What Kind of Plant Will SPC Build?

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Utah Division of Air Quality have granted SPC a permit to build a 250 MW net electrical generation facility. This plant will utilize a fluidized bed boiler coupled with air-cooling to deliver clean and environmentally responsibility electricity to over 187,500 homes.


What is a Fluidized Bed Boiler and How Does it Differ From a PC Boiler?

A pulverized coal boiler crushes coal to a fine powder and then injects it into the boiler. Much like your gas stove, shortly after turning off the fuel it stops burning. A circulating fluidized bed boiler is more like your Barbecue in the sense that it will continue burning until all the fuel is spent. But it doesn’t stop there; the coal from a CFB is suspended on a bed of hot air allowing it to operate at a much lower temperature resulting in fewer emissions. This combined with improved emission capturing equipment will make the Sevier Power Plant the cleanest coal burning plant in the US. Even cleaner than the two existing Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants in operation today.


Why Use Air-Cooling?

Air-cooled condensers, although expensive, initial estimates put the cost of acquiring air-cooling for this plant at just over 14.7 million dollars. This method saves water.


How Much Water?

An air-cooled plant will use somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% less water than a traditional wet cooled system. This is a big deal when you live in the second driest state in the Union.