The Effects of Biomass Availability and Preparation on the Sustainability of Power Plants in Croatia

Biomass has been demonstrated as a capable source of energy to fulfill the increasing demand for clean energy sources which could last a long time. Replacing fossil fuels with biomass-based ones can potentially lead to a reduction of carbon emissions, which is the main target of the EU climate strategy. Based on RED II (revised Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU) and the European Green Deal, biomass is a promising energy source for achieving carbon neutrality in the future. However, the sustainable potential of biomass resources in the forthcoming decades is still a matter of question. This review aims at estimating the availability of biomass for energy reasons in the EU, and to evaluate its potential to meet the coal power plant capacity of the main lignite-producer countries, including Germany, Poland and Greece. Plants in line with the sustainability criteria of RED II have been selected for the preliminary estimations concerning their full conversion to the biomass power concept. Furthermore, the various barriers to biomass utilization are highlighted, such as the stranded asset risk of a future coal phase-out scenario, biomass supply chain challenges, biomass availability in main lignite-producer EU countries, the existing full conversion technologies, and biomass cost. A variety of challenges in the scenario of lignite substitution with biomass in a plant are investigated in a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Technological risks and issues should be tackled in order to achieve the coal phase-out EU goal, mainly with regard to the supply chain of biomass. In this direction, the development of logistics centers for the centralized handling of biomass is strongly recommended.

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The feasibility co-firing biomass for electricity in Missouri

10.32469/10355/43176 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Zuoming Liu

Keyword(s):

Power Plants ◽

Fossil Fuels ◽

Programming Model ◽

Renewable Energy Sources ◽

Transportation Cost ◽

Partial Replacement ◽

University Of Missouri ◽

Biomass Availability ◽

The Individual ◽

The Impact

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] With the growing concerns regarding energy security, sustainability and global warming, more and more efforts have been expended to find clean, safe and renewable energy sources. Bioenergy is considered as one of the significant potential energy resources to serve as a partial replacement for fossil fuels. Use biomass as fuels to produce electricity, i.e. biopower, is one of the most popular uses of bioenergy. The main objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility co-firing biomass for electricity at the existing coal-powered plants in Missouri. A linear programming model was built to simulate the whole process of co-firing biomass in 9 selected power plants with the objective of minimizing the total cost involved in the process. Two biomass co-firing levels (10% and 15%) with three levels (10%, 20% and 30%) of biomass availability are assumed to conduct sensitivity analysis. Moreover, this study also analyzed the impact of transportation cost, resource and harvesting cost on the model's optimization outcomes. The results of the model show that co-firing biomass in those selected power plants costs more than using coal. The additional cost from co-firing biomass will decrease as the availability of biomass increases. The results from the individual plants show that the optimal capacity of biomass co-firing is about 10-15MW based on the settings of this study.

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Use of fractals to describe microstructures of porous thick-film platinum electrodes

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100121971 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 314-315

Author(s):

Steven D. Toteda

Keyword(s):

Fractal Dimension ◽

Power Plants ◽

Electrical Response ◽

Cubic Phase ◽

Platinum Electrodes ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Impedance Response ◽

Platinum Particles ◽

Energy Surfaces ◽

Highly Porous

Zirconia oxygen sensors, in such applications as power plants and automobiles, generally utilize platinum electrodes for the catalytic reaction of dissociating O2 at the surface. The microstructure of the platinum electrode defines the resulting electrical response. The electrode must be porous enough to allow the oxygen to reach the zirconia surface while still remaining electrically continuous. At low sintering temperatures, the platinum is highly porous and fine grained. The platinum particles sinter together as the firing temperatures are increased. As the sintering temperatures are raised even further, the surface of the platinum begins to facet with lower energy surfaces. These microstructural changes can be seen in Figures 1 and 2, but the goal of the work is to characterize the microstructure by its fractal dimension and then relate the fractal dimension to the electrical response. The sensors were fabricated from zirconia powder stabilized in the cubic phase with 8 mol% percent yttria. Each substrate was sintered for 14 hours at 1200°C. The resulting zirconia pellets, 13mm in diameter and 2mm in thickness, were roughly 97 to 98 percent of theoretical density. The Engelhard #6082 platinum paste was applied to the zirconia disks after they were mechanically polished ( diamond). The electrodes were then sintered at temperatures ranging from 600°C to 1000°C. Each sensor was tested to determine the impedance response from 1Hz to 5,000Hz. These frequencies correspond to the electrode at the test temperature of 600°C.

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The Effects of Ion Implantation on the Surface Features of Inconel 600

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100118333 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

pp. 288-289

Author(s):

John D. Rubio

Keyword(s):

Grain Boundary ◽

Ion Implantation ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Power Plants ◽

Surface Region ◽

Selective Dissolution ◽

Boundary Region ◽

Near Surface ◽

Inconel 600 ◽

Steam Generator Tubing

The degradation of steam generator tubing at nuclear power plants has become an important problem for the electric utilities generating nuclear power. The material used for the tubing, Inconel 600, has been found to be succeptible to intergranular attack (IGA). IGA is the selective dissolution of material along its grain boundaries. The author believes that the sensitivity of Inconel 600 to IGA can be minimized by homogenizing the near-surface region using ion implantation. The collisions between the implanted ions and the atoms in the grain boundary region would displace the atoms and thus effectively smear the grain boundary.To determine the validity of this hypothesis, an Inconel 600 sample was implanted with 100kV N2+ ions to a dose of 1x1016 ions/cm2 and electrolytically etched in a 5% Nital solution at 5V for 20 seconds. The etched sample was then examined using a JEOL JSM25S scanning electron microscope.

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