Monday, June 1, 2009

Lighting The Way.....

One of the landscape views from the night skies, overlooking my hometown, is that of Fiddlers Ferry Power Station.
An awesome sight, to behold.



Situated on the banks of the River Mersey in between Warrington and Widnes, in the NorthWest County of Cheshire, England it was established in 1971, and is a coal fired generating power station, owned and operated by Scottish and Southern Energy.
The station consumes 195 million litres of water daily from the River Mersey. Since the deep mines in the Lancashire coalfield closed, all its coal is either imported (largely by train from Liverpool docks), or supplied from mines in Yorkshire. 16,000 tonnes of coal are burned each day. It also burns biofuels together with the coal.

Fiddlers Ferry has been fitted with Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) plant to reduce the emissions of sulphur by 94%, meeting the European Large Combustion Plant directive. This work commenced in 2006 and was completed in 2008.

With its eight 114-metre (370 ft) high cooling towers and 200-metre (660 ft) high chimney the station is a prominent landmark and can be seen from as far away as the Peak District.
Photo credit: Flying Whael, Flicker.
Info credit: Wikipedia

10 comments:

Patsy said...

Do you think the USA will ever do this, and will it be a good thing?
Patsy

Betsy Banks Adams said...

I had a 'duh' moment, Jo... When I first started reading---I somehow thought you were talking about the Lebanon area. I couldn't imagine where you were talking about. Then I RE-READ your post.

Our country surely does need to do something like that...

Hugs,
Betsy

Sharon Rose said...

Wow. . . it sounds great, reducing air pollution. . . great picture. . .

donna baker said...

I think coal has gotten a bad rap in America because of the pollution. Sounds like the UK has solved the emissions problem. Where I live, there are many abandoned coal mines. Don't know if they were depleted or what. Like to see what's going on in England.

Carol Murdock said...

Jo...you would have made a wonderful histry teacher! So would I! HA!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I thought at first those were atomic energy stacks but was glad to see they are coal fired. It is still an enormous amount of coal each day not to mention the water. You have a very informative blog and I like it.

Voices from the past > http://bing-it.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I know where this power station is, Jo! I would drive by it every month on my way to Blackpool and Glasgow. I always thought it had a bleak, futuristic/science fiction look about the place - especially when seen in the light shown in your photo. When my daughter used to listen to me (and believe me!) I told her it was the Greater Nortwestern Cloud Factory.

PS. Thanks for the award! Very kind of you. It will be on my site soon.

Deanna said...

This is an interesting picture.
I could imagine seeing this in person and just standing there in awe.
What a sight.

Blessings to you,
~Deanna~

britoutofwater said...

Fascinating fact that will mean nothing to anyone not from the area: I had my first (not strictly legal) pint of beer in the Mersey View club, with pretty much that view in sight...!

Daffodilly said...

OH my I would drive past this all the time when I lived in the UK. It brings back great memories. Are you from Cheshire? I am from Sale.