How Things Work: A Coal (and Gas) Power Plant

Tour of the Abbott power plant at the University of Illinois, showing all of the pieces in person including: boilers ( and the burning coal in it), water walls, turbines (and the stators and rotors inside of them), generator, natural-gas-powered turbine, electrostatic precipitator, clappers, ash silo, heavy metal (mercury) recovery, scrubbers, limestone, gypsum, steam. Combined cycle is explained. The scale and magnitude of power plants become apparent. How acid rain and dry acid precipitate are formed. How much coal is used in a plant.

[@happydawg2663]

This is a great darn professor, such carisma and passion, also his ties are pretty sick lol

[@teutonicatheist7802]

But what about his scholar's cradle?

[@dontatme6236]

Charisma is spelled with an h after the c my friend Your point still stands though; he knows perfectly how to explain the things he talks about

[@brianmccafferty1470]

He get his ties from Neil degrasse tyson!

[@bryankovar2930]

I have watched many of these videos and worked at nukes, coal plants , natural gas plants , co-gens, and oil refineries. This guy truly loves what he does.

[@djohanson99]

i think this guy is so cool. How dare anybody give him a thumbs down. These are really, really educational. if i was a kid watching these i'd wanna be a nuclear engineer. This guy is cool. Leave him alone.

[@no_more_free_nicks]

A classic response, enjoy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jaK2hYurf8qHodU

[@daanski82]

Thumped down because its an coal plant and that one is bad! If it was a thorium reactor on the other hand. It get a thumbs up.

[@farouksabry]

@@daanski82 Explaining how something works doesn’t mean you are endorsing it or saying it’s perfect.

[@infini_ryu9461]

@@daanski82 He's teaching kids how things work, not endorsing it. He's also done a video on Thorium. And mentioned Uranium briefly in this vid to compare with coal.

[@TheTheRanger1]

Getting a thumbs down for the horrible explanation. This shouldn’t even be allowed on KZbin because his terms, process knowledge and explanations are beyond wrong

[@gamasb8222]

I could listen to him all day long. what a great guy.

[@TheGibby3340]

Wow...super interesting. Had no idea gypsum was a by-product in the process. Thanks. Very eye opening indeed.

[@marcosanaya9540]

I didn't even know sheet rock had that name.

[@bobs6129]

Precipitators

[@clownhands]

This man loves power plants.

[@taraswertelecki7874]

While working at a coal fired power plant in Mississippi during the summer of 2012, I had the chance to look inside one of the furnaces that was still active while the other was undergoing maintenance and upgrades. The coal is ground into a powder by milling machines at the end of conveyor belts and blown into the furnace where it burns. The walls of the furnace glowed red, and the burning coal was a tornado of orange and yellow flames, like a scene out of Dante's Inferno, and the heat was so great the sweat on my clothes evaporated. Each furnace was about 60 or 70 feet high, and the walls were steel tubes full of water and steam. This plant would get a 100 car train every other day which offloaded it on one side of an ellipse the whole train would occupy as unloading proceeded. The plant itself was a 1,000 megawatt power plant, and fed power throughout southeastern Mississippi and southwestern Alabama

[@samsawesomeminecraft]

this comment is giving me Factorio vibes...

[@bluidguy4007]

Looks like 17 people thumbed it down just because it's not renewable that's not the point of the video the point of the video is education and this guy is great at it.

[@demetriostsillas8981]

Thank you for producing these videos. Thousands of people will gain knowledge and learn important information about how our energy is made thanks to your hard work. Keep up the great work.

[@zapfanzapfan]

First: Grabs a handful Second: Asks "This is fine, right?" :-)

[@MrGigaHurtz]

Cool, I always knew in theory how a coal plant works, but was always curious about how they practically do it. This was super informative

[@flyingnut3752]

Thank you for explaining where our electricity comes from. You sir, are a great teacher!

[@rogeronslow1498]

That was an excellent presentation. I bet every student will remember the trip to the power plant for the rest of their lives.

[@steelwarrior105]

Its like the first time i went to vogtle, illl never forget it.

[@Ryan-lk4pu]

Imagine being lucky enough to have this guy as your professor

[@Renagade5150]

Thank you once again professor for explaining all of this and the tour of two working power plants was interesting.

[@Lazris59]

I've been watching a lot of your videos recently. After watching the super computer tour and now this one, I just want to say thanks for uploading these! Wish I was there in person. It's one thing to see your diagrams of buildings and how they work it's another to see the actual application in the real world and see the processes to make electricity and deal with the byproducts.

[@dennisdavis6868]

He did an excellent job explaining the process. Good work!

