the "Worst First"

http://carma.org/plant/detail/44204   CARMA report for Taichung's 2007 Carbon Emissions:
Global Rank: 1,  Short Tons CO2  39,700,000,  MegaWatt-hour  39,200,00,  CO2 Intensity  2.022. 
MegaWatt-hour Energy: Annual megawatt-hours of electricity produced.   CO2 Intensity: Pounds of CO2 emitted per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.

That they are the #1 emitter is through no fault of their own.  They probably feel worse about this than anyone. 
 As an engineer, my heart goes out to them. 
At 4,200 MWe (5.6 million horsepower), it would be the world's biggest repowering project.
 

Plant                            City                    Country                 Annual Tons of CO2                                                
TAICHUNG   Lung-Ching Township   Taiwan (China)   41,300,000 - That's 41 MILLION Tons of CO2, folks!
That's like taking 13 MILLION cars off the world's roads.

 Taiwan Power environmental website:  http://www.taipower.com.tw/indexE.htm      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taichung_Power_Plant 
Google Finance page for Taiwan Power  http://www.google.com/finance?cid=14357378
Clicking on “more” takes you to this Hoover’s report.  Note the various tabs above the text.
  http://www.hoovers.com/company/Taiwan_Power_Company/hkfjyi-1-1njdap.html

 

 

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    Steam Compatibility

Why the author thinks the Model "T" reactor has the "Right Stuff" to replace coal.
Using the world's largest CO2 source, TAICHUNG coal power plant, as an example.

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/serv_for/gas_steam_turbines/en/cmus/cmus_ist/index.htm   

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     Doing it.  About Taichung

 

Establish a United Nations Corps of Engineers.  Have them fix the world's power plants independent of and at no expense to local governments.  This is the answer to China's and India's reluctance to end Global Warming. 

It comes down to this:  To successfully fight Global Warming, it is the world's largest power plants that must be repowered.  To fight local air pollution problems, smaller local power plants could be repowered but that would have almost no effect on Global Warming.  Fortunately, we can do both efficiently.  The United Nations is in the best position to do top-down Global Warming fighting by repowering the mega-coal burners, local governments are in the best position to do bottom-up local air pollution fighting on troublesome local coal or natural gas burners.  Once this is understood, things should go smoothly.  (Right) Looking South-Southwest.  Office/entrance to right, low long structure: turbine gallery, high structures: boilers, inclined coal conveyors and stacks behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taichung Power Plant Orientation Tour:  (Google Image looking North.)   8 boiler, 8 turbine, 4 stack, power plant consisting of 4- 500 MWe (670,000 horsepower)  and 4- 550 MWe (740,000 hp) electricity generators.  Notice shadows of four stacks in foreground.  To the stack's right are the 8 boiler houses (horizontal line roofs and tall structure beyond) and beyond them is the turbine-generator gallery hall (tan roofs with dots along the long turbine gallery hall). 

Beyond, and in front of the turbine gallery, and running the length of the gallery, is the electrical transmission switchgear yard.  Beyond the stacks to the left are the coal piles in the coal yard with coal conveyors reaching into the coal piles.  In the distance, on the little harbor's water and to the left, are a couple of Panamax-size ocean going coal barges.  This enables coal purchases from virtually anywhere in the world.  This site is on fly ash fill and the region is subject to earthquakes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Google Image oblique view looking North East.)  Notice visitor's entrance at end of turbine gallery in upper right corner.  Upon entering those doors, the view down the turbine gallery must be mind-blowing.  Electrical switchyard extreme right, turbine-generator gallery running length of facility, individual boiler houses branching off, coal conveyors coming from coal yard on extreme left.  Shared stacks, individual emissions precipitators and associated ductwork quite visible along center.

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    The Plan

The plan:  

Replace Taichung's eight coal-burning boilers with eight Model "T" MSR nuclear boilers.
 The many advantages to cleaning up an existing power plant rather than building an entirely new power plant.

COAL BURNING Power Plant *                                                     Overpowered Nuclear Boiler Module

The electricity generator's turbine (red) is disconnected from the coal burning boiler (center, lifted, faded), then reconnected to the nuclear boiler.
 Man standing on tan containment cover shows size.  Larger image of the above.       Why this is certain to work.
 

The Model "T" reactor MSR has superseded the BN shown above.  It needs four heat exchangers:
1. Water pre-heater, 2. A steam superheater - reheater, 3. A steam evaporator, 4. A steam pre-heater, all shown here as a single heat exchanger.
 

Why Taichung?
 The Taichung power plant in Taiwan, through no fault on their part, is the world's biggest CO2 polluter.  It is fitting they receive the first Coal Yard Nukes.

It is important to begin with the world's biggest CO2 emitter.

 

    Replacing the coal burning boilers

coal2nuclear Repowering:  The row of 8 completely independent Model "T" Molten Salt Reactors (1.4 million horsepower each) nuclear boilers (Red Dots).  Each one would be installed approximately on axis with its boiler house.  Steam lines would extend into the boiler houses to connect with existing boiler steam lines going to the turbines.  The generators would not be taken out of service during reactor installation and steam selector valves will enable the turbines to run on steam from either nuclear or coal after the project is completed.  This way, the plant could still run on coal during reactor refueling periods. 

