解放军文职招聘考试Coal-fired Power Plants

 Coal-fired Power Plants

The invention of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas A. Edison in 1879

created a demand for a cheap, readily       available fuel with which to generate

large amounts of electric power. Coal seemed to fit the bill, and it fueled    

the earliest power stations (which were set up at the end of the nineteenth

century by Edison himself). As more   power plants were constructed

throughout the country, the reliance on coal increased. Since the First

World War,   coal-fired power plants have accounted for about half of the

electricity produced in the United States each year.       In 1986 such plants

had a combined generating capacity of 289, 000 megawatts and consumed 83

percent of the nearly 900 million tons of coal mined in the country that

year. Given the uncertainty in the future growth of nuclear power and in

the supply of oil and natural gas, coal-fired power plants could well

provide up to 70 percent of the    electric power in the United States by the

end of the century.

Yet, in spite of the fact that coal has long been a source of electricity

and may remain one for many  years  (coal    represents  about  80  percent

 of  United  States  fossil-fuel  reserves),  it  has actually never been

the most desirable    fossil fuel for power plants. Coal contains less energy

per unit of weight than natural gas or oil; it is difficult to transport,

and it is associated with a host of environmental issues, among them acid

rain. Since the late 1960's problems of emission control and waste disposal

have sharply reduced the appeal of coal-fired power plants.  The   cost  of

ameliorating these environmental problems along with the rising cost of

building a facility as large and      complex  as  a  coal-fired  power plant, 

have also made such  plants less attractive from  a

purely economic perspective.

Changes in the technological base of coal-fired power plants could restore

their attractiveness, however. Whereas      some of these changes are

evolutionary and are intended mainly to increase the  productivity of

existing plants,   completely new technologies for burning coal cleanly are

also being developed.

火力发电厂托马斯·爱迪生 1879 年发明的白炽灯导致对便宜、易得、可生产大量电能 的燃料的需求。 

煤似乎符合这个要求，并成为第一批电厂的燃料(正是爱迪生本人在 19 世 纪末建造了第一批电厂)。  全国到处兴建电厂时，对煤的依赖加深了。 

自第一次世界大战 以来，美国每年约有一半的电力是以煤为燃料的电厂提供的。  1986 年这些电厂的总发电能 力达到 28，900

千瓦并且消耗了当年全国开采的九亿吨煤的 83%。  考虑到核能发展以及石 油、天然气供应中的不确定因素，到本世纪末，火力发电厂仍可能为美国提供多达 

70%的 电力。 然而，尽管煤长期以来一直是电力的原料之一并且可能会继续如此(煤占美国化石燃 料储量的 80%)，它却不是电厂的理想燃料。 

煤的单位能量含量低于石油和天然气，而且会 导致包括酸雨在内的一系列环境问题。 从 1960 年以来，排放控制和垃圾处理的问题极大地

削弱了燃煤电厂的魅力。  由于减轻这些环境问题需要大量资金，而且建造庞大复杂的燃煤 电厂的费用不断上涨，也使得这些电厂从经济角度上不具备吸引力。 

改变火力发电厂的基 础技术却可能恢复它们的吸引力。  虽然某些技术改进是渐进的，其目的只是提高现有电厂 的生产率，但人们正在开发全新的清洁燃煤的技术。