Power Plant System Configurations for the 21st Century

Under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory, a multi-disciplinary team led by the Advanced Power and Energy Program of the University of California at Irvine is defining the system engineering issues associated with the integration of key components and subsystems into power plant systems that meet performance and emission goals of the Vision 21 program. The myriad of fuel processing, power generation, and emission control technologies are narrowed down to selected scenarios in order to identify those combinations that have the potential to achieve the Vision 21 program goals of high efficiency and minimized environmental impact while using fossil fuels. The technology levels considered are based on projected technical and manufacturing advances being made in industry and on advances identified in current and future government supported research. Examples of systems included in these advanced cycles are solid oxide and molten carbonate fuel cells, advanced gas turbines, ion transport membrane separation and hydrogen-oxygen combustion.Copyright © 2002 by ASME