Talk:Thermal power station

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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:
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
  1. Fossil fuels
  2. 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)