Talk:Thermal power station

reference 4 is not appropriate to this article I believe. It links to a discussion of gas turbines and their efficiency, which are basically giant jet engines for the combustion of fossil fuels. the section in question is discussing steam turbines and the efficiency of a steam plant, which is not related to gas turbine efficiency in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.225.2 (talk) 05:40, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Other plant types
The article looks good, but there are some problems. Not all thermal power plants are fossil fueled. For example, solar thermal electric, geothermal and nuclear power plants all convert heat into electricity (mechanical first of course). Also, thermal power plants need not be steam-electric power plants. A major type is gas turbines, but Stirling engines don't use steam, either. Neither do, thermophotovoltaic plants or thermal diodes, although they are in very limited use. -- Kjkolb 16:25, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I fully agree with your comments. I missed these because it was in mind only the istallation by GE and Bhel before 1970 in India. You are welcome to make corrections to incorporate your findings. You will be a better judge. Hence the request please. --Dore chakravarty 01:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think that you have much more knowledge about power plants than I do. However, I am familiar with their classifications and the more unusual forms of power generation. There's a lot of excellent information in this article and I did not want to make any changes until I had some feedback. I'm going to give some thought to the best way to proceed. Thanks, Kjkolb 04:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I Shall think also mean time about corrections. I think I am not fit for all the praises.
 * --Dore chakravarty 05:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The first para if revised as under may satisfy the requirement;


 * Instead of the words fossil fuel if we substitute the words coal, oil and gas fuel, may satisfy the requirement of the present article. Please check. --Dore chakravarty 18:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we really need 4 articles on the same subject??
Wikipedia now has these 4 articles, all on the same subject: Do we really need all of these? In my opinion, this sort of thing reflects badly on Wikipedia. What can we do to get these four articles merged?? - mbeychok 17:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Fossil fuel power plant
 * Power station
 * Thermal power station
 * Steam-electric power plant (Note: has since been combined with thermal power station David Hollman (Talk) 07:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)) (but later separated)
 * A lot can be written about power plants, especially if writers go into the details that Dore chakravarty likes to go into. There are so many kinds and variations of power plants.  I tend to agree that some reorganizing might be in order.


 * Previously, there were three rather detailed engineering diagrams made and inserted into this article by Dore chakravarty. One showed the workings of a coal-fired boiler, and the other two showed other power plant sections.  These diagrams were at least partially drawn by hand, and some did not come out as neatly as would be ideal.  Those three diagrams were substituted by a single, rather detailed and nicely created diagram of a complete coal-fired power plant, although such a diagram did not show all details which were in the three previous diagrams.  The coal-fired boiler diagram by Dore chakravarty has been proposed for deletion, based at least in part because it was rather crudely drawn and Dore chakravarty is not able to improve them, perhaps because of limited resources.  He has asked me to rework all three as I had prevously done to his Condenser (steam turbine) diagram.  I have started work on two of these diagrams including the one proposed for deletion, but it will take me time to complete the reworking.


 * Another possibility may be to move some select engineering details to the Engineering Wikia, where Dore chakravarty has been very active and is an administrator. H Padleckas 02:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, the "single, rather detailed and nicely created diagram of a complete coal-fired power plant" that replaced the three crudely drawn diagrams originally in the article is all that is needed. In fact, it is more than adequate and very professionally done. The three crudely drawn diagrams were seemingly based on a rather old, specific plant in India (circa 1970) and attempted to show too many highly detailed and site-specific items. Again, in my opinion, the article should not be so focused on some specific plant or plants. Rather, it should attempt to present typical, generic information because there are so many different designs.


 * I really think that your excellent talents with drawings could be put to better use than trying to rehabilitate those crude drawings. As you say, perhaps they may be of use in the Engineering Wiki. But even there, I should think the diagram that is now in this article (which was obtained from Wikimedia Commons) would be a much better choice. Anyhow, I send you my best regards Henry. It is good to be in contact with you again. - mbeychok 07:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to comment that despite the fact that there are 4 articles, this one should probably not be merged with anything. I believe that the steam-electric power plant is not different at all from the thermal power plant; all thermal power plants are always steam-electric. -Guest —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.179.247 (talk) 00:21, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To say simply that "all thermal power plants are always steam-electric" is misleading. Steam-driven shipboard thermal power plants, whether conventional or nuclear, commonly use the rotational power from their steam turbines to mechanically drive the propellers to propel the ships, instead of first converting this propulsion power to electricity.  I have explained this in this article - after Steam-electric power plant had been merged into here.  The are probably a couple hundred ships with such types of steam-driven propulsion plants, these days mostly in the Navy.  H Padleckas (talk) 09:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

MS Word doc
How can I send you the the Doc that I have sent to User:Mbeychok?

