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Supercritical CO2 turbines promise giant leap in efficiency

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VEBill

Military
Apr 25, 2002
7,090
Sandia News Releases - March 4, 2011

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories researchers are moving into the demonstration phase of a novel gas turbine system for power generation, with the promise that thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency will be increased to as much as 50 percent — an improvement of 50 percent for nuclear power stations equipped with steam turbines, or a 40 percent improvement for simple gas turbines. The system is also very compact, meaning that capital costs would be relatively low.

Research focuses on supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) Brayton-cycle turbines, which typically would be used for bulk thermal and nuclear generation of electricity, including next-generation power reactors. The goal is eventually to replace steam-driven Rankine cycle turbines, which have lower efficiency, are corrosive at high temperature and occupy 30 times as much space because of the need for very large turbines and condensers to dispose of excess steam. The Brayton cycle could yield 20 megawatts of electricity from a package with a volume as small as four cubic meters.

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All they need is another 20 years and $20B more in grants to get into production. :cool:

David Castor
 
The Environmentalists should all be screaming and yelling to have them installed 'yesterday' in all fossil-fueled thermal plants.
 
They are too busy screaming about the dangers of nuclear power.

 
Well, given current events in Japan...

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484
 
A typical case of "great in theory, not so easy in practice". If you look at the cycle temperatures and pressures required in the turbine and compressor, it doesn't look like such a slam-dunk to scale up.
 
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