Keeping the coal moving to electric utilities in the Frost Belt has been a vexing problem for many years. Thaw sheds, car shakers and chemical freeze conditioners have been widely employed by the utilities to help solve their coal unloading problems.
At Toledo Edison, a systems approach was developed that has substantially reduced costs for the operation. The Ohio utility has calculated that its operating costs associated with freeze conditioning of coal were reduced by more than 25% during the winter of 1981-82. "A superior winter unloading record," according to Joseph E. Murray, general superintendent of fossil generation facilities for Toledo Edison.
A team effort involving two coal suppliers, a chemical supplier and Toledo Edison produced the record coal unloading results. Union Carbide supplied the onsite service expertise for its freeze conditioner — Winter-Flo Coal Aid 103. Coal treated with this concentrated organic chemical, which produces uniformly weak ice crystals, unloaded cleanly over a wide range of subfreezing weather conditions."
Source: Progressive Railroading, December 1982
