Orot Rabin is a coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

-fired power station

Power station

A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....

 situated on the Mediterranean

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 coast in Hadera

Hadera

Hadera is a city located in the Haifa District of Israel approximately from the major cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. The city is located along of the Israeli Mediterranean Coastal Plain...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. It is owned and operated by Israel Electric Corporation

Israel Electric Corporation

Israel Electric Corporation is the main supplier of electrical power in Israel.IEC builds, maintains and operates power generation stations, sub-stations, as well as the transmission and distribution networks....

 (IEC).

History

Construction of the station began in 1973 and it began operating in 1981 (unit 1). A coal port is attached directly to the station which supplies all its coal consumption needs. Its total generating capacity is 2,590MW of electricity using the six power generating units (two large units and four smaller units) located at the site. The plant's overall design can accommodate two additional large units to be built at a future date.
Originally the power station was named Maor David after David Shiffman

David Shiffman

David Shiffman was an Israeli politician who served as Deputy Minister of Transport and as a member of the Knesset between 1981 and his death in 1982.-Biography:...

, then-chairman of the IEC who died during its lengthy period of construction. However, after the completion of a major expansion of the station in the 1990s and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin

' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....

, the station was renamed in his honor to Orot Rabin, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 for "Rabin Lights".

Technical description

Today the plant is Israel's largest power station with its 2,590 MW representing 23% of the Israel Electric Corporation's total generation capacity (that is, until phase D expansion at the Rutenberg power station

Rutenberg Power Station

Rutenberg Power Station is a coal-powered power plant situated on the Mediterranean coast in Ashkelon, Israel. It is owned and operated by Israel Electric Corporation . Rutenberg is the newest thermal power station in Israel and the second largest in terms of generation capacity. It accounts...

 in Ashkelon

Ashkelon

Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...

 is built, at which point the latter will surpass Orot Rabin as Israel largest plant). The plant burns 18,000 tons of coal every 24 hours and uses 320,000 tons of seawater every hour. It is also possible to operate the station using fuel

Fuel oil

Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...

 or crude oil. In 2009, a large desalination

Desalination

Desalination, desalinization, or desalinisation refers to any of several processes that remove some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water...

 plant was built adjacent to the power station.

Flue gas stack

Flue gas stack

A flue-gas stack is a type of chimney, a vertical pipe, channel or similar structure through which combustion product gases called flue gases are exhausted to the outside air. Flue gases are produced when coal, oil, natural gas, wood or any other fuel is combusted in an industrial furnace, a power...

 3 of the power station is 300 metres (984.3 ft) tall, making it Israel's second-tallest structure after the towers of the Dimona Radar Facility

Dimona Radar Facility

The Dimona Radar Facility is a facility under construction near Dimona, Israel consisting of two 400 meter tall radar towers, designed to track ballistic missiles through space and provide ground-based missiles with the targeting data needed to intercept them. Using AN/TPY-2 X-band radar, it can...

.

Environmental issues

Orot Rabin has been accused of polluting the nearby Hadera Stream. Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

claims that the station pollutes the sea water when coal is unloaded from ships and the sea water used for cooling the plant ends up in the Hadera River which harms wildlife.