[@Blackreaper777]

I wish I had trips like this and this professor. I would have learned so much more I think. In fact, I probably learned more watching these videos than I ever did in physics classes, which were boring as hell.

[@Lustvig]

Thank you so much for this video. I am trying to educate myself as I am doing a contract job as a historical writer for a power company and need to know the very basics all the way through. Your explanation and tour was amazingly clear and helpful. thanks again.

[@bigr71225]

Been watching your videos about nuclear and love the postive and informational videos of our power plants weather it be nuclear or fossil powered. I’m a millwright that works for Siemens generation services and get to work on some of the largest steam and gas powered turbine generators in the world. A lot of people don’t understand how important nuclear and fossil fuels are to produce power for our grid. Yes clean renewable energy should be pushed forward everyday but the people who think we need to shut all of the fossil and nuclear power plants down and should be only using hydro,wind and or solar power is sadly mistaken on what could happen to our grid without our big fossil and nuclear plants.

[@pjs8269]

This guy is an incredible teacher! Makes the information easy to absorb and useful. Subbed and binge watching

[@hv1461]

You are a fantastic teacher. This knowledge should be widely disseminated and known so that people will understand the incredible accomplishments that have been achieved to create this modern world we live in.

[@blainevans7047]

Bill delete the 15 largest diesel ships produce 50% of the daily tonnage of CO2....perspective is an odd thing.

[@kabloosh699]

Well he has put his content on youtube. This guy is making this world better with the knowledge he is sharing.

[@dfgriggs]

@Bill delete this has been studied multiple times. You might want to look one of them up. Even in coal-heavy areas of the United States, traveling a thousand miles in an electric car results in less pollution. And the grid is getting cleaner all the time.

[@eirekp]

A great video, I hope your students appreciate how lucky they are!

[@andrewlavey6992]

Thanks, Prof. for the explanation of the power station. Nice to know how the impurities are handled.

[@bobdexter1029]

By far this is my favorite channel and watch the videos All the time. That being said, I visit and work in power plants on a regular basis and it is, or was, very very rare to see ash and gypsum taken back to the mine site. Until recently ash was or is pumped to open ash ponds in a water slurry as there is no way to load 50 train cars back up with all that byproduct. Only recently has the larger plants started trucking the ash away and I think they have been selling the gypsum. The larger plants also have activated carbon and or anhydrous ammonia scrubbers to clean the air as well as PA and gas recirc fans to lower NOx emissions. Great video but I think a video at a newer plant, say Prarie State Generation, would give everyone a better idea of what a large power plant is all about. Keep the videos coming Dave. 👍🏻

[@randyhavener1851]

David, I really appreciate these presentations!

[@emaaddar5017]

This is awesome, especially because it is on campus. Also great video.

[@samuelpope7798]

As usual, great job! Power generation and the science and technology underpinning it have become perhaps the most critical issue of our time. So much change is on the horizon. I think it is really important , even as a lay person, to learn some of the basic concepts and principles involved. How else will we be able to make rational choices at the ballot? Keep up the good work Illinois EnergyProf!

[@MitzvosGolem1]

Excellent premier Professor!! Awesome

[@damianrac1042]

Great video. Greatings from Poland

[@robertm.9515]

woah I didn't realize they produce natural gas that way, I thought they just burned it and heated water. That jet engine part is pretty cool and efficient.

[@JAMESWUERTELE]

Robert M. Most of your new power plants in the last 15 years are gas turbines/combined cycle units with steam turbines. They have aero derivative units (cf6-80, for example) and frame units which are very much like a steam turbine. The plant I operate we have simple cycle units that are 46 percent efficient (LMS100).

[@bradhaines3142]

@@JAMESWUERTELE i worked on one of those in California! tiny little thing. makes a suprisingly large amount of power for its size though.

[@craighalpin1917]

Look up a channel called AgentJayZ If you want to know more about gas turbines and how they work. That guy goes into some interesting details on the subject.

[@loudshadow7947]

@@craighalpin1917 I'll check it out

[@loudshadow7947]

I agree! While my professor is amazing, I'd love to have this guy. He explains so well, thorough, and without bias.

[@fergus247]

I love this channel. Great for learning

[@hosmerhomeboy]

Much of that fly ash is added to concrete as a filler that has tons of beneficial properties.

[@onetwothree4148]

Actually, it's an inferior filler compared to traditional concrete mixes. Older concrete is often much higher quality than modern concrete.

