Italy's largest combined-cycle plant opened on June 22nd on a site that was once prepared for a nuclear reactor.
The hydrogen produced in a fully integrated, combined-cycle plant like FutureGen promises to be 25% cheaper than today's hydrogen.
That will result in the closing of a cadre of coal plants and the construction of numerous combined-cycle natural gas facilities.
Thanks to a 30% federal tax credit, that works out as much the same as a combined-cycle gas-turbine plant but without the noise and fumes.
Perlman says the process consumes about 15% of the energy contained in the coal going in, far more efficient than the integrated gasification combined-cycle plants promoted by General Electric.
Meantime, the oldest coal units built in the middle 1900s are being forced to retire and they are getting replaced with combined-cycle natural gas plants that are both more efficient and cleaner.
Combined-cycle gas turbines, which use hot exhaust gases from one turbine to generate steam to turn a second one, can transform 6, 800 Btu of gas into a kilowatt-hour of electricity, enough to light one lightbulb for ten hours.
Perlman says the process consumes about 15% of the energy contained in the coal going in, far more efficient than the integrated gasification combined-cycle plants promoted by General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ).
To supply the extra juice, utilities turn on inefficient single-cycle gas turbines, which turn 25% of the fuel's energy into electricity, as opposed to 45% for combined-cycle plants that use turbine exhaust to make steam to run a second generator.
Natural gas emits 29% less carbon dioxide than oil and 45% less than coal, and it can be used in high-efficiency combined cycle power stations.
To those concerned about emissions, it emphasized that the 400, 000-barrel-a-day refinery, plus an integrated gasification combined cycle plant, could sequester carbon more cheaply than a coal plant.
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