Energy Technology and Policy.

6701 PUBP/ISYE

Exercise 1a
Posted January 16, 2019. Due January 30 for Atlanta students; February 6 for DL.

Do these problems by yourself. If you have questions you may post them to Piazza on
Canvas; students you may provide hints to each other through these discussions, and you
may use these discussions to help complete the exercise.

1. Sankey Diagram of Energy Flow. Draw a Sankey Diagram of the energy flow to
power an electric vehicle.
• Normalize the energy consumption of the vehicle to 1 (that is, the width
of the vehicle energy consumption flow will be 1 “energy unit per unit time” and
the widths of all the other flows will be proportional).
• For simplicity, assume that the electricity fueling the vehicle is entirely
from Plant Bowen as described in problem 6e below. (So do problem 6e before
this one.)
• Show the primary energy of the coal that enters Plant Bowen as part of
the diagram.
• Assume that the electric vehicle is 60% efficient.
• Use Sankey software of your choice. Please state what software you
used.
• If you find a nice way to make the diagram, please also include
instructions so that others can follow your lead in the future. 1

1 I have successfully created the diagram in https://sankey.csaladen.es/ by starting from their example diagram
and changing the inputs on line. Alternatively, e!Sankey is available for 2-week trial use and is fairly easy to
learn, but works only on Windows. Sankey capability is reported to be available in R -
https://www.displayr.com/sankey-diagrams-r/ ; I have not used this before. Other options are discussed here
(not recently updated): http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/sankey-diagram-software/ Additional options
include python code Sankeyview https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sankeyview which was updated this month, and
D3’s sankey plug in https://bost.ocks.org/mike/sankey/ .
 2. Per capita power consumption. The US population was 323 million in 2016 and
its total primary energy consumption was approximately 97.4 Quads. What was
total per capita US power consumption, in kilowatts per person?
Answer
1 Quad = 1015 Btu
𝐵𝑡𝑢 𝐽
97.4 × 10 × 1055
𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝐵𝑡𝑢
= 3.25 × 10 𝑊
10 𝑠𝑒𝑐
3.16 ×
𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟
3.25 × 10 𝑊 𝑊
𝑃𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = = 10,062
323 × 10 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛
The per capita US power consumption in 2016 was 10.062 kW per person.
3. Petroleum power demand. US petroleum consumption was about 7.2 billion
barrels in 2016. For a US population of 323 million people, how many watts per
person is US petroleum consumption? 1 barrel of oil equivalent is 6.1 GJ. Express
your answer to 2 significant figures.
Answer:
1 barrel of oil is equal to 6.1 GJ.
6.1 GJ are equal to 1700 kWh.
𝑘𝑊ℎ
7.2 𝐵𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑠 = 7.2 × 10 𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑠 × 1700 = 12,240 × 10 𝑘𝑊ℎ
𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑙
 , ×
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = = 1.3973 × 10 𝑘𝑊

1.3973 × 10 𝑘𝑊 𝑘𝑊
𝑃𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = = 4.326
323 × 10 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛
US Petroleum Consumption is 4,326 Watts per Person.
4. Power plant efficiency. Heat engines, including coal-fired power plants, nuclear
power plants, and natural gas power plants, have an efficiency that is limited by
thermodynamics. In an idealized heat engine, called a Carnot cycle, the maximum
efficiency  is a function only of the maximum temperature of the working fluid T
and the surrounding temperature T0, and is given by
T
 = 1- 0
T
where T0 and T are in Kelvin units. So, one approach to increasing the efficiency
of electricity generation is to increase the temperature of the fluid (e.g. steam).
This problem, by providing some experience with Carnot efficiencies and actual
efficiencies of power plants, is intended to emphasize the widespread importance
of power plant efficiency.

a. Conventional pulverized coal boilers have a maximum temperature of about

540°C. What is their maximum Carnot efficiency? 2
Answer:
Assuming an operating temperature of 20°C.
Operating Temperature = T0 = 273 + 20 = 293 K
Maximum Temperature = T = 273 + 540 = 813 K
𝑻𝟎 𝟐𝟗𝟑
Maximum Carnot Efficiency = 𝟏 − =𝟏− = 𝟔𝟑. 𝟗𝟔%
𝑻 𝟖𝟏𝟑

b. Supercritical pulverized coal boilers have a maximum temperature of about

590°C. What is their maximum Carnot efficiency?
Answer:
Assuming an operating temperature of 20°C.
Maximum Temperature = T = 273 + 590 = 863 K
𝑻𝟎 𝟐𝟗𝟑
Maximum Carnot Efficiency = 𝟏 − =𝟏− = 𝟔𝟔. 𝟎𝟓%
𝑻 𝟖𝟔𝟑

