Torrens Island Power Station

[Wandjina]

This is a gas fired power station and it supplies much of the electricity to the city of Adelaide. Despite the ominous looking fumes emanating from the two chimney stacks it is only steam. A quirk of Photoshop gave it this dramatic look, which I liked and so I left it!
The weather conditions have to be just right for the steam to condense close to the Power station like this, so it is a matter of hit and miss if there is a photo opportunity or not.
The power station is located on Torrens Island (an old quarantine station last century) and is in the middle of mangrove swamps and the Port River in Adelaide, South Australia.
The image was taken just before sunset and has had a lot of work done on it to remove power lines, enhance the mangroves, the clouds and the steam etc.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark iv, 1/200 sec, f/11, ISO100
Lens: Canon EF 70 - 200, f/2.8 IS USM @ 200mm

[billtils]

I like it a lot Martin, possibly a little prejudiced as it takes me back to when we lived in Adelaide more than 20 years ago.

[Manfred M]

An interesting industrial image; a topic that I really enjoy, but one that not a lot of photographers cover anymore. Something about the balance of the image is not working for me. While the stacks are vertical (I did check), the appear to be leaning to the right a bit; some form of optical illusion.

What is escaping from the stacks is condensing water vapour in the flue gas (primarily water vapour and carbon dioxide). Even gas fired power stations have soot accumulations inside the steam generators (unburned carbon, mostly) and soot blowing is still required to remove it. That is not what is happening here; soot blowing releases very dark particulates and I am not sure if there are any legal capture requirements these days.

My first job after getting my engineering degree was at a major manufacturer of power station steam generators, so my knowledge here is about 40 years out of date...

[xpatUSA]

This is a gas fired power station and it supplies much of the electricity to the city of Adelaide. Despite the ominous looking fumes emanating from the two chimney stacks, it is only steam.

A little more ominous is the smaller stack between the two which is busy belching out nitrogen oxides (Nox) and stuff into the atmosphere, assuming that it is the boiler(s) exhaust stack.

The emissions from natural gas-fired boilers and furnaces include nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide(CO), and carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), trace amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO2), and particulate matter (PM).

(choke, gasp)

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/fi...combustion.pdf

I spent a year or two consulting for a Houston energy company and got to know the subject quite well as regards large gas turbine exhausts.

Nice composition though, with the power station standing out against the dark clouds ...

[Manfred M]

Ted - this is a traditional steam turbine driven power station; output is listed as 1280 MW. Those are stacks for flue gas. Gas turbines have no need for that design of stack.

[xpatUSA]

Ted - this is a traditional steam turbine driven power station; output is listed as 1280 MW. Those are stacks for flue gas.

Which is why I said "assuming that it is the boiler(s) exhaust stack."

Gas turbines have no need for that design of stack.

I mentioned gas turbines only in the context of my personal experience, not of that particular power station.

I really must improve my grammar, it seems. Perhaps I've been here so long that ah cain't hardly wraht good English ...

[Wandjina]

While the stacks are vertical (I did check), they appear to be leaning to the right a bit; some form of optical illusion.

I have noticed that lean too, particularly on thumbnails. I didn't know if it was just my imagination. I will give the whole image a bit of a tilt to the left and see how that looks.
Thanks Manfred