Response to A. S. Gorshkov’s Article “I. N. Butakov’s Error in Constructing the Energy Balance and Calculating Indicators of Energy Production”¹

I. N. BUTAKOV

A. S. Gorshkov’s article begins with the assertion that I. N. Butakov ignores the decision of the conference at ENIN in 1950 and continues to maintain that the coefficient of utilization of the heat of fuel at a CHP plant can serve as an indicator of the perfection of a CHP plant. Meanwhile, I. N. Butakov does not disagree with its decision that the MES method only basically satisfies the requirements of operating practice. This does not mean, of course, that the method does not need further development, since absolute truth is obtained in the dialectical process of the approximation of human consciousness to the surrounding reality. In his works I. N. Butakov does carry out an attempt at further developing the MES method, and considers that, for a more correct assessment of reality, it is necessary to determine both the overall efficiency of the CHP plant and the partial efficiencies by types of output produced at the CHP plant, in accordance with the requirements of Marxist dialectics, that “the separate does not exist otherwise than in that connection which leads to the general” (Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, p. 329).

Let us examine the basic propositions of A. S. Gorshkov’s new article. As an example, a back-pressure turbine unit of 5000 kW is taken. Its economic efficiency for electricity generation is determined as

\[ \eta_{\mathrm{e}}=\frac{4.3}{4.3+0.77}=0.845. \]

With a reduced load to 4000 kW, \(\eta_{\mathrm{e}}=0.82\). It is further assumed that in both cases the external delivery of exhaust heat is 50 Mcal/hour. Then, in the first case,

\[ \eta_0=\frac{4.3+50}{4.3+50+0.77}=0.98601 \]

and in the second case

\[ \eta_0=\frac{3.44+50}{3.44+50+0.755}=0.98606. \]

A. S. Gorshkov notes, as something important, that the efficiency increased at the reduced load.

Here, first, the figure 50 Mcal/h after the 5000 kW turbine raises doubt, since at the beginning of the article A. S. Gorshkov takes it as 25 Mcal/hour; second, it is not clear why, in the case of full loading of the 5000 kW turbine, this heat delivery of 50 Mcal/hour remains the same as in the case of operation with underloading at 4000 kW. In the second case, it should of course be smaller, which would reduce the efficiency \(\eta_0\). A. S. Gorshkov correctly understands that

In the case of generating electric power for heat consumption, the efficiency $\eta_0 > \eta$, since the losses of the turbogenerator, $0.77$ million kcal, are allocated here partly to electric power and partly to heat consumers. The latter receive only the heat that remains from each kilogram of live steam after deducting the calories expended on obtaining work and, in particular, that certain part of it which went to cover the turbogenerator’s own needs (mechanical and electrical losses). Since this is so, the heat of the mechanical and electrical losses, having been removed from the total heat flow passing through the turbine before both electric power and heat for consumers are obtained, will turn out to be distributed among the electrical and heat subscribers, as was shown qualitatively in Figs. 1 and 2 of I. N. Butakov’s article. This is a special feature of plants with combined production of heat and electric power. It is another matter when we consider a back-pressure turbogenerator in isolation, apart from the use of the exhaust heat. Then, of course, the mechanical and electrical losses, as in a condensing engine, are wholly chargeable to electric power. Such is the dialectical logic which teaches that “there is no abstract truth; truth is always concrete.”¹

Let us turn to the last part of A. S. Gorshkov’s article. In order to show the full depth of I. N. Butakov’s “absurdity,” A. S. Gorshkov writes the efficiency formula for the case when, along with the release of heat of exhaust steam, $50$ million kcal/hour, there appears the release of heat of live steam, another $50$ million kcal/hour from the boiler, in the form

\[ \eta_0 = \frac{3.44 + 50 + 50}{3.44 + 50 + 50 + 0.755} = 0.9918. \]

It follows that, despite the release of live steam from the boilers for heat consumers, the efficiency $\eta_0$ has increased in comparison with the preceding case. The last formula is logically connected with A. S. Gorshkov’s preceding formulas, since the presence of live steam from the boilers excludes the mechanical and electrical losses inherent only in the steam passing through the turbogenerator; therefore, naturally, $\eta_0$ in this case turns out higher. But from this one cannot draw the principal conclusion drawn by A. S. Gorshkov, that the overall efficiency of a CHP plant increases when live steam is supplied from the boilers.

The disadvantage of using live steam from the boilers is due not at all to the mechanical and electrical losses of the back-pressure turbogenerator, which A. S. Gorshkov here brings forward, but to the fact that, in this case, the generation of electric power on heat consumption is reduced, and in power systems we are forced to increase the output of uneconomical condensing—

condensing kilowatt-hours in order to satisfy electric customers, whose needs, generally speaking, are asynchronous with heat consumers and are so enormous in large-scale power engineering that citing a small isolated back-pressure turbine as decisive proof can only be regarded as a curiosity.

In I. N. Butakov’s articles devoted to the efficiency of CHP plants and power systems, an attempt has been made at a concrete analysis of the complex phenomenon of the combined production of heat and electric power—not in order to reflect all of its connections and relations (this is impossible), but solely in order to find what is essential in the phenomenon from the standpoint of our energy objectives and to study this essential aspect. It is inadmissible to snatch out eclectically, as A. S. Gorshkov has done, an inessential aspect of the complex phenomenon under consideration and, on that basis, to construct a criticism that is in essence directed against oneself, against one’s own fantasy.

1. To emphasize still more clearly what has been said, let us add the following. Mechanical and electrical losses are compensated by an additional expenditure of the heat of the fuel in the boiler furnaces. These losses must be charged to the consumers of energy; moreover, if a back-pressure engine, operating with steam exhaust to the atmosphere, gives only electric power, then it is clear that these losses will fall entirely upon the latter. If, however, the same engine, having an idle exhaust, gives no electric power, and the heat of the exhaust steam is used for heat subscribers, then the electrical and mechanical losses must be charged to the latter. These are two extreme positions. In intermediate positions, of course, the mechanical and electrical losses must already be distributed between the electrical and heat consumers, and it is natural to assume that this distribution will be proportional to the quantity of heat in the generated electric power and to the quantity of heat delivered to heat subscribers. On the other hand, a back-pressure turbogenerator is a generator of electric power and at the same time a kind of reducer for exhaust steam. If losses to the environment are evaluated as part of the overall efficiency of the heat flow inside the station, $\eta_{\text{loss}}$, i.e., are allocated to the output proportionally to the generated electric power and the quantity of heat for heat subscribers, then there is no basis for assigning mechanical and electrical losses, as another group of losses in the same place, according to the same principle. ↩↩