ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the most advanced variants of key technologies utilized in the combustion of fossil fuels, and conversion of the resulting heat into electric power. Oxy-fuel combustion is a promising technology amenable to carbon capture with less complexity and cost than pre- and post-combustion technologies. Air quality control is the generally accepted industry term for fossil-fuel–fired power plant flue gas cleaning by scrubbing off criteria pollutants between the furnace/combustor exit and the stack. The most important fossil fuel power system performance parameter is thermal efficiency. The chapter also discusses Rankine cycle efficiency. The commercially available technology for syngas production from all forms of hydrocarbon feedstock is gasification. In underground coal gasification (UGC), air or oxygen is introduced into the coal while it is still in the ground by pumping air or oxygen down "injection wells".
