/fdata%2F4543073%2Favatar-blog-1240322749-tmpphpPAD7g1.jpg){kind=avatar}
Well, yes, it does, but yesterday I learnt much more from the French electricity company EDF during their Open Days at the various electricity producing sites in France.
I ventured to the Parisian suburbs on the RER C and got off at Les Ardoines, some 5 kms from Central Paris but a world apart; in the street walking to the power station in Vitry sur Seine I only crossed black men speaking a language I did not recognise. I don't know where they were going, but they were all going in the same direction, though it was not where I was going. Perhaps they had bad memories from their last physics exam in school like me where I had to deal with transformers and got absolutely every calulation wrong (and was saved by the teacher who had taken a personal liking to me, though I was a disaster in both his classes - math and physics). Considering my ambivalent relationship to physics you should not expect this article to give a logical explanation to how electricity is produced.....
At the power plant in Vitry-sur-Seine (link) they use oil to heat the coal imported from Russia and Colombia. Water from the nearby river Seine is heated by the coal and produces steam which is sent through turbines which then produces the electricity. The smoke from the coal is filtered to take away 99% of the ashes before being sent out through the tall chimneys, and the water is sent through a condenser before being returned to be heated by the coal. Easy, right?
Yesterday we were a small group of people being guided through the production of electricity, and my head was spinning with information about things I saw and heard. The oil is delivered by truck whereas the coal comes in on barges. The stock of coal is about 100 mts, and the annual consumption is about the triple. The plant produces 4% of the electricity consumption in Ile-de-France, but it only works for about 6-8 months a year and only from Monday to Friday (how convenient!). It is used as a means of quickly increasing the electricity production when the consumption increases in the cold months like last February. Whereas nuclear power plants works for months and take a long time to start up, the plant at Vitry-sur-Seine can start up with a few hours pre-notice.
Since it was Saturday, the plant was unmanned except in the control room, so we walked around the big hall and saw the water access, the mills that grind the coal into dust, the ovens that burn the coal and the control room. 150 people work on the site, which was surprisingly proper. There were small piles of discarded coal below the grinders as an indication of coal actually being used, there was a minor noise which still allowed us to talk, and dripping water below the pumps bringing in water from the Seine showed that maintenance must constantly take place. I am sure that on working days, it must be hot and noisy.
I saw the blades in an open turbine which was under repair, I touched the coal, I looked at pipes and control panels, and I could see a kind of beauty in this industrial world. I am glad not to work in such a place, but everybody should be given a chance to see what is behind something that we use everyday. With my gifts (a pen marked EDF and a small pill box with mini-smarties) I returned to the urban train, going against the stream of black men in colourful dresses and speaking words sounding like "ouhlou".