HEN HENRY ADAMS, the one-of-a-kind American historian, ‘wanted to contrast the mecleval withthe modern, she emblems he chose for those two the Virgin and the Dynamo. The earlier age, he said expressed it high "ations in building cathedrals consecrated to a spiritual idea; in our time we nother invisible but powerful electric cathedral certainly agree with ehis assesment. A textbook for powerplant operator says of the generating station, “It slike a shrine of source of unfailing light which mu be given ceaseles attendance once it s brought into being: Adams encountered the dynamo at ehe Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900. A century Inter the electric power plant is no longer a novel piece of machinery hat can attract a crowd at a far, bue itis more central than ever to daily hie. And he r and fears invested in industrial progres, dynamo (or generar, oF alternator—they are all terms for the same machine) still seems an apt symbol of both the hop Electricity has become the sandardl cutrency of the en is not in itelf a natural resource that you can dig out ofthe ground or pump from a wel, but other forms of energy are coaverted into electricity for convenience of distribution tha and use, just as the body converts a variety of foods into a few simple sugars that cir- cilate tall the tissues. Thus, the power plant docan’ create en pems it.The chemical energy locked up in coal, for example, is eapeuted in the heat and pressure of steam, chen passed on ga the kinetic energy ofa spinning turbine, and finally converted into electric curtent in the Three kinds of power plants are scattered around the American landscape, Fossil- fuel plants, which burn coal, oil, or natural gas, make up almost ewo-thirds of the nation's generating capacity. Nuclear plants tap energy from the disintegration of ura coms. H) specifically where the water runs downhill. ium Jroelecttic plants ate found only where the water POWER PLANTS The en E. Anes pone pt foppote pagel pean ‘vera needy moment enh bork of he Kanawha Fe, ew mls fom Cares, Wet Vein From eit ight thelr sce ee cotng ow ‘the ble dd beng fa hue bes, tines (grec ad ater matin wo smal; and 6 tvet fr be rnin Ure at alr dei sow the col red plot, pert by rerian Elerc Paver Company, has Hrs unis ach wh coum and goer. Theft cpa Imegorat whic makes the pln one oie 10 Gres nthe United StesGETTING A LOOK Few power plnls today ora ready ta were ‘he cowl visitor, bu ome will accommodate you if you call ahead. For © log tne, nuclear power salons were move readly accesible thon fossil plons. Cmpanias inthe eager to promote ond explain tei technology, and 20 they offered touts on regular schedule; some plants hod educational exhibits and even souvenir shops All that changed inthe armas of September 11, 2001, Security i now very ight ot aclear nuclear indy we A few other energy sources are also squees tricity ‘Their contributions are smaller, but the machinery is no le Wind power, in particular, creates haunting landscapes. This chapter discusses only & to produce the juice of interesting to look at generating plants; the transmission and dissbution lines that carry electricity to the consumer are the subject of Chapter 6. FOSSILFUEL POWER PLANTS. A big coal-fired power plant ‘or 30,000 pounds of coal a minute. It generates a billion watts of electricity—in ‘enough for a milion spicuous features of ehe plant, On one side you'll see long trains of hopper cats going full blast burns 2 thousand tons of coal an hou, round num sseholds These inputs and ourputs are con. unloading coal, which is heaped up in mountainous black stockpiles. On the side isa high-voltage switchyard, with electrical tt mppearing ov the horizon. Another “output” of the plant is ako obvious: a tall smokestack, sur- rounded at its base by pollution-control equipment. ‘What’ not s0 easy to see~at least from the outside is everything that happens be iy. The paragraphs that foiow describe a power plant in terms of three major flows, First, we follow the fuel from the coal pile through the furnace to the exhaust plume and the ash pit. Then, we trace the circulation of water and steam, Finally, we consider the flow of electricity from the generitor into the transmission network, seen the burning of the coal and che generation ofthe el Coa! Handling. When you need t9 move coal at rte of 30,000 pounds per minute its not done with shovel 0 hve comeyor systems; one of tie mos characteristic sights ata coal-fired plan isa conveyor slanting across the skyline. Closely nn with bulldozers and trucks. Large power plans all related to conveyors are the stackers that power plans, ond visor programs howe been by publcogencins. Smiley, the operators of Sat dev, los or the tine being ‘wind power ond olor power insolation ore ‘cused to gett queries kom the public cand requests for tours Cr In aos where the climate sn’ to seve, ‘many coal fred power plnts ee bul on on ‘oper, unsheathed fremawork, 29 hot he fe ‘nace and boiler ore vise. Even when the boiler is enclose, the coalhanding equiment Hydiosackic power sation are more sly to be open to visors, especialy plants owed 's exposed, ond so are snckestacs, cooling towers end some pollstoncontal devicespile coal into stonge heaps and the unstackers that eventvally retrieve it rom those h sway from side to side like long-necked dinosaurs ponderously piled up and forgotten, tn process called weathering, which is just oxidation, of in othe will no longer be slows The daily for hot spots. A. worker prob aps. These machines have immense pi Ing, booms that nod up and down and The coal can’ just eds watching because of a burning, Ifthe process gets out of hand, the burr langest piles are inspecte steel rod, inserted like a cake teste. Ifa section of the rod comes out coo hot 10 bold in che bate hand, the pile needs atention, the coal with a long. From the stor another conveyor carries it into the plant, You might imagine lumps of coal being g,shiteless men, but hats not how it’ done. All the big plants burn pulverized coal, which is blown rather than shoveled into the for nace. Big lumps are broken into siallex lumps by tumbling ina crusher, which looks like the drum of pile the coal moves by conveyar to a bunker of silo, and shoveled into a furnace by sweatin giant clothes drier. Then the smaller lumps ate pulverized in another rotating drum, this one with steel balls inside or hammers on hinges. The result is a powder as fine as beach sand Oilfired and Gas-Fired Plants. Coal is the juel of choice at most US. power cally in the New Engl plants, bus there ate exceptions esp © of the West Coast. The obvious difference at an oil-burning plant is that you'll see a tank farm instead of a coal pile The oil burned by utilities is nothing like the light f ng. You'll have a more accurate impression if you think of roofin oils used for home heat: tar Thick, Baek, and cotrosve, i is the “Dotcom” product of the refinery, in both the literal sense (it The Home: Cy power la, 40 es oe of Finburgh, 9 working opporson han shen ses no view oyu came oer hee oil The bling hasing he bates ad gears are bm col mien etree vy but ow ges fod Kom ee dtr srr. Ove By ‘Asx of South Cllr En, th pnts these uit can rosea mere then 18GD magowote ok sly Light gins wih the “salt of he Mayo flan, operated by Ports rary rer Boxhor The lt has board eles om 1 ingle bins od ge Mon fe tctgropts on he at TO gage re rode che Moyo prtthecal pe se May plot cu hp te bis Fred fora ow weet supple warped The lepeund cary alo ond edgy a dec led sear, wth vetling crm The ca eid rh Fe by on darn pe nd thn ght oth plot by he upwardepingconeor le the frercund ‘plein on on fhe one le he Mayo fl nd ou toa powcr righ hat an be tonsa by owing hcugh = cond ne lel oan eugntie e lo Thy sealed 0 you con wal ough galas of rary ot pros Sande fos ooo wach th a al (by crd rt on oy Sp comes out of the lowest tap in the distillation tower) and in the sense that it com= mands the lowest price (see Chapter 4) TThe major problem in handling heavy oil is that it won't flow in cold weather; it needs to be melted, To tun through the fuel pipeline, the oil has to be above 100 sd as Ciny droplets from a burner nozzle, ie needs to degrees Fahrenheit; to be spray be about 200 degrees. Thus, team heating coils ae installed in the storage tank, The fvel pipeline may also have steam tracer lines to keep the oil Avid [Natural gas isa Sess tooublesome ftel and much cleaner, but abo more expensive. [eis burned mainly in urban power plants where air pollutior native. A utlty-scale plant takes it gas not from the municipal gas mains, sallow no aleer- ‘operate a¢ low presure, but directly fiom high-pressure transmission lines, The Firebox. When you think of coal-burning fornace, its natural to imagine a bed foran indseial-scale burn cof coals glowing on a hearth, bur that’ the wron cer. The powdered coal is eeated like a uid, ot a solid, Ie is sprayed into the firebox ‘The ideal is to buen it all every last particle, Complete combustion not only gets fall value out of the fuel tion problems, Anything that doesn't burn will evencually have to wally mapottant, it minimizes waste-disposal and poll auled away The key to fall combustion is maintaining the right ratio of fuel to aig and mak furnaces there ae two ait sean. mbustion fin adds secondary air, with an effect somewhat like ne. The fans ate usually of the centrfivgal ype, ‘vith a snail shape, ike the blower in a hand-held hai drier. But the power-plant fins ally different scae.They ace as big asa two-story house, and the duct « their output is big enough to drive 2 tuck through mixed thoroughly. In most k ing sure they Abi process. Then an e ig fan blows the powdered coal into the firebox and starts the 65 that of the afierburner on a jet eng are bile on work that car Plants of this kind run 24 hours a day, not so much because ther’ aways dessand for electricity but because shutting them down and sarting chem up again takes hows.‘The sartup process—called lighting off—is not just a matter of stiking a match Burning a special ignition fuel, usally kerosene, warms up the firebox enough to estab- lish a stable ame pattern before the primary fel is switched on. Ie a dificult process to manage: IF the dame goes out, dhe furnace has to be purged with air to get rid of unburned fuel, which ocherwise might explode on reignition. Once the furnace i i another 10 or 12 hours may pass before the plant comes up to full power. Flue Gases. Inside the farnace a pillar of fire rses 100 feet or more. Even where the flame zone ends, the gases remain extremely hot—up to 3,000 degrees Fabrenhei The idea guiding the design ofthe plant is to let none of this hea “The pathway of the combustion gsses is arch-shaped: up through the boiler, then ly actoss the top of the furnace building, then pareway horizo rack down again, All along this route the gases pase ebro. Fint is the boiler, wheze—obviously enough—the heat is used to boil water and a devices that exteact heat in various ways. make steam. Then, neat the top of the arch is a supesheater, which raises the « peravste of the steam far above the boiling point. Farther along, on the downward throug the frst stages of the tuibine. (Then comes the economizer, where water is preheat- I this sup preheating, the Eve gases are stil not quite done with their day's work. Their las ask blows the fuel into the firebox: tc, are reheaters, which pour more heat into sceam that has already passes ed on its way to the boiler. And even af heating and reheating and is to preheat the air Air Pollution Contral. Once upon a time, the straight up the smokestack, carrying a substantial load of unpleasansness with them. The problem is not smoke, a # would be from a malfunctioning fireplace. Smoke oa bres oe dp ng on wal of be box the coakondir mist sends vcgh her cle cond ram paris Bore ‘alow psn fei tlhoped on hang nisi’ in he Kk Th ren ie eas id hl ned lyn ang up he bole,_Aichanngequpent tthe Mayo pon indies © froze dh The ren shine etlower Nain ofthis hl oa hgh of hoa 20 fea Ths lcd fn patos a She hero. An “nce el orb ancl ean dice ogo evel et of cnt sucka a ond Fi gee os cf he hnae. Theo of he ons ax baenced in sch 2 th ha prea the Siabor shy nage: ban