ELI5• Why you cannot use methanol or even ammonia inbpower plants instead of water. water takes more energy to boil and thus requires more coal burnt. You can condense the methanol by passing it through a waterbody of some sort so it doesn’t get lost in the atmosphere like steam does?

Question

ELI5• Why you cannot use methanol or even ammonia inbpower plants instead of water. water takes more energy to boil and thus requires more coal burnt. You can condense the methanol by passing it through a waterbody of some sort so it doesn’t get lost in the atmosphere like steam does?

In: 3

Answer 1

Converting heat to electricity requires a working fluid to be boiled then condensed. We use water because it is chemically stable and physically well understood. Steam is allowed to escape to cool the loop. An alternative is cooling in some body of water such as a river or bay.