Georgia's Plant Scherer coal-fired power production method.

Robert W Scherer Power Plant in Georgia (Plant Scherer) is one of the largest coal-fired thermoelectric power-production facilities in the United States. It is a 3,520,000-kilowatt coal-fired facility that provides electricity for Georgia. As this diagram shows, the plant operates on the same principles as other fossil-fueled electric generating plants—it burns coal to produce heat that turns water into steam, which then turns turbines in a generator.

n the diagram you can see how the main use of water is to cool the condenser units, which receives the condensed steam that was used to turn the turbines. The hot, condensed steam water is run through pipes that are cooled by the cooler water (withdrawn from the Ocmulgee River and Lake Juliette reservoir in this case). The condensed water is thus cooled down and then recirculated back through the coal-fired boiler to again turn to steam and power the turbines. This is the closed-cycle loop part of the system and it reuses the water continuously.