Use a flow chart to show how a coal fired power station generates electricity?

Answer 1

It's kind of hard to show a flow chart in WikiAnswers - but we can list the steps:

1. Air and coal are fed to the furnace/boiler where the coal is burned. If the power station is attempting to be clean, the exhaust from the furnace is filtered and scrubbed to remove particulates and noxious gasses before being released to the atmosphere (from a smokestack).
2. Water is pumped through pipes running through the furnace/boiler where it is turned into superheated steam - steam under pressure at a temperature above the boiling point for the pressure.
3. The superheated steam is fed to a steam turbine where it turns the blades of the turbine, thus turning the shaft they are attached to. The pressure of the steam drops as it passes through the turbine.
4. The steam that has expanded across the turbine is fed to a condenser where it is cooled and condensed before being pumped back to the boiler. Generally this requires a separate water source (from a lake or river) to be used in counter-current flow to cool the steam. The cooling water is then usually cooled by running it through an evaporative cooling tower before returning it to the lake or stream it originally came from - although it may be recycled quite a bit before being returned.
5. The turning shaft attached to the turbine turns an electromagnet within a wire coil field, generating alternating current (the details of how an alternating current generator works are a different question).
6. Most of the current from the generator is fed to the power grid, with some bled off to power the electromagnet of the generator.