Journal of Energy Engineering

The use of ponds for holding a reserve of cooling water obtained as sewage effluent and also for collection of waste water for disposal by evaporation, was made at a nuclear power plant site in southern Arizona. The power output of the plant will be 3,900 MW. Two single cell ponds are 80 acres (30 ha) and 250 acres (100 ha) in size. Excavated materials from the 80‐acre (30‐ha) pond were used for structural backfill as planned, and the 250‐acre (100‐ha) pond was designed for limited dike height with balanced cut and fill and some excess materials used as side berms for additional safety Both ponds are being lined with a unique combination of linings to provide environmental safeguards and at the same time cost‐effectiveness is compared to alternative schemes.

A test predicting air classifier performance is developed and evaluated in a waste‐to‐energy production facility. The separation of combustibles from noncombustibles is critical to the success of any waste‐to‐energy production facility. Air classifier technologies are relied on to aid in their separation, but often the technologies are applied to unsuitable waste flows. Costly design and operating mistakes are the rule and not the exception. Using samples of municipal solid waste, a test to predict success, both easy and economical to conduct, is considered in terms of its principles, the test methodology, and experimental results, as well as air classification comparisons. Conclusions are drawn which indicate the strengths and limitation of this method of prediction.

An economic dispatch model is developed to simulate the daily load dispatch operations of a power system. The model has been used to account for the operation of various flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems and their impacts on power system economic dispatch pattern and ${\mathrm{SO}}_2$ emissions. Simulations performed on a hypothetical test power system with nine coal‐fired generating units showed that the lime and the Wellman‐Lord processes are the two least costly FGD systems to operate. The limestone process is also competitive. The same three processes are also found to be the most cost‐effective FGD systems.

The 1973 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) design response spectra have been used extensively in the seismic design of nuclear power plants and equipment. The question which has frequently been raised is whether the NRC spectra in the high frequency region (9 cps – 33 cps) overestimate or underestimate the expected response. This study presents results from a statistical study of a large number of response spectra computed from accelerograms recorded on alluvium and rock and compares them to the NRC design spectra in the high frequency region.