[@hosmerhomeboy]

@@onetwothree4148 yes and no. It's been proven time and again to reduce shrinkage issues, be more resilient against frost, and it is far, far more workable. That is in comparison with a modern mix without it. As far as older concrete goes, you are right, it is often better, but that's usually due to better aggregate sizing, (possessing a gradient of agg sizes as opposed to 1 diameter only) design that was not dependent on structural steel, and a massively lower labor cost and higher material cost. - It pays to make guys do things much better when the material is far more valuable than their time, now it is the other way around. I used to be dead set against fly ash, preferring mixes with more powder instead, and the local plant agreed with me. Having now gotten more experience and having seen the research done by ACI on the subject, the verdict is clear- concrete with a pozzolan is superior to concrete without a pozzolan. And the cheapest pozzolan is fly ash. Fun fact- the romans used to mix a reddish clay into their concrete that would behave similar to a pozzolan, while also rendering it far less permeable than regular concrete- its how they built water retaining structures so well. They also cured them for 1-2 years to avoid shrinkage cracks. It left their concrete a light pinkish red, at least until the clay weathered out of the pores.

[@hosmerhomeboy]

@@onetwothree4148 Also, since the fly ash replaces some of the powder, the concrete is technically weaker, you do have that right. It has a lower MPA. But MPA is not the only measure of a concrete's value. The modulus of elasticity (resilience to flexing basically) is higher in mixes where fly ash is used. It is also less likely to have shrinkage cracks, as the ash in the mix doesn't shrink, reducing the total shrinkage of the structure. Sorry bout the obscenely long reply, but there really is a lot to it.

[@onetwothree4148]

@@hosmerhomeboy you're right, the main difference between modern concrete and older concrete is not fly ash, it's water content. I thought about that right after I posted. Modern commercial almost always has way too much water, and that is a far larger culprit. Coal fly ash is an inferior pozzolan (and the Romans used volcanic ash, not clay, as a pozzolan (that's where the word 'pozzolan' comes from). The secret of how to make concrete was lost for about a thousand years, because the Roman empire was broken up and the tradesmen who kept the secret no longer had access to volcanic ash. Concrete was rediscovered in the 19th century when special clay containing similar chemicals was discovered to create Portland cement. Realistically the biggest reason the Roman concrete buildings still stand is what you said, perfect mixing technique, and most importantly the Roman concrete was installed damp and packed into place, not poured, and therefore cured much slower.

[@hosmerhomeboy]

@@onetwothree4148 I stand corrected on the pozzolan. As far as the fly ash being inferior goes, you may be correct, it's just ubiquitous due to being so cheap. I also think that when it comes to roman concrete we have some level of survivor bias. Most of the bad stuff is gone. That being said, we (despite our much deeper understanding of chemistry and greater access to energy) mostly build inferior things designed for a relatively short service life.

[@kamakaziozzie3038]

The pink hardhat he wore was precious to the video! I haven't been able to find one yet

[@Blozox]

In Finland Choal Ash is also mixed into concrete and cement for added strenght.

[@islandaerial3414]

Great instructional video.

[@nickxyzt]

I look at the faces of the students, and I don't see any kind of passion. Unfortunatelly, I think that they don't realize what unique and extraordinary professor they have.

[@rosshaskell7967]

Fly ash is a valuable commodity in the production of higher quality and lighter concretes.

[@Ice_Karma]

Dude in the red and white horizontal striped shirt looks _sooooo_ done with this guy. ;3

[@craigmoscarell2027]

What do they do with the steam in the summer in order to condense?

[@grifftech]

Live your videos so much

[@myownidenity4955]

Looks like a scale model of the powerplants I've worked at. Lol 10-14 trucks. That lasts minutes in most powerplant

[@bradhaines3142]

the big ones literally bring in train loads

[@myownidenity4955]

@@bradhaines3142 trains, barges and trucks lol. I live near a few coal fired plants. Worked I. Most of them. W.H. Sammis for example is burning 60 ton an hour.

[@spellbound8253]

Ah, so the gravel pits ARE valuable! The mann brothers aren’t entirely insane after all

[@sandrabalakrishnan7471]

Very informative 🎉

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

Funny bit is now that all the electrical plants and diesel fuel have had the sulfur removed farmers are having to purchase higher sulfur content fertilizers. Even that gypsum would make a good soil additive depending on specific metals content.(Though not likely economic to remove any excess toxic metals)

[@funchable212]

This dudes the man

[@grigorigahan]

The scale of coal power didn't hit me till I got trapped red light waiting for a train to pass. As it happened I was at a bit of a decline just high enough to see the top of the railcars. This train was easily a mile long, 100 or more cars and every single one of them was filled to the top with coal.

[@WeatherManToBe]

And that is less than a week for a full sized plant

[@clifforddicarlo9178]

How often do you have to clean the boiler's water-carrying tubes? Where do you dump the ash?

