Ben's Photo Album

	(???) A daytime picture of the Cheswick Power Station
	(2/21/2007) Here we are posing by the plant's multi-stage turbine. From left to right, Alan, Shiang Yong, Lilli, Jon, Diana, Bryan and myself. At peak capacity, this beast spins out 600MW of power!
	(2/21/2007) Natural materials simply can't produce the strength of magnetic field required for optimum performance, so electromagnets are used instead! This small generator at the end produces the current for the electromagnet in a small, shielded room.
	(??) Occasionally, one has to bring the entire operation to a very rapid halt. This is a very bad thing for the plant, as when this device suddenly closes the main steam pipe it causes the very high-momentum steam to come to a sudden stop, recoiling across the entire system. The pressure releases on the roof emit a sound at 180dB audible from 20 miles away in such a scenario!
	(2/21/2007) This shock absorber is designed to take some of the recoil in the event that the plant is suddenly shut down.
	(2/21/2007) The power station is its own largest customer, requiring 30MW to run. This is a picture of some of the machinery that regulates this power: how often do you see a gauge that reads in megawatts?
	(2/21/2007) The multi-stage turbine and the generator in all of their glory.
	(2/21/2007) The control room is a marriage of new technology and old technology for automatic control of most devices in the plant. Some of the wiring is still the original asbestos variety, as things are typically only replaced when they fail.
	(2/21/2007) More of the fascinating controls. Look like something's up with Coal Feeder C.
	(2/21/2007) A fine coal dust coats everything from small leaks in the pipes that carry powdered coal to be fired into the furnace and combusted in an tornado of flame.
	(2/21/2007) At this level, the inside of the boiler where the coal is combusted is as bright as the sun. It is operated at negative pressure, so that you can open observation ports on the side and see the slag formations, structure, and firey tornado inside. I would have needed a very dark filter in order to take a coherent picture of the inside.
	(2/21/2007) This is where a little cart delivers loads of coal to hoppers in the floor which empty into pulverizer mills.
	(2/21/2007) This shockingly small steam drum holds boiler water and steam after it leaves the top of the boiler. The 'dry steam' then goes to the steam superheater.
	(2/21/2007) The view down from one of the highest levels inside the boiler housing structure.
	(2/21/2007) The PPG factory next door is a bigger hit to air quality than the power plant, as the entire region smells like paint. It smelled so horrible it made me sick. In comparison, the coal power plant emits surprisingly little dust, nitrous and sulfur oxides and mercury. A new air scrubber will reduce sulfur dioxide and dust emissions beyond their current low level and reduce mercury emissions to one part per billion, all while allowing the plant to burn cheaper Pennsylvania coal.
	(2/21/2007) New, fiber optic monitored and solid state devices alongside older analog relays ensure that the power station doesn't overload the lines around the plant and cause damage to the power grid.
	(2/21/2007) Our host peers into a lower level of the furance, where a rain of bottom-slag continuously drops.
	(2/21/2007) One of the pulverizer mills where the coal is ground into a flour-consistency powder for quick and efficient combustion.
	(2/21/2007) Much of the bottom-slag ends up on the roads as cinders.
	(2/21/2007) The chemistry lab allows for frequent monitoring of the water quality from plant systems and emissions. The water the plant expels is in fact cleaner than what comes in.
	(2/21/2007) These enormous pipes carry river water into the plant to exchange heat with the spent steam.
	(2/21/2007) One of the rollers from the pulverizer mill.
	(2/21/2007) The generator is cooled with Hydrogen!
	(2/21/2007) This enormous transformer brings the power coming out of the turbine into the power grid outside the plant. The EMF from this transformer is so powerful that your watch will advance one minute for each half-hour you spend in this shielded room.
	(2/21/2007) I really thought this was a beautiful shot. You can see the tower where coal enters the plant after being pre-pulverized, and the wires where power exits the plant.
	(2/21/2007) Here's the group again up by the ESPs.
	(2/21/2007) This array of little hammers periodically knocks the dust off of the Electrostatic Precipitators. By running the flue gas through an array of charged wires and then oppositely charged plates, any particulates will stick to the plates; these are highly effective as filters, clearing 99.8% of particulates out of the flue gas.
Some interesting warning signs from about the plant: