How operate power plants by mercury?

Answer 1

Allow me to answer this question in the same grammatical quality with which you asked it:

They no run power plant on mercury, it too far away to run power lines to Earth.

Answer 2

There are no power plants that "operate by mercury." I suspect what you may have heard or read about is Mercury Vapor Rectifiers.

Before the development of silicon power rectifiers, Mercury Vapor Rectifiers were used to convert AC to DC current on an industrial scale. Examples included electric railroad locomotives and industrial motors including cranes, hoists, and mining machinery.

Some MVRs are still in operation.

It would be tricky to explain how MVRs work without diagrams and graphics, but if you will do an internet search on "Mercury Vapor Rectifiers," you will find a fair amount of good information.

Good luck.

Answer 3

I think I understand you, so I will reply. You are concerned about air pollution, especially mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Until recently, there has been no major effort at regulating mercury emission in coal-fired power plants in the United States. This is a big problem for countries that burn coal.

Approximately two thirds of the mercury in coal is emitted to the air when burnt. However fabric filters (for particulate matter), scrubbers (for sulfur dioxide) and selective catalytic reactors (or SCR for reducing nitrous oxides) can reduce mercury emission by half in addition to the main pollutants they were initially designed to remove.

There are newer technologies that incorporate sorbents and oxidizing agents that can change gaseous mercury into solids that can be captured by filters or wet flue gas scrubbers. These technologies are still being developed which could reduce mercury emission by 90%.

Answer 4

There was a guy in Austrailia that was using mercury to generate power. He used whats called a thermo-syphon to pump the mercury in a loop. (heated mecury rose on one side of the loop and cooled mercury sank on the other side creating heat driven circulation.) Based on my falible memory the heat source was solar.

The principle was magneto-hydrodynamics. But its really a simple matter of a conductor moving through a magnetic field, like any generator works. In this case the mercury loop flowed through a magnetic field and generated power. The mercury was contained in glass piping (electrically insulated).

Answer 5

In theory using mercury as a heat transfer medium instead of water would provide a large increase in efficiency. How ever the lethal potential of even a small "steam" mercury vapor leak precludes there use.

EDIT: Please see last link which confirms the toxicity of the "mercury topping cycle" as the reason why it was abandonded.