Waste to energy in power plants

Abstract

The international energy outlook 2007 gives a clear picture of energy growth expectation over the next two decades. The word net energy consumption, 2004-2030, will increase about 85 percent. On the other hand more than 80 percent of today and near future energy production should supply from oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants. However the overall thermal efficiency of all power plants in the world is less than 50%, as a result for production of 30364 billion kilowatt-hours in 2030, it should use about twice of the energy resources and transfer about 30000 billion kilowatt-hours to environment as waste energy. This subject has five important defects, consist of; increasing global wanning, green house effect, air pollution, wasting natural resources and final cost of the electricity. Hence researches on waste to energy in power plants should be remarkable. In present study, it is developed the idea of using "boiling condenser "(BC) for steam power plants (coal, heavy oil, gas-fired steam turbine and nuclear power plants) and also it is offered a new idea of "exhaust gas energy converter"(EGEC) for gas power plants. In this manner, not only at least 15% of unused energy in the power plants could be employed, but also the consistency with environment is more appreciable. Copyright © 2008 by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics.