Power Plants

Power plants are industrial facilities built and used for the purpose of generating electric power. Their size, layout, and design vary greatly, but nearly all power plants are built around a generator that converts mechanical, chemical, or nuclear energy to electrical energy. This generator can be fueled by a vast array of energy sources. First, the process of fueling a power plant generates a stream of waste that varies in form and content, depending on the source of energy used. Nuclear power plants, for example, generate radioactive waste that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), poses a direct threat to human health for as long as 10,000 years. This opens the door to several challenges. Where should such power plants be built? How and where should the nuclear waste be stored? How can a society ensure that the waste is [Page 701]still properly taken care of 5,000 years from now? Power plants using other types of fuels have other challenges attached to them in terms of generating and handling waste and pollution. Second, there are power plants that literally use what qualifies as trash in the rest of society as fuel. Thus, “garbage” in many settings, is given a new status as a commodity to be traded in an international market as fuel for power plants. This also affects the daily life of millions of households that contribute to the process through waste sorting. Because of the sheer size of a power plant and the need to handle a waste stream or bring large quantities of fuel to the plant, the construction of a power plant frequently results in substantial changes in the built environment of an area. Thus, the process of siting a power plant is often complicated, and the final decision is frequently unpopular with the local population.