Power and Water

1. Coal is brought to the power plant by trucks or in train cars.

2. The coal is stored in coal piles after it is dropped off at the plant.

3. It is then moved by dozers such as these to...

4. ...a grate where it is dropped off. It falls through the grate into.

5. ...the hopper, which leads to the conveyer system within the plant.

6. It is then moved through the plant on a conveyer belt to...

7. ...the coal scale, which weighs it in 200-pound increments of coal and sends the coal batches to the coal pulverizer.

8. The coal pulverizer then grinds the coal into powder. There are then fans in the pulverizer that blow the powder up into a boiler where it is burned.

9. A coal/air mixture comes out of the coal pulverizer and enters the burner. It is burned here to release heat.

10. Heat from the burner boils water in the feed water heater, or steam generator, and creates pressurized steam.

11. Some of the steam from the boiler is sent out to campus using send-out steam-lines. It is then used to run refrigeration units, heat buildings in the winter and provide air conditioning in the summer. Steam that is not used for these purposes is sent to...

12. ...the turbine. The highly pressurized steam spins fan blades inside.

13. The fan blades from the turbine are connected to a generator. The generator converts the energy from the spinning blades into electrical energy. The energy is then carried through wires to power MSU.

14. Steam which has been exhausted from the turbine travels to the condenser where cool water running through tubes condenses the steam into water. This water travels back to the boiler to be heated again.

15. Operators oversee this entire process from the control room. Information about how everything in the plant is running comes to this room and is displayed on the computer consoles. The operators can also control most aspects of power plant function from here.