any nel row i incr ine of pong hemes ooo The pth Trough he moze of ce proceeds vowed Kom he Feces fr, hough geome han othe cnc donnrd int he baer bling Fv goes ‘Snec fom fe heocs ne operat de They ‘sarnake cea hough esate say roc tre uppar rg er they con yp hi dasa aed lca dem hgh vagaries Indecent fy ow an oth ok, jot wile nth background. These ih Sratthe wtsecion he wo ate of Soe, Sirleaiheat exchange. The boing ut oe Be Keren on ogo mi osyeamb 2a 30 dames wy The dk bis hs om he et psa ond gis up Se contin o. INFRASTRUCTURE: A FIELD GUIDE TO THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE comes mainly from incormplete burning of carbon, which isnt coterated in wisy- scale povret plants. But coal is not pure carbon. For one thing, it includes a mineral residue that just won't bura. The heavier part of this residue, called bottom ash, winds ‘yp in a gan at che bottom of the firebox. The lighter pat is fly ash, and it is eatried along by the due gates 28 a fine gray dust. Ceal also jnclitdes at ‘hich burns to produce sulfur dioxide, the precursor of sulfuric aeid and acid rain. ower plants today are required to capture neady all ehe fly ash before it escapes up the stack. The two main technologies are baghouses and electrostatic precipita~ tors. The baghhonse is jst filter. The bags are Jong. snd thin—maybe six inches in liamecer and 20 feet long. Bach bag is closed at the top but open at the bottox, where the dirty gus lows in to keep che bags inflated. Gases pas chrough the fabric, leaving che ash behind asa dust cake on the inner surface. As with a vacuum cleat ‘er the bags need 10 be emptied from time to time. In most plants this is done by briefly reversing the dow of sir, driving the dus: out of the bag and down into a hop- per; sorme units alko have a shaker that chrashes the bag back and forth. Electrostatic preciptators rely on subtler physics than a vacutsm-cleancr bag: they ‘work on static cling, che force that makes a toy balloon stick co the wall after you rub it on your clothes, sed that sometimes makes your clothes stick t0 you, {aside the precipitator are ma ith fluc gas Bowing hor izontally through the lanes berween them. Hanging dawn into dhe spaces between plates are fine wites energized with several thousand volts of eleericity Bleetrons are repelled fiom the wites and flee to the metal plates: along the way they attach them- selves to passing particles of ly seh, which then stick to the plates.A “rapper” miech- anism shakes the collected dst loose, and it falls into a hopper below. litle sulfa, parallel rows of vertical metal plates,The precipitator may sound like an exotic piece of machinery, but electrostatic ait cleaners for the home work che same way. Laser printers and photocopiers ate also based on the same principle of lending, an electric charge to fine particles Neither baghouses nor precipitators can capture the sulfur dioxide in che Bue gases. That’ a job for a scrubber, which relies on chemistry rather than physics. The sceubber sprays the ve gaces with a slurry of lime; sulfur oxide combines with the Jime to form calcium sulfate, or gypsum. The scrubber is a set of large cylindrical ves. sels (cppically 60 feet high and 20 feet in diameter) where the flue gases enter atthe bottom and travel upward through the descending mist of lime slurry The scrubber in line in the processing of the ue gas, after the precipitacrs or bag. eam pouring out of comes hse hhouses.A telltale sign of 2 scrubber in operation is pure whi the sack in the summer (In cold weather the fue gases may form a visible vapor ta even without the moisture added by scrubbing ) Not all plant tave scrubbers. Some utilities have been able meet air-quality seandards without a scrubber by buening low-slfar coal (qtuch of it from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming), More controversially, a mumber of older plants are “grandfathered,” or exempt from regulstions enacted after the plants were built. Tn recent years yet another pollution-abatement technology has begun to appear catalytic redueion teats the flue gases with stmmonia to deal with oxides of nitrogen (usually denoted NO,). The NO, is creat: ed when nitrogen and oxygen in the air combine in the high-temperature dame of the fanace. Ammonia reacts with the NO, to form nitrogen and water. at coal-fired power plants. Select The Stack, Even fram miles away th Up close, whae seems most remarks sack of a power plant isan impressive structure, es not the height but che girth and the bull. ‘Ropperon re ol fe scot acpi otk the acid de, ating na he soroge hopp. Ech ropos isthe 6 od hope of breatal bot sd is a eachomagnet at pole 2 sel pga opmerd ten cll fl ear, eo hcg achrpinck The oper ore owed ot ‘eerily rrdom isa pedi shin, ay ‘oped muse (he hh eed mee mos ez torre! rota rc ot Mayo ramos oe parce ‘es om hw gome The goes sr ugh rately pos rough he pact fom igh od et downoad bgh eve cal dco eh Inde he frstor al preps rence hore ples and wire hich rap te pric od dpont thom hoppr blow,‘tert econ lhe HomerCiy pow lant produce chores while lame whe coms of ‘ote vopor kom the ares codanig oes. (iy one ofthe en ei Homer Cy 2 equiped ‘it eabes, eds oly one of eas ems ume, conponieseconay ge agli haw hee cna ei, bt i etc ihre vibe lune tha ove probably asing (rece uorin oh The Function ofthe stick has changed over the years, Early industrial smokestacks worked much lke a fireplace chinuney: buoyant, warm air rose through the stack, cx ating a natural draft to draw fresh ai into che farnace. The taller the stack, the moze powerful the astural draft, Today, with « long twisting pathway from tbe Brebox to the stack, natural draft is not he air moving, and iarge fens force che fue gases into the base of the stack. The height of the stack is determined not by the need for natural draft but by the requirement co release eluents high in the air, where they will be diluted and dispersed, AA plant that har chree or four stacks has a corresponding numberof Grebox-boiler- turbine units. But a single stack doesn’t necessarily mean thar a plant has only one ‘unit, Sometimes the stack i divided incernaly inco multiple flues. In addition co the sigantic main sacks, mnost plant have afew smaller, seubbizr stacks as well. They serve somall auxiliary boilers. What looks lke a smal smokestick may also be a3 ly enough to kee} The Boiler. The boiler ofa toy steam engine isa little stel tank with fire under it But outside of toyland, a boiler is all about tubes, not tanks, The powerplant boiler is one of those arifacts whase evolution isso complicat- cd that you can't really understand how it works withoue also knowing where it came from. The distant ancestor of the modern boiler bad a firebox of brick, with 4 bundle of water zone. Flames swirled among the cubes, boiling some of the water. As boilers go big- ‘ger and hotter, the frebrick lining became a factor limiting performance. No mate~ led steel tubes ruening through the middle of che combustion ia] could withstand the Beat of che furnace for very long. As a strategy for cooling. the brick, some of the boiler tubes were run vertically dawn the inner face of the furnace walls. Today, boils removed entirely (rom the interior vol- ume of the combustion chamber;allehe cubes are installed in "waterwalls” that line the furnace. The tubes are cl to form solid airtight panels The brick that the warerwalls were once protecting has tubes have b iy spaced and welded together with a webbing of steel now been eliminated altogether. Considering the inferno inside the Brebox, the envionment surrounding 4 big fomace is soxprisingly benign. The waterwalls are swaddled in insulation, You can get up close to them, sanding inches away from a 2,000-degree torch roaring 10 or 15 stories tll.The space is warm, but not uncomfortable, , becaue heated water and steam rise ‘The tubes in the watervall are called i through them. Another set of tubes, called downcomers, carry water flowing in the opposite direction. Risers and downcomers are joined at both the bottom and the cop of the boiler to form a continuous loop. The entve assembly of boiler eubes, ‘weighing hundreds of tons, hang: ftom the roof of the building, with no rigid sup. ports underneath. This arrangement allows for expansion and coutraction—che Jengeh may change by a foot or mote—as the boiler heats up and cools down, Ac the very bottom of the boiler, where the downcamers and risers meet, some plants have a rmud drom, a cylindrical vesel that takes its name from whac you findPy a is shut down for an overhaul, All the rust and scale accu inside when the boi late there. The corresponding seeacture atthe cop of the boiler is the steam deurn, \which in fact is more than a deus a complicated piece of apparatus, with lots of The main business of the steam drum is to separate steam from water so the vapor can be drawn off and piped co the turbine, while the liquid i recirculated through the downcomers. Ta those of us whose experience of sceam separating steam fios water seems easy: che vapor just machinery ins sn eeake comes mainly waft off the top. Bue under the conditions inside a power-plane boiler —tesnperature 675 degrees Fahrenheit, pressure 2,600 pounds per square inch—steam and water ave hard co cll apart, Ie takes a kind of centrifuge, or cyclone, to separate dem A feature of all boilers, required by law, engineering codes, and insurance regula- tions, is 2 pressote-rlie valve, Eaely ea notorious technological haeard. Both railroad locomotives and the stationary’ boilers in the age of steam, boiler explosions 1 1 plants were blowing up with enough regularity to inspire public read comparable to modern worries about nuclear-power accidents. Those at great vst risk were the engineers who tended the boilers, and yet they resisted regulation vwork. Nevertheless, a safery measure was imposed and remains universal ler haga valve that automatically vents offsteam at some preset pres of factory of today: every bo sre not too fir above the nocmnal working pressite. The valve ie installed on the seeam drum, le relies om the simplest kind of spring-loaded mechanism, which pops if the internal pressure ever exceeds the stength of the spring. Modern bo are equipped with other valves, tied into the central computer contro) system, that allow finer regulation of pressure. But the mechanical safery computer ever crashes or someone falls asleep atthe switeh ‘Abas hongs bom ha oo, lowing it expend ond eno wh changes in onperare. The fl wk of ‘healers apport 0 ret of sel ed a! nang Kem the eppomot! gion of he re ord ‘nach rok lh ole rch, Te phe bee every topo me a seam vel ‘edo the von or earn ene, The cps teed wih Lees eon rcs ee I Natron lanes Domne sport of op of ppg tlle slr 0 cael rough he Ene The boprenh Icke spear log oe sc ofthe baler Bend he neo shehing end alayr inal ewer Wel where pes cle! rir of ace by oor? rey Fem the rote. Sone of wot ne ee Irs, bl he et raced traugh heThe ser hen blond where nr and owe ‘2 pin ho np ofa Ele Vth iat one dc ong dom, led wth natinary fr ope ing water end som, Psroll vole [cbore ore on he ont cove ha soar crm Thy rile Iriel aves, which dchrge som whenever te pres inthe bors rst ecu compress 2 sping hat hs eva om, IMPRASTRUCTURE: 4 B/ECD GUIDE 10 THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE The Turbine. The steam-driven tushine is a close cousin of a jet engine. In both machines, 4 hot, bigh-pressure gas spins a series of finlike turbine wheels In the process the gas expands and cook, I a simple idea, but power-plant turbines rated ata billion wate of mechanical power are not siiple to build ot operate The turbines and the generators they drive are the most expensive hardowate i a power plant. Offen, they are built atop their own special concr ‘ion, separate fiom the rest ofthe plant.This is done co contol vibrations in the rotat- ing machinery and to maintain precise alignment in the beacings that support the nad-stel founds long, spinning steel shaft chat runs through both the turbine and the generator A single stage ofthe turbine consists ofa stator wheel (which is rigidly fixed t0 the Fame of the turbine) and a rotor wheel (attached to the rotating sha). Steam is steered through vanes