2 Numbers from Rubin, Chp. 5

 c. Natural gas turbines built in the late 1980s have maximum operating temperatures
of 1100°C. What is their maximum Carnot efficiency?
Answer:
Assuming an operating temperature of 20°C.
Maximum Temperature = T = 273 + 1100 = 1373 K
𝑻𝟎 𝟐𝟗𝟑
Maximum Carnot Efficiency = 𝟏 − =𝟏− = 𝟕𝟖. 𝟔𝟔%
𝑻 𝟏𝟑𝟕𝟑

d. Natural gas turbines built in the late 1990s have maximum operating temperatures
of 1300°C. What is their maximum Carnot efficiency?
Answer:
Assuming an operating temperature of 20°C.
Maximum Temperature = T = 273 + 1300 = 1573 K
𝑻𝟎 𝟐𝟗𝟑
Maximum Carnot Efficiency = 𝟏 − =𝟏− = 𝟖𝟏. 𝟑𝟕%
𝑻 𝟏𝟓𝟕𝟑

e. Plant Bowen, located just north west of Atlanta, was ranked as the largest coal-
fired power plant in the United States in 2010, in terms of generation. Its heat rate
was 9940 Btu/kWh. What is its thermal efficiency?3
Answer:
Heat Rate = 9940 Btu/kWh
1 Btu = 0.000293071 kWh
9940 Btu = 2.91312 kWh
𝟏
Thermal Efficiency = = 𝟑𝟒. 𝟑𝟑%
𝟐.𝟗𝟏𝟑𝟏𝟐 𝒌𝑾𝒉

f. Plant Scherer, located just south of Atlanta, was ranked as the second largest
coal-fired power plant in the United States in 2010, in terms of generation. Its
heat rate was 10,100 Btu/kWh. What is its thermal efficiency?
Answer:
Heat Rate = 10,100 Btu/kWh
1 Btu = 0.000293071 kWh
10,100 Btu = 2.96 kWh
𝟏
Thermal Efficiency = = 𝟑𝟑. 𝟕𝟖%
𝟐.𝟗𝟔 𝒌𝑾𝒉

3 Hansen, T. Operating Performance Rankings, 2010. Top 20 Power Plants. Electric Light and Power
89 (6), 2011. http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/4158273877/articles/electric-
light-power/volume-89/issue-6/features/operating-performance-rankings-2010-top-20-power-
plants.html There are other interesting data here as well.
 5. How much water is needed to produce 1 kWh of electricity at a power plant that is
30% efficient if the temperature of the water is allowed to increase by 10° C?
Answer:
1 𝑘𝑊ℎ = 3.6 × 10 𝐽
However, since the power plant is only 30 percent efficient, the energy input
. ×
required would be = 1.2 × 10 𝐽
.
J
Specific heat capacity of water = 4.2 = 3.6 × 10 𝐽
𝑔 . °𝐶
𝟏. 𝟐 × 𝟏𝟎𝟕
𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 = = 𝟐𝟖𝟓, 𝟕𝟏𝟒 𝒈 = 𝟐𝟖𝟓. 𝟕𝟏𝟒 𝒌𝒈
𝟒. 𝟐 × 𝟏𝟎
6. Natural Gas is sold on the Higher Heating Value (HHV) basis. By contrast,
the Lower Heating Value (LHV) is the Higher Heat Value (HHV) minus the
latent heat of vaporization of the water vapor formed by the combustion of the
hydrogen in the fuel. LHV calculations assume that the water component of a
combustion process is in vapor state at the end of combustion, as opposed to the
higher heating value (HHV) (a.k.a. gross calorific value or gross CV) which
assumes that all of the water in a combustion process is in a liquid state after a
combustion process.

LHV (MJ/kg) HHV (MJ/kg)

CH4 50 55.5
Gasoline 43.4 46.4

a. How much CO2 is emitted per MJ of natural gas (CH4) combusted?

Answer:
𝐶𝐻 + 2𝑂 → 𝐶𝑂 + 2𝐻 𝑂
1 : 2 :: 1 : 2
16 : 2x16 :: 44 : 2x18
Since our concern are CH4 and CO2 in this case, we ignore the ratios for oxygen and
water.
16 kg of methane will produce 44 kg of carbon dioxide.
1 kg of methane will produce (44/16) kg of carbon dioxide.
1 kg of methane produces 50 MJ of energy; hence 1 MJ of energy requires (1/50) kg
of methane.
(1/50) kg of methane will produce (44/ (16 x 50)) = 0.055 kg of carbon dioxide.
When 1 MJ of natural gas is combusted, 0.055 kg of CO 2 is produced.
 b. How much CO2 is emitted per MJ of gasoline (~ octane = C8H18)
combusted?

