Which of the following are essential pre-requisites for establishment of a thermal power station ? 1. Availability of fossil fuels 2. Proximity to a river, lake or sea 3. Good transport network 4. Proximity to an urban centre Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a)1, 2 and 3
- (b)2 and 4
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1 and 3 only
Correct — A, 1, 2 and 3. The first three are genuine siting requirements and the fourth is not. Fuel is the obvious one: a thermal station burns coal, lignite, gas or oil, and coal is bulky and low in value per tonne, so the station is generally built at or near the coalfield rather than the coal being hauled across the country. Water is the second and is easy to forget: a thermal plant is a steam plant, and it needs a very large and continuous supply of water to raise steam and, above all, to condense it again in the cooling system — which is why plants sit on a river, a reservoir or the coast. Transport is the third, since even a pithead station needs rail and road links for coal, heavy equipment and ash disposal. Nearness to a town is not required at all, because electricity travels along transmission lines with far less trouble than coal travels in wagons.
- (b)2 and 4 — This keeps the false condition and drops the two most important true ones. A power station with water and a nearby city but no fuel and no transport link cannot generate anything.
- (c)2 and 3 only — Water and transport are both real requirements, but leaving out fuel is a serious omission — the fuel is what the plant burns, and its bulk is the single strongest influence on where the plant goes.
- (d)1 and 3 only — Fuel and transport are right, but water is dropped. A thermal station is a steam engine at heart; without a large water supply for the boiler and the condensers it cannot run, and cooling-water shortage has forced real Indian plants to cut output during droughts.
Industrial location theory turns on which input is most expensive to move. Coal loses most of its weight as ash and gas when burnt, so hauling it long distances is wasteful; that pushes thermal stations towards the coalfields, which is why the Damodar valley, Singrauli, Korba and Talcher carry cluster after cluster of them. The finished product, electricity, moves cheaply along a grid, so there is no need to sit beside the consumer. Water is the constraint people underestimate: the condenser at the cold end of the steam cycle is what needs the flow, and it needs it every hour the plant runs.
The examiner's device here is to slip in a condition that sounds sensible for a factory but is wrong for a power station. For a bakery or a newspaper press, nearness to the market is decisive; for electricity it is irrelevant, because the grid does the delivering. Learn the contrast in that form and this whole family becomes straightforward. Two supplementary points are worth carrying. Coastal thermal stations exist for the opposite reason to pithead ones — they are sited to receive imported coal and to use sea water for cooling, which is why several are on the Gujarat and Tamil Nadu coasts. And ash disposal is a real siting constraint in India, since Indian coal has a high ash content; the fly ash from these plants is now used in cement and brick manufacture rather than only ponded.
- A thermal power station needs fuel, a large and continuous water supply, and transport links; nearness to a city is not a requirement.
- Coal is bulky and weight-losing, so many Indian thermal plants are built at the pithead — the Damodar valley, Singrauli, Korba and Talcher belts.
- Water is needed both to raise steam and, in far larger quantity, to condense it in the cooling system.
- Electricity is transmitted cheaply over long distances by the grid, which is what frees the plant from having to sit near its consumers.
- Importing 'nearness to market' from general industrial location theory, where it often does matter.
- Forgetting the cooling-water requirement, which is the least obvious of the three real conditions.
- Assuming every thermal plant is at a pithead — coastal plants are built for imported coal and sea-water cooling.
NDA and UPSC both set siting-requirement items, and the false statement is usually a plausible condition borrowed from a different kind of industry.
Consider the following: 1. Carbon dioxide 2. Oxides of Nitrogen 3. Oxides of Sulphur Which of the above is/are the emission/emissions from coal combustion at thermal power plants?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
The other half of the same story — what a coal-fired station puts out is precisely why planners prefer not to place one inside an urban centre, let alone treat that as a requirement.
Koradi Thermal Power Station is located in
- (a) Nagpur
- (b) Raipur
- (c) Mumbai
- (d) Secunderabad
Answer(a) Nagpur
A worked example of the siting rule this item states in the abstract: the plant sits in a coal-bearing interior district rather than in the coastal metropolis offered as a distractor.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Large thermal power stations in India are commonly located at or near coalfields chiefly because
- (a)coal is a weight-losing raw material and expensive to transport in bulk
- (b)electricity cannot be transmitted over long distances
- (c)coalfields have the largest urban populations
- (d)coal cannot be stored
Answer(a) coal is a weight-losing raw material and expensive to transport in bulk — while the electricity produced travels cheaply on the grid.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The largest single use of water at a coal-fired thermal power station is for
- (a)drinking and sanitation for the workforce
- (b)washing the coal before it is burnt
- (c)condenser cooling in the steam cycle
- (d)fire fighting
Answer(c) condenser cooling in the steam cycle — which is why these plants are built beside a river, a reservoir or the sea.