ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to power generation using heat engines based on steam, which can be generated by various sources of heat, including those generated by burning coal, using nuclear energy, and geothermal processes. We will focus on burning coal to generate steam, which accounts for nearly 41% of the world’s electric power generation (Chapter 1). Coal-fired power plants are large plants that require high capital investment but have lower operational costs due to lower cost of coal when compared to other fuels. These plants run continuously, and therefore are appropriate to use as baseload power plants. Before we examine coal-based power generation, a review of basic concepts of atmospheric processes is needed when examining environmental impacts of coal-fired power plants. The presentation is based on textbooks on introductory earth science as well as transport and fate of pollutants and are recommended for supplementary reading [1-3].We will study the basics of carbon sequestration, a mitigation approach to CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants; we will cover direct methods in this chapter following the presentation in Vanek et al. [4].
