The recent posts about coal fired power plants got me to thinking “what do they do with the ashes and how are they removed from the plant”? I’ve found that the large plants tend to dump their ashes in holding ponds or landfills and I’m sure that the smaller plants did something similar. So, were the ashes removed via a conveyer system and transported by truck or rail? I haven’t been able to find a clear answer with a web search. Any details would be appreciated.
Joe
Joe,The ashes called (fly ash) is haul away in covered hoppers .Fly ash is use for various commercial uses.
Thanks for the information Brakie. Now I’ve got an excuse to buy some more covered hoppers!
Joe
At the coal fired plant I work we have to types of ash. Bottom ash (slag) which is black in color and is a by-product from buring the coal. It falls into a tank filled with water under the boiler, it is transported out side via a water sluice system to silos where the water is drained off. Dump trucks back under the silos where it dropped into the truck and hauled away to make sand blasting media. Our fly ash, which is carried in the air stream passing through the boiler headed to the exhaust stack. In the air stream we have a large baghouse which in nothing more than a big air filter. This ash also gets stored in a silo but is transported by a large vacuum pipe system. This is also hauled away by truck and gets used to make drywall board.
Mark
Fly ash is also used to make concrete. Its an admixture they use which allows them to reduce the amount of cement in the mix, within reason. As a modeling idea, you could have covered hoppers pick up fly ash at a power plant and deliver it to a cement or concrete plant.
Mark and Espee thanks for the additional info. It looks like I can develop a couple of options for creating more traffic from my power plant.
Joe
However, the quantity of fly ash available far exceeds the demand so land filling get most of it.
The slag from power plants and steel furnaces was also used as aggregate in concrete and asphalt. We had a problem here in Cleveland with the slag as it had too much clay in the slag and when wet caused the asphalt to pop open and pit.
Also cinders were used at one time for spreading on streets and sidewalks to control snow and ice.
Rick
Back in the seventies many small towns would use cinders on roads and highways,without salt and sand. It was not unusual to see several municipalies lined up getting loaded with cinders in the fall. mh
I don’t know what the density range is of fly ash, however, every time I have seen covered hoppers identified as carrying it, they were the cement size hoppers.
Our flyash is like powder.
That’s why it is called fly ash. It is carried through the boiler rather than dropping out in the combustion chamber. It is like very fine sand and cleaning out the ductwork during outages is one of the fun jobs.
I don’t know what they do with it now but when I was growing up the local governments used ashes to cover the streets after plowing them. It sure ruined sledding.
In my part of WV, (Tyler Co.) it has long been mixed with waste oil/sludge, in a pug mill, and the pug mill mix used as a super cheap asphalt substitute on rural roads. Nice briefly, it breaks down soon, especially over poor sub surfaces, thus the need for more… Steve