In 1950 the capacity of Blackburn Meadows power station was about 200MW.
Coal was burned in boilers to produce steam to power the turbines which in turn drove the electricity generators. Beneath each turbine was a condenser containing many tubes through which cold water was passed.
The exhaust steam on contact with th
e cold tubes turned back into water which was fed back into the boilers.
The water inside the cooling tubes obviously became hot, so to cool it down it was sent to the cooling towers where it was pumped up only a few feet and then spread out on perforated trays through which it fell as 'rain'.
The great height of the towers induced a vigorous draught which, entering at the open base of the tower, cooled the 'rain' down and the reasonably cold water was then returned to the condenser to be recirculated.
At Neepsend, behind the dog track, was Sheffield's other power station. With an output of 160MW it had three similar cooling towers.
I worked there for a spell in the early fifties and well remember the struggle the alternators had on a winter's day to cope with the teatime load, bearing in mind that the country, gripped by austerity, was desperately short of generating capacity.
The revs of the great machines, would drop dramatically meaning that the 50 cycle/second frequency in the mains could not be maintained.
The result was that every electric clock in the city could be as much as 10 minutes slow! This was rectified by speeding up the alternators overnight when demand was back to normal.
J Priestley, Ferndale Close,
Coal Aston
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