in the stitor and then passes ehrough the blades of the 2ov0%, turning it by the same principles that run a windmill or a waterwheel, The Blades and ‘vanes have gracefilstfoil shapes, and they are carefally machined from fancy steel alloys chat can withstand extremes of temperature, presure, and mechanical ses, as ‘well at a corrosive environment. A single blade bresking off would destroy the entire machine as che debris crunched through the downstream rotors and stators Typically 4 carbine has three uoits, all mounted on the same shaft, Steam straight fiom the boiler and superheater is fed into the high: ‘expands and cools somewiat, The steam then goes back to a chester unit, where ts (00 degrees Fahrenheit, although the pres- ‘over steam then goes through where again it expands and cools. Finally, he turbine, where it emperature comes back up to about 1 sore is not restored te its original level, This warn the intermediate-pressure eurbins steam pastes into the low-pressure turbine, Note chat the sa goes through all theee tatbines, but because the pressure drops in each unit the volume of steam increases. As result, the intermediate same mass of water molecu presure turbine has to be bigger than the high-pressure unit, and che low-presure turbine isthe largest of all. Judging fiom their relative size, you might guess chat the big low-pressure eurbine is doing most of the work, but the truth is just the oppo= site, The litle high-pressute eurbine put out 60) percent of the total Horsepower, and the massive low-pressure unit supplies only about 15 percent. “Turbines are so |: sge and complex tha their most mundane auxiliary equipment is more imposing chan any of dhe machines most of us meetin everyday life. Pamps and motors larger than an automobile engine are needed just to keep che turbine supplied with lubricating oi The bearings and seals along the main shaft also requite lange accessory pamps, Another vital ausary i che governor that regulates eurbine speed, The classic speed-control mechanism is the fall governor, which became an icon of the indus- tral age and a textbook example of the concept of feedback control The governor has two weight (the Ayball) stached to hinged arms that spin around a vertical shaft at the same speed as the turbine. As che shaft turns faster, the balls are mg outward, and the hinged arms are lifted up.A linkage auached to dhe flyball arms then closes thesteam valve a litde, owing the turbine and allowing the yballs to sink back toward their resting position, In this way the turbine i lowed every éime it eres to speed ap and is sped up every time it ties to slow down, o a steady speed is maintained. The Ayball governor was the world’ first version of cruise contzol. The feedback principle is sll a che heart of turbine contol, athough now it all done by compucer The Condenser and Feedwater System. To make a turbine spin, ils not enough t0 push steam into the inlet porr, you aso have to let i our atthe exhaust port. Loveeting the pressure and temperature ac the aver i the job 0 the steam gives up the last ofits heat As the steam condenses, its volume is greatly diminished, and so the pressure fills t00. Indeed, the pressure in the condenser is les than attno- ‘condenser, wher spheric; there’ a partial vacuum, which acemlly sucks team out of the tabi, The water that collects in the bottom of the condenser is dsilled water, which i usually considered the ultimate standard of purity: Buc the water needs farther ‘meng, called poling, before it can be renurned to the boiler. Any minerals deposited inside the tubes ofthe boiler would clog up the arteries and could cause a dramatic kind of heart attack: the deposits would act as an insulating blanker, allowing the metal wall of the tube to overheat. Ifa tube splits open, everyone within a few miles of the plane hears i. To remove suspended solids, the water is filtered through sand or charcoal, and snuguetic separators extract particles of rust.An ion-exchange column works just like 2 residential water softener 0 eliminate troublesome magnesia and calcium com- pounds. Other chemical ceauments adjust che pH—the acidity or alkalinicy—and can attack metals, remove distolved oxygen, w The high reir neti i eels bt oe gow thd fre bie it the Mae lot. The hr Fe lichen vider 9 Hck blk nuton ‘Governor en cle es outed on he igh proce neti onthe pao od he power a pull he ene bine generarThe condensers eve aor ergs die i the on becom hey env se ove preva, ‘hen t hos yep Hoe ny he end nee Fro condenser yas are wl hy or oy ret Skacues th Bangs beck some ie oor tet lng Shiai was The gon te dh coy The feds pare sundae ow pit he ln ema elec, bl eel thigh Prosar in the envoy The pap os (han apres nce are weer ino bob ‘gout the hood of sor, ‘The treated condensate, as well as fresh “makeup w: Joop to be boiled into steam again. Pushing the feedwater into the boiler isnot easy, however the feedwater pump has co overcome the entite head of steam pressure. The feedwater pump is the biggest of the many pumps in a power plant. Ie is usually mounted on the floor below the curbine and generators and is driven either by a very large electric motor ot by a steam turbine of its own, in either case the pump con: sumes 2 or 3 percent of che raw power outpt of the plant Generotors, The ultimate purpose of everything in the power plant, fram the coal pile through the furnace and the boiler to the turbine, o spin the shaft ofthe gen- erator and create an electric current. Generators rely on an effect called electromag netic induction, discovered 150 years ago by Michael Faradsy and Joseph Henry. induction creates a voltage in a loop of wire whenever a magnetic fe through the loop. {n a generator, the magnet that ereates the field is 9 1 rotor: the loop of wite is wound on the unmoving stator that surrounds the rotor ln the type of generator used with a steam-driven turbine, each turn of the mag~ netic rotor produces one cycle of alternating current (AC) in the sator coils."The cutrent flons Sst one way through the coil and then the other, like a tide eloshing in and out, A rotor turning at 60 revolutions per second genetites rent ata frequency of 60 cycles per second, or 60 hertz. This speed—usualy stated 45 3,600 revolutions per mnie, which amounts to the ssme thing—te the sandard throughout North America. Every generator connected to the US. power grid is adjusted to chis rate of rotation. In Europe similar generators turn 2t 3,000 revolu- ‘ions per minute, praducing power ata 50-herte frequency spinningHere's something to pore over:to generate an electric current, you need a strong magnetic Geld, but to create a stong, magnetic Geld, you need an electric cursent (beeause the magnet on the roret is an eeciomagnet, a big coil of wire with a cut rent Bowing cheough it) Where does the current for the roror magnet come ftom? The answer is that it comes from another, smaller generator called the exciter, mounted on the stme shafé 36 the main magnet that needs a current—where does that come from? fe comes from an even smaller generator, the pilot eXciter. At this point it sounds lke we've going to have an infinite regress of smaller and smaller generators, but in fact there's a stop ¢o it.The pilot exciter is small enough to operate with a permanent-magnet the many megawatts of the main generator are bootstrapped fom the feeble stisings of permanent magnets like the ones chat hold notes on your reftigerator. erator, But the exciter aso has a rotor rotor In this way Big generators ae rermarkably efficient. Out ofall the mechanical energy cranked into turning the shaf, she generator converts between 98 and 99 percent into elec tricity. But if generacors output is billion watts, internal losses of just 1 percent add up co 10 milion watts of heat—the equivalent of 10,000 toaster evens running su the same time, Getting tid of this heat is a major challenge The stator windings, where the heaviest currents flow, ate water-cooled. The con= actors in these cols ate holtow copper tubes, and water is pumped through chem at high speed, sunning wacer through a high-ealeage machine seems contrary to com= rion sense, the cooling medium for the rest of the generator will strike you as even more unlikely eis hydrogen gs, Hydrogen i chosen because among all gues it is che bese possible egolant; the lightweight molecules carry off heat mor those of heavier elements. The lightness also reduces “windage” losses, the energy spent moving the rotor through the atmosphere. But hydrogen has had a reputation for danger ever since the Hindenburg accident in 1937; infusing the Dammmable gas into a generator fll of hot metal and high voltages seems to invite disaster. Bur hydeo- © effectively than mp ond ales blow te bine ack cue gamut drogen oush be goer, cal he ‘lr wind The ingle gears othe Moyo plead ‘noe than 780 megane The gor sie he inl Sead he eegroind he ty ‘Shaped owing bakin he ow pare iThe sechynd fhe Gordon Eons Ey Casa (Cleich, Koc, iit oer, sich, ot becker, bing ass, ond ober igh ‘loge devi. he man boson of the aed i Tore the vehoge fl ht con bens Teng divorces gen burns only io the presence of oxygens; the Key to using it safely isto exclude all six, Before the generator is Glled with hydragen, it s purged with carbon dioxide Electricity is carried away from the generator on bus bars, heavy copper or alt- rent. (The heav iest wites you'l find in your home are imited to 100 or 200 amperes.) The bus bars ae a thick a tree imbs, and chey may be encased in protective tubes that make them look even thicker: They lad to a switchyard outside the plant The Switchyard. Although the generator pus out prodigious current, the voltage level is only moderate by power-company standards—usualy between 10,000 and 30,000 voles, Right outside the wall, a wansformer boosts the voltage to a much higher level—oten 230,000 or 345,000 vols, and in a few cases as high a5 765,000 wits. The high voltage allows the power to be transmitted long distances with tela tively tle loss along the way ‘The transformers and theit related switches and citcuie breakers are set up in a fenced-off area called the swiechysrd, which can be as large as the rest of the plat ‘The devices here are essentially the same as those in the substations at the other end ‘ofthe transmission lin, where he power is brought back down to lower voltages for distribution to neighborhoods This machinery is discusted in the next chapt ‘The switchyard brings power im the plant as well as providing a way out. A typ- ical generating station absorbs 4 to 7 percent of its own electrical output for running machinery soch as fns and pumps. Whes the plants starting up,much of that equip ‘ment has to be running before che main turbines and generators ate cut in.The start- up power is supplied by other stations on the power grid, and bro in over the some transmission lines that normally export the plant’ own output. ‘What happens i all the power plans in a system are shut down at the sate time? Unsil 1965 plane operators thought they would never have to answer this questionbecause such an event seemed so unlikely. But on November 9, 1965, a blackout in the northeastern United States left some cities dak for more than 12 hours. One rea- son ie took so long to rescore power was that generating stations didn’ have enouy eighbors—who were, of course, sme predicament. The ualities companies promise ie won't happen again. emergency power co restart without help om their n in che COMBUSTION TURBINES The demand for by the millisecond, When you turn ou the cof pot and the toaster in the mocring, a power plant somewhere has to respond by opening the throtle lice, Demand also Ductuates on longer time scales. People use more electricity during the day than at night, and in most places they use m ‘ng the summer than the winter. t wowld be a giest convenience to have generat- ing units that could be run only at times of peak demand. Big coal-fired stations are ur 1 power nin. ies architec, th tthe acer fly won, fe Rover Ganerating Staton wel oer acre for New Yerkes eras a coepcvous en Quer, jo ‘erat he ot er om Narhoton, isc arc motto poner aging, bs or of gio Lown i li ut by he lis chalrers Corporation th ft gener cpl