From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Fri Dec 01 2000 - 08:18:25 MST
In a message dated 12/1/00 8:55:21 AM Central Standard Time, talon57@well.com
writes:
> By the way
> who makes those GTGs anyway.....
There are two kinds of GTGs: "Aero-derivatives" and "industrial". A GTG is
basically a jet engine bolted to the ground, with a dynamo hooked up to its
central shaft. A "combined cycle" plant also uses the waste heat of the
turbine to make steam that generates electricity in a secondary cycle.
Aero-derivatives are literally jet engines that have been de-tuned to run on
natural gas. Industrial GTGs are designed from the ground up for stationary
generation. In either case, the leading manufacturers are the same as the
ones who make the turbines that push jet planes: GE, Westinghouse and Rolls
Royce.
(BTW, GTGs burn MUCH cleaner than coal plants.)
People are building "merchant plants" so fast and furious right now that you
will have to wait TWO YEARS for a new GTG if you get in line right now.
People are selling their place in those lines for these machines for a nice
premium these days.
The truly cool thing about this technology is how modular it is. I've been
involved in the industry for going on 15 years now and I've seen these plants
evolve from one-off custom designs to what amounts to "plug-and-play"
construction. You can slap one together in SIX MONTHS (I've seen it done)
from "green field" to cranking out "golf-ball-size electrons" (as one of my
friends puts it). Compare this to the achingly slow way that giant
coal-fired plants (and worse, big nuke plants) have traditionally been built
by monopoly utilities, with their huge capital outlays locked up for years,
and the trend in power generation is a no-brainer to figure out.
Beyond this, the new breed of energy merchants like Dynegy (am I proud of
them or what?) are in the process of completely revolutionizing the whole
*culture* of energy production in the world. They're completely undermining
the old, slow, heavily regulated monopoly utility way of doing business and,
in the process, have laid the groundwork for a new way of looking at the
over-all energy grid and market so that ANY new energy sources can be plugged
in at ANY level. Thus, as new, smaller-scale generation nodes become
technologically feasible (think home- and neighborhood-scale fuel cell and
solar plants), the "grid" (in the broadest sense, including not just the
physical infrastructure, but also the market network) can accommodate them.
This was unthinkable just ten years ago.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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