Assessment of MHD power plants with coal gasification

An assessment of the operational characteristics and cost of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) power plants integrated with coal gasification was performed. The coal gasifier produces a slag and sulfur free fuel for the MHD combustor. This clean fuel eliminates slag and sulfur interactions with the MHD topping cycle and simplifies the design of the combustor, the MHD channel, and the heat and seed recovery (HRSR) subsystem components. This may increase MHD and HRSR system reliability and provide the potential for earlier commercial demonstration of MHD. Integration techniques with three advanced medium BTU gasifiers were evaluated and an optimum system defined. A detailed comparison was then performed with a direct coal fired MHD power plant using oxygen enrichment. Results indicate that incorporating a coal gasification process with MHD simplifies system design at the expense of lower overall net plant efficiency and higher levelized cost of electricity