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Show - 2 - In order to increase overall power generation efficiency, development of improved systems are in hand. For example, in the Netherlands the Buggenum 250 MWe IGCC system is in its first demonstration year. As an alternative, improved atmospheric pressure boilers with supercritical steam cycles are under development, particularly in Denmark, which demonstrate reasonably high operating efficiency at a lower capital cost. Thus it is foreseen that atmospheric pressure combustion systems will continue, in the short to medium term, to be the main basis for coal based power genera tion. A high proportion of these systems will be fired on coal blends. Increasingly stringent environmental protection legislation, plus the need to maintain high operating efficiencies, with high boiler availability, all result in an increasing need to be able to predict the performance of coal blends. In parallel, in Europe there is a further trend to generate power from boilers where other materials are co-fired with pulverised coal. These include substantial amounts of biomass wastes and municipal sewage sludges. The co-firing of waste biomass with pulverised coal in the power generation industry can help to address several areas of concern relating to waste disposal, and control of greenhouse and noxious gas emissions [1]. The combustion technology required to co-fire these biomass wastes with coal has not yet been developed, and effects related to emissions of NOx, SOx and unburned hydrocarbons, particulates and the incidence of slagging, fouling and corrosion, are as yet unquantified. The European Union, Clean Coal Technology research programme known as APAS, has as an objective, to |
