A thermal power station is a power plant in which the prime mover is steam driven. Water is heated, turns into steam and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical generator. After it passes through the turbine, the steam is condensed in a condenser and recycled to where it was heated; this is known as a Rankine cycle. The greatest variation in the design of thermal power stations is due to the different fossil fuel resources generally used to heat the water. Some prefer to use the term energy center because such facilities convert forms of heat energy into electrical energy. Certain thermal power plants also are designed to produce heat energy for industrial purposes of district heating, or desalination of water, in addition to generating electrical power. Globally, fossil fueled thermal power plants produce a large part of man-made CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, and efforts to reduce these are many, varied and widespread.
Read more about Thermal Power Station: Introductory Overview, History, Efficiency, Electricity Cost, Typical Coal Thermal Power Station, Boiler and Steam Cycle, Steam Turbine Generator, Stack Gas Path and Cleanup, Transport of Coal Fuel To Site and To Storage, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words power and/or station:
“The reduction of nuclear arsenals and the removal of the threat of worldwide nuclear destruction is a measure, in my judgment, of the power and strength of a great nation.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“[T]here is no situation so deplorable ... as that of a gentlewoman in real poverty.... Birth, family, and education become misfortunes when we cannot attain some means of supporting ourselves in the station they throw us into. Our friends and former acquaintances look on it as a disgrace to own us.... If we were to attempt getting our living by any trade, people in that station would think we were endeavoring to take their bread out of their mouths.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)