preicg 1,080 meget. The plant ns mul ge, wh vo bocap a200 INFRASTRUCTURE: A FIELD GUIDE TO THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE | Cranes opty of pln main | steam uit. Th on dit extoairg horizon me | fights he rele: ores ov hegemony it ‘elute asin tegen ena ped fre fer ear cer | large gay eka ck, whith charge ric | woo ! | | ‘Acambusion wine ot he Gorden Eons Energy | sot wel sited to this duty, because they tke hours t sare up and shutdown, | Hydroelectric pitts ae mach more flexible in this respect, but, onthe other hand, | you cau build Hoewer Dam jos anywhere. The sluion adopted by many atic | is a machine known as the combustion turbine or gas turbine. Power company conployses al thom jet and for good reson: they evolved diet from the engines | that power jester | ‘A combustion turbine relies on the same physical principle as the steam turbine wheel, exerting afore that causes the wheel to spin. But instead of team, the hot {gues are the products of combustion Fuel and ai aeaised, compresed and igit- inside che atbine, where they expand and thereby tun the rotor vanes. The fel is usualy mace gas single combistion turbine has a power output of 10 to 100 | imegawatis, but is ety to build cisters of them with Inger aggregate power | ‘Combi turbines are les fcc than dhe best team turbines, but cey have | compensating advantages, First, of cout, hey can he started and shut down in a mater of minites,someines just by posing a button in a ditant contol room, Porthermore, becaise they don req at much land asa fll-ale powerplant and because they burn cleaner ie, they can be put closer 10 ces, which relieves con- seston on electric tranumison ines And jets can supply start-up power for ger | omverional plans For tis It reson, many seam plant have» few combustion | vutbines on the site‘The standard mode of operation ita hep the big. ficient bate load” plane rinning all he te, and tit she jets oly ac umes of peak demand ‘Combustion turbines vary i appearance, bat a common feature is thatthe turbine itself is overshadowed by air intakes and exhaust stacks, One reason for the largeintake and exhaust structures is tha tee Bow through the system improves efficien cy But chere’s another reason: the strucnues are engineered to suppress noise If th turbine plant has neighbors, noise is likely o be a major isue, Jee engines are no gui round than they axe on airplanes NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS Ie began as the eechnology of megideath. "Then in the 1950s and 1960s “the peace- fal atom” promised a life of eae chrough boundless energy—lectrcity so cheap no fone would bother metering it By the 1970s the tide hed turned agaia, and nuclear plants were regavded as a menace, atleast in the United States. Who ean say where this roller-coaster history will end. At the moment nuclear power looks like a 2eto ‘growth industry, but even if no one ever builds another mucleat pl ‘ones will remain a major part of the energy infrastructure for decades. Almost 100 commercial power reactors supply about 14 percent of the nation’s clecricivy. A nuclear generating station has much in common with a coal-fited power plat. cal switebgear are important difer- They ate both closed-loop steam cycles. The generators and el almost incetchangeable, and the turbines are very similar The only fence lies in how the steam is produced ‘The energy source in nuclear plant isthe disintegration of usaniom, the heaviest of the natunlly occurring chemical elements, Iv certain uranium azoms, the mucle- uus—the dense core of protons and neutrons-—can spontaneously split in ¢o, The splitting, o° fission, is especially likely to happen after a nucleus absorbs an extra new= Foor now cnbuton tbs a Karey, New Jey, te sna under conn 200, Theor mes, Ce op the bulge aie the rine, ght conbuon tained up log the Est Ror nth of he Rovenod la are ee igh irre chevbare cn sie ot 0 am er Ueda tht ae he et exhaust ro 2 onbtiontrbie a produce som the wri Sen re, he biked srk rink, ond th tl Conga meld one of thaws. Vise ne brckgrond tbe owsterauch Bidetron. As the nucleus breaks apart it gives off a sna jolt of energy, which is what uti= mately gets curned into electricity, and it ako emits a fw spare neutrons, which an {g0.0n to induce the spiting of ether uranium muclei. In thie way’ chain reaction gots stared. Is ust like one of those pyramid marketing schemes, except it works To keep che chain reaction going, all that’s needed is a suicient number of sas- ceptible nuclei in a small enough space. es ako essential to control the reaction, Other subsanees come into play here. Water t down neutrons, and slow neutrons ate more likely to be absorbed by uranium nuclei Catbor sahance the reaction because it slows 1d boran tend to damp out the chain reaction by absorbing neutrons and making them unavailable. All three ofthese substances have roles in power reactor For use as reactor fel, uranium oxide is molded into cylindrical pellets a third of ys warm with a glow fiom 13, Outside of a few fuel They are stacked up inside tubs Tio presi wot es sod sid by side ot the hanes Nucor Onesie on Lake Dacoela reais Alco Thedened gichtatane within, Or so I'm told, Pve never held th tre arte conirnt bling bbind ha oe cessing installations, che bate pellets are neves the hel honding ens fit e epround an inch in diameter. The pellets are very heavy, and made of a high-temperature zirconium alloy, and then the tubes are welded shut ft ole lrge cooing tower. The bo nin are sags baat in ty were uit afew yor cpt kom ‘Nuclear power has certainly not made electricity 190 cheap to meter-The urani tight der devine and components uum fuel isnot free, and ghe capital costs of building a plant have tuned out t© berower mianys “daunsing. All wuclear construction is governed by special engineering codes, with elaborate schedules of inspection and maintenance. Every pipe and value must bear “Code N" stamp, whith mises the price more than gold plating would, Somedy, dismantling the plants may wind up costing even more chan building them did. And there’ ako the cost of dealing with radioactive wastes and spent fe ‘Worldwide, there is considerable diversity in the design of nuclear plans, which may signify eat engineers have not yet built enough of them to reach consensus on how best co doit Just evo designs dominate in the United States:the pressurized water reae- tor (PWR) and the boiling water reactor (BWR). Only those types are described here. The Pressurized Woter Reactor. The distant ancestor of the PWR is the US. [Navy's program to develop muclear power for ship propulsion, The defining feature is 8 reactor core filly immersed in liquid water, which is Kept under so much pres sure thac ie cannor boil even though the eempersture reaches 600 degrees Fahsenheit. ‘Abour ewo-thitds of the operating American teactors are PWR aypes ‘The PWR relies on an indirec,ewo-stage process to drive the turbine and gener~ ator. Water heated in the reaccor core is pumped £0 a steam generator, where it heats and boils water in an entirely separate cireuit; ies the Bud in ths secondary loop that drives the turbine. There is no exchange of faids between dhe vo loops; this isthe safe-sex version of nuclear power. Because the steam that drives the turbine never ‘enters the reactor, the chance of radioactive contamination should he sight, ‘A PWR hus a distineive profil. The containment building, which hovses the reactor is 2 ell cylinder with a domed lid Deep inside is massive steel pressure ves- sel-and inside thae isthe eactor itll. Also in the containment building aee the steany generators and pumps to drive the circulation through the primary loop. The pumps stand three stories tall and are powered by electrie motors of 4,000 to 7,000 horse~ power. Each pump bas flywheel chat will keep it running fora few seconds ater a power fulure—long enough for other emergency cooling systems to kick in. ‘The reactor vessl is shaped like a medicine capsule standing on end, 40 feet high ‘with steel walls nine inches thick. Ir weighs close toa million pounds, whieh means ic can only be shipped by baige oF mil. (There are no 500-con highway trucks) The inner surface is clad with halFan inch of stainless steel asa defense against corrosion ‘And corrosion isa serious worry. In 2002 a work crew at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toleda, Ohio, discovered a spot on the lid of the reactor vessel where acid had caten away the entize thickness ofthe wal except for the stainless stel cladding. ‘Wichin the reactor itself several thousand fuel rods are packed into a volume about the size of a high-ceilinged bathroom: There are also control tods made oF boron car~ bide—a compound of wo neutron “poisons” or absorbers. With all ehe contro rods in place, neutrons are blotted ap quickly enough that a chain reaction can't sustain self The contiol rods are lifted out through che top of the pressure vessel to start the nuclear reaction, In the event ofa power failure or some other malfanction, the rods fall back inta place by graviey.THREE MILE ISLAND Sometimes on industiol accident seems to howe th fata! momentum ofa Greek raged. Terie things keep happening, but nobody understands why until soo ate ‘March 28, 1979, wos a bad day on Thee Mile song, in he Suequshanna River south of Forzburg,Penneyvnia nthe small hous of the morning «shit foreman and two ather etkers were doing routine maintenancs in cone ofthe tw nuclar power pants bul side by siden he island, Both plants ae presaue zed wor raccors. The maintenance work wos in what would seem to be @ nencical ‘cfon ofthe plan—the polishes tht remove minerals from feedwaler in he secondary cook ing lop. Bu events in hot obscure comer of tho plont had consequences the whole couniry 200 heord about “ha work crew was Blowing compressed Adjacent co the containment building isthe fel-handling building—often farger in volume chough les distinctive in shape, Here fuel-rod assemblies are stored, both fesh ones awaiting installation and depleted ones removed during refueling. The fuel rods can't simply be stacked on a shelf‘They are kept immersed in vater both as radiation shield and as a coolant. The deep vat of water, known as the swimming cir ina one ofthe pliches, ond apparently tripped inh. Inthe not three seconds, he ‘he presura drove wot info on nsrament sir presue within he reactor and the pinay Ines one of mony sll previte bes used eoolom system cote 1 2,255 pounds per fee sensing and contling conditions in the sqaore inch, ot which pont o ele valve plo The clogging of his posicular ai ine opened vp, eainng team and water Kom the hed the ofc of casing values thal contaled reactor vesel nto tank athe bottom of the the fow of feedwatr though he poliher. continent building. Aer onalhar fe 39 ‘With ibe supply of water cut of, he mem ends, he recctor tl ppd, ond contol fosdvetor pumps shut down aulomiicaly (or, rods were automaticly inserted ta hol he in powerplant gol, ripped’) thvee ener aueler reaction. gency feedwater aumps inimadotely stored though hie fostpaced coscade of emer: Up, but hey were uncble is delvr any woler gancies sound quie dit, there was os ye no becouse another poirot voles had misakenly reoson fer alarm. Turbine and ceacior shu been left closed. The improper pasiion of dawns ore not routine events, but operators these valves wos discovered and corrated oe rine Yo del with hem, In this cose the igh minutes later, but by thon & great deol vo apaates an dl in the conta oom se hod hoppened immediately set out perorm who! seemed to lass than @ second afer the mein feedwotor be tho mest urgent lsks—dovblecheckng the amps ped, the urbe and gonersior sts of the urine ond generator to be espool, i a beautiful sight The water is sill and clear; cechnicians test its purity and latity by reading fine print ar che bottom through binoculars. The fuel assemblies hhang on racks 25 feet below he suefice, The most aetve elements are envelope din the hauncing blue glow of Cerenkov light, which is emitted when elecwons steak through the water fiseer than the speed of light in water tain thot thee expensive piecas of machinery would nel Be damaged. The ailknowing cho rus in 2 Gack Kragedy might have