>> Yup. But the gas/oil/coal-fired power plants needed to generate the
>> electricty do not. Then you have the line losses transmitting it to point-
>> of-use.
Transmission losses can be between 1 and 2 percent. Even a really bad
grid should be able to keep the transmission losses to under 5%% .
GE will sell you a 60%% thermally efficient combined cycle unit (H1).
It definitely will run on natural gas. It may run on oil. Using it
to burn pulverised coal will drastically shorten its service life.
Nuclear plants should be able to achieve gobsmacking efficiencies if
we can conquer the psychological and engineering barriers of designing
the reactor pile to be a thoroughly contained, ball of radioactive,
incandescent gas. The reactor is based on the gaseous cored, nuclear
thermal rocket engine (check out The Atomic Rockets Homepage
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html), driving a magneto-
hydrodynamic generator (which has a theoretically high efficiency, but
only at obscene temperatures), with the gas circulated (and energy
recovered) by a closed-cycle gas turbine. Before passing through the
compressor and returning to the reactor, the working fluid exhausted
by the turbine is used to raise steam. I consider this to be a rather
harebrained scheme I concocted after looking up MHD's and remembering
the NTR-gas, but stranger things have happened.
