Learning Exercise

Economics of Power Generation

Ask students to calculate the fuel costs to
run one boiler in this plant at full capacity as specified on the flow diagram. Might also ask them to compare cost for using different fuels.

Course: Energy balances; thermodynamics

Material:: Virtual Tour of a Steam Turbine Cogeneration Power Plant
Date last modified:: November 1, 2004
Created by:: Valerie Young
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Virtual Tour of a Steam Turbine Cogeneration Power Plant

This is virtual tour of the Michigan State University power plant that uses four steam-powered turbines. The power... see more

Material Type:: Presentation
Author:: Carl Lira, Michigan State University, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
User Rating:: 5 stars

Exercise

Take virtual tour of the Michigan State University Power Plant on the web.
http://www.chems.msu.edu/classes/321/powerplant/

This website was originally developed by Dr. Carl Lira for one of his courses,
so there may be a few comments in the text that are specific to his course.

Calculate the fuel costs to run one boiler in this plant at full capacity as
specified on the flow diagram.

Disciplines

Audience

Technical Notes

For an in-class exercise, instructor must provide
information about heat transfer efficiency, fuel heating value, fuel costs. If given as homework, students can be required to research typical values for some or all of these parameters.

Requirements

Familiarity with steam tables, First Law of Thermodynamics, efficiency

Topics

Power generation
Efficiency, heating value
Economics
(Research in technical literature)

Type of Task

Learning Objectives

(1) Apply the First Law of Thermodynamics to calculate the energy input required to a process
(2) Calculate the cost to operate a process
(3) (Optional) Search for information outside the current course text to complete engineering problems.