warned thom thet bigger worries were looming, but he coparatts ot Thee Mil ond didnot have the benafit of suche woming. ‘ver the next hao ours the sen the contel too grew moe hectic; atone pint 60 operas, supervises, engineers, and of ors suggld to stable fhe ester, The nin foo of her tention wae martiing the “ight weer lve isthe priory caning sytem ‘Mest of he time, the lovl seemed 1 be too high. veel coed the prassuizr i up- poted tobe kot hal full of water ond half ll of stam; he operates though # wes filing ‘wit guid woter, which weald make it herd to ‘contol pressure in th sytem. Hence, hey thetled bock emergency systems tht were pumping water int he ecctoe. Act, the ‘wollen the presurzer wos never too high wos dangerously lov, The operators hho been msied by their inaruments. The undying source af he problem was yo! cnaher valve malfunction: the prassurevlel valve hot hod! popped opan tres seconds cies the sort of the cccident should have asad us 10 seconds eter, bt orained open, owing @ massive lek. The suck valve ‘wos aol discovered uri mre than Ww hours oer, by which ime mest of he pinary leon vp the mass. Saveal commision invest gete the accent~—Grosk choruses chaning ‘of ccseophe car the foc. Facor ted oo conmibuing causes included management poli ies that cllowed the plone cun wi emer gency feedwoter voles closed, opera ing that put leo much emphasis on one ind oF ‘ecidont and neglected other poesia fits, cond « reader design that may have bee foe skish fer ible central. Mat ofa the investigates cricized the manmachine ner face. The opertors coud easily hove verted the damoge i ony they had known what was hopseing inside the containment building, bot the hundred of mets ond gauges inthe con ol oom fale 9 communicate he information they naaded. The indlcaor for he ceil relief ‘oie showed tat it hae been odared ta cose but not registers toe postion. ‘What lessons should be leomed fom Three Mile inland Opinions vary widely. Qppanents cof nuclear pow interpret the accident os « emensraion of ju! how dongoious ard Uuncontllable he lechaology it. Poponone look a he sane evidence and argue hat he ‘accident shows the inherent soaly of nuclear reactors, since jut about everthing he could hove gone wrong dd go wrong, ond yet thee "wos a0 serous harm done Yo publ hac Both sides would rather not se ony futher darmonaation ofthis kind Today the emply shell ofthe fold reocor sill fonds on Three Mile land, nxt tis ‘ler sibling reactor, which wos shut down coe the aezidet but wos teniered in 1986, {inthe photogrph en the opposite page, the ‘ave sit ion eight, the carpe onthe let} Gensco Public Utes, the operating com@any bul @ vitor center and souveni shop, whore you coud buy Three Mie land eeshias end cookbooks, But alt enor the vislor coner wes closed.A mcr nealing saan bi rod bolig wate reson ost indepen it, bub ee lo Bs ender rao The rata nthe wing ‘Fa bing oath a ning oi are Sth es wing a ght. The meld oo in Feroond whch ook he pei ets or cl fe roa forks or ding vrs wales ‘omc. The power lo pecan by he Terres Voley shorty, rows Foy alebore. Every year oF two, the reactor needs to be cefveled, This is not ike gasing wp the caryis more like a major engine overhaul, withthe added complication that it done tunderwater The fist step i to pop open the top of the ment building bas a erane buil in fr lifting off this 150,04KI-pound icem.T tion of the building above the open reactor vesel is flooded to a depth of 15 feet: this pool of water connects vie « tunnel with the swimming pool in the fucl- ror vesel. The contain= handling building, Old fuel assemblies are pulled out of the reactor and sransferted through the water-filled cunnel ro the fuel-handling building. New fel elements cone back in through ehe same tunnel, which you might chink of as something like a passthrough between kitchen and dining room Another building houses the control room, ¢s artight and pressuiz Teakage is outward). T em can close offal sr intakes in seconds. The reason for chese features is not hard eo guess:in the aftermath ofan accidental release of radiation, i's helpful ifthe of ‘One peculiarity of nuclesr power can make ee operator’ job especially tense. When something goes wrong in fossil-fuel plant, shutting off the fuel and aie puts (60 that any ors can stay on the job, and survive‘out the fire, With 2 nuclear reactor, dropping the contol rods quenches the nuclear chain reaction, but thats nor the endl of che story The fuel elements continue to pro= luce megawatts of heat for hours afterward because ofthe ongoing radioactive decay of fision products. Theres no switch ot valve that turns this process off As 2 result, the reactor needs 2 continuous supply of water for cooling even after a shutdown “The standand operating nightmare for nuclear plants isthe dreaded LOCA—the lossoF-coolant accident. With a major leak i the primary Joop, the water in the reactor vessel will quickly boil away; if the coolant is not replaced within seconds, the fel rods will overheat and me The Boiling Water Reactor-As the name suggests, the BWR system allows the pri ‘mary coolant to boil on contact with the hot fel in the core, so that liquid water and steam coexist in the rector vessel, The steam is piped directly to ehe turbine and then condensed and pumped back to the roactor. Thus, the steam circuit has only a single loop, rather than the two-rage process of the PWR. The BWR, design has the viree ofsimplicity. On the other hand, steam running throughout the plane will tou tinely pick up low levels of radioactivity from ts passage through the reactor. And if something goes wrong—such as the sudden failure of fuel rod—large quantities of radioactive matecial would enter the steam circuit. A BWR power plant looks very diferent fiom a PWIR, Gone is the domed con- tainment seructare and che separate fuel-handling building, The reacter, the swim- ‘ming pool, and all the rst of the nuclear machinery are in a single large balding, ‘Many BWR plants do have one visually distinctive Feavuce: a very tll stack—as tlh fs one you might sce ata fossil-fuel plant, though not as hig around, The function of ‘his unosoal stack is explained later ‘The BWR does have a containment structure its just smaller than the kind wsod in a PWR, so it ts inside a conventional building, The BWR containment is eicher cone-shaped (with the pointy end up) or lightbulb-shaped (with the serew-in end up). The reactor vesel is suspended near the cop of this structure, Below i is a pool ‘of water meant fo absorb and condense steam released in the event of an accident ‘The peesence of steam in the reactor vessel requires some changes in the way the reactor core is designed. Because steam lines must connect to the top of the reactor vessel he control rods can't enter the core from overhead; they have to come up fiom the bottom. But if the control rods are under the reactor, you can't count on gravity to insert them in an emergency-The emergency shutdown mechanism uses hydraulic pressure to drive in the rads then latches them in place mechanically. The reliability of the hydraulic eystem is critical Because the water driving the webine in a BWR plane pases through the intense radiation of the reactor it becomes mildly nidioactive even when nothing is leaking, Water quality is critical. Any minerals present will be transmuted to radioactive ele iments if they are hereafter deposited in the turbine or elsewhere in the system, chey can make the whole plant “hot” But even pure water is suscepeble to irradiation; both The algo pir a rom Fry i desig olan csr crociocive ors hgh i te ro= ‘phere wre thy soul par, The fr he cheney —a ender hyparsoe—i cole ge the goes oxi opr vl.Foxrhvn colin owe al he Brow Fey aca ston hove srapesncl em, wiser he op 2 th wore wale eneoting dow thie il wach (ey oie bil. Ech ihe 16 sro wp he «colin nit outs lrg fo ble at crows iin rough he de he srre ond dchrges vowed the bydrogen and the oxygen atoms of the water molecule can be converted to radioactive forms. Worse stl radiation can break apart a water molecule, so that the hydrogen and oxygen are in gaseous form. The gases separate from the steam in the condenser, and a whole subsystem of che plant is needed to capsure and dispose of them. Thar’ whas the call stack is for. Is designed to launch the emissions well up into the atmosphere, where the gases disperse The release of radioactivity i quite small-The Noclear Regulatory evel believed to be completely safe, and plants routinely tay below 1 percent of tha Gand. But that doesn't always set the neighbors’ minds at exe mmission sets the maximum allowable amount at COOLING TOWERS Ever since the accident at‘Three Mile Island, ehe cooling tower has been the sinister symbol of nuclear power. Television reports on nuclear sues set the mood with a haunting image ofthe towers, often with a cloud of white vapor dvifing above them, hinting at some toxic release, Tis choice of icon could not be less appropriate. In the first place, not all auclear pow cowers are installed at nuclear plants. Second, mos cooling the el cooling tower is not where the stinger isin nuclear technology: Nothing radioactive pases through it, nd any release of radiation would have to come fiom elsewhere There is another irony in the evil rep sr stations have cooling towers, and not all cooling wers look nothing like veted chimneys chat have acquired such merncing associations. Finally, che ion of the cooling tower:The reason for building the cowers is not that utility companies earn money ffom them. On checontrary they ate a concession to environmental preservation. Their main fi the protection of aquatic life [A perfect power plant would conver: all che heat liberated by burning fuel or by a nuclear resesion into electricity Real power plants fill short ofthat goal. ot 3 coal~ fired plant, only about 40 percent of the heat energy is captured in electric power nuclear plants do even worse, with an efficiency of only about one-third. All te cest ‘of 2,000 megawatts of waste heat. The fow of water needed t can amount co 500 million gallons per day.TThis is more than enough warm water to provide a luxurious daily bath for the population of New York City. I aso enough to parboil the fk in a small river or lake res some of that heat to the atmosphere AA nuclear plane with an clecerical output of 1,000 megawatts must get rid eatry off that heat 1 cooling tower dis Cooling towers come in two basic types the fin-driven tower: whieh is more ‘common but less Conspicuous, and the natural-draft cover, which isthe one chat has centered the public imagination.The choice between them is one of balancing oper cing costs against capital costs, Fan Driven Towers. The typical fan-driven cooling tower isa long, boxy structur roughly 50 feet wide and 50 feet tall and as much as several hundied feet long, The end walls are of solid construction, but the long side walls coasst of louvers to allowe for the inflow of ai. The warm water is pumped to the top of the tower and falls ‘A vteon on the di rdcho cating tone raps the acre into a cel nd pie he fans ihe ie, crowing rough rom he pariratr This tome a ha Gel Cro power an in sdewond, Novh steThe noble cooling tower ot Aanas Ndr (Ones the dani hypersl orm spring oo ner row foot nd ten oping 1 9 silyl ome ‘ar The shapes degre 9 produce optima si awe ra ginennparchne dice barca he wel conditesarooning repre, Ate ba of he ‘over dea on apposite page te waters rok op in ie dle enmian vapor cal through a labyrinth of wood or plastic slats called sil, Meanwhile @ fan polls air rough the fill nto a central void, and then exhausts it upward. Ths, inthe Bll ehere isa cross-flow: i drawn inward water trickles downwatd while Seen fiom the end, the cooling cower has che form of an upside-down trapezoid Ie is wider atthe top thao at the base, and so the louvered walls slope inward, This shape is chosen to control icing in the wineer. Because ofthe inward vers are continually washed by warm war.