The Model "T" reactor is a candidate for closed-fuel-cycle nuclear waste free operation in the future which would make both refueling shutdowns and most nuclear waste a thing of the past.  (Today's typical civilian power plant reactors turn only about 2% of their fuel into heat energy to make electricity, letting the remainder go to waste.  Most of the world's military ship reactors get 30 years out of their initial fuel load.)

Other than an additional secondary reactor control console added to existing control rooms, this should be all the changes necessary to the existing power plant.

The new nuclear boiler row would have individual primary control rooms and staff for each reactor along with reactor pair-shared service buildings.  The steam generators would be located next to the reactors, in the direction of their boiler houses.  (See BN-600 drawing, below.) 

Taichung units 5,6,7,8: Four 550MW Coal/Oil units.  Feb 20, 1992: "Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) was awarded the contract for the design, supply, manufacture, and delivery of four pulverized coal and oil fired boilers including the auxiliary equipment and their Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems. Each boiler is a natural circulation, balanced draft, sub-critical pressure boiler with single stage reheat capable of generating 508.3 kg/sec (4,034,000 lb/hr) steam at 174 bar (2,524 psig)."  All units are subcritical steam.  Does anyone have Taichung's unit 1,2,3, and 4 boiler specifications? 

Cautionary Note: The steam from the Model "T" reactor boilers would have to be identical in both quality and quantity to the steam being produced by existing coal-burning boilers.  A cautionary note is that the "two additional 550MW coal-fired units built on adjacent land reclaimed by depositing ash. The two subcritical pressure units (numbers 9 and 10) are the same as the eight previously installed units."  Only 8 units are shown on the Google image.

Naked Nukes.  These would be just the bare reactors and their steam generators.  Nothing else would be from nuclear-land.  The power plant would be completely re-used - up to the point they could run on coal again if they wished - merely by re-setting the turbine's steam selector valves.  This means the cost will be some fraction of a full nuclear power plant and probably much less than the cost of adding "Clean Coal's" Carbon Capture and Sequestration - if it ever gets invented and developed.  And, unlike the anticipated 30% loss of power and increase in coal burning, a nuclear repowered plant would run just as powerfully as it did before - and with fuel costs being nuclear rather than coal.

  While there is the usual containment, all equipment and the primary control room should be installed at a level sufficiently above grade higher than any anticipated storm surge.  Many power plants all around the world are built on sea shores to take advantage of the cooling water so sea-size storms are a common hazard for power plants.  See:  Water Table Concern

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    Construction

The concept of converting two coal power plant turbines to nuclear. 

 

 

Repowering a supersized coal burner to nuclear.  If the unit to be repowered was 550 MVA, a 1,000 MVA nuclear boiler would make a second, 450 MVA turbogenerator possible.  The new equipment:  A Model "T" MSR reactor mounted on a containment barge and unpressurized heat transfer salt heated steam generators.

How a supersized coal burning power plant can be repowered with a nuclear reactor: A typical coal burning power plant (above) has it's coal equipment disconnected (above, shown lifted away and faded) and a new Model "T" nuclear reactor is added - in a reinforced concrete containment building (blue).  Supersized power plants are almost always on navigable bodies of water for cooling water and coal supply barges.  Often, this means they are subject to the threat of storm surges from hurricanes or cyclones and tsunamis.  That, along with the high water tables commonly found where surface water is present, are good reasons to keep the reactor above the ground with openings above the highest anticipated storm surge to avoid inundation. 

The 1,000 ton reactor is mass-produced on a barge elsewhere in a shipyard - to minimize cost and maximize quality.  This way it wouldn't matter much if the reactor-barge was made in a shipyard in Russia, China, Holland, or New Orleans.

Never underestimate the power mass production has over price.  The Model T sold for $850 in 1909, by 1920, mass production brought the price of a higher quality Model T down to $290, or 1/3 the 1909 price.  Mass production is the way to dramatically bring unit costs down and quality up.  To date, there have been no mass produced basic nuclear boilers.  The author has found several references to such in the literature and has added David Walter's version to the Model "T" reactor page.

Westinghouse actually began to do this in 1970. 

"Westinghouse leaders recognized that they would need a partner with extensive shipbuilding experience, and attracted the participation of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. The two companies created a 50/50 partnership company that became known as Offshore Power Systems.  Public Service did not simply make design suggestions; they signed contracts for two plants [each a dual 1,200 MWe barge] designated Atlantic 1 and 2. These contracts provided most of the funding required to complete the detailed engineering drawings, produce the license application, and to build the manufacturing facility."  - Rod Adams

Installing the reactor:  Floated into a coal burning power plant's site on a temporary channel dredged into the power plant's coal yard, the barge is first set on and then attached to pilings.  The new reactor is then connected to the existing turbine-generator in the power plant.  Note the piping carrying 1,000°F unpressurized heat transfer salt.

Coal burning power plants always have coal storage yards the size of shopping mall parking lots so there is always plenty of room to place reactor silos there.  This is all that needs to be done.  The United States has over 1,000 such existing power plant sites.  A huge cost and time savings compared to building completely new.  That quick.  That economical.  That simple.

The simplest solution for Global Warming is probably the best solution for Global Warming.

Illustrating the Nuclear Repowering idea, the above is an anatomically correct simplified coal burning power station schematic diagram from Wikipedia.   Wikipedia original sketch image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant   GNU Free Documentation License 

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