There’s a new Flickr group for the Ratcliffe on Soar power station – hundreds of photos of a coal-fired electricity generating plant in south Nottinghamshire.
The first I saw of the group, I thought it was a bit odd.  But then it can be seen for miles around, and it is very striking from a distance.  You can certainly see it from the top public floor of the Cornerhouse in the centre of Nottingham, on a clear day.

It used to be a personal milestone for me when my parents were driving me back to university at the end of holidays – I new when we saw the cooling towers from the M1, that our journey was nearly at an end.

And another power-station-factoid – some might argue that all those tall cooling towers are a phenomenal waste of valuable energy.  After burning all the coal to boil water into steam to turn turbines which turn magnets in coils to generate electricity for thousands of homes, the steam is cooled down again in those vast concrete towers.

I have read that rather than force-cooling the steam down, an infrastructure could be created to pipe the steam away for better use – eg heating houses or plants.  I have read the steam can be piped up to 30 miles away.  That’s easily enough to get from Ratcliffe to anywhere in Nottingham city.  There are also plenty of homes and businesses much closer to the power station that need heating.
Another power-station fact.  They store coal in huge great open-air piles near the entrance to the station.  You can see them from the road.  If the coal is carelessly stored, if, for example, you make the pile too deep, it can burst into flames.