Bill and gang,
The H moniker indicates nothing about XONON. Basically, the H is a comparable power plant to the F, except for the cooling mechanism. The F uses the more common air cooling, while the H uses steam.
Although I'm not certain, I'd bet that the E, F, H, or whatever, could be deployed with or without XONON. This cold be accomplished with different combustors. Also, GE has not made any mention of a special engine for XONON use. And we know that some F turbines are planned for XONON in Pastoria, CA. Again, the main difference is steam vs air cooling.
The NY Times article is a lot of fluff. Yes this is the latest and greatest stuff for power generation, but nothing new. Gas turbines have been running above metal-melting temperature for a long time. The metals tend to melt around 2000 F, and of course there's fire in a conventional (non XONON) combustor. The big difference is the steam cooling. In the highest-performance aircraft engines, as much as 30% of inlet air is diverted for purposes of cooling hot parts, and these have combustion gases approaching 4000 F. The bleed off of this air for cooling reduces the power producing potential (thrust or electrical) of the engine. Military fighter engines need only last for 4000 hours, but power-generation turbines are required to last much, much longer, so their combustion temperatures have been deliberately limited.
Steam cooling eliminates the cooling-air extraction which leads to higher efficiency. But they fail to mention that something has to power the steam-cooling machanism. Nothing is free.
For those who didn't know, GE has reached NOx levels of as low as 9 PPM without XONON (at least they claim this; it might be under laboratory conditions, and not achievable in commercial practice). It's true that XONON can get down to below 3 PPM, but I worry if anyone will care. Although it can still reduce emissions by another two thirds, what if customers would rather settle for the already low ( by historical standards), but more affordable system.
Best of luck to us all.
SPB |
