Energy Content of Steam: Variation with Pressure

AI Thread Summary
The discussion revolves around the surprising observation that the cost per ton of high-pressure steam (200 bar) is lower than that of low-pressure steam (10 bar), despite the expectation that high-pressure steam contains more energy. The user utilized an online steam calculator from TLV and made specific assumptions about steam conditions, including saturated steam and feed water temperature. They also considered coal prices and energy unit costs in their calculations. Participants are encouraged to verify the assumptions and check steam tables for vapor enthalpy at the specified pressures to clarify the discrepancy. The conversation highlights the complexities of steam cost calculations and the factors influencing them.
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I was playing with an online steam calculator provided by TLV, one of the bigger steam equipment vendors & the steam cost it calculates ($/ton) seems lower at high P than low Pressure.

http://www.tlv.com/global/TI/calculator/steam-unit-cost.html

e.g. The $/ton of 200 bar steam seems 6.09 vs 7.17 for 10 bar steam. Does this make sense? I always intuitively thought there's a whole lot energy content in high pressure steam than low pressure. So why would the cost per ton of low pressure steam be higher?

For now I'm ignoring the relative efficiencies of low and high pressure boilers, differential losses etc.

I assumed saturated steam for both cases and feed water at 90 C which seem reasonable assumptions.

Coal I assumed was $70/ton with a calorific value of 5600 kcal/kg. i.e. Energy unit cost of 0.0125 $/Mcal

Do any of my assumptions seem unreasonable? Or a bug in my calculations?
 
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Check your steam tables for the vapor enthalpy at the two pressures.
 
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