" I recall that in some places, the steam control room was separate from the electrical control room. Others had the entire unit control consolidated into one room. Different philosophy at the time of construction, I guess. "
You are correct sir. In the 70's, plants went to a single contol room design instead of a seperate switchboard/fireroom design.
Virtually every plant has removed these old panel boards and replaced them with DCS systems (distributive control system, which is basically a computer controlled system where the operator uses a mouse instead of all of the controls in the picture).
05/10/2010 5:29:33 PM PDT
· 107 of 154 Taylor
to ThisLittleLightofMine
The style of power plant we are refering to is a "Rankine cycle plant". This entails taking extremely pure water, heating it until in converts to steam (saturated steam), adding additional heat until the steam is superheated, and admitting the steam into a turbine (the steam is generally 1000 deg f and 2400 psig at this point).
The steam flows through the turbine much like air blows through a pinwheel, until nearly all of the energy is used up in the steam and the cool steam is converted back to water, where the process starts all over again.
The entire point of spinning the tubine is to turn the generator which is attached to the same shaft as the turbine.
This is obviously a gross over-simplification of an elaborate and complex process. To answer your question, Power Plant Operators operate the hundreds of pieces of equipment associated with generating electricity, 24-7.
05/10/2010 5:12:37 PM PDT
· 104 of 154 Taylor
to Donald Rumsfeld Fan
I think studying women is wonderful. Ive been doing it for almost fifty years and have found it very rewarding. Confusing at times, but rewarding. "I agree."
"Stupak will cave, just like all dems do. He probably even knows that this EO is really meaningless. But it gives him and excuse to explain why he voted for the HCR bill, and he believes it will give him enough cover."