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Date submitted2015-10-03
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Date accepted2015-12-10
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Date published2016-08-22
Directions and prospects of using low grade process fuel to produce alumina
- Authors:
- O. A. Dubovikov
- V. N. Brichkin
Power consumption across the globe is constantly increasing for a variety of reasons: growing population, industrialization and fast economic growth. The most widespread gaseous fuel – natural gas – has the low production cost. It is 2-3 times cheaper than liquid fuel production and 6-12 times cheaper than coal production. When natural gas is transported to distances from 1.5 to 2.5 thousand km by the pipeline, its cost with account of transportation is 1.5-2 times less than the cost of coal and the fuel storage facilities are not needed. Plants powered by natural gas have the higher efficiency as compared to the plants operating on other types of fuel. They are easier and cheaper to maintain and are relatively simple in automation, thus enhancing safety and improving the production process flow, do not require complicated fuel feeding or ash handling systems. Gas is combusted with a minimum amount of polluting emissions, which adds to better sanitary conditions and environment protection. But due to depletion of major energy resources many experts see the future of the global energy industry in opportunities associated with the use of solid energy carriers. From the environmental perspective solid fuel gasification is a preferred technology. The use of synthetic gas was first offered and then put to mass scale by English mechanical engineer William Murdoch. He discovered a possibility to use gas for illumination by destructive distillation of bituminous coal. After invention of the gas burner by Robert Bunsen, the illumination gas began to be used as a household fuel. The invention of an industrial gas generator by Siemens brothers made it possible to produce a cheaper generator gas which became a fuel for industrial furnaces. As the calorific value of generator gas produced through gasification is relatively low compared to natural gas, the Mining University studied possibilities to use different types of low grade process fuel at the Russian alumina refineries as an alternative to natural gas, access to which is restricted for some of the regions.
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Date submitted2009-08-26
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Date accepted2009-10-23
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Date published2010-02-01
The North African campaign and its role in the World War II
- Authors:
- O. O. Tikhonov
- K. V. Fedorov
- O. Yu. Plenkov
The paper focuses on the North African Campaign of 1940-1943 and studies its role in the World War II. It stresses the key role of the Suez Canal in the foreign policy of the United Kingdom in the first half of the 20 th Century and reviews overall strategies of the conflicting parties paying a special attention to German tactics in desert conditions, which partially explain phenomenal success of the German troops headed by field marshal Rommel in this theater of military operations.
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Date submitted1951-07-01
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Date accepted1951-09-01
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Date published1952-12-23
On the issue of the Russian mining industry during the First World War
- Authors:
- E. L. Gorokhovskii
The question of the role of the main branches of the mining industry and the closely related ferrous metallurgy in the First World War is of undoubted interest. Meanwhile, in the literature on mining and economics, this period has been covered less than others. The objective of this article is to show the real role of the main branches of the mining industry in the military economy of pre-revolutionary Russia. It examines - to the extent that the size of the article allows - the question of the development of the mining industry before the First World War, then during the war itself, the role of monopolies and foreign capital, military-industrial committees, the material situation of miners. Of course, these questions can be correctly illuminated only if they are taken not in isolation, but in the closest connection with the general economic state of Russia, with the socio-political situation, in a word, with the entire set of conditions for the historical development of the country.