In this article, I will share the disadvantages of liquid fuels. In my other article, I discussed the advantages of liquid fuels over solid ones, which quickly gave liquid fuels so much positivity.
If you are choosing to use liquid fuels in your power plant, you have to know these limitations.
Despite the good side of liquid fuels, some things about them are going to disappoint you.
Without wasting time, let me share the limitations of using liquid fuels as the primary source of your heat energy provision.
These are the disadvantages of liquid fuels;
1. They are expensive.
This is the first disadvantage of using liquid fuels. Though, they provide uniform combustion and maximum temperatures can be achieved easily, that makes them so damn expensive.
And this is one of the reasons why most power plants use solid fuel over liquid ones because of the cost.
Using liquid fuels in power plants increases the cost of operations.
So, if the budget is tight, the use of liquid fuels will only be a theoretical thing in a power plant.
Solid fuels are not expensive since they are easily found in large quantities.
This makes it appropriate for the power plants to make use of them.
Quality oil tends to be expensive more than coal. As you know there is so much involved when it comes to obtaining oil and using it as a power generation factor.
2. They require a special type of burning equipment.
If you are going to use liquid fuels, you have to ensure that you have a special type of burning equipment to use.
It’s not like using solid fuels, the only thing you will need is a furnace bed where you can dump the coal and forget about it.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s high or low-quality coal, it will just burn in the furnace.
With liquid fuels, you will need to have a special burner that will facilitate the combustion.
For instance, a boiler that uses a rotary cup oil burner will only use liquid fuels.
There is no way you will use solid fuels in this type of boiler.
The rotary cup oil burner has a unique mechanism that is aided by the design features of the burner.
This is what helps in ensuring that the oil is burnt in the boiler.
It’s a disadvantage since you will need to invest more when it comes to the use of this type of burner.
The maintenance of the burners that are used to burn the liquid fuels is expensive.
This will end up increasing the cost of operations and result in huge losses in power plants.
3. They produce a bad odor when burning.
Some of the liquid fuels like diesel will produce a bad odor when they are burning. This is a disadvantage when it comes to the operators.
The bad odor will end up affecting the health of operators making the environment unconducive for work.
As a rule of thumb, the employer should do what he or she can to protect the health of the workers.
If he or she allows the use of liquid fuels that produces a bad odor when burning, that goes against the rules and responsibilities of the employee.
When liquid fuels are used safety precautions are usually made to ensure that they won’t affect the operators in any way.
4. They are not entirely safe for use.
Liquid fuels are not safe for use because of how dangerous they are.
They are flammable, so, handling them has to be done very carefully. Any time mistake can result in fatal accidents in the power plants.
Liquid fuels can explore at any time when they are not safely stored in their respective areas.
This is a very different case when you compare them to solid fuels, they don’t pose a threat of explosions no matter how bad you may have stored them.
Handling liquid fuels is quite hard considering the number of precautions we have to check in our checklist.
This issue has to be handled with care or we will find ourselves in a huge mess.
5. The problem is supplying them in cold weather conditions.
You know that liquid fuels are prone to freezing especially when they are used in cold areas.
When they are frozen because of the crazy weather situations it becomes another huge problem in supplying them to the point of application.
Other measures will have to be put into use to ensure that this issue is resolved.
We will have no choice but to introduce heating of the oil in the tanks where they are stored to enable them to move smoothly in the pipelines.
This measure is also somewhat dangerous considering that liquid fuels are flammable.
If by any chance the tanks are leaking, this could end up causing a huge accident.
Another point you should note is that when it’s freezing, it will be hard for you to notice if the oil tanks have any defects.
Apart from the accidents that can happen when burning is involved, there will also be an extra cost of operation.
You will have to use either electricity or another source of fuel to heat those oil tanks.
This will end up racking up the cost of operations when using liquid fuels, yet the cost of these fuels is crazy enough to leave you broke.
Lastly…
These are the disadvantages of using liquid fuels in a power plant. You have to know them before you decide to use them.
Knowing the risks you are about to encounter while using liquid fuels is going to help you set measures early enough to avoid them.
If you have decided to use liquid fuels, ensure that safety measures are put into use whenever the fuel is handled.
Without doing so, you will end up causing a huge accident that will result in a loss you have never thought of.
Another issue has to deal with the cost of liquid fuels, they are expensive.
When the demand for fuel increases, be sure to spend more money than you have ever budgeted for.
If you have any questions about the information I have shared with you in this article, leave your comment.
Thanks for reading, see you in my next article.
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