A coal fired power plant has a rated power of 800 MWe. It works at 90% capacity, i.e. 90% of the hours in the year, at a thermal efficiency of 36%.
The used coal has a HHV (higher heating value) = 9,420 Btu/lb and composition:
54.6% C 0.4% S
13.2% O2 1% N2.
3.8% H2
1. How much electricity does the power plant produce per year (kWh/y)?
2. How much coal does the power plant consume per year (ton/y)?
3. Assuming no emission reduction techniques are used, how much NOx does the power plant emit per year (ton/y) if the emission factor is 24 lb NOx/ton of coal?
4. If the power plant uses a limestone wet scrubber with a SOx reduction efficiency of 92%, how much SOx does the power plant emit per year (ton/y) if the emission factor is 35*S lb SOx/ton of coal where S is the % of sulphur in the coal (no need to convert to units, e.g. 0.004)?
5. If a carbon tax is imposed at $50 per ton of CO2 emitted, estimate the additional cost per kWh for the carbon tax.