| OCR Text |
Show coal-oil mixture combustion was discontinued because the availability of cheap fuel oil did not make coal-oil mixtures attractive to industry. However, following the rapid escalation of oil prices in the late seventies there was renewed interest in coal-oil mixture technology and Energy, Mines and Resources, Canada, as part of its program to reduce reliance on foreign oil supplies, encouraged this interest by financial and technological support through demonstration projects and R and D. The first demonstration project was undertaken in three phases from 1977 to 1980 to study the potential for utilization of coal-oil mixtures in a small utility boiler at Chatham N.B. The Chatham Thermal Generating Station, Unit No. 1 of 10 MW(e) generating capacity was selected for this project, due to its small size, coal design and the fact that it is rarely required to supply electricity to the grid. Thus the unit had the operational flexibility required for the coal-oil mixture study. The boiler, manufactured by Foster Wheeler, is rated at 17.6 kg/s steam flow and is a dual-fired boiler, having the capability for independently firing coal or oil and of simultaneously burning coal and oil using separate burners. The Phase I coal-oil mixture program at Chatham was begun in 1977/78 and employed simple mechanical mixing of coal, pulverized and collected in a cyclone and baghouse, with NO. 6 fuel oil in a blender. The coal-oil mixture was then pumped to the four existing steam-atomized oil burners using a screw type oil pump. Neither the pumps nor the burners were specifically chosen for the coal-oil mixture application and as a consequence significant wear problems which could be attributed to the abrasive coal ash, were encountered. The results of Phase I operation in which a 10 wt % coal-No. 6 fuel oil mixture was burned, have previously been reported in detail(4). 12-4 |
