Talk:Conventional coal-fired power plant/Draft

Wikipedia has a similar article (i.e., "Fossil fuel power plant")

I was a substantial contributor to the WP article. It has been completely re-written and reformatted before uploading here as a CZ article. However, it still contains some of the WP content. Milton Beychok 06:41, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Environmentalists

Milton, I read it, found it interesting, and added a few small things. To me it seems that in the section about CO2 emission the opinion of the environmentalists must be heard. Of course, carbon/coal is the worst fuel from the point of view of CO2 emission and therefore there is fierce resistance against the construction of new coal-powered plants (by the same people who resist nuclear-powered plants and advertise the use of electric cars). But CZ needs to voice this opinion as well. --Paul Wormer 10:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for your comments. As clearly noted in the main article, the CO2 and Radioactive Nuclide sections have not yet been written (as of December 9, 2009). When I write those sections, they will receive the same detailed discussion as provided in the Particulate Matter, SO2 and NOx sections. Milton Beychok 17:53, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

CO2 emission

Milton, I don't quite understand why the carbon content of coal has great influence on the emission of a 500 MW plant. When the carbon content is lower, combustion enthalpy is also lower, and more coal must be burned to achieve the 500 MW. My guess would be that the ratio CO2-emission/energy of coal is more or less constant. I can understand a certain influence when heat of combustion is delivered (in non-negligible amount) by compounds in coal other than pure carbon. Is that the case?

Of course, I see that the thermal efficiency of the plant is also an important factor, as you point out.--Paul Wormer 11:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)