--Dore chakravarty 06:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thermal power station-condenser and deaerator images
I feel for the specific article the images you have replaced appear to be primitive which probably have to be in the respective general articles. I feel my earlier images with more details go with the present article, with slight change in text, though these images require reworking for improvement. Excuse me if this hurts you. Please opine.

--Dore chakravarty 21:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Dore, I think the images which were replaced were excessively detailed and much too oriented toward certain specific plants in India, so that they simply were not appropriate for a more general audience. And if you will excuse me for saying so, they were very crudely hand-drawn sketches, virtually unreadable and unworthy of being in an encyclopedic article. I regret having to be this blunt, but you have raised this same point many times previously and I have tried to explain this to you a number of times.


 * Dore, you must learn to accept how Wikipedia works. The original author of an article does not "own" the article. Others are permitted to revise it, expand it and improve it. They are also permitted to change any drawings or diagrams or replace them with more suitable ones. From that process, an improved article will emerge. - mbeychok 22:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I need to find some online references to back it up, but my experience in power plants points to deaerators falling out of favor in large power plants (both nuclear and coal). Condensers with good deareation in the hotwell section are used instead.  This simplifies startup because the pressures of the extraction steam doesn't match the pressure of the open feed heater.  The ratio of pressure on the condensate pump and feed pump often place a tight limit on the allowed pressure in the open feed heater.  This means that line steam must be used to keep the feedwater deaerated until the receiver pressure becomes high enough.  With all closed feed heaters, the pressures on the water side and steam side are independent.  Wefoij 18:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Wefoij: If the latest large power plants use surface condensers with deareating hotwells as you say, then please feel free to add a new section describing such surface condensers and providing additional images. However, since a very great many existing power plants are using surface condensers and deaerators as currently described in those articles, please do not change the current descriptions or images. Regards, - mbeychok 21:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Question about the term thermal power
If thermal power plants depend on heat to boil water for steam which drives turbines, why aren't nuclear power plants considered thermal too? Compared to hydroelectric power which uses liquid water to spin turbines, wind or solar power plants the basic features of nuclear/thermal plants are much more similar. They both use thermal energy to heat water, one generates the energy from a chemical reaction the other from a nuclear reaction but the thermal product is the same and the water boils.

If nuclear plants are considered thermal power, why aren't they mentioned more in the article? Anynobody 07:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Nuclear energy is mentioned (and linked) in the second sentence of this article as a source of energy for power plants. There is also an existing Wikipedia article, Nuclear power devoted to nuclear power plants and I have just added a link to that article in the "See also" section of this article.


 * The original creator of this article focused it mostly on some specific, older, coal-fired power plants in India and included much too much detail. As you may have noticed earlier on this Talk page, I suggested merging some of the many existing articles about power plants of different types, but could not achieve a consensus to do so. So I have spent considerable time re-writing this article so as to "modernize" and generalize it so that it wasn't simply a description of those older coal-fired plants in India. It could still use more generalizing, a great deal more, starting with the section entitled "Generator high voltage system". - mbeychok 20:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I did notice both the early mention and prior conversation here about dispersion. Given the amount of time and effort put into describing conventional (as opposed to nuclear) power plants I thought the early nuclear mention might be part of some edit war. I completely agree, the article should be much less specific. Anynobody 00:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response. As noted above, there are now 4 Wikipedia articles devoted to non-nuclear power plants, namely Fossil fuel power plant, Power station, Steam-electric power plant and Thermal power station. In my opinion, the best of the 4 articles is the Fossil fuel power plant and I still don't understand why we need all 4 of them. - mbeychok 00:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right, there is quite a bit of overlap:
 * Power station could refer to any type of electrical generation; solar, hydro, nuclear, etc.
 * Steam-electric power plant and Thermal power station are the same thing (unless thermocouple power plants exist) so one is definitely superfluous.
 * Fossil fuel power plant is a type of thermal/steam power plant.
 * They all discuss concepts like turbines, condensers, boilers etc. which is unnecessary and repetitive. Where to start is the question I have. Anynobody 03:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * To answer your question about where to start, in my opinion the best of the 4 articles by far is the Fossil fuel power plant. I think whatever few parts of the other three articles contain useful content could be merged into the Fossil fuel power plant and the other three could then be converted into redirects leading to the Fossil fuel power plant. The problem is how to get a consensus on that. I don't want to get involved in a reverting war by unilaterally undertaking such a merger. For example, see my archived Talk page User talk:Mbeychok/Archive3 and read comments 6 and 8 therein where Wtshymanski merged Steam-electric power plant into Thermal power plant in January 2007 ... and few hours later, Kjkolb reverted that redirect. Do you have any ideas as to how to get a goodly number of people to comment which might hopefully lead to a consensus about merging the four articles? Regards, mbeychok 04:35, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that the fossil fuels page is the best of them, in everything but name. I'd suggest a more radical reorganizing using:
 * Power station (and Power plant redirect) organized like this:
 * Types:
 * Thermal
 * Fossil fuels
 * Nuclear
 * Hydro
 * Wind
 * Solar
 * The thermal type would use a lot of the information from the fossil fuels article to describe the features they share with nuclear plants (steam turbines, condensers, etc.) Anynobody 06:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry forgot to answer your second question; Once the details about how it "should be" are clear we can create a request for comment about it. Anynobody 06:06, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Anynobody's last suggesting. Might do it soon. Wongm (talk) 13:48, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the classification of power plants should be structured like this:


