Ask me about industrial electricity 2: electric boogaloo

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about industrial electricity 2: electric boogaloo

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Methylethylaldehyde posted:

trainwreck really requires a confluence of issues that last a long period of time. Much like a real trainwreck, they continue for far longer that you'd expect, and you can't look away.

A moderate trainwreck project would have unbid and un-budgeted change orders mid-project, at least one change in team leadership, and one resignation.

A total trainwreck has gross mismanagement of the project, significant changes in design and scope occur repeatedly, cost and schedule overruns greater than 100%, multiple terminations and resignations, and at least one accident costing significant money or life. All the while the lawyers of both firms are floating around in the background sniping at each other.

in essence, my project manager at my last place of employ rolling up his sleeves and asking someone to hold his beer.

A few of his personal accomplishments in the field of project trainwrecking:

scope creep
ignoring the contract requirements
underbudgeting time/materials
underbudgeting manpower required for no reason other than to project hyper-competency
baking the expectation of subsequent change orders into the initial bid/contract without informing the client
schedule drift
failing to capture regulatory requirements in designs
claiming project milestones are met due to schedule rather than project status
assume anyone who quits or demands transfer off project wasn't doing anything anyway, and therefore no changes required in manpower allotment
no news is good news communication philosophy

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 21:16

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:49

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Orvin posted:

Not particularly surprising to hear. Especially since in the Midwest, companies are playing games with their nuclear plants in an attempt to get "green" money out of state governments. So far they have been successful in Illinois, and I think the next target is somewhere on the East coast.

I dunno if "playing games" is the right way to phrase it. it's more or less "closing plants", a trend that's been catching. Some plants close due to equipment issues, like San Onofre and Crystal River, but the ones that closed due to economics are the real trendsetters. Just like Saudi Arabia is using cheap oil to kill its competitors, cheap natural gas from fracking is killing its primary competitors in power generation (coal and nuclear).

So the "game" being played here is "it's not economical to keep the plant open due to cheap natural gas combined cycle turbines, but the nuclear plants support a local economy in your state way more than that natural gas plant does, it's way better in terms of greenhouse gas production, and if the gas prices ever start climbing again you'll be stuck forking over more money because you'll have literally no other options if we're gone."

And despite the many faults of nuclear power, it is green energy, but that's a different and well-trod debate in the power generation megathread.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 19:56

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Orvin posted:

I was more talking about the Exelon nuclear plants in Illinois. I get how Clinton nuclear plant can be more expensive to run with only one generator at that site. But what didn't make much sense to me is how the Quad Cities plant can be more expensive to run compared to the other 4 plants running in Northern Illinois. The only thing that ever made sense was that since Exelon only owns a portion of Quad Cities, they were willing to take the risk of the state calling their bluff and shutting down.

I will have to look for the power generation megathread. I didn't know one existed.

Even the youngest of the IL plants are pushing 30, with Quad Cities closer to 50 than 40. The constant retrofits and modifications required by new regulations (FLEX upgrades, NFPA 805 compliance) are huge drains even for 2 unit plants.

Most of the US fleet should be getting replaced now, rather than extended or mothballed.

Kinda like the US electrical grid. It's a problem out of sight out of mind for most people, and at some point it's going to be a heinously expensive problem that needs an immediate fix because of neglect and a failure of imagination.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 20:46

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Zemyla posted:

And as long as the electricity doesn't want to go into you more than it wants to continue down the rest of the cable, you're good, right?

Depends on how much you can get the electricity to not want to go into you. Better be right about how much or else you're a human fuse.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2017 21:02

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

SeaBass posted:

Some contractors found this fine piece of work the other day.

What's going on there? Bad splicing? Weird holes in the enclosure?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 00:11

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

I was looking at a substation and noticed that the area under their VRLA batteries looked, uh, worse for the wear.

There are 92 batteries, and they're all pretty new (oldest are about a year old, youngest are 6 months).

Is this just old acid scars? It looked like a little bit of liquid there, but I couldn't find any obvious leaks. No corroding at the terminals. It looks like poo poo but I'm not sure it's actually a risk going forward (just something that stripped paint in the past).

Basically I think the health of the batteries looks good and the scarred floor is just cosmetic and unrelated to the current system setup. Does that seem like a sensible opinion to take or am I missing something? I am not very experienced with battery systems, and most of my concern is that the batteries will actually produce amps if needed.

Pander fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Oct 24, 2017

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 19:36

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Noctone posted:

Uhhhh looks like there's a fuckton of it.

I thought it was just lubricant or something. It didn't seem like corrosion from these newer batteries. There's no way the floor could be that hosed up from batteries under a year old that aren't bleeding acids in a super obvious manner, is there?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 19:52

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Noctone posted:

I mean I guess yeah that could be grease, although if it is then whoever put it on went waaaaaaaay overboard.

Yeah that's my guess.

I'm just gonna recommend the client actually perform PMs on the batteries unlike previous sets.

And also MOVE THEM. Behind where the photos are taken, about 5' from the batteries, are the switchgear CB/relay cabinets, an entire wall of 12.47kV CB/relays. An arc flash from one of those cabinets could likely engulf the batteries which strikes me as suboptimal. I'm used to seeing batteries in their own room with dedicated ventilation, so I'm pretty sure that's a NEC/IEEE violation of some sort.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 20:07

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:49

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Noctone posted:

Oh poo poo really? lmao, I don't know if it's a code violation but the only places I've not seen batteries in a separate room are oil & gas PDCs.

I'm not sure. The specific code I deal with (UFC 3-520-05) points to NFPA-1, and in NFPA the closest I can find is basically "make sure it's got a 1 hour barrier from the rest of the bldg" (52.3.3.3) which is perhaps N/A since it's just a metalclad trailer and "battery systems shall be housed in a noncombustible, locked cabinet or other enclosure to prevent access by unauthorized personnel" (52.3.3.2) which seems more worried about personnel access than separation from potential sources of ignition.

It SEEMS bad to me but maybe there's no specific code violations?

The UFC definitely has an applicable paragraph:

code:

Select a slip-resistant floor finish in all battery rooms. Select an acid or alkali resistant
floor finish and battery cabinet finish as appropriate for the battery chemistry employed.
Wall and ceiling finishes in vented (flooded) cell installations must be acid or alkali
resistant.

There are other installation codes I'll check out like IEEE 484. So far the gist I'm getting is "there's nothing specific saying not to install these near potential high-energy arc flash hazards but boy engineering judgment suggests it's a bad idea".

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 20:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about industrial electricity 2: electric boogaloo