‘The fan in a power plant-size cooling rower can be 30 feet in diameter, driven by 4 motor of 220 horsepower of more. A fated shroud surrounding the blades increas- cs the velocity of the ai and reduces noise. Along the inner surface of the fill lining the central void, ae special louvers called drift eliminarors, "Dri is che mis of tiny fein the airflow. The drift eliminators force the airstream ta secelerates coward the fan, shedding entrsined droplets. Groples hat get eau nake a sharp tura as i Natural Draft Towers, The 200-hersepawer motor in a fan-driven ‘consumes about 150,000 wats, which is» lot of power even for the elec ay, On a mnigay day the fans can claim 3 percent of a generating station’ electrical ‘output. cooling cower that needs no fan has an obvious advantage i daly operat- ing cost the disadvantage is that it costs mote o build such cover in che Gest place, he chimney above 2 Greplace. In both cases there isa source of heat at che basc—burning logs in the Sreplace, wate fiom the condenser in the cooling tower. Ai is warmed by the heat source and expands, there- boy becoming less dense than the surrounding air. The buoyant ait rises inside the ‘A naturabdraft rower works just chimney ov the tower, and nevr air is dravn in ac the bottom to replace it.The new sir i heated in turn, so that a sustained dra is established ‘The optimum size and shape fora chimney depend on che t source and che outside ait, With a very hot fice (sin. 4 modern home furnace) even 2 narrow. stright chimney can draw effectively. The lower temperature of a Jog fire demands a wider lve. In a cooling tower th degeces, which means the chimney must be wide, tll, and carefally shaped. The largest towers are 300 feet in diameter at the base and 500 feet high, ‘The characteristic shape of a natural-drafe tower, which maximizes the airdlo is a hyperboloid (based on the mathematical curve called a hyperbola). Rising air tends AYA erature ofthe beat semperatute difference i only shout 10‘nal yroseci iasle of haow of he Moncale Dan we of Socameno alli, ‘pls a high head fob 00 fe xt boat i mgowat fray rom a made flow of wor The bie 92 Fone whe o hybrid pe ta rv nth th ingle nh eatin pines The dTscherge is abv he lel of we he aoe to cool because of the lower atmospheric pressure at increasing aliade; at a sevult the ai rower compensates for this tendency by maintaining a nearly constant pressure up to the throat, the narrowest section of the tower. The slight outward fate above this its buoyancy and its ascent slows. The hyperbolic taper of the cooling point allows the air to expand and accelerate upward. The exhaust nozzles of rack ets and jet engines have the same shape for the saine reatons What js inside a natura-draft tower? Mainly noching. The shell of the tower is raised up on concrete pillars or on a triangulated erusswork of see, leaving channels ‘on all sides for air to flow in, jus inside this perimeter isan assembly of louvers, il and drift eliminators litle diferent from the one in a forced-draft tower, All this apparatus occupies a narrow ring at the bottom of the tower; the test sa eathedeal Tike empty space, open to the sky HYDROELECTRIC POWER Witerpower has a history going back to ansiquity it wos a thriving and sophisticated technology loag before electricity entered the scene. Waterwheels driving elaborate systems of belts and shafts ran the textile faceories of New Fngland, sawed timber in the West, and ground grain into Hour everywhere. Some of these eatly mills have been preserved or restored, and a few of the waterwheel are stil wirning, Neverth less, apart ftom sites of antiquarian interest, waterpower now means hydroelectric generation. The waterwheel has evolved into the eubine, much as the paddle wheel of extly steamships has evolved into the propelles, The bels and shafts for poswer transmission have been replaced by In the 1930s waterpower supplied about 40 percent ofthe electricity in the United States. Hydroelectric capacity has ineveased since then, and yer che proportion of all power coming from hydroelectric plants has fllen to only about 15 percent. The tea- son is that other power sources have grown much fister The trend is likely vo con- tinue, simply because the best spots for hydropower are already occupied Two factors determine the power available fom filling water: the height of the fll (called the head) and the quantity of water.A litle water plunging off high cliff can produce the same amount of power a large mass of water filling over a low ledge sctical lines ‘The head and the quantity of water determine what kind of turbine a hydroclec- tric plant is likely to use. With a high head but only a modest volume of water, the marine of choice isa Belton wheel. Ie works on che impulse principle: nozzles direct high-speed streams of water agninst curved buckets on the rim ofthe turbine wheel The wheel—or runner, as hydraulic engineers prefer co call itis not immersed in ‘water but curns in air Pelton wheels spin very fst, and so they are used withthe same kind of generator employed in steam power plants The Pelton wheel and the gen= erator ate mounted on a horizontal sha, which turns at 1,800 or 3,600 revolutions er minute in order ¢o produce the North American standaed 60-herte powerForlo ner, which hay curved vanes rather than buckets, is immersed in ast that flows through it. The runner is moun sha pial scroll eas, shaped lke a snail shell, Wa to the runner, then makes a 90-degiee turn a8 is defles heads and higher flows, wibines of another sype work becter The #tn= f water closed in 2 1d exits Ath Sh Oom ncaa Cllrs, fe lrg pends emerge rom th face fh da ive ‘bie inthe powerowne bow:‘ange tk ot cof il dp oooh the Sow water aughpensod fing 2 al no cle lat bon ts Fotane Dan Noh Cx downward, parallel co the axis of the earbine shaft, Tarines of this eype—ealled 2 ceaction-wheel turbine—turn mach slower than the Pelean wheel ‘The low rotation speed of the reaction-scheel tuabine calls for » dierent kind of generator, one that cat produce 6D-herte alternating cutzene when evening at only a + hundred revolutions per minute In the high-speed generators used with steam tar bines, the rotor has a single pair of magnetic poles, much lke an ordinary bar magnes. The generator produces one cycle of alternating current for each revolution of the rotor; thus, 60 cycles per second requites 60 revolutions pet second, oF 3,600 revolu- tions per minute, To generate the same output frequency with 2 machine che turns ore slowly, you need a rotor with mote pairs of poles. IF the rotor is a cluster of 12 pics of north and sour poles, spaced equally around the perimeter, ches on exch ies ‘olution the output current wil go chrough 12 alternating eyeles The generator produces 60-herte power when turning at only $ revolutions per second, or 300 revolutions per The generators employed in slow-turning hydroelectric plants have as many a5 60, paics of poles, yielding 60 hertz ata rotational speed of just 60 revolutions per minute These generators are larger in dameter than the high-speed machines, in order to make room for the many rotor windings, bur they can be shorte in the other dimen- sion, Because the generator is mounted ow a vertical shai takes the form of a squat cylinder on the powerhouse floor, with « small hurt at the center that houses the rmain chrust bearing supporting che shaft of both generator and turbine Often the powerhouse of a hydroelectric pr concrete damn, usually at the foot. Water drops down through passages within the body of the dam, turns turbines installed near the baseline, and then rushes our into the tallrace, la other cases the powerhouse isa strate separate fom the data, pos sibly miles away. Water is conveyed from the reservoir to the powe: chrough a penstock, which is typically a welded stee) pipeline 10 or 15 feet in diameter. Look fora surge tank sbove the penstock somewhere along che rua. Ics needed to smooth changes inthe tate of flow as the load on the turbine vatiesThe tank is designed to be about half fll during normal, steady-state operations. If the gat nly open ‘wider, calling for more water, the surge gank is drawn down momentarily t0 help 4s built into the seructore of 2 sud meet the demand. When the gates close suddenly the surge tank is even more impor- tant t gives the moving water somewhere wo go as it decelerates, preventing the hard Knock called water hammer The environment in the genesstor gallery ofa hydroelectric plant is calmer than the turbine hal ofa fosil-fuel plant. Gone is the shriek of steam. The noises are all low notes—hums, buzzes, groaning, rather than hear. Workers—if there are any—ean converse as quietly as in an office. The control of a hydroelectric plant is also less hair-raising than that of either a fossil-fuel o a rnoclear plant, Power ourput is through the penstock and ingo the turbine, An automatic governor system adjusts the ator turning a¢ 8 constant speed. hythmic vibrations ¢hat you f ulated by gates that coateol the dow of ws res c0 wack variations in load and keep the go(One of the features of hydroelectric plants most welcome to power dispatchers i that they can be stated up and shut down at 2 moments notice, It takes as hile as ‘wo minutes to get a nie up t0 speed and synchronized with the power ged. This ‘makes hydroelectric power ateractve asa means of satisfying short-term peak loads When you come home in the evening and switch on the lights and the TY, some- where a gate in a penstock has opened very slightly and sent a few gallons mote down the penstock OTHER ENERGY SOURCES Fosilsfel plats, nuclear reactors, and hydroclecteic plants account for 99 percent of the electric power generted by utility companies in the United Seats. Everything ergy technologies—amioun to just, axe pretty marginal in economic terms. But the slernative energy sources have a con cent, and so they spicuous place in the landscape and in public consciousness, even ifthey don’t yer make such of a dent in the energy budget. And their contributions afe growing, Theee of these technologies ace eescribed here: wind power, solat power, and geothermal power Blowin’ in the Wind. Wind power, like waverpawer, has 2 long history. The Old fr sails goes back at lease 800 years. Bue wind technology has been evolving rapidly in recent decades, and mod- cn windmill look nothing like their ancient prototypes. They are tll and spindly, with narrow blades like those of an airplane propeller but on a vastly larger seale ‘enero Horr am ofa me wih he lt vor Eth ger hs #9 pars of magne ples Sed hot 60 ene ar mapa hertz cheng cen Th sight grrr san hove rw on he Cla deh dor; Bere re sins mare nfs Nove ie26 INFRASTRUCTURE: & FIELD GUIDE TO THE INDUSTRIAL (ANOSCAFE They arene even ciled windmills anymore; che peeterted tex is wind turbine Moreover they are usually boughs togecher in large wind firms, with hundteds of turbines lined up along ridges or scattered across abroad pln Inthe United States, wind farming got is start as a Cabifornia things fora ime, that one state produced half of the world’s wind energy-The thee bigaest California swind-enezpy ares ae at Tehachapi Pas, 100 mules northeast of Los Angeles, wheze 2 range of ills separates the Central Valley Gosn the Mojave Desert, Altamont Pas, near the town of Livermore cast of San Francisco Bay, where another range of low hills divides che coastal plain fom the Cental Valley; and San Gorgonio Pas, in the southern California deseet near Palm Springs, where once again the wind sto rss ‘over hillsides to reach an interior valley. All three areas have maj highways running, ‘through them, so you can easily get look a the machinery: (Some Eoropean wind energy developments ae even more tours-rendly, with visor centers and picnic areas out among the fields of turbines) “The great boom in California wind power was launched by tax ws in ehe 1970s that encouraged experimenss with alternatives co fesilsfiel and muclear power plans. But the frst generation of wind turbines proved to be expensive and unseli able, and they had a hard ime competing agains the more mature smokestack teche nologies The tesoe was slomp in the wind-power indasty daring the 1980s Today the wind is ising again, however, even though some of the (x incentives have ‘expized. The new gencriton of wind tacbines—many of them bull in Europe oF inspired by Furopean designs—ate more eficient and cheaper to maintain, and they ako work in a wider variety of wind