by Wendy Landwehr

Member, Chicago Regional Section

SWE held a joint meeting with American Concrete Institute (ACI) and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) on Thursday, November 13. This meeting included a very interesting tour of the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant (P4), located near Kenosha, WI.  This is a very modern coal burning power plant built in the early 80’s owned by We Energies.

Two Wisconsin Section members, Bryna Goeckner and Kay Starkey, and one Chicago Regional Section member, the author, and her husband attended this meeting with about 80 ACI and ASCE members. Bryna happens to work at P4. First we were shown a short overview video that previewed things we saw on the tour.  We were given hard hats, protective eyewear and earplugs to wear and boarded buses to view the power plant from the outside. We saw the Coal Car dumper, Coal storage area, Conveyers, Ash Reburn Silo and concrete roads made with a fly ash additive.  Then we took the walking tour of the interior of the plant where we saw pulverized coal on conveyers, two boilers which create high pressure steam that is directed to two turbines. The turbines drive the two electric generators.  While we were eating our supper two speakers (one of them Bryna) talked about the fly ash and how it is being recycled and used as an additive for concrete.

Some of the cool things we learned are:

• This plant is Wisconsin’s largest coal fired power plant producing 1,210,000 kilowatts of electricity, which is 15 percent of the states electricity. It is rated among the lowest cost producers of electricity in the nation.
• The plant receives 8 trainloads of low sulfur coal a week containing 100 cars each
• We Energies owns the cars and pays to have them transported back and forth to Gillette, Wyoming.  The cars are made of aluminum which allows more coal to be put in each car and lowers the transportation cost from the older steel cars.
• Pulverized coal is dropped into the furnace and ignites in mid air. Because the coal is pulverized, most of it burns and a small amount of waste produced. The waste is called fly and bottom ash.
• All of the ash is recycled and sold for use as an additive for concrete, or for use as a construction fill or roadbed base.
• An ash recovery program has been implemented.  Ash from years ago is reclaimed from landfills in the area. It is then pulverized and reburned with the coal. 

Altogether this was a very worthwhile and interesting event.

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The Society of Women Engineers stimulates women to achieve full potential as engineers and leaders, expands the image of the engineering profession, and demonstrates the value of diversity.

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