The Latest Increase

[DAKA]

FPL (Florida Power and Light) increased their rates by what loos to be 15% 

THANKS JOEY

[Hook]

My power company sent me a similar notice bastards. 

[LostinTexas]

Our power rates have doubled+ in a lot of cases. I found a plan for just under a 50% increase and jumped on it. Best I found while looking.  Everything was 110-145% higher a few months ago when my electric contract ran out. At lest I have some choice, many on coop's and such don't.

What the ever loving hell, I thought we were on all that great "Green" kick. You know wind and solar. That is free to generate, or what they keep telling us. The only Green in green is the 💲💲 in the pockets of the politicians and woke regulatory commissions.

[minervadoe]

Let's go Brandon!!

The latest Demo Rat bill, the anti inflation bill places an additional 12% tax on natural gas.

That's causing inflation, not reducing it.

[Borg warner]

Just wait until everybody starts driving electric vehicles. Not only will electricity cost more, it will be rationed.

 

[Batesmotel]

1 hour ago, Borg warner said:

Just wait until everybody starts driving electric vehicles. Not only will electricity cost more, it will be rationed.

 

I bet it’s not rationed equally.

Remember, some are more equal than others. 

[Huaco Kid]

Well....

It leaves no choice but to double the minimum wage again!

::cheers!::

::applause!::

It's the obvious cure!

[FullClip]

9 hours ago, minervadoe said:

Let's go Brandon!!

The latest Demo Rat bill, the anti inflation bill places an additional 12% tax on natural gas.

That's causing inflation, not reducing it.

Yup, and the average 700MW gas turbine combined cycle power plant with 2 gas turbines burns about 55 pounds a second of natural gas....it adds up real quick.

[LostinTexas]

10 hours ago, FullClip said:

Yup, and the average 700MW gas turbine combined cycle power plant with 2 gas turbines burns about 55 pounds a second of natural gas....it adds up real quick.

Never heard of NG referred to in "pounds", A rather odd reference for a lighter than air gas. Yea, after working in that industry, it kinda throws a flag for the reference. Sounds like a politician talking. Could be wrong.

That is going to be a rather large generator, so it probably uses a lot.

[FullClip]

3 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

Never heard of NG referred to in "pounds", A rather odd reference for a lighter than air gas. Yea, after working in that industry, it kinda throws a flag for the reference. Sounds like a politician talking. Could be wrong.

That is going to be a rather large generator, so it probably uses a lot.

Yeah, the gas is bought in "decatherms", sometimes measured in cubic feet., but everything entering and leaving the gas turbine is measured in mass flow.  Just like the steam produced by the boiler behind it is measured in pounds per hour. 

 

Just because it's lighter than air don't mean it doesn't weigh anything. 

 

But think of the "20 pound" propane tank for your gas grill and how fast you'd be chucking those babies in to keep it running. 

 

[LostinTexas]

14 minutes ago, FullClip said:

Yeah, the gas is bought in "decatherms", sometimes measured in cubic feet., but everything entering and leaving the gas turbine is measured in mass flow.  Just like the steam produced by the boiler behind it is measured in pounds per hour. 

 

Just because it's lighter than air don't mean it doesn't weigh anything. 

 

But think of the "20 pound" propane tank for your gas grill and how fast you'd be chucking those babies in to keep it running. 

 

Not a propane and propane accessory work in the industry.

Production platform and pushed a billion cubic feet a day. Pushed it through the pipeline with turbines about 7 feet tall and 40 feet long. had five of them running, usually.

We measured cubic feet and I never heard it any different. That is the way we sold it to the beach.  Not saying it isn't, just saying.

[ChuteTheMall]

 

[FullClip]

11 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

Not a propane and propane accessory work in the industry.

Production platform and pushed a billion cubic feet a day. Pushed it through the pipeline with turbines about 7 feet tall and 40 feet long. had five of them running, usually.

We measured cubic feet and I never heard it any different. That is the way we sold it to the beach.  Not saying it isn't, just saying.

Well, here's a screen shot of some data of a GE 7FA (if you've operated turbines you know what that is)  FQG is the mass gas flow, and mass is measured in pounds.  In power plants most flows are measured in mass to keep the engineering units constant.   25.58 lbm/s is pounds mass per second.

 

What kind of turbines did you operate?

 

In most applications, gas flow is measured in volume, cubic feet or cubic meters, but for the GTs it's mass 

 

[LostinTexas]

I didn't operate them, just filled out the production reports  for the wells.

Solar Turbines was the brand. If reading along and don't understand the machine, think giant jet engine. Interesting enough, the company has a repair center just down the road from me. Most of the techs were dispatched there. Not saying much, none lived in the area, and I'll bet most couldn't point out the town on a map. Seems they had a lot of West Coast corporate, but I never had enough interest in looking it up. 