[@jacklynch3333]

Okay, wtf w the thumbs down?! This is amazing!

[@docvolt5214]

tree huggers or liberals who don't want their bubble of lies about coal and foxil fuels bursted?

[@jacklynch3333]

Volt's Repairs : that’s a good guess. This guy is just about facts. It’s refreshing. Each video is the ups/downs of energy. I learn so much from him. It’s a bummer ppl get upset over laid back facts

[@jasonwilde197]

I'm with the guy in the background raising an eyebrow for the umpteenth time this guy has given this spiel.

[@Dem1g0ds]

Pretty Awesome tour, thank you!

[@cheezit2183]

Man, I wish this guy was my teacher

[@3dmotormaker]

Very good.

[@pranavvaidya3634]

Ty for sharing

[@noahhastings6145]

People that pronounce Turbine as Tur-Bine and Tur-Bean all agree: No power plant has ever been powered by a Turban.

[@paulanderson79]

Nor a turBIN as we have here :)

[@sbuhnt]

Chemical Engineer this one. The language says it all

[@isee7668]

The safety glasses protect against that guy's tie.

[@slowpokejpg]

Yes, and you call them steamed hams, despite the fact they're obviously grilled.

[@lagunacorona]

I really want to see a video explanation on algae mobile device canister that uses cyanobacteria bacteria to convert CO2 to O2.

[@Gunnut10mm]

Fly ash is used as a concrete additive I don't know if it's a place to use all of it from coal fired power plants but they can make a dent in it.

[@deth3021]

What about the heavy metal separation?

[@johndowe7003]

that first guys hard hat is back wards

[@hosmerhomeboy]

lot of guys reverse them (welders mostly) because the visor gets in the way.

[@johndowe7003]

@@hosmerhomeboy you'd get laughed off the jobsite in my area if you had your hardhat backwards lol

[@hosmerhomeboy]

@@johndowe7003 I like your jobsite

[@johndowe7003]

@@hosmerhomeboy it has its moments lol

[@CathodeULT]

Fly ash is used in concrete and drywall.

[@0xEmmy]

19:07 why don't they entrain the stuff in concrete like they do with nuclear waste?

[@myownidenity4955]

Do they use Economizers?

[@MeaHeaR]

"This is a Pénis on thé Elektric Gridd" ÕMĞ 😁😁😂😂😃😂😁😁😀😀😅😅😆😨👍👍👍👍🍒

[@drjonathancbennett]

After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the cleanup sent truck loads of drywall (the major component of which is gypsum) to landfills and major hydrogen sulfide problems have surfaced as a result.

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

Through what chemical process? Gypsum ocures naturally in large quantities and I've never heard of a storage pile creating hydrogen sulfide.

[@stebarg]

7:55 it says “740 ELV”. Is this actually the height of the floor 740 foot above ground? That would be pretty high for a boiler house.

[@Jemalacane0]

Could it be height above sea level?

[@bradhaines3142]

they're like 8 stories high on the commercial turbines. coal plants they're a bit bigger i thing, but not that big. maybe ELV means something else

[@jenpsakiscousin4589]

They use fly ash in concrete. It makes concrete suck to finish but it used up a lot of the ash

[@wjnahuy]

Good to know.

[@humbleevidenceaccepter7712]

Those pink hard hats though.

[@RichardEricThompson]

Does the slurry also absorb CO2? Making calcium carbonate?

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

It starts as calcium carbonate.

[@RichardEricThompson]

@@TheDuckofDoom. shouldn't that be calcium hydroxide?

[@stephenhope7319]

Coal fired plants are going away in most parts of the world. Here in the US too. Way too dirty. I toured one in the late 70's in England as a first year welding apprentice.They built the plant next to a coal mine and conveyored the coal to the pulverizers to almost powder the coal for maximum burn. Large plant, powered Manchester. Was called Agecroft, the colliery and the power plant. All gone now.

[@loudshadow7947]

Coal and gas power plants are the majority of my states power generation. Only one nuclear power plant is present.

[@leegriep75]

Great video, uptight commentators.

[@liftnd844]

I would like to see a tour of a nuclear power plant if possible

[@bradhaines3142]

the level of paperwork for that would be terrifying

[@thattimestampguy]

0:54 Electrical Output = 85 MW Thermal Output = 280 ME

[@paulengel4358]

He’s clearly never had to mess with ESPs 😂

[@chinmaysinghal8997]

What about the CO2 though?

