Natural Gas vs. Coal Plants
Hey Guys, For my internship I'm working on a research project examining natural gas vs. coal power plants. For anyone here working with energy I've noticed that heating value added for natural gas is measured in btu/ft^3 and heating value added for coal is measured in btu/ton. When I make the conversion from btu/ft^3 to btu/ton using some assumptions about specific gravity I get that natural gas has a much higher heating value added per ton. Does this make sense? Is it valid to make this calculation since I'm essentially comparing two substances in different states? Do you guys know of any good research done on coal vs. natural gas power plant efficiencies, cost, output, etc.
Thanks! gcjohns
It's not valid to do a weight-based comparison here because natural gas does not occur in solid form underground, costs far more to extract per "ton" and uses different equipment to burn it. Essentially, the only "common denominator" between the two are that both are carbon-based sources of energy when burned.
It really depends on what side you're looking at it from (whether from a cost-benefit analysis, or from an environmental side), but I would examine it like this:
Long story short, your normalizing factor should be btu - not weight.
Yes natural gas has a much higher heating value than coal. However, for purposes of power plants instead of worrying about specific gravity and btu / ton or btu / ft^3, you should just focus on heat rate, which is the number of btus required to generate a kWh of electricity. The heat rate for combined cycle natural gas is in the 6,800 btu / kwh - 7,200 btu / kWh range, while coal usually comes in around 10,000 btu / kWh. Peaker (simple cycle) gas plants have a higher heat rate, closer to that of coal.
Best general (free) source for this kind of information is the EIA (http://www.eia.gov/). They have a ton of data and a lot of introductory material. If you have access to Wall Street research you can check any initiating coverage report for utilities and you'll probably also find some of this info.
Great thanks! I'll check those sites out and rework somethings. I really appreciate it.
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