POWER July 2016 - 6

SPEAKING OF POWER
Power's Environmental
Issues Then and Now
D
iscussions about environmental issues
related to power plants and the
regulations governing their operation
are as old as the industry, I discovered
while thumbing through the bound
July through December 1914 issues of
POWER. The specifics of the environmental
concerns have become more detailed
and
complex
as
scientific
knowledge,
monitoring technologies, and mitigation
solutions advance. However, the general
arguments-environmental control versus
efficiency, for example-and the human
nature demonstrated in the debates, are
remarkably similar 102 years later.
Smoke and Ashes
Several articles in 1914 addressed minimizing
smoke from power and steam
plants both big and small (and there were
more of the latter).
The August 11 issue ran a one-page story
titled " Rules for Firing without Smoke, "
with this synopsis: " How to build, clean
and bank fires. In carrying a thick fire the
coal is dumped in piles instead of being
spread over the grate. The volatile matter
is distilled in amounts which the furnace
can care for and less smoke is produced. "
This editor's note was included at the end:
" It is to be remembered that Mr. Monnett
is smoke inspector of Chicago and that the
rules in the above, as well as the recommendations
in the previous articles of this
series, apply particularly to conditions in
the region where they burn the soft Illinois
coal which is high in volatile matter.
Further, being smoke inspector, the author's
principal effort is naturally toward
smoke prevention, rather than economy or
efficiency, which are more or less of second
consideration. "
But POWER clearly appreciated efforts
to reduce smoke pollution, and on October
6 advocated more adequately staffed
city " smoke inspection departments, "
concluding, " What is an appropriation of
two, or twenty thousand dollars to reduce
the cause of annual damage amounting to
millions in most large cities? "
And in the September 8 issue the editor
praises the Mellon Institute at the University
of Pittsburgh for its bulletin " Some
6
Engineering Phases of Pittsburgh's Smoke
Problem. " He notes the institute previously
addressed smoke's " damage to laundry,
buildings, vegetation and its psychic
effect upon individuals. " The latest bulletin
addresses the " causes and abatement
of the smoke evil " and finds that of 152
plants observed, " the underfed type of
stoker [gave] smokeless combustion when
properly handled. "
The
editorial adds,
" One cannot read the report without again
being reminded that plenty of available
cheap fuel is sometimes an evil as well as
a blessing to a large city, for as long as it
is cheap, gross negligence and resulting
smoke accompany its use. " Similar arguments
about the downside of cheap fuels
continue to this day.
Though ash management has become an
especially sticky problem given recent regulatory
action (see " Coal Combustion Residuals
Rule Compliance Strategies " in last
month's issue), ash-handling has always
been a matter of concern, at least from
a material-handling perspective. One letter
in 1914 commented on an article that
had described a new vacuum ash-handling
system. The writer calculated operating
and depreciation costs and concluded
that with few exceptions, " handling with
wheelbarrows where the length of travel
is moderate " was economically preferable.
A few issues later, another reader took issue
with those calculations-the sort of
commentary that these days takes place
in the online comments section of POWER
articles or on social media.
Legislating Safety
In the early days of the industry, it was a
struggle to get codes and standards and
licensing requirements in place. It really
was a Wild West of boiler operators, and
just as in the Wild West, many died-as a
result of boiler explosions and other catastrophic
malfunctions. When an editorial
in Hotel World protested against " passing
laws for examining and licensing stationary
engineers to handle heating boilers, "
claiming that explosions were uncommon,
a POWER editorial countered with the fact
that there had been more than 500 such
accidents in the previous year.
www.powermag.com
The hoteliers' magazine was concerned
about the added cost of paying for " licensed "
men to operate the hotels' steam
heat systems. POWER responded: " Taking
the worst figures cited, it would cost a hotel
$450 a month instead of $25 to $50.
Is not that a terrible price to pay for the
increased safety of its guests during the
winter? If the journal we are criticizing
fairly reflects the attitude of its field, the
editor of this paper hopes to do all his
traveling in the summer, when he can stop
at a hotel without feeling that he is sleeping
over a gunpowder mine. "
As you can see, warranted sarcasm is
nothing new in POWER editorials. And,
because my father was a licensed boiler
operator for an educational institution's
campus at the beginning of his career,
I'm grateful that sensible laws eventually
passed.
Although today's regulation of the
power industry is broader and more complex-one
can't see immediate effects of
airborne mercury pollution in the way one
can see bodies maimed by plant explosions-similar
cost-benefit debates continue.
Most recently, they've focused on
the regulation of CO2
emissions. (Back in
1914, the only concern about CO2 was figuring
out why it might be too low in flue
gas, and how to improve combustion.)
Always Room for Improvement
The July 21, 1914, issue of POWER included
this random, one-line observation:
" So called waste material is in reality good
material in the wrong place. " That's essentially
the premise of using waste coal for
fuel, an issue with both environmental
pros and cons, as explained in this issue's
" The Coal Refuse Dilemma: Burning Coal
for Environmental Benefits. " As that feature
and every other article in this issue
demonstrates, finding the sweet spot for
maximizing operational and economic efficiency
while operating cleanly and safely
remains the goal of the best power plants
today. We hope you will learn from the
new technologies and techniques offered
in the following pages. ■
-Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER's
editor.
POWER | July 2016
http://www.powermag.com

POWER July 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER July 2016

Contents
POWER July 2016 - Cover1
POWER July 2016 - Cover2
POWER July 2016 - Contents
POWER July 2016 - 2
POWER July 2016 - 3
POWER July 2016 - 4
POWER July 2016 - 5
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POWER July 2016 - Cover3
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