Making friends with the mechanics and electricians got me a lot of interesting "tours". It was quite the place, till the wells went. Too specialized for much else and is now gone. Sad, a lot of great memories there. That is the way that ends up going a lot of times though.

[FullClip]

1 hour ago, LostinTexas said:

I didn't operate them, just filled out the production reports  for the wells.

Solar Turbines was the brand. If reading along and don't understand the machine, think giant jet engine. Interesting enough, the company has a repair center just down the road from me. Most of the techs were dispatched there. Not saying much, none lived in the area, and I'll bet most couldn't point out the town on a map. Seems they had a lot of West Coast corporate, but I never had enough interest in looking it up. 

Making friends with the mechanics and electricians got me a lot of interesting "tours". It was quite the place, till the wells went. Too specialized for much else and is now gone. Sad, a lot of great memories there. That is the way that ends up going a lot of times though.

The Solar units are pretty small, great for mechanical drive, like the compressors for a gas pipe line, but think the biggest unit they offer is about 38MWs.

 

The frame units I worked on were up to 270MWs for the 9FAs....simple cycle mode.  Lot of power but really thristy for fuel. 

[Huaco Kid]

I like working in places with the HUGE old (all Westinghouse?) steam turbines.  Most from the 50's (40s? - earlier?).  Sometimes three on one floor.

Some of the generator floors have been preserved like a museum.  Polished brass.  Gleaming granite floors.  Operating room cleanliness.  Original signage.

If they ever cut loose, they'd probably take out a whole city block,  but when they're running at max, you can only hear a hum.

One guy once said, "Do you feel that vibration in the floor?"

"No."

"We do.  It's a concern.  The engineers are worried about it."

[FullClip]

6 minutes ago, Huaco Kid said:

I like working in places with the HUGE old (all Westinghouse?) steam turbines.  Most from the 50's (40s? - earlier?).  Sometimes three on one floor.

Some of the generator floors have been preserved like a museum.  Polished brass.  Gleaming granite floors.  Operating room cleanliness.  Original signage.

If they ever cut loose, they'd probably take out a whole city block,  but when they're running at max, you can only hear a hum.

One guy once said, "Do you feel that vibration in the floor?"

"No."

"We do.  It's a concern.  The engineers are worried about it."

Yeah, the old power plants were sometimes beautiful places and pride was taken by the operations crew.  If care is taken with the steam turbines (especially steam chemistry) those things can hum along for years between overhauls.

 

Now they are jammed into the smallest possible footprint and aesthetics is not even considered to the inside of the building.

[Dukenukem]

15 hours ago, FullClip said:

Yeah, the gas is bought in "decatherms", sometimes measured in cubic feet., but everything entering and leaving the gas turbine is measured in mass flow.  Just like the steam produced by the boiler behind it is measured in pounds per hour. 

 

Just because it's lighter than air don't mean it doesn't weigh anything. 

 

But think of the "20 pound" propane tank for your gas grill and how fast you'd be chucking those babies in to keep it running. 

 

On the plus side, propane has a higher btu content than gas so you wouldn’t need as much.

[FullClip]

11 minutes ago, Dukenukem said:

On the plus side, propane has a higher btu content than gas so you wouldn’t need as much.

Yeah, if you compare the two fuels in cubic feet.  Remember that propane is heavier.

In pounds mass the BTU content is pretty much the same.  Also note that natural gas from different sources can have rather large differences in BTU content, thus for large users such as power plants, the gas is bough in decatherms (heating value) not cubic feet (volume)

 

But if you change the two fuels to pounds mass, 

approximately 21,548 BTUs

 

Each gallon of propane contains 91,502 BTUs of potential heat and each pound contains approximately 21,548 BTUs.

 

Compared to natural gas

Gas	Gross Heating Value
	(Btu/ft3)	(Btu/lb)
Naphthalene	5859	17298
Natural Gas (typical)	950 - 1150	19500 - 22500
Octane saturated with water	6239	20542

[DAKA]

You lost me 

[janice6]

10 hours ago, FullClip said:

The Solar units are pretty small, great for mechanical drive, like the compressors for a gas pipe line, but think the biggest unit they offer is about 38MWs.

 

The frame units I worked on were up to 270MWs for the 9FAs....simple cycle mode.  Lot of power but really thristy for fuel. 

My family has a lot of representation in Power Plants in Minnesota.  Both conventional and Nuclear.

One description of petroleum fueled "boost generators" for high load use, was that when they came up and ran, there was a train of fuel trucks for 100 miles from the refinery.  You could see one truck and before it was out of sight, the next truck was visible.  Lots of fuel consumption was an understatement.

They have since dismantled them.