After stopping at the security shack we’ll head upstairs to the display room.

In the display room I’ll go through the entire power production process.

Next up to the control room

· Here they monitor every type of system.

· The white boxes up along the top are like the alarms if something isn’t running right.

· Most things they can fix right from there.

Then we head out into the plant.

First thing is the turbine and generator. Steam spins the blades in the turbine to spin a shaft in the generator. The spinning magnet around metal coils creates the electricity. The unit here is a 300 MW unit.

Secondly, there is the man lift. The Building is 27 stories high. Using the man lift is more convenient than waiting for the elevator.

Behind you is the Boiler where the powdered coal goes in to heat the water to produce steam.

Downstairs is the MAX unit. This is where they are getting rid of the ash that’s left over from burning the coal.

Down another flight of stairs we go outside. This is where the haulers dump the coal. The white building is storage. Then you can see the secondary crusher house just before the conveyor takes the coal up.

Inside the plant, the coalbunkers hold 700 tons of coal and there are 5 of them. The coal then goes down into the pulverizers.

Around the corner are the condensers. The steam comes down and changes back to water that they’ll send back to the boiler.

· Therefore cool water comes in both sides in the big green pipes, then from the heat transfer the water warms up, then it comes out the bottom and goes to the greenhouse and then to the cooling tower.

 

The main purpose behind the green house is for the tree seedlings produced here to grow and eventually take in the CO₂ and release oxygen. So, having a greenhouse beside a power plant is SaskPower’s way of giving back to the environment.

Then we’ll take a look at where they do their seeding. The green machine fills each hole with the soil. The blue machine drops seeds into each hole. The dark green one pits fine stones on top.

There are 3 green house bays.

Glass windows, radiators and greenhouse lights heat up each bay. If it gets too hot, they’ll open the windows, draw the shades and blow cool air through the plastic tubing.

Each bay also has its own irrigation boom, which comes down on tracks and waters and feeds the seedlings.

All of these seedlings were weeded at the end of May, once they’ve grown in the shade frames.

Outside each shade frame has its own irrigation boom.

They will then package them up, freeze them over winter then come spring they will give them all away (free). They go to various non-profit organizations.

The orange dragline is called "Big Lou"; it was bought in the 70’s. The white one is the 9020 bought in 1997 for 75 million dollars.

Draglines run on 25 000 volts of electricity running 20 motors inside, 6 motors for swing, 6 to hoist ropes, 6 for drag ropes and 2 motors to walk.

Two men run the dragline – the operator and an oiler. They work 12-hour shifts and everything runs 24 hours a day.

The boom length is 360 ft and the bucket is a 98 yd³ bucket.

Strip mining starts with scrapers removing the topsoil and putting it in separate topsoil stockpiles. The draglines then dig the benches and down into the pit. They strictly remove dirt on top of the coal seams. Front-end loaders and electric shovels then the coal onto haulers.

So then the last steps are to take dozers and level off the spoil piles, then replaces the topsoil and reclaim the land. Once they are done it will get used for pastureland or they will plant a crop on it.

All the coal here is lignite coal; the good thing is that it’s low in sulfur.

There are actually 3 coal seams. One after 30 feet, then another 30 feet below the main seam. Then they’ll remove a small clay parting and go down to the lowest coal seam – a total of about 80 feet.

They figure that there is about 200 years of coal reserves left in this area, even considering that it is being consumed at a rate of 8megatons per year.

Our largest size hauler can haul up to 160 tons of coal.