_ It is, of course, possible to reduce the steam consumption below 47t by making more extensive use of bleeding, by practising a two-boiling system, and by many precautions each of which helps to save a little heat or steam. The main possibilities for economizing steam are, however, offered by judicious vapour bleeding (combined with systematic condensate utilization) and by a boiling system which avoids “* boiling back ” as far as_ possible. (Chapter VIL POWER AND STEAM In sugar factories the power required for driving the machinery and for lighting is normally obtained as a by-product of the process steam, by using steam-operated back- pressure prime movers which do not consume steam, but which extract some of the energy of the steam they receive and pass on all the steam as exhaust steam for utilization in the process. This is & highly efficient method compared with that usually employed in steam power plants, where the prime movers exhaust into condensers, so that the exhaust steam is no longet available for further utilization, Let us assume an up-to-date cane sugar factory grinding 100t cane per hour, in which the milling plant (including cane knives and shredders) is driven direetly by prime movers (turbines or reciprocating engines) and all other machinery is driven by secondary movers (electric motors) which are supplied with energy from a central power plant whose prime mover is a steam turbine, (All prime movers are, of course, of the back-pressure type). We may assume that the milling plant will require, at normal throughput, 1500 hp and that the central power plant has to supply 800kW, which is the equivaient of 1200 hp. Thus the total power requirement may be taken as 2700 hp. 0-9 x 0-746 Let us assume that the prime movers are supplied with steam at 180 psig and 500°F and that they exhaust against a back-pressure of 15 psig. From an Entropy—Total Heat Diagram we can find that under these conditions 160 B.1h.U,/lb is available for conversion (©. mechanical energy in a prime mover, out of a total heat of the live steam of 1270 B.Th.U,jb. However, no prime mover has an efficiency of 100%, and it will therefore convert only a fraction of the available heat into mechanical energy, the remainder of the heat remaining in the exhaust steam (except for external losses). Now, a good reciprocating engine may have an overall eficiency at full load as high as 80%, a multi stage steam turbine one of 70%, and a simple turbine one as low as 40% (by “ overall efficiency ” is meant the combination of “mechanical efficiency” with * thermal effi cieney”"), Let us assume that our back-pressure prime movers have on average an overall ‘lfciency of 50%. Our prime movers will therefore convert 50% of the available heat, which is 160 B:Th.U. per pound of steam, into mechanical energy, i-c., 80 B.Th.U,/Ib. AS the heat equivalent of 1 hph (one horse-power-hour) is 2545 B.Th.U., our prime movers will require a 31-5 Ib of steam per hour for each hp developed at the shaft, ‘Thus our prime movers, when working with a total load of 2700 hp, will require 2700 % 31-5 = 85,000 Il = 38% of steam per hour. In Chapter VI, D, we have shown that the process will require, with vapour bleeding, ‘about 421/h of steam at 12-15 psig, and therefore the quantity of exhaust steam is, under normal working conditions, not sufficient for the process. ‘The deficiency has to be made ‘up with live steam throttled down by a reducing valve to the pressure of the exhaust steam. (ifthe margin between the quantity of process steam required and the quantity of exhaust steam available becomes too small, there is always the danger that, betause of irregularities in the process, some exhaust steam has to be blown off to atmosphere with consequent Joss of fuel ; its therefore desirable that the prime movers, or atleast those in the central power plant, should have a higher overall efficiency than that of 50% assumed above). “4 4