conditions. One result is eae wind farms are zo longer just a California crop; you'l find them in Tevas and Minnesoia and lows and Vermont, and in years to come they may well sprout on hillides everywhere. The seae with ee richest potential for wind pover is North Dakous if che farmers of [North Dakota farmed wind instead of wheat, in principle they could supply a third ofthe electricity consumed in dhe United States [As of 2003, the total capacity of wind eusbines in the United States was about 6,000 megnoaes—the equivalent of five or six nucear plans. Europe bas fr mote wwind-energy capacity: well over 14,000 megavats ia Germany alone, znd another 6,000 in Spa, ‘When you look a che spindly propeller-like rotor of modern wind eubine, and compat it with an oki makiblade farm windril, you mighe conclude thatthe new technology is leting most ofthe wind slip by without geting any benef fom i. But thats an ision;the new wind amines ely on difrene physical principles The older ‘windmill ate drag devices: they arrange the blades so tht the wind pushes against a broad surice The modern ones ae if devices: the ae pases over an ae ike an sitplane’s wing, and polls the blade through the air. Diag devices produce higher torque (turning fore), but in most conditions they extract less energy from the ait Justas engineers have varied the dicknes ofthe Blades over the Yeats, s0to0 have they disagreed over the ideal number of blades for a wind turbine. The blades aretow of ray,‘Avid fam aor Tachi Pin Clos had rrre hon 409 mines siing when i sogeaph ‘rex nae in 1999 The machines oe plone he Crchord wee in 0 reorglrorey many oer wed Feta ie he oct up clang de. INFRASTRUCTURE: & FIELD GUIDE TO THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAFE expensive, and so a design with ewer of them might be expected to reduce the cost of the machine, The minimum number, ebviously, is one, and one-bladed rotors have actually been tried. They lock funny, to say the least; even though 2 small counter- ‘weight keeps the machinery in balance, che visual impression is of something da- matically out of klter,But that not che big problem with one-bladed designs; more serious is that the one-bladed rotor has to nun fster t© produce the same energy output as a turbine with more blades, and higher speed brings move stain and noise ‘Two-bladed rotors have a subder problem. The balance of the blades is perfect, but ‘rouble comes whenever the wind shifis direction and the curbine has to swivel— yaw—to sty pointed into the wind, When both blades ate vertical, chere’ no resis- ance to yawing, but as che blades turn toward the horizontal the inertia increases. This cyclic change in resistance t0 yawing—going from maximum to minimum ewice in every revolution—creates vibration and stres, shortening the life of the blades. The vast majority of modern wind turbines have exactly three blades. Apparently three is juse enough to solve the problems of speed, balan: than three would be a needless expense and vibration; any moreSill another contentious isu in wind-turbine design is whether ¢o mount he blades on the upwind or the downwind side of the machine. Letting the blades trail behind che rest of the curine has one big advantage: the blades can act like 2 weath- ex vane, automaticaly turning the mackine to face into the wind, When the blades are mounted in front, some kind of steering mechanism is needed to sense the wind and forcelully pivot the turbine whenever the direction shifs. Nevertheless, the prevailing Aesign has the otor in the font, with a complex power-stecring unit to keep it prop- aly poinced. The reison is one 1 never would have guessed: with a fear-mounted rotor the eurbine Blades pas: through the “wind shadow" of the tower steucture on every revolution. The result isa cyclic variation in wind force thar can sec che blades vibrating, thus creating yet another source of fatigue and premature Faluce All this leads to & portrait of the eypical wind wabine. Ie has three blades, exch abou 50 fe fal. The blades are atached to 2 hub, which in trn pokes out the front ofa stream- ined housing called a nacelle side the nacelle, which isthe size of a moving van, axe the generator, a gearbox, asd other machinery needed to conto the turbine. The nacelle is mounted atop 4 hollow steel pylon, 100 feet high, 20 feet in diameter at te base, and tapering gradually toward che pinnacle ‘On top of the nacelle you mighe notice a small airplane-shaped weather vane—juse like the ones you see on suburban lxtns, Ths it the sensor for che mechanism that Jkeeps the turbine ficing into the wind, Fkewhere on the wind farm, scattered among the massive ucbines, are Sny, spinning cups of anemometers on tal sass. These inseeuments are there to beep records of wind speed for use in analyzing turbine per- formance and also co shut the turbines down if winds approach daagerous levels Every wind turbine is designed for limited range of wind speeds. Too lle wind, and ie not worth starting up.Too much, and the machine could destroy itselé On sng, made of carbon fiber or some other lightweight ultatrong mat some turbines the blades can be “feathered” or ewisted so that the wind won't spin the rotor, when speeds get into the danger range. Othess have aerodynamic “spoil- hat binds re not eager Drake is more crs" ith the same purpose, The finl line of defense is a mechanical brake the main shaft—bue the operators ta Tehachapi wind farm cold me tl 0 use that one, Climbing che tower in 2 gale to tighten down excitement than they're looking for. Tn normal operation most wind turbines spin ata fixed rate, You might think they ‘would speed up and slow dow as che wind varies, but instead they are designed to adjust the pitch of the blades so that che speed stays constant even as the energy out put changes. Running at a constant speed makes it easier to maintain the steady fee~ quency of the alternating current thatthe turbine supplies to the power grid. The speeds ae slow enough thet you ean count the revolutions. At one big wind farm in porthern California [found thatthe turbines were making 40 ears per minute; another farm down the road the speed was 72 revolutions pet minute Most wind turbines torn clockwise, at seen faom the bub side of the rotor, But there's no fiandamental reason for ths, and few machines spin the other way. The tase propeler ofthe wind tine dives 0 grrr nede hana, oop hs renga “Wehie range operating wed och, he nee conan peed, csi the ich fhe rope der regu pomer opINFRASTRUCTURE. & FIELD GUIDE TO THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE ‘The most unusual of all wind-eurbine designs is che vextical-axds machine devel- oped by D. G.M, Darsieus. osiead of an airplane propeller isan eggheater: a ver~ ‘ical shaft with ovo thin blades bent into bow shapes so that chey canbe atached at the top andthe bottom. The big advantage ofthe Darrieus design is that it responds ‘equally well to wind fiom any direction, with no need to pivot when the wind sift [Aso the genetstor can be mounted at ground level, which makes it more convenient {or maintenance and allows a lighter srocrure Nevertheless the design seems to have gone out of fashion. In the northern California wind far, the few Darieus ‘machines sil running were looking prety tired and careworn when [lst saw dhe ‘A large wind fam, with hundreds of turbines, makes a poweril visual impression From 2 pret dance, ey look like cheerful daisies or sunflowers planted in neat LONG BEFORE THE WIND FARM, THE FARM WINDMILL The mulbladed, pinwheulthe farm windmill wot an American inventon inthe middle oh the ninetoenthconkury tho! become an ican of American cual fe, By he 1890s the winder ‘were 0 sondord em in he Secs catologu, cd tavelng salesmen peddled dozens of brands to formers troughs the Midwest od Southwes. An etinatad 100,000 of tern are sillot work inthe United Stats, moxfy pune Ing water on ranches in he western sates, aggregete hey may pt oul 250 megawatts “he mos! fous brand of frm windmil s ‘he Aermotr, designed by Thoros O. Perry. {At th pak of preducion in the 1890s some 20,000 per year wer being mode. the com ey itl in boxing, In Sa Angelo, Texas, ‘here thay manufaire abou! $00 windils cnovaly, ‘Mos! form windmis 8 rected direcly ‘ore @ well sho A crank orm connected fo tho fan whee! operates 0 piston down inthe ‘vel uba. Soma ater models have gearing to ‘educe the speed ofthe pump end increase ‘he farce evelabe, The windmils come in many sizes, but he mest common ones have & toto eight ein dlametar ond can pur ve 410 gallons par minus, As with ote eves of wind machines, the big challenge in building @ far windmill rcking sure It doesn’ fo pieces when the wind blows to skongly. Over the yeors, middle ofthe winter. A numberof ricks ware leugns wore equipped wih springlocded red flung hinged towers tht fld in haf vanes or contig weights or oer contop- fo bring tho works down fo ground lve), but Fons to furl he blades or ten the fan wheel caves there ave ot of squeaky old poral the wind when he spaed reaches windmill out hore, ongerouslvels. Ancthorenginasting sue it The FitbanksMorse New Eclipse modal pi the need 1 grease the bearings of « windmill sed below was sl tifing cheery, despite ‘mounted alop ¢ ower 20 or 30 fet al « ptppering of bul holes, won| photo. [Nobody ever wanted o climb up hare in the graphed in nother Calon in 1999.And wh smong them on an afternoon with a fiesh breeze, there is something rows. As you get closer, their gargantuan scale becomes apps nally ro almost comical about their appearance: th y fiends on tae next hill, or else they are turning carswheels along the ridgelines like overexcited children The sounds of the turbines are equal- ly exeraordinary: che swish of the blades slicing through the aig, the whir of the gear box, the buun of the generator, an occasiomal groaning oz booming as turbines yaw with che shiféing wind, Some wind machines produce a deep-bass whomp swhomp as the blades pass through the wind shadow of the support pylon. And T've coven heard 2 few squeaky wheels As it hap, ther development of wind energy: people don't want t2 see wind turbines om the skyline, or hear them. There’ an irony inthis. Modern wind power began as a"clean” m to be waving their arms fantical- ing to un whomp- ns, these very sights and sounds have become an impediment to fare alternative co nuclear and fossil-fuel plants, promoted by envizonmental activists and resisted by utility companies thie were skeptical of the economics. Today Sition to wind power comes from environmental groups that see the turbines as despoiling the landscape. There is also concern about che turbines a6 a hazard 10 birds, which sometimes wander into the blades at night ot in fog. Meanwhile, che utlities have begun to warm up co wind energy, 3s costs have come down ‘Wind his proved itelf as a supplement to conventional power sources. Bet if we ‘want to rely on it for a large fraction of the base load, there's a problem you tell the wind when to blow: In the argot of the power engineer, wind i not ad patchable” energy source. This puts a limit on wind’ total contribution eo the ener- gy budget, but we are sil far from reaching that limit, = Dorin wid machines eo ifn! proach o wind eergy: by ming he ror 080 alo they linia he need rs hte foal barges wind recon, Then fur Cavs bles tree photgraphed inh Aon! Ps of ocharn CallaMieerednugh lor colacor con 9 re tbe Let the Sun Shine In. The friendly sae whose neighborhood we inhabit sends plan tera deer floor omer uneton sue : s 75 billion megawatts, which is equivalent to the cca eg ene hon ten ex Earth a sceady energy flux of 175 billion megawatts, which is equivalent ¢o ¢h ee Pets output of a few hundred million nuclear power plants, Now, admittedly «third of vow becuse hey oerelacing ey, that energy is reected back into spice before it ever reaches the ground, but chere’s still plenty left over if we could only figure out how to collect it. But, as of 2000, US utility companies were gathering only about 5,000 megawatts of solar energy There are wo quite diferent cypes of slat power plant. Ina solar ectricity direcily mal system sunlight is simply a source of beat. Photovoltaic plants gener ‘Som light, with