Hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel is amenable to utilization in all heat engines, including gas turbines and reciprocating internal combustion engines, which are the most efficient technologies for electric power generation from fossil fuels. Alas, H2 is not an energy resource. It is an energy carrier. Prior to its use as a fuel, it must be produced, stored and/or transported. There are significant problems associated with all three phases of the hydrogen fuel chain. Those aspects will be discussed qualitatively and quantitatively in the remainder of the present chapter.

From the perspective of the current book, nuclear reactors are boilers. They either act as steam boilers for Rankine steam cycle power plants (conventional deployment) or as heat exchangers to increase the temperature of the power cycle’s working fluid. As far as the second variant is concerned, it has not progressed from paper to practice. The power cycle in question is a closed cycle gas turbine. There are several candidates for the working fluid in such a cycle with supercritical CO2 being a prime candidate. This chapter covers the application of gas/steam turbine technology to nuclear power and other possibilities such as methane pyrolysis.

This chapter summarizes the views of the author about what must be done in order to have a realistic shot at meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement to curb excessive GHG emissions.

This chapter covers the essential features of key equipment encountered in electric power generation systems, gas and steam turbines, heat exchange systems receiving into and discarding heat from those systems, and other lesser equipment.

The focus in this chapter is on the optimal integration of concentrated solar power (CSP) and the gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) via the bottoming cycle of the latter in an integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) framework, which can be considered as a currently available (if not truly mature) technology.

In this chapter, the focus is on post-combustion CO2 capture (PCC) from the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) stack gas in a gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) power plant. The reason for that is simple: GTCC with advanced class gas turbines and post-combustion capture represents the most cost-effective technology for carbon-free electric power generation from fossil fuels. The chapter includes detailed description of the PCC system, key equipment, and the operability of the system.

This chapter covers the basic principles, concepts, and tools governing the operation of the equipment and systems described in Chapter 3. The operation of those systems in off-design conditions, steady as well as unsteady (transient), are described using basic formulae and charts.

This chapter lists the acronyms used in the text, the heat and mass balance software used for numerical examples, and key concepts to evaluate the technical and commercial viability of novel technologies.

This chapter explains the background behind the book concept, e.g., the meaning of sustainability within the electric power generation context, energy transition, and decarbonization. Technologies that are covered in the book are described in brief. The concept of operability and how it pertains to the main theme of the book is addressed.

While coal seems to be out of the picture in the energy transition, there are technologies that make sustainable use of this abundant resource. This chapter covers several technologies, i.e., gasification, magnetohydrodynamics, and coal slurry, which, when combined with carbon capture, can make this a reality.

This chapter covers the basics of energy storage, i.e., why it is needed, when it is used, how it is used, its benefits, and the types of energy storage technologies. Special attention is given to thermal energy storage due to its usage in a variety of guises in renewable power applications.

Sometime around 2010 and thereafter, trade publications and archival journals were inundated with articles and papers filled with hyperbole and lofty claims about the closed cycle sCO2 turbines and their merits. In particular, sCO2 cycle/turbine was/is touted as a technology that can replace Rankine (steam) cycle and steam turbine in conventional fossil fuel-fired power generation, as a stand-alone or as the bottoming cycle of a gas turbine combined cycle. In this chapter, performance of sCO2 in power generation applications (including the Allam cycle) is rigorously assessed with in-depth thermodynamic analysis and cycle data. Furthermore, we will also look at the operability challenges presented by the unique structure of the sCO2 powertrain and heat exchangers.

This chapter focuses on compressed air energy storage (CAES) technology, which is one of the two commercially proven long-duration, large scale energy storage technologies (the other one is pumped hydro). The chapter covers the basic theory, economics, operability, and other aspects of CAES with numerical examples derived from the two existing plants, Huntorf in Germany and McIntosh in the USA.

This chapter outlines the basic knowledge required from the reader in order for them to follow the narrative in the book. Key terms and concepts are introduced with brief descriptions. The chapter also lists books, articles, and papers by the author, which deal with the subject matter covered in the book in a more detailed fashion.

Well-known intermittency and low capacity factors of solar and wind resources prevent these technologies from fulfilling the demands of the energy transition on their own – at least in the near future. They require backup in the form of dispatchable resources, e.g., fossil-fired power plants and energy storage systems. Such systems must be nimble enough to address short-term fluctuations and maintain grid stability in addition to taking over the base load generation when renewable resources are not available. Aeroderivative gas turbines, small industrial gas turbines, gas-fired recip engines, and energy storage systems such as CAES, LAES, pumped hydro (PHS), and electric batteries are readily available technologies that can accomplish these tasks. Large-scale, long-duration systems such as CAES and PHS are discussed elsewhere in the book. Herein, the focus is on BESS and its integration with gas turbines and solar PV.

Constant volume combustion (CVC) is the most promising gas turbine cycle option (as opposed to constant pressure combustion in a conventional Brayton cycle) to improve cycle thermal efficiency beyond the present limitations. This chapter covers the underlying thermodynamics and practical methods to achieve CVC (approximately) in field applications, i.e., detonation combustion.