Posted on 01/12/2017 11:45:30 PM PST by greeneyes
An explosion of Unit 1 of the J.M. Stuart Station shut down the coal-fired Ohio plant and injured six people. Officials at Dayton Power and Light have said they’re still determining the cause of the explosion at the 2,318-MW plant in Aberdeen, Ohio, reported the Ledger Independent.
(Excerpt) Read more at power-eng.com ...
Obama said he was going to shut down coal plants.
I think he has a lot of time on his hands right now.
I used to drive past a huge plant like that on I–75 passing thru Dayton. Wonder if that is the same one, it was on the right heading south, and there was a steep rockface on the left a bit South. Ah, memories...of 1975.
Oops, Aberdeen is a ways farther South from Dayton. Derp.
Coal dust can be explosive, just like flour dust or sugar dust.
Aberdeen isn’t anywhere near Dayton.
I knew about sugar and flour, but never thought about coal.
So it must be terrorism.
I used toultrasonically inspect boilers at power plants and paper mills a few decades ago. Probably boiler tubes got too thin or a weld seam failed and the tubes burst letting water inside...pretty dangerous.
the plant your remembering in Dayton was razed a long time ago. The Aberdeen plant is along the Ohio river. As I remember it was built initially as a nuke plant but got too much grief and remade a coal plant.
Early engines driving the industrial revolution were powered by coal dust.
I just remember that Dayton plant was startlingly huge at first sight, at least to this then 19-year old. :)
Yes, thanks I looked at a map, but after I commented. Heh!
Black smoke from the stack would indicate to me a loss of ignition in the boiler. Then, when ignition was restored, all that unburned coal dust went KERBLOOEY! It happened at the Independence Steam Station here in Arkansas several years ago-about a $50 million fix, IIRC...
“I used to drive past a huge plant like that on I–75 passing thru Dayton.”
Probably so - 3 of those plants put out as much electrical power as all of the solar installations in the US put together. Even at that, the plant still puts out well under 1% of US demand...not nice to take a plant that size off-line and hopefully they fix it quickly so it can get back to doing its job.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that methane and coal dust were the two biggest causes of mine explosions in years past.
A non-terrorist explosion at a coal-fired plant is possible: Most likely is a coal dust explosion within (or above) the coal pulverizers that receive finely crushed coal from the feed hoppers, then blow that coal-and-air powder mix up into the burners. They are notoriously dirty, and even grain elevators can blow up if the wrong powder-air mix ratios are created.
Hydrogen surrounds and cools the generators - that can leak and be set up. Other water treatment and control chemicals are not likely to explode, but they are volatile and some are deadly themselves like ammonia.
Too little info in this story.
I tend to agree with you. I’m glad no one was killed.
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