Generating Steam From Prepared Refuse

The thought of burning run-of-the-mine coal in a 1000-Mw utility power plant is appalling. The results would be catastrophic. The furnace would have to be oversized; the unburned combustible loss would be high; the excess air required would be great, thus increasing the amount of flue gas to be cleaned; control of furnace conditions would be next to im­ possible; stack emissions would be excessive; etc. For these reasons, coal is washed, sized, crushed, and pulverized to 65 to 75 percent less than 200 mesh, pneumatically transported to the furnace, and burned in suspension. These methods of preparation and handling are known and accepted as being necessary. Why then do we think we can do a good job of burning an inferior fuel such as refuse in the raw state? When tried, we experience each and every problem that has been overcome in the burning of other hydrocarbons such as coal, oil, gas, bark, and bagasse. Historically, it has been the desire to reclaim more heat from waste fuels at less cost that has led to improved methods of preparing, conveying, and burning. This was true with bark, bagasse, blast furnace gas, pitch, etc. It was a long and costly process, but the industries that produce these wastes finally developed economic means of disposing of them while reclaiming their heat content. Considering that approximately 400 billion pounds of refuse will be produced in the United States next year, we can­ not wait for the normal process of developing im­ proved methods of preparing, conveying, and burning