Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times.
Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content and few impurities, made by heating coal or oil in the absence of air—a destructive distillation process. It is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ore smelting, but also as a fuel in stoves and forges when air pollution is a concern.
Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the highest ranking of coals.
A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the stack, or chimney effect. The space inside a chimney is called the flue. Chimneys are adjacent to large industrial refineries, fossil fuel combustion facilities or part of buildings, steam locomotives and ships.
A hypocaust is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm the upper floors as well. The word derives from the Ancient Greek hypo meaning "under" and caust-, meaning "burnt". The earliest reference to such a system suggests that the temple of Ephesus in 350 BC was heated in this manner, although Vitruvius attributes its invention to Sergius Orata in c. 80 BC. Its invention improved the hygiene and living conditions of citizens, and was a forerunner of modern central heating.
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous fuels produced for sale to consumers and municipalities.
A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so their tenders are necessary to keep them running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board the locomotive itself are called tank locomotives or tank engines.
Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum. Such oils include distillates and residues. Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), furnace oil (FO), gas oil (gasoil), heating oils, diesel fuel, and others.
A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces.
India is the third largest producer of electricity in the world. During the fiscal year (FY) 2022–23, the total electricity generation in the country was 1,844 TWh, of which 1,618 TWh was generated by utilities.
A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, which then operates an electrical generator. The prime mover may be a steam turbine, a gas turbine or, in small plants, a reciprocating gas engine. All plants use the energy extracted from the expansion of a hot gas, either steam or combustion gases. Although different energy conversion methods exist, all thermal power station conversion methods have their efficiency limited by the Carnot efficiency and therefore produce waste heat.
A fireman, stoker or watertender is a person whose occupation it is to tend the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the boiler's firebox. On steam locomotives the title fireman is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually stoker. The German word Heizer is equivalent and in Dutch the word stoker is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as watertenders.
Pellet fuels are a type of solid fuel made from compressed organic material. Pellets can be made from any one of five general categories of biomass: industrial waste and co-products, food waste, agricultural residues, energy crops, and untreated lumber. Wood pellets are the most common type of pellet fuel and are generally made from compacted sawdust and related industrial wastes from the milling of lumber, manufacture of wood products and furniture, and construction. Other industrial waste sources include empty fruit bunches, palm kernel shells, coconut shells, and tree tops and branches discarded during logging operations. So-called "black pellets" are made of biomass, refined to resemble hard coal and were developed to be used in existing coal-fired power plants. Pellets are categorized by their heating value, moisture and ash content, and dimensions. They can be used as fuels for power generation, commercial or residential heating, and cooking.
A heating plant, also called a physical plant, or steam plant, generates thermal energy in the form of steam for use in district heating applications. Unlike combined heat and power installations which produce thermal energy as a by-product of electricity generation, heating plants are dedicated to generating heat for use in various processes.
A Bahnbetriebswerk is a German railway depot where the maintenance of locomotives and other rolling stock is carried out. It is roughly equivalent to a locomotive shed, running shed or motive power depot. These were of great importance during the steam locomotive era to ensure the smooth running of locomotive-hauled services. Bahnbetriebswerke had a large number of facilities in order to be able to carry out their various maintenance tasks. As a result, they needed a lot of staff and were often the largest employers in the area.
A "Scotch" marine boiler is a design of steam boiler best known for its use on ships.
A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but has since also been applied to other sources of heat energy, such as nuclear energy.
Visakhapatnam Steel Plant is the integrated steel plants of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited in Visakhapatnam. Founded in 1982, the plant focuses on producing value-added steel, producing 5.773 million tonnes of hot metal, 5.272 million tonnes of crude steel and 5.138 million tonnes of saleable steel in the 2021-2022 financial year. According to the India Daily Times, the plant is expected to skyrocket in terms of production in the nearest future.
A thimble tube boiler is a form of steam boiler, usually provided as an auxiliary boiler or heat-recovery boiler. They are vertical in orientation and would be considered a form of water-tube boiler.
The Central Steam Heat Plant, commonly known as Steam Plant Square, or simply as the Steam Plant, is a historic building in Downtown Spokane, Washington. Originally built to provide steam heating to more than 300 buildings in Spokane's city center, the Steam Plant served that purpose until the 1980s, when it was no longer viable. In the 1990s, the Steam Plant and adjacent Seehorn-Lang Building were converted into Steam Plant Square, a commercial, retail and restaurant center. The conversion maintained many of the industrial steam plant structures such as furnaces, boilers, catwalks and pipe networks, which can still be seen and explored by visitors and patrons. The Steam Plant's pair of 225-foot-tall stacks have been a unique and iconic aspect of the city's skyline for more than a century, and are illuminated from their base at night. If the stacks were considered to be a building, they would rank as the third tallest in the city.
