Well CBC, you seem to have some facts wrong about the NB Power Dalhousie Generating Station. At least about the plant being designed to burn Orimulsion.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/03/28/nb-dalhousie-jobs-nbpower-409.html#socialcommentsBOth plant just recently celebrated their 30 and 40th Birthdays. Ironically, just a couple of days before the MOU announcement last fall. It was open to some public and invited guests and retirees.
Unit # 1 is 100MW in size. To put that in perspective, it would supply the then IP Bowater paper mill in the town of Dalhousie when it was first commisioned in 1969. Until a few years ago, 100 MW would kep the province of PEI well lit up. Unit # 1 has a boiler designed to burn coal and #6 fuel oil. It was never fitted with any coal firing equipment, and was used on #6 bunker C through the 70's, and sparadically in the 80's.
Unit # 2 has a size of 212 MW. The boiler and turnbine were supplied from the same manufacturers as the unit # 1. The boiler was designed to burn bunker 6 and Minto coal. This makes it special in the fact that it is a very large boiler for it's capacity to handle the then high ash, high sulphur minto coal. Unit # 2 was commisioned in 1979.
In 1988 the Venezulens approached NB Power looking for a demonstration plant to burn it's new Orimulsion(TM) fuel. Unit # 1 fit the bill perfectly. They graciously added a precipitator to remove flyash from the stack emmisions and spent a year or so supplying Orimulsion to enable the test burn. The test was quite successful, and Venezuela signed a long term contract with NB Power in 1991 to supply fuel to Dalhousie. They also signed many contracts with the British, Italians, and Japanese. I think there some other European countries in the mix as well. For many years Orimulsion flowed all over the planet. With the steady rise in the price of crude through the 90's, the Venezuelans finally decided they could make a lot more money upgrading the oil deposits and selling it as a more refined product. The Orinoco belt is similiar to the Alberta Tar Sands, and said to be as large as the rest of the worlds oil deposits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orinoco_BeltRead this to learn a little more about Orimulsion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OrimulsionIt does say that China is the only place left thet gets any Orimulsion, but I beleive that has ended as well.
Poor NB Power was kinda caught in the middle of the ending of the Orimulsion program, and probably some local political issue. And that is all I care to say about that. Needless to say, NB Power sued and won their case to the tune of roughly 350 million dollars. I'd say that you don't win settlement that big, without having some paperwork on your side to back it up.
Anyway, back to Dalhousie. In 1994 both stations at Dalhousie were fully converted to burn Orimulsion adn went commercial that year. They actually were burning it on and off from the time of the test burn through the time they were fully commercial.
The main part of the conversion was the addition of a Flue Gas Desulpherization unit to clean up the emmisions and make it compliant with laws of the day. (and today)
It was the third such unit in Canada to have a FGD added. Another NB Power facility ( Belledune) was first. Ironically, the oil fired unit at Tracy Quebec, has no srubbers,or even precipitators I beleive. Making it antiquated and one of the worst polluting power stations in Canada. It has 4 units, of the same design as Dalhousie, but with a total output of 660MW. It has a full time staff of 120 employees. It is required for peaking and backup.
http://www.hydroquebec.com/generation/centrale-thermique.htmlAnd yet Dalhousie would be slated to be closed and demolished in favour of keeping a more polluting station running in Quebec. That is not environmetally freindly now is it????
The value of that FGD in todays cost to add to a 312 MW station at $319 per kw. Or $319 x 1000kw/mw x 312MW = $100,000,000. That's in US dollars.
http://www.powermag.com/business/Update-Whats-That-Scrubber-Going-to-Cost_1743_p2.htmlThe US fleet of coal fired power plants currently equipped with
flue-gas desulfurization systems:
• US – 248 out of 1535 fossil units have FGD
– 101.648 GW scrubbed of 411.840 GW total
– Increase in capacity from 21.39% to 24.68%
from 1994 to 2005 .
http://www.topsoe.com/sitecore/shell/Applications/~/media/PDF%20files/Topsoe_Catalysis_Forum/2007/Hower.ashxSo there is another 1200 power plant in the US that will require what Dalhousie already has.
Seems there must be some value for the station in the future.
All the information I read says that more and more station will be getting scrubbers added. And the costs are rising substantially.
Let's throw out this idea. Nova Scotia Power has coal fired stations. With NO scrubbers. Some day they will be forced to clean up their act. Why not get them to capatilize the cost of converting the Dalhousie station back to coal. Then NB Power can just do a power purchase agreement with NS Power. They supply fuel, NB Power supplies them electricity. NS Power clean up their act somewhat and Dalhousie runs till the end of its useful life. It's evident from the information out there, that there is no miracle cure for the increasing demand for electricity. It's going to take a lot of efficiency, and a lot of wind and solar to offset the demand for the traditional power plant.
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