[@BlackKnight-th8ml]

What is megawatt

[@johnkonstantopoulos8192]

1000000 watt

[@mc00094]

4:43 i guess Bill Gates needed some extra change and he moonlights as a combined heat generation power plant supervisor 😄

[@IainInLondon]

I was going to type the same thing - just scrolled down to see if anyone else had mentioned it!

[@no_more_free_nicks]

He loves his coal.

[@blainevans7047]

Andrzej everyone should, it’s amazing stuff...there so much use. It’s good the activists have pushed so hard against the old practices. It forces ppl to think hard about doing something better for everyone

[@lincslegend6936]

The coal station i work at is shutting very soon. Sad times.

[@charlesfkonkle6179]

#2 Item In my quest to assist the professor to be more accurate and educational with his wording starts at 1:15. The professor corrects his errors, with errors and emissions in his attempt. Water doesn’t turn into steam in the furnace pipes as the correction infers. Circulation ratio in a furnace is a complicated thing and can’t be dismissed by simply stating there is water in these tubes that turns to steam when typically a ratio of 5 to 1 (water to steam) is present in the furnace risers for a key fundamental reason. In this case an individual water molecule passes through the furnace 5 times before it absorbs the latent heat to be liberated in the steam drum. A more accurate reword for the professor “ Relatively cold water is supplied to the furnace by the downcomer tubes strategically placed to not pick up combustion heat. The heat provided by the combustion process in the furnace is transferred to the riser tubes thus creating the natural circulation by gravity necessary for the process. The risers tubes are typically designed to limit steam generation to approx a 5% steam to water ratio. Limiting the steam to 5% in the furnace riser tubes is required to protect these tubes from overheating and subsequent metal creep failure”

[@Arturo-lapaz]

15:40 (Sulfur trioxide 14:03) removal Should be SO3 + CaCO3 = > CO2 + CaSO4

[@johnviera3884]

I’m finally old enough to like school

[@drcovell]

Looks like 11 anti-intellectuals disliked this video.

[@lindaphone8070]

"gypsen" or gypsum?

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

Effect of earplugs for those not accustomed can be change in pronounciation.

[@martingoodman3300]

The speaker at the 21 minute mark or so in this video that "Coal is half hydrogen". Wrong. Coal (brown and black varieties) is around 5% hydrogen. Indeed, it's the fact that coal has little hydrogen and is predominantly pure carbon fuel that makes it such a uniquely "dirty" fuel from point of view of greenhouse gas emissions. So this is a central, critical, key property of coal the speaker is either lying about, or profoundly ignorant of. To his credit, the speaker does at the 19:30 mark make a critically important point in alluding to the relative energy densities of coal vs uranium (nuclear power fuel). I was very unimpressed!

[@no_more_free_nicks]

I thought that coal power plants to would grind the coal into a powder, and then burn the powder?

[@stevewebb7318]

They do and also separate the the rock from the coal

[@blainevans7047]

Andrzej also their are different types of furnaces and heats

[@stebarg]

8:04 nope. Nowadays the best Combined Cycle Power Plants have efficiencies above 63 percent. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant?wprov=sfti1 The newest high-performance coal-fired power plants operate with an efficiency slightly above 45 percent.

[@bluidguy4007]

I can't believe I just sat there for more than 5 Seconds looking in Illinois thinking it said ilononis and almost guest oh okay I guess that's a company name

[@metaparcel]

Those kids thought this was boring by the way they were acting. Great teacher though.

[@maxmeier3550]

There is a difference between lime and limestone. This guy gets over his skis a lot

[@blainevans7047]

Max Meier calm down we all know what he’s saying

[@onetwothree4148]

The claim that fly ash is returned to mines is false. Power plants are not required to tell the public what they do with fly ash. Concrete and drywall manufactures however are required to disclose what goes into their products, and both drywall and concrete commonly contain fly ash.

[@danielwerner86]

"Turbins"?

[@davidlanham99]

They faked me out, I thought it was Gerald V. Casale in the video.

[@basedgodstrugglin]

Him saying “turban” instead of “turbine” kinda hurts lol

[@roblangada4516]

That's the proper official pronunciation in US English.

[@Mackedo5]

Love the video. But the students often look bored or uninterested. Such a shame.

[@ChrisSmith-ux2xj]

I have taught college for 35+ years. I can tell you that most students look like this and very few display smiles and excitement. They are not bored or disinterested; they are just tired and overwhelmed with homework and exams.

[@smittenthekitteninmittens2679]

i have said this before but the word is TUR BINE not turban lol....apologies Sir but this bothers me a lot more than it should :D

[@fresatx]

If that jacket could talk, youd never look at him the same way again. #jacketpimp #thisringcomesoff