A new company has a plan to make the dirty gas turbines powering data centers more efficient: liquid carbon dioxide.
\n\nAmerican Supercritical came out of stealth Wednesday, announcing $8 million in funding. It wants to retrofit inefficient gas turbines that many data centers rely on for power with units that can generate more power, without adding more emissions (though the gas-fired turbines will continue to emit carbon pollution). The technology can also theoretically be used on a wide variety of energy sources at a time when power demand is skyrocketing.
\n\n“We want to start with gas turbines but eventually expand beyond that,” says cofounder Simon Shuham.
\n\nMost large gas-fired power plants in the United States use an array of heat engines in what’s known as a combined-cycle process: First, turbines generate electricity from burning compressed air and natural gas, then a separate engine uses the hot exhaust to make steam and create additional energy. But for a variety of reasons, data centers across the US have opted to power their operations with what are known as simple-cycle turbines, and exclude the steam component.
\n\nThese turbines are much less efficient than combined-cycle plants. Usually, only about 35 percent of the energy…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/