MHD electrical power generation 3 1.3 Advantages of mu In the mu generator the thermal energy of the high temperature gas (plasma) is directly converted into electrical energy: hence the mrp power generation is termed as the direct energy conversion process. As a consequence of high temperature direct conversion ‘operation, the mu power plants are potentially more efficient than the conventional steam power plants. Another important aspect is that basically mup conversion is a volume process. Thus as the size of the mi generator increases, the ratio of the MHD power conversion to the surface losses through the walls of the channel becomes more favourable, Consequently for large capacity base load applications, wu generators are ideally suited. The following advantages of mup power generation have now been fully established: (The sup process has a potential to increase the energy conversion efficiencies to 50-60% (i) The mu process is industrially attractive because of the reduced cooling water requirements and atmospheric pollution, (iii) map generation process is applicable to all kinds of heat sources such as, oil, coal, as, nuclear, solar and thermonuclear fusion. (iv) Mp generation offers the flexibility of operation in different modes such as base- load, peak load or semi-peak load. (¥) Studies indicate that mip power would cost less than the conventional power. The economic benefits of mup power over the thermal power would become increasingly more favourable as the cost of coal inereases. (vi) Encouraging progress has been made in all the essential nonstandard components of mup plant. No fundamental technical problems have been identified which could interfere with the ultimate commercialisation of the mup process, and as it appears today the commercialisation of the process depends on the continuing modifi- cations of the already tested components and sub system designs. 14 Scope of the report During the last few years, a large volume of literature on mup is available in published form and this report attempts to integrate the scattered information in a form which will be useful in assessing the present status and predicting future trends of development. Bulk of the material reviewed here comes from proceedings of international and national conferences, technical reports prepared by leading groups and published accounts of various scientists engaged in the development of this technology in different parts of the world (International Conferences 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1980; Status Reports 1972, 1976, 1980; Symposia on Engineering Aspects 1960 to 1971, 1973 to 1976, 1978 to 1981; National Symposia 1975, 1977, 1979; Joint us-ussr colloquia 1974-1976, 1978). After a detailed review on the principle of map power generation in §2, the Map power plant cycles are dealt with in §3. The major developmental efforts in the nonstandard equipment and special materials are covered in §4, Section 5 covers certain independent areas which are useful in the mup power plant technology, Considerable knowhow in these areas already exists and only marginal improvements will be necessary to adapt them to MHD plants. The technoeconomic impact of MHD power generation including cogeneration is discussed in §6 followed by the concluding (Enag. Sci)— 2