For Immediate Release
February 4, 2009

Cañada Students Are Invited to Tour Stanford Power Plant

Come find out how a power plant works.

The Cañada College MESA and Engineering programs are organizing a tour of Stanford University's power plant. Cañada students are invited on a private tour to learn more. The tour will be held Tuesday, Feb. 10 with buses departing Cañada at 3:30 p.m. Space is limited so reserve your seat today by e-mailing your full name and phone number to Professor Parsa at parsar@smccd.edu.

The Stanford Power Plant burns natural gas to create electricity--which runs a turbine--while also creating exhaust heat. In conventional power plants, heat gets created and wasted. At the cogeneration plant, however, the heat is run through a Heat Recovery Steam Generator so it can be transformed into steam. This steam serves three functions. It gets looped around campus for heating and cooking. It drives chillers which produce cooled water. It also drives its own turbine, creating yet more electricity. The combined effort of the gas--driven turbine and the steam-driven turbine generates nearly 50 megawatts of power, almost twice as much as Stanford needs. The university sells the remainder to PG&E for the general grid.

For the tour, required dress, is long pants (no shorts or dresses), shirts or jacket with sleeves (no tank tops), closed toe shoes (no sandals).

For more information, contact Robert Hood, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, at hoodr@smccd.edu or 306-3340