106 South Elm Street, Newkirk, Oklahoma 74647
Many people seem to think that steam power is completely out of
date but this is not true by any means. The facts are that over
eighty percent of the public electric power used in the United
States is generated by steam turbines, about fifteen percent by
water power, and the rest by diesel or gas burning internal
The boilers (steam generators) that produce the steam for the
turbines are fired by coal, natural gas, or fuel oil. The
‘atomic’ power plants use steam turbines that are like the
others but the boilers are fired by nuclear heat. The Oklahoma Gas
& Electric Company is now preparing to build a modern electric
generating plant in north central Oklahoma. The equipment they have
ordered consists of the following:
Two steam generators (boilers) and two steam turbine-electrical
generators which are scheduled for delivery in March and September
of 1977.
The steam generators will be supplied by Combustion Engineering,
Inc., and will cost approximately $16 million each. They will
produce 3.8 million pounds of steam per hour at a pressure of two
thousand and six hundred lbs. per sq. inch. The steam temperature
will be 1005 degrees (Fahrenheit).
The turbines and electric generators (alternators) came from
General Electric Company. They will produce 515,000 kilowatts for
each unit at 3,600 revolutions per minute. Their estimated cost is
$13 million for each unit. The total capacity of this plant will be
1,030,000 kilowatts, which is equal to 1,375,000 horse-power.
These boilers will burn coal that is to be brought from Wyoming.
There is plenty of coal in Oklahoma but the ecologists say that it
smells bad.
Incidently, Oklahoma Gas & Electric is an investor owned
company that pays several million dollars taxes every year and is
doing a good job supplying electric power for a large part of the
state. They already have several big power plants, but none as
large as this new one will be.
In describing these big steam plants I am not trying to make the
old steam engine men ashamed of their love affair with the steam
traction engine. Quite the other way around. My brother and I have
an old steam engine that has been in the family over fifty years
that we keep in better shape that it was when we were trying to
make a living with it. We will have it fired up at the Ozark Steam
Engine Association Show this fall. Come and see us.