Another Duh Moment

From the Associated Press. I have mentioned before that when you are an expert on a subject, or at least are well versed on something, you can catch the media making factual errors. The human tendency is to shake your head at the mistakes then go on and read the next article. It doesn't cross a lot of people's minds that the next story might be just as full of error.

There was a tragic industrial accident at an Ohio power plant. A delivery driver was killed. He was delivering hydrogen gas to the plant. Here's where the error is in the AP story:

The blast killed a delivery driver who was unloading hydrogen, used as a coolant for steam generators at the Muskingum River Plant, but it wasn't immediately clear what exploded, said Melissa McHenry, a spokeswoman for American Electric Power, based in Columbus.

There was no major damage to the southeastern Ohio plant, said Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks. About 200 people work there.

Hydrogen gas, while highly explosive, is used at the plant because it has a high capacity for heat and is more efficient than using air to cool generators.

Hydrogen is used to cool the generator at a power plant. As in the part that makes the electricity. Coal plants do not have steam generators, they have boilers. This is the type of factual error that I spend a lot of time blogging about. Things like this are not unimportant.

(Incidentally, what exploded is almost certainly the hydrogen (or to be precise, the hydrogen-oxygen mixture, hydrogen must have oxygen present to burn). Unless this plant is laid out in a completely different way than any I have been at, the hydrogen fill should have been isolated from everything else. The main tank is usually a fair distance from the plant.)