2017-06-08-dailynote

Sitting in the library, my own spot this time, looking for references on the efficiency factors of the fossil fuel power plants. The numbers I have in mind are 30% for pulverized coal, 35% for IGCC (integrated coal gasification combined cycle), and 45% for NGCC (natural gas combined cycle). On this page, the heat rate (which is the amount of heat that is supplied for the production of 1 kWh electricity from the combustion of a fossil fuel) is reported for the American power plants. The numbers for the IGCC are not reported, so I used another report to estimate it. My estimates are:

I have seen higher values (as high as 60%) reported for the new NGCC power plants. But apparently, those numbers are only valid if the power plant operate on its design (optimum) capacity, that never happens in practice. See for instance this report.

I've been trying to use the Poromodo technique for time management. My main problem was that when I'm really focused on a task, I can easily lose track of time. Apparently, there is an app for people like me. I just installed it.

Note to self: write a post in Simulkade about calling CoolProp from MS Excel and Excel macros. It took me a while to solve some of the issues and it is good to write the details here.