Visit to Stewartby Power Station11/11/2019

On Wednesday 6th November, four of our Year 13 students visited the Stewartby Power Station, one of the biggest power stations powered by landfill gas. When we arrived we were greeted by Jason who escorted us onto the site, we then had an introduction to the Power Station and a health and safety talk: we wore hard hats, ear defenders, eye protection and overalls. The tour of the Stewartby Power Station was important as it is preparation for our unit 3 exam.
The tour began outside where the gas is extracted from the landfill that was buried in the 1980’s, landfill was stopped in 2008 due to the increase in recycling and the use of incineration, because of this, the use of landfill as an energy source will one day run out. We were shown where the landfill had been buried and the pipes that extract the gas from beneath the ground. The pipes then connected to the generators where gas is turned into electricity. We looked round the generators, this is where we had to wear the ear defenders due to the mass amount of noise, each generator produced 120 decibels each, if the ear defenders were not worn it could have caused permanent hearing damage.
After the tour of the Power Station we went on a walk around Stewartby Lake to see the wind turbine. The walk allowed us to reflect on what we had learned. We took advantage of the walk for our mental health as it allowed us to have some fresh air and a clear our minds.
We are grateful to Stewartby Power Station for donating some of their overalls to the science department to use for future scientific events at the school.