Opinion: One way to conserve water at power plants

A former Navy man addresses concerns about the large amount of water that would be required to operate the proposed biomass plant.

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I would like to add my comments to the ongoing discussion about the wood chip power plant intended for the Springfield industrial park if I may.

With eight years of experience in the operation and maintenance in the field of steam power including diesel and gas turbine power experience in our US Navy, proudly I might add.

Everyone thinks the Navy has no problem with water at sea. Wrong, each ship can only distill as much sea water operating 24-7 as her evaporator plant's capacity. Each plant's size depends on the space alloted to that plant per ship. Smaller ships were always on the edge of shortage, any break down could mean no showers for the crew, the water priority was 1. boilers to keep the ship under-weigh. 2. food preparation & drinking water. 3. Crew's sanitation & laundry. So, as you can see, water conservation at sea was very important to everyone of the crew.

Water management in a small steam powered electrical generating plant

One of the arguments I have noticed concerns water usage. One way to conserve water would be a closed loop system whereas the Boiler turns water to steam which then feeds to a steam turbine engine the turbine spins the shaft usually direct drive of the generator which generates electricity to the grid.

The steam leaves the generator and travels to a cooling condenser and is changed to hot water The condensation process also draws a vacuum on the system thereby making the plant more efficient.

The hot condensate is then piped back to a ready tank where it is again used by the boiler to make steam.

Water does have to be replaced due to operating inefficiency such as un-repaired steam & condensate leaks and a plant like this could not use fresh water from the aquifer or nearby river because of the mineral content of fresh water is very different from sea water.

I don't know if this will be a help to one side or the other but a lot has changed technologically since my service time, and maybe someone smarter than me could expand on it applying today's technology.

Humbly,

Phil Gilbert

Former Springfield'er