 * Types:
 * Thermal
 * Fossil fuels
 * Nuclear
 * Renewable Fuels
 * Solar Thermal
 * Hydro
 * Wind
 * Fuel Cells
 * Solar Photovoltaic

The solar and fuel cell technologies are such a small fraction of the total that they might rightly be excluded from the list, or simply referred to as "alternative developing technologies" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredrosse (talk • contribs) 02:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal (GRES)
I propose to merge GRES into this article.

Rationale: By its nature, it is a typical thermal power plant. Having specific name in specific country is not a reason to create separate article. It could be case if GRES is really smth else than just a thermal power station (e.g. specific technical solution). So far, this is not a case. Beagel (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, Beagel. If you will look at Category:Power stations by country, there are dozen upon dozens of power stations listed (many of them Thermal Power Stations). If GRES is merged into here, then why not all the others? And that would make a total mess of this article, would it not? Regards, mbeychok (talk) 20:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, Mbeychok. Nice to see you back. GRES in this article is not a single power station, it is used as a Russian acronym for the thermal power station. I don't have any problem with articles about a single power station (we have several having GRES in their name like Konakovskaya GRES), but in this context I don't think it is reasonable to create an article only because in some country different acronym is in use for the same thing. If this article would be about the history of thermal power stations in the Soviet Union or listing current thermal power stations in Russia, I don't have anything against this, but in this it should be renamed to have more precise title.Beagel (talk) 22:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My bad. I should have looked at GRES and I did not. I just assumed it was Ekibastuz GRES-1. Now that I have looked at GRES, I agree with you that it should be merged into this article. mbeychok (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)


