Talk:Methil power station

I seem to recall concerns raised about carcinogens in the exhaust after it was going to be burning 'rubbish' - but can't find a cite. --Speedevil (talk) 15:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The citation for the birds and contamination issue was immediately above the it - the fife regional plan - IIRC. But I've got a migrane, so not checking it now.

--Speedevil (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Methil Power Station
Quote - Built on the site of a golf course, it was designed to utilise low-grade coal slurry supplied from the washeries of the nearby Fife coalfield.

This is incorrect it was not built on a golf course - most of the power station, but in particular the railway headshunt and cooling water pumphouse were built on land reclaimed from the sea adjacent to the Methil Dock complex. It was was built in this location to burn the residue of washed coal from the adjacent Wellesley Colliery/washing plant complex. The washing plant was built here to serve most of the Fife coalfield output destined for export out of the Methil docks, the main output being from the Wemyss estate collieries.

It was designed to burn high grade coal slurry and required a minimum calorific value. The boilers were not base fired and used continuous firing dry powdered fuel burners. Each slurry burner was supplemented by an oil fuel burner at the burner tip which were also used in the initial lighting of the burners. Pit bing waste was never used as it was too poor quality and required excessive oil firing supplement.

Towards the end of its operation attempts were made to burn dry compressed sewage cake and sawdust but the poor calorific value required excessive oil supplement.

There were no unloading facilities and no elevated railway sidings. Slurry was delivered by rail and the boiler ash was removed by lorry for use in the building industry.

Unloading the rail wagons and loading the lorries was time and labour intensive and was achieved by two gantry mounted overhead grabbing cranes and the skill of cleaning out rectangular wagons with a grabbing bucket was an art in itself.

Few of Scotlands Power stations if any had cooling towers and most were built on the coast to utilise seawater as the primary coolant 92.18.90.212 (talk) 20:41, 7 December 2023 (UTC)