"Que Grand Tu As et souple le gousier!"

François Rabelais. Gargantua (La vie très horrifique du grand Gargantua, père de Pantagruel, fils de Grandgousier).

Systems of bulk power engineering. By the problems of production, transporting and consumption of different types of energy gets busy power engineering.

A development of separate types of power engineering is based on the laws of mechanics, hydro- and aeromechanics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics, nuclear physics and quantum electronics. The applied sciences explore the conduct of the macroscopic systems of power engineering, interaction of component elements of these systems one with other and external bodies. Classic power engineering that deals with macroscopic elements can be defined as macroscopic (bulk) power engineering.

Macroscopic (bulk) power engineering and its component electrical macroscopic (bulk) power engineering require for production of thermal or electric energy the use of energy of macroscopic elements of substances, for example, motion of streams of water, streams of air or water steam, interactions of these macroscopic elements one with other and their actions on other bodies, without regarding deeply the structure of matter.

The use of macroscopic massive elements (rotors) for intermediate transformation of one type of energy in other is other sign of bulk electrical power engineering. Mass, as known, is the measure of inertia of body, energy is the measure of his motion.

Gargantua - a hero of the same name novel of François Rabelais carries in itself the traits of bulk power engineering: fantastic voracity in resources, frightening sizes and unforeseeable consequences of behavior. François Rabelais writes about the hero in a following manner:

Gargantua … did not whimper as the other babes used to do, but with a high, sturdy, and big voice, he shouted out, "Drink, drink, drink!" The sound was so extremely great that it rang over two counties.

When the good man Grangousier, who was then merrily drinking with his guests, heard his son roar out for drink, he said to him in French, "Que Grand Tu As et souple le gousier!" That is to say, "How great and nimble a throat thou hast." Hearing this, the company said that the child verily ought to be called Gargantua.

So great was Gargantua, even when a babe of a day old, that seventeen thousand nine hundred and thirteen cows were required to furnish him with milk. By the ancient records to be seen in the chamber of accounts at Montsoreau, I find that nine thousand six hundred ells of blue velvet were used for his gown, four hundred and six ells of crimson velvet were taken up for his shoes, which were soled with the hides of eleven hundred brown cows; and the rest of his costume was in proportion. By the commandment of his father, Gargantua was brought up and instructed in all convenient discipline, and he spent his time like the other children of the country-that is, in drinking, eating, and sleeping; in eating, sleeping, and drinking; and in sleeping, drinking, and eating.

The leading systems of bulk power engineering that are widely used in world practice are thermal (TPS), nuclear (APS), hydraulic (HPS), wind (WPS), geothermal (Geo- TPS) and sun (GELIO-TPS) power-stations.

Thermal electrical bulk power engineering. In the thermal power-stations chemical energy of combustion of fossil organic fuel grows into energy of steam or products of combustion, which, in the turn, grow into kinetic energy of macroscopic elements – rotors of steam-turbines and generators. Steam-turbines are connected with electrical generators and in accordance with the laws of electrodynamics produce an electric current.

In the basis of work of elements of thermal electrical bulk power engineering the applied sciences - thermodynamics and thermostatics lie. They study the common properties of matter, related to thermal motion in the conditions of thermodynamic equilibrium. Thermodynamic equilibrium is such state of matter, at which macroscopic parameters that determine its state, remain unchanging in time and by a value. Thermodynamics are based on the axioms, which are a generalization of experimental data. System that consists of macroscopic bodies and fields, which can be exchanged by energy one with other and with external bodies and fields, is named the thermodynamic system. Exchange by energy in the thermodynamics system and also between her and an external environment is executed in the form of work and warmth.

Atomic energy. In nuclear power plants the energy of bonds of elementary nuclear particles grows into kinetic energy of elementary particles and thermal energy of radiation of quanta, farther, in thermal energy of water steam, which in the turn grows into kinetic energy of rotatory macroscopic bodies - steam-turbines and electro-generators that produce electric power.

To be continued…

By Vasil Sidorov on October 26, 2009 in Queltanews.com

sidorovvasil@gmail.com