2𝐶 𝐻 + 25𝑂 → 16𝐶𝑂 + 18𝐻 𝑂

2 : 25 :: 16 : 18
2 x 114 : 25 x 16 :: 16 x 44 : 18 x18
Again, we ignore the ratios for oxygen and water.
228 kg of octane will produce 704 kg of carbon dioxide.
1 kg of octane will produce (704/228) kg of carbon dioxide.
1 kg of octane produces 43.4 MJ of energy; hence 1 MJ of energy requires (1/43.4)
kg of methane.
(1/43.4) kg of methane will produce (704/ (228 x 43.4)) = 0.0711 kg of carbon
dioxide.
When 1 MJ of gasoline is combusted, 0.0711 kg of CO2 is produced.
7. Cost of Energy. Integrated Coal-Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power
plants are a new type of power plant with greater thermal efficiency than
standard coal power plants. These IGCC plants are also well suited for
addition of carbon capture and storage (CCS). The following table shows data
for IGCC with and without CCS.
• Capacity factor is the percent of capacity that plant runs at on average.
• Assume a 30-year life cycle and a discount rate of 2%.
• Operations and Maintenance is abbreviated O&M.

Plant type Capacity Capacity Capital Cost Fuel and Annual Heat Rate CO2 Emissions
(MW) Factor (%) ($/kW) Variable O&M Fixed O&M (Btu/kWh) (kg/kWh)
Cost ($/MWh) Cost ($/kW)
IGCC 550 85 2200 23 39 8800 1.2
IGCC with 11000 0.2
380 85 3200 30 46
CCS
Data source: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/48595.pdf

a) What is the thermal efficiency of the plants?

Answer:
1 Btu = 0.000293071 kWh
Thermal Efficiency:

For IGCC: 8800 × 0.00029307 = 0.3877 = 𝟑𝟖. 𝟕𝟕%

For IGCC with CCS: 11000 × 0.00029307 = 0.3102 = 𝟑𝟏. 𝟎𝟐%

 b) What is the average annual power output, in MWh/yr, of each of the two
plant types?
Answer:
Annual Power Output:
𝑴𝑾𝒉
IGCC = 550 𝑀𝑊 × 0.85 × 8760 = 𝟒, 𝟎𝟗𝟓, 𝟑𝟎𝟎
𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓
𝑴𝑾𝒉
IGCC with CCS = 3780 𝑀𝑊 × 0.85 × 8760 = 𝟐, 𝟖𝟐𝟗, 𝟒𝟖𝟎
𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓

c) What is the net present cost for each plant type if the plant will be
constructed now and runs at the average rate for its entire life? 4
Answer:
Life cycle = 30 years, Discount rate = 2%
1- (1+ r)-n (1+ r)n -1
n
1
å (1+ r) k
=
r
=
r(1+ r)n = 22.4
k=1

Net Present Cost:

For IGCC:
$ $ 𝑀𝑊ℎ
(2.2 × 10 ) × 550 𝑀𝑊 + 22.4 ( 23 × 4.0953 × 10
𝑀𝑊 𝑀𝑊ℎ 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟
$
+ 39 × 550,000 𝑘𝑊
𝑘𝑊
= $1.21 × 10 + $2.59 × 10 = $𝟑. 𝟕𝟏 × 𝟏𝟎𝟗

For IGCC with CCS:

$ $ 𝑀𝑊ℎ
(3.2 × 10 ) × 380 𝑀𝑊 + 22.4 ( 30 × 2.829480 × 10
𝑀𝑊 𝑀𝑊ℎ 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟
$
+ 46 × 380,000 𝑘𝑊
𝑘𝑊
= $1.216 × 10 + $2.292 × 10 = $𝟑. 𝟓𝟎𝟖 × 𝟏𝟎𝟗

n
1 1- (1+ r)-n (1+ r)n -1
4 Geometric sequence: å (1+ r)k =
r
=
r(1+ r)n
k=1
 d) What is the levelized cost of electricity for each of the two plant types, in
$/kWh?
Answer:
Levelized Cost of Energy = (Net Present Value) / (Annual Power Output * Discount
Factor)
$ . × $
For IGCC = = 𝟎. 𝟎𝟒𝟎𝟒𝟒
. × × . 𝒌𝑾𝒉

$ . × $
For IGCC with CCS = = 𝟎. 𝟎𝟓𝟓𝟑
. × × . 𝒌𝑾𝒉

e) The purpose of adding carbon capture and storage (CCS) to a power plant is
to reduce CO2 emissions. Based on the information above, what is the
levelized cost per ton of CO2 emissions reduction using CCS on an IGCC
power plant?
Answer:
CO2 emission for IGCC = 1.2 kg / kWh
CO2 emission for IGCC with CCS= 0.2 kg / kWh
CO2 emission reduction = 1 kg / kWh
Extra cost of installing IGCC with CCS = 0.0553 – 0.04044 = 0.01486 $/kWh
Levelized cost of CO2 emission reduction = (0.01486 $/kWh) / (1kg/kWh)
= 0.01486 $/kg

= 14.86 $/ton

IGCC IGCC w/CCS

a. Efficiency (%) 38.77 31.02

b. MWh/yr: 4,095,300 2,829,480

c. $ 3.71 X 109 3.508 X 109

d. $/kWh 0.0404 0.0553

e. $/ton 14.86