Energy to Burn

A coal train just went by. I've been wondering about some power factoids, so finally looked them up.

  • Boulder  consumed 1,160 million kWhr (in Y2k)
  • 91% from coal power.  I don't know if it's mostly all generated in that one plant or not. 
  • Coal -> steam turbines -> electric generation runs about 35% efficiency.
  • 42 million kWhr from hydro, by the way.
  • we pay $114 million/yr (that's 10c/kWhr? Sounds high...)
  • 100 tons of coal in a RR car, and 1 lb coal/kwHr (nice neat numbers, eh?)
Therefore, Boulder burns 1 RR Car of coal every 90 minutes.
   - various sources

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