Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Turbines

I found this technology interesting. Reported by Tina Carey at CleanTechnica:

Turbines based on supercritical carbon dioxide came across the CleanTechnica radar back in 2020, when we noticed that the US Department of Energy was eyeballing the technology as an energy efficient replacement for steam-driven turbines.

The familiar steam turbines in wide use at power plants today are based on 19th century technology. They typically range in size from less than 100 kilowatts to more than 250 megawatts, depending on the use case. When used to generate electricity in a central power plant they are massive beasts the size of a bus or larger.

Supercritical carbon dioxide turbines are different. They don’t deploy steam as a working fluid. Instead, they use a concentrated form of carbon dioxide — sCO2 for short — that hovers somewhere between a gas and a liquid.

The Energy Department anticipates that new supercritical carbon dioxide turbines can shave energy consumption at power plants by 10%, but that’s just for starters. They have a much smaller footprint than their steam-driven cousins, resulting in manufacturing efficiencies all along the supply chain.

By way of comparison, the Energy Department calculates that a 20-meter steam turbine would shrink down to one meter if replaced with an sCO2 turbine.

The implications of this are substantial including more efficient carbon capture at fossil-fueled power-plants and lower capital costs. Don’t underestimate the potential impact of that. Smaller turbines with lower capital costs increase the number of potential locations for energy generation and improve the prospects for even more highly networked power generation than at present.