Solution Found!
Answer: A typical coal-fired power plant generates 1000 MW
Chapter 20, Problem 54P(choose chapter or problem)
A typical coal-fired power plant generates 1000 MW of usable power at an overall thermal efficiency of 40%.
(a) What is the rate of heat input to the plant?
(b) The plant burns anthracite coal, which has a heat of combustion of \(2.65 \times 10^{7} \ \rm{J/kg}\). How much coal does the plant use per day, if it operates continuously?
(c) At what rate is heat ejected into the cool reservoir, which is the nearby river?
(d) The river is at \(18.0^{\circ} \ C\) before it reaches the power plant and \(18.5^{\circ} \ C\) after it has received the plant’s waste heat. Calculate the river’s flow rate, in cubic meters per second
(e) By how much does the river’s entropy increase each second?
Questions & Answers
QUESTION:
A typical coal-fired power plant generates 1000 MW of usable power at an overall thermal efficiency of 40%.
(a) What is the rate of heat input to the plant?
(b) The plant burns anthracite coal, which has a heat of combustion of \(2.65 \times 10^{7} \ \rm{J/kg}\). How much coal does the plant use per day, if it operates continuously?
(c) At what rate is heat ejected into the cool reservoir, which is the nearby river?
(d) The river is at \(18.0^{\circ} \ C\) before it reaches the power plant and \(18.5^{\circ} \ C\) after it has received the plant’s waste heat. Calculate the river’s flow rate, in cubic meters per second
(e) By how much does the river’s entropy increase each second?
ANSWER:Step 1 of 5
a) \(\text { a) } Q_{H}=\frac{W}{e}\) so \(p_{H}=\frac{p_{W}}{e}=\frac{1000 \ {MW}}{0.4}=2.5 \times 10^{3} \ {MW}\)