 * object. The word GRES is used in names of numerous russian power plants and hence deserves a page. While it may be "typical, there is still lots of content which is not "typical", but specific to Russia and Soviet Union. (I am somewhat busy how to expand the text.) If you really want to merge something in a useful way, then I would suggest you to merge Fossil fuel power plant, which is, like, 85% overlap, with pictures and all. - 7 bubyon >t 02:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What is exactly specific in the Soviet Union and Russia, which is different from typical thermal power station? Beagel (talk) 05:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, as the subject of other article has changed, I withdrawn the merger proposal. Beagel (talk) 17:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Steam-electric power plant diagram
From a derivative the existing coal-fired power plant picture called File:PowerStation2.svg, I have made a new diagram of a generalized Steam-driven electric power plant called File:Steam-electric power plant.PNG. See it below: The same coal-fired plant image presently in this article is also in the Fossil-fuel power plant article. I am considering replacing the existing coal-fired picture in the Thermal power station article with the generalized File:Steam-electric power plant.PNG, I just made and showed above. First I'll ask if anybody has any objections. H Padleckas (talk) 06:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not keep the file format as SVG, rather than change to PNG, which is deprecated for diagrams? &mdash; BillC talk 19:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a good idea. I have not yet uploaded the software I need to make these changes to your *.svg image, File:PowerStation2.svg.  I think it will take me a while to figure out how to do all that.  I must admit that I have worked on another *.png version which is a derivative of your File:PowerStation2.svg picture.  It would simply be a replacement image for File:PowerStation2.svg or a suggested example/guide on how to clarify some items in the File:PowerStation2.svg picture.  I will try to upload it some day.  As in the above File:Steam-electric power plant.PNG picture, I will label Item 7a as "Condensate pump" and 7b as "Boiler Feedwater pump."  H Padleckas (talk) 22:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal (fossil fuel power station)
I propose merging Fossil fuel power station into this article as there is a significant overlapping. Although thermal power stations is a wider term, most of the fossil fuel power stations are thermal power stations. Beagel (talk) 19:07, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Oppose: Agree on the overlapping, and thermal power station is also a more popular search term. Rehman(+) 06:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC) Per Riick below. Rehman(+) 01:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose: The overlap should definitely be reduced, but the two articles are not about the same thing. Thermal power stations can have sources of energy other than fossil fuels (such as nuclear, maybe geothermal?) as I understand it - although most (all?) fossil fuel stations are thermal, all thermal stations are certainly not fossil. I would recommend keeping the generic parts here (that are not specific to the fuel) and moving the rest to the fossil fuel power station article. That will allow this article to serve as more of a general overview, and the more detailed fuel-specific articles can continue to develop.  As stated in Splitting, "In some cases refactoring an article into child or sister articles can allow subtopics to be discussed more fully elsewhere without dominating a general overview article" and I think this is such a case, even though we're talking about removing redundancy rather than splitting.  I think there is a risk that merging would stifle development of this very broad topic area, whereas a good refactoring will make the scope of each individual article much more clear.  David Hollman (Talk) 10:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: I read both articles and thought the fossil fuel power station article was much more informative about fossil fuel power plants.  It gave very specific information on the low % of efficiency for many fossil fuel plants, which is information that is not well publicized.  I've been verbally quoted 40% efficiency (incoming BTU at the power plant to the end user use of electricity at the end of the electric distribution wire) as a mean value, from the fossil fuel power station article - -it seems that 40% is exceedingly optimistic.  Thank you for helping to provide very useful information. 161618dot (talk) 05:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose: For two reasons. First, fossil fuel stations are not a really subset of thermal energy stations, so it's not a parent article / child article kind of situation. Thus a merge would create a structure where, for example, internal combustion power stations would have to be described here. That would make no sense, since internal combustion is not thermal power.  Second, I think the seperate fossil fuel article creates a better venue for discussing things unique to that kind of power station, such as greenhouse gases. It's harder to speak of such things here because they apply only to some thermal energy power stations.  A better strategy would be to eliminate the overlap by merging only those sections which cover the details of thermal power generation.  Of course this must include leaving a summary behind with links to more detailed description within this article. Riick (talk) 00:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I've moved the steam bits from "fossil fuel" here - I see we lost "steam electric" which would perhaps be a slightly better title for this article. I've added some mention of other fossil fuel prime movers at "fossil fuel" and I've tried to delete some of the redundancy from returning the steam description here. There's still some redundancy with a bunch of articles on boiler components, etc. which could use refactoring. I'd also like to see the history section expand. This article doesn't mention marine propulsion at all and so I've taken the passing reference out of the lead. "Fossil fuel" is still viable to talk about costs and environmental effects, but we can leave the details of the plumbing here.  --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose: (Since the discussion is still open). Most content could be moved to detail articles : fossil-fuel...,biomass..., nuclear PS leaving this with just brief summaries. Combustion issues common to biomass and fossil-fuel could move to boiler (power generation) ? This could be the article for discussion of the thermodynamics common to nuclear, biomass and fossil-fuel. - Rod57 (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Merge from Conventional coal-fired power plant
Same content, two titles. And that one is ripped from Citizendium - is it even legal to use that content here? Suggest merge of anything usable from that article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge, per nom. Seems reasonable. Reh  man  10:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Boiler construction and operation
These paragraphs need work because: (i) The water circulation is described in different places as driven by pumps and by natural convection (i.e. water in downcomers pushes steam/water mixture up water walls in furnace) (ii) A single set of values (much too high) for saturated steam temperature and pressure is quoted. (iii) Burners are stated in different places as being placed at the four corners of the furnace and on one or both of the front and back walls. (I'd do the edits myself but I'm totally fed-up with uninformed reverts. This post is it, AFAIC.) 86.3.108.41 (talk) 03:52, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Pulverized coal size
It's a small point. The section on "Transport of coal fuel to site and to storage" had a contradiction. It said the coal was crushed to "¾in (6mm)" size. I didn't know which was correct so I chose the ¾in number and used a convert template. The "Fuel processing" section of Fossil-fuel power station says 50mm. These numbers are all approximate so I suppose it doesn't matter too much. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

File:PowerStation2.svg
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:PowerStation2.svg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 22, 2014. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2014-08-22. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

thermal power plant is very good source to get energy other thing it is renewavable also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.145.124 (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Inconsistent inclusion of nuclear energy
Some sections include nuclear (which seems correct) but others seem only to consider fossil fuel. Should we move fossil-fuel detail to Fossil fuel power plant ? - Rod57 (talk) 14:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)