Tour of Miller Steam Plant

Southern Company has a group that organizes activities for its coops and interns called Students of Southern Company. During my summer, I went to several of the events they had. There were several Lunch and Learns hosted at the downtown Southern Company building shared with Alabama Power Corporate Headquarters. These lunches would have a speaker from the company presenting a topic, such as the hiring process or how power is distributed after it is generated.

Another intern event was a tour of Miller Steam Plant. This coal plant is just outside of Birmingham, AL. After a presentation on coal power and the layout of the plant, our group got to walk around inside the plant. I immediately noticed a few differences from the nuclear plants. The nuclear plants were much cleaner and took many more safely precautions. But both are full of hot and noisy equipment. Both plants eventually take the energy produced to run the turbines to produce their electricity. Like Plant Vogtle, Miller Steam Plant uses large hyperbolic cooling towers to cool off the water from its steam generators.

Miller Steam Plant

We also went to the roof of one of the buildings. From there, we could see the vent stacks of the nearby coal plant, Plant Gorgas. We also saw the enormous piles of coal that were shipped to Plant Miller by train and used up daily and the piles of ash and other waste materials. The comparison of the amount of fuel needed to run a coal plant to the small amount needed for a nuclear plant astounded me. There is also a stark contrast in the amount of generated waste. The comparison of this plant to the nuclear plants definitely reinforced my preference for working with nuclear. I value security, so the safety and redundant back-ups used in nuclear power are a good match for me.