Gary Ojala looks into a 678-degree boiler furnace for coal or ash congestion at the central heat and power plant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Feb. 28. Furnaces there can burn more than 40,000 pounds of coal per hour. Mr. Ojala regularly inspects the furnaces to help ensure the coal supply chutes do not become clogged with coal or ash. The boilers produce more than 380,000 pounds of steam per hour, which is used to create heat and electricity for the base. Only 150 miles away from the Arctic Circle, temperatures at the base can drop to more than 60 degrees below zero during the winter. Mr. Ojala is a boiler plant operator, also called a fireman at the facility. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
Excess steam billows from the central heat and power plant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, into the sub-zero air at sunrise. The plant provides all heat and electrical power for the base including base housing. Only 150 miles away from the Arctic Circle, temperatures at the base can drop to more than 60 degrees below zero during the winter. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
Coal falls into one of the boiler furnaces at the central heat and power plant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Feb. 28. The 700-degree furnaces at the plant can burn more than 40,000 pounds of coal per hour. These boilers produce more than 380,000 pounds of steam per hour, which is used to create heat and electricity for the base. Only 150 miles away from the Arctic Circle, temperatures at the base can drop to more than 60 degrees below zero during the winter. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
A manufacturer's data plate hangs on one of the boilers at the central heat and power plant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, identifying one of four boilers originally installed in 1951 and still in use. The last two boilers were installed years later, but are scheduled to be either repaired or replaced this summer. These boilers produce more than 380,000 pounds of steam per hour, which is used to create heat and electricity for the base. Only 150 miles away from the Arctic Circle, temperatures at the base can drop to more than 60 degrees below zero during the winter. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
The Eielson Air Force Base coal train locomotive pulls into the base's central heat and power plant. The base has the second largest railroad in Alaska, which supplies the plant with all the coal used in heat and power production. Each freight car holds 100 tons of coal used to fill the power plant's six, 200-ton coal bunkers. The plant can burn up to 40,000 pounds of coal per hour. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
The Eielson Air Force Base Central Heat and Power Plant provides all heat and electrical power for the base including base housing. The power plant has six, 200-ton coal bunkers that feed its six boilers. These boilers can burn up to 40,000 pounds of coal per hour and produce more than 380,000 pounds of steam per hour, which is used to create heat and electricity for the base. Only 150 miles away from the Arctic Circle, temperatures at the base can drop to more than 60 degrees below zero during the winter. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
Michael Augustus rakes out excess ash from one of the ash chutes at the central heat and power plant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Feb. 28. The coal burning plant can burn up to 40,000 pounds of coal per hour, which generates 10,000 pounds of ash. The ash buildup must be constantly monitored to ensure that it does not clog any furnaces. Mr. Augustus is an ash puller for plant operations assigned to the 354th Civil Engineer Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
Charles Vargo inspects the No. 5 turbine steamflow and extraction flow gauge at the central heat and power plant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Feb. 28. The gauges evaluate the amount of steam that flows to and power that flows from the power turbines. The plant generates more than 380,000 pounds of steam per hour, which is used to create heat and electricity for the base. Mr. Vargo is an electrical dispatcher at the power plant. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Matthew Rosine)
3/13/2007 - EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFNEWS) -- Every morning, as Airmen here drive onto base, they are greeted by friendly waves -- waves of billowing steam stretching into the crisp morning sky.
This steam is more than just hot air. It is the life's blood of the base, and it comes from the central heat and power plant here.
"It is unique," said Marty Overlin, the superintendent of the power plant. "It is a prime operation -- full generation facility. We produce not only all the electricity for Eielson Air Force Base but also all the heating.
"It is the most critical infrastructure of the base," he said. "Without the power plant, obviously, the base would not exist."
To meet the base's heating and electrical needs, the power plant must generate hundreds of thousands of pounds of steam every hour.
"It's going to depend on the temperature and the time of year, a day like today -- roughly 20 below -- we are producing about 380,000 pounds of steam," Mr. Overlin said. "We are diverting roughly 250,000 pounds of steam just for heating the base. The remainder of the steam is used to make electricity for the base."
To generate this much power every hour, the plant uses Alaskan black gold -- not oil, but coal.
The coal arrives at the power plant by train. In fact, the base has its own railroad -- the second largest railroad in Alaska and the largest in the Air Force. The train pulls multiple cars of coal into the facility every day. Due to the incredibly low temperatures in Alaska in winter, these coal cars are placed into a holding area inside the plant. This allows the coal to unfreeze before it is eventually dumped into the plant's coal bunkers.
The power plant houses six coal bunkers. Each can hold up to 200 tons of coal. The coal, after being broken down into smaller pieces, is fed into the furnaces for the power plant's boilers.
The power plant will consume more than 42,000 pounds of coal an hour on average, Mr. Overlin said. On extremely cold days, he said the plant has burned up to 60,000 pounds in a single hour.
This steam is routed into a common header, then fed to the base's power turbines.
"The turbines are an extraction stage," Mr. Overlin said. "Roughly half way through, we extract the steam to heat the base. The remaining steam then goes back and turns a common shaft, which is a generator to produce the electricity around the base."
Despite using less than half of the steam production for electrical power, the plant's turbines can generate millions of watts of electricity every day.
While the plant consumes more than 187,000 tons -- 374 million pounds of coal per year -- the plant is environmentally friendly.
"We have numerous environmental controls," Mr. Overlin said. "One of the big pluses is low-sulfur coal that we get from the coal mine. We did have some particulate matter that was a little high, so the base installed 100-percent, slipstream bag-houses that remove all particulate matter coming out of the tower."
These precautions along with the plant's other programs help meet and exceed their environmental protection goals.
Having the plant at Eielson provides a unique mission capability to the Alaskan base.
"We do not have to rely on others to bring in power," said Capt. Milton Addison, the chief of operations at the power plant. "We are geared that way if we need to, in times of outages or if something goes wrong. But, we are self sufficient."
Originally, the plant went online in 1951. The first four boilers were also installed in 1951 and are still operating. In fact, plant personnel call them the "power boilers." Two additional boilers were installed in 1954.
And, while the power plant is meeting today's Air Force needs. The base is preparing for the future.
"We are looking at some modernization," Mr. Overlin said of a new plant control system being installed this summer. "We are looking to the future to replace a couple of our older boilers ... in the next four to five years."
And since 1951, as Airmen drive onto base here, if they see steam rising from the vent tower, they know they will have heat and power to accomplish their mission.
4/13/2011 8:34:47 PM ET I was an A2C stationed there in 1963 and remember many nights emergency duty at the power plant breaking frozen coal at 40 below outside. Great experence and memorys great to hear coal cars have a thaw out zone now. I visited the base in 2008 very nice. It seams twice the size. Now retired living in Fla --- Go Air Force
Richard Pinder, Clermont Fl
4/13/2011 8:05:55 PM ET I was an airman stationed there in 1963-1965 and remember nights of emergency duty at the power plant breaking up frozen coal to keep the boilers going with it below minus 40 below. Now just a memory living the good life in Fla. retired.