no moving parts ‘The simplest solar-thermal technology uses fat-plate collectors, which wor like greenhouses. Pipes carry Water or some other fluid through a ghiss-covered box tilted toward the sun; che pipes ame the inside surfaces of the box are painted black leand to absorb as much heat as possible and che gl cover retains the heat. Ie simp reliable, but the maximum temperature is well below che boiling point of water, soror. Most la-plate collectors you cant produce steam to surn a turbine and g are roofiop installations used for water heating and space heating ‘To reach higher traperacues, ou have to concentrate the sunlight, cllecing over 1 wide area, and focusing it on a smaller patch. In principle, lenses might be used to do the focusing, but in practice its always done with mirrors. The ideal shape for a reflective solar collector isa parabola, Because chis curve has the property chat parallel ays of sunlight seriking the mierored surfice with 3 parabolic cose section, mirrored on the upward-facing surfice so a5 to focus sunlight on a tube thae runs parallel to the trough at just che right position to receive all the concentrated light. The biggest installacion of parabolic troughs in the United States is at Kramer Junction, a cross= roads in the southern California desert near the city of Barstow. Fac ssembled from 300 curved gass panes. Altogether panes, with a total area of one square kilometer about 250 acres) 1s of each erough 8 3 ceceiver pipe homed in a glass vacuum tube to retain re all reflected to the same focal pon. One style of collector is along trong ‘ough is about 15 feet across and 150 feet Io there are 546,00) Ae the & heat, The receiver pipe is painted black for best absorption, but when the plant is ‘operating and the san is shining, che pipe glows bright white like a luosescent lamp, ‘The receiver pipes ate filled with oil, which is heated tinder pressure to-more than degrees Fahrenheit. The hot oil is pumped to a heat exchanger, where it gener- ates steam at 670 degrees the steam then runs 2 fairly conventional turbine and gosi- erator The Kramer Junction solar ary is divided into fve independent plants, exch capable of producing 40 megawatt of electricity in fll summer aun. Ie would be more ficient to run one big ane rather chan five small ones, but at de time the plant was built, eax incentives for sola: power were kimited to plants of 30 megawatts or les. ach nah llr o Kramer union has a pare bee cow uadon, wich concert he i's on ‘sk inal the face ofthe poral, The Whee pated bck, bt ws wie whan he elector is oer, O pumped rough he calc bes ga tthe lr hat nd gona oom tron neThe Solar On ond Solr Tao pri a 8 Calor, ote higher pero: by ing the ua gh ona pit ahr han le. The oe lh Cari apr woe dhl down in 999, lab program canine inSain TThe troughs at Kramer Junction are aligned on a north-south axis, and during the course of the day chey tl, solar noon, and finally turning toward the west at samtet, The tacking is done ratically with a sensor chat es to keep the focused image of the ssn centered on the receiver pipe. Standing near a tough, you can hear it adjust itself every few seconds ‘With 250 acres of glass in che middle of a dusty desert, washing the mierors is a full-time job, Its done at night, with high-presure hoses. Ie takes about owo weeks to wash off the entie field of collectors; then the washing starts over agai, Even with 3 large parabolic ough, the temperatures are not as high 2s power- plant engineers would like to see for maximum effciency.To reach sill higher tem- 1s the sun’ light aot on a lie of pipes but on a single point. One way to do this is with a mirrar in the shape ofa paraboloid, like a satel- lite-dsh antenna or o radia telescope, but building a really big paraboloidal mirror that can tlt to cack the sun is an engineering challenge. A beter idea isco set out Tots of small mirrors, called heliostats, which can be adjusted individually so they all reflect sunlight onto the same point. According to Jegend, the principle was invent ed by Archimedes in 212 BC, when he hed a stoop of Greek soldiers at Syracuse use their bronze shields as heliostats to burn the ships of an invading Roman feet, Heliostas were the basis of the Solar One project at Daggett, another town neat Barstow in southern California, Some £,800 fat mievors, with a total area of 17 aces, were continually adjusted so that shey all elected dhe sun image onto a black receiver at the top of 2 300-foot ewer Water pumped through the receiver baled to produce steam at abour 900 degrees Fahrenheit, which then drove a turbine and gen- Solar One operated as a pilot project in the 1980s, Later, a new receiver was fitted to the cower and the plant was recommissioned as Solar Two. Instead of boiling water dicecdly, the solar energy was now absorbed into acing est in the morning, then directly overhead at local peratures, the trick is or atthe base of the tomPOWER PLANTS. molten sal, which could be stored fora few hours so the slant could continue gen- crating electricity even ater sunset. Sola Two was shut down in. 1999. sir plant called Solt‘Tres is under consrsetion in Cordoba, Spain Photovoltaic technology has almost nothing in common with soiae-thermal power beyond the basic fat tha both rely on sunigheas the ultimate source of ener- ay.A photovoltaic device dispenses enttely with boilers, enbines, and generator: it conver light diecly imo electricity in one sep.The uansformatin i ecomplised ‘with no moving machinery All the complexity is hidden in the miroscopic sttue- ture of the photocells, which are high-tech prodcts of the semiconductor industry ‘The photoelectric effect was fst noticed more chan 150 yeas ago, andthe first 00d explanation came from Einstein in 1905 (that’s what he won his Nobel Prize for—not for relativey theory). The key idea is that light come in packets, or partic cles called photons, each of which cartes some definite energy Ifa pluoton’ energy is great enough, it can kick an electon out of ts sable orbit inside an atom, making the electron avilable to earry an elecriccureent These forced evictions are hap- pening all ehe time; coin sitting in the sunshine is seething with liberated electrons But in most cases all the activity comes co naught because the electrons just wander around for @ while and then fll back into ehe atomic orbits they came fiom. A photovolic cell is designed eo capture the ejected eletons and put ther to use “Most photovoltaic cel ae made of silicon, and ifyou can get closeup look, you ray find them co be quite beauifl objecss, with cryal facets like frost on 4 wine dlowpare, in various shades of blue Strips or grids of metal electrodes a Iced across the ssface to collect the electie current ‘The output of photovoltaic collectors direct current (DC) rather than the alter= ating current (AC) of the national power grid. Also, che voltage produced by an individual cell i loser to ht ofa fashlight battery than that ofa power-plant gen erator Thos, connecting a panel of cells to the utility gid calls for special eleccron- ies to boost the voltage snd to conver from direct to alternating curent ‘Then thee’ the mater of cost, Even though che fal ise, photovotic power eonins substantially moe expensive than eleeiiy from coal-Gred power plans.AS result, you are most likely o see areays of photocdls in places where vslity lines Ihaven't reached—powering emergency telephones along highways, powering che Jighs on marine buoys, powering remote homesteads. And most remote ofall are che many spacecraft chat have relied on photovoltaic power. “The cost of photocell has been coming down sceadly for ewo or three decades, ad interest is finaly growing in usity-sale projects. The pioneer in this Geld i che United Seates sche Sacramento Municipal Usliry District Caloris, which oper 2tes more than eight megawats of photowoaic collectors. One big array of photocell is nexe wo a decommissioned nuclear plane, but most of the collectors are dibuted sound the tility’ teritory on residential rooftops and in paking lots Tes sometimes sid that to un the county on solar power we'd ave to pave the whole landscape with collectors. 1s not nearly that bad According to one estimate, 228 roswell, which gener lei dehy om tng ar masa a eae an he ora oc coves inl Menger Calg InGemanou, Manland A doc, blow shows he ‘grein sour fe sken mati nd he gi of ‘vl condcer Ii doen oor #9 las ce,‘he AW. Hoch ghee pow lr i. aor Cpa inte ineralVliy of oan Calera, genet dcrcy rom team and het in br {bp fom see hoon et bal he Ear sa. Pipl tht ry wel ds cn bs he oe [paund. The emaring aque sud ovo oe Seam fom water ond rove 258 ond cer imurin AY nea henry wal (are he re sure gvge rads 110 pando qr inch photovoltaic plants that could meet the electricity needs of the United States would ‘occupy @ lite Jess than 12,000 squa cone-thind of I percent of the total ‘over the whole country, just che state of Maryland. miles, That’ a lot of land, but is only about nd ates of the ion. So there'sno need to pave Wormth from the Earth. Why bother burning coal to make steam when you ca) just dell 2 hole in the ground, and lee the steam come whistling out? This is the idea behind a geo! dispenses supply and the furnace and the boiler. The trouble is it only works at afew places = the world—tare hot spots where the heat of the deep earth bubbles up umasually close to the surface, ‘The simp mal procesing to remove a few impurities, pipe it co the input port of a turbine to ith the whole fuel al power plan. Its a prea idea st geothextoal plans take steam straight from the well aa, after mini- cleczicity. In the earliest plans, the spent steam leaving the turbine was just vented to the armosphere.That’ no longer done, for two reasons, Firs, the steam car- ries some obnoxiens contaminants, chiefly hydrogen sulfide, that could rake a geo thermal plane wore polluter than a coal-fis supply of underground steam is far from inexhaustible. To Keep ic flowing, you have to recycle it, pumping wazer down recharge well co ‘one, Second, it turns out thac the rt the reservoir fom dry- ing out, Recapeuring the spent steam requires a lot of additional equipment: a con- denser, puinps and valves, and cooling towers to get rid of excess heat. The coolingsid to be the largest component of the entte plant, and theic plumes of rs ing vapor make them even moze conspiovaus. Piping steam fom the ground directly into a eubins the steam is superheated to afew hundred degrees above the boiling point It's called ry steam, since its too hot for water to condense in pipelines or holding tanks. ew geothermal sites produce enough dry steam for commercial over production. One of these area is Landerello, near Pisa in northern Tuly, where power production began almost 100 years ago. The one spot in the United Seates where dey steam comes out of the ground is che Geysers,# ndscape of hot springs and hissing famaroles tucked among the wine-growing valleys north of San Francisco. At the Geysers geothermal power plants have been running, off and on, since the 1960s, Although dry steam isa scarce resource, many aress of the wosld have enough sub- terranean heat to produce large quantities of mixed hot water and steam. But getting useful poser out ofthese lower-semperature uid calls for more elaborate machin- ery. Steam and water have to be separated, and then some of the hot water can be persuaded to vaporize by lowering the pressure in a device called a Gssher. In anoth- er (ype of plans, heat from the geothermal fluids is used to boil a more volatile liq uid such as butane or ammonia that cisculates through a enbine in a closed cycle In any geothermal area, one thing you'e sure (0 notice is 2 necwork of pipelines thie feed steam or water fiom widely scattered wells to the central power plat. The pipes are offen of lange diameter, and shey look even fatter because of a thick blan= ket of insulation. At intervals there are big inchworm-like loops co allow for expan sion and contraction as the temperature of the pipe changes, Unforcunacely, lan that works only if Geoharmal ano hgh epee lis im per energ ael oe Geyser nrorheen Calor, Ths “dy do con be id oa bine wit ne fevroatng enti ondersed and iced io Sheeonh