Methil Power Station, Fife - Apr. 2009

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BenCooper

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Methil Power Station is a coal-slurry power plant built in 1965 on the coast of Fife where the River Leven joins the sea. Coal slurry is the low-grade byproduct of coal washeries, consisting of mainly coal dust and water. Methil's two 30MW generating units were specially built to burn this slurry, which came from the neighbouring Fife coalfields by road and rail. Google's aerial imagery shows the rail lines which have now been ripped up.

As the Fife coalfields closed, supplies of the slurry dried up, and the plant closed in the mid '90s - a brief trial using one generating unit to burn refuse for power wasn't a success. The plant is now scheduled for demolition.

The slurry store, and the elevated hoppers for fueling the boilers, with one of the two gantry cranes:



Methil is definitely a child of the '60s, with two pink English Electric turbines:



One of two turbine control panels:



It must have been noisy in the control room - it's a box between the turbines and the boilers, which doesn't look very soundproofed:



Higher up in the boilers:



Lower down, some Howden dust collectors:



And some Howden blowers:



With some transformers and Mirrlees Watson equipment:



The solvents section is also very colourful:



The admin building is connected to the powerplant by a couple of angled bridges:



In the admin building are the labs:



With some samples:



And the changing rooms:



Back into the powerplant and up onto the crane gantry:



The crane itself has elegant curved beams:



And finally a couple of panoramas - the turbine floor:



And up inbetween the boilers:



As usual, my Flickr set has lots more images...
 
Thanks :)

The cranes were pretty, but also scarily corroded, so I didn't climb them...
 
Nice one Ben, Zimbob and I recce'd this last year on a Sunday, the place was empty and tranquil. Got some access advice from Pincheck (cheers buddy!:)) then went back the next day. The place was heaving with workies!:mad:

What's access like now (answers by PM of course!)
 
May have to look at a trip here, will have to be a weekend road trip thing, fair distance to travel, but it is worth it by the looks of things, definately look into it.

Great shots you got there Ben, very colourful indeed :mrgreen:

Spider
 
It may not look like that now, there have been people working on it for some time now. Before making the trip I would suggest liaising with somebody who knows the site. Not me though, I've never been inside.
 
Yes, the asbestos strip-out has been going on for a while now, so it may be quite tented-up - I wore a PP3 mask etc and I'd strongly suggest any visitors do the same. It's also a bit tricky to get inside since they removed all the walkways :)
 
Bummer - confiscated or just lost? It took me four visits to crack it - the first time I was happily strolling around the outside when the security guard cycled up - we had a good chat actually :)
 
According to todays local paper "Demolition work on Methil power station looks set to begin in 2-3 months time"

Sorry troops couldn`t be bothered getting the scanner out
ro.jpg
 
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