Columbia Gas Over Pressurization Incident in MA

Jamie Hall

Oh electricity is wonderful stuff. What do you propose to use to create it in the amounts and with the stability required?

ChrisJ

> @Jamie Hall said:
> Oh electricity is wonderful stuff. What do you propose to use to create it in the amounts and with the stability required?

I'm perfectly content with allowing corporations to build a bunch of regulation and lawyer free fission plants around your house.

Gordy

The best new devices I have seen. Infrared wireless device chargers. About 9.5% efficient............

GW

our little first world society is being put to the test with this small incident. The lawyers will have a field day

Gordy

ChrisJ said:

> @Jamie Hall said:

> Oh electricity is wonderful stuff. What do you propose to use to create it in the amounts and with the stability required?



I'm perfectly content with allowing corporations to build a bunch of regulation and lawyer free fission plants around your house.

I would never suggest anything be unregulated, and lawyer free.

Gordy

Generators create electricity. It's what you use to drive them

There are conceptual based therories of underground tunnels that connect inheritly high, and low pressure zone areas of the continent to drive turbines by wind tunnels so to speak.

Great idea so long as pressure zones don't change......

Leonard

Underground tunnels ....funny!
Seems friction losses with walls would kill that wind.

Not to mention cost of tunnels...humm ....I wonder if ......a nuclear powered laser to vaporize the tunnels ....like on Star Trek ..... a larger version of their hand phazor pistols...... hummmmmm

In 50's they actually had a plan for a tunnel melting machine to go thru rock. It used a nuclear reactor for direct heating. ..... what could go wrong with that idea.......

ChrisJ

> @Gordy said:
> > @Jamie Hall said:
>
> > Oh electricity is wonderful stuff. What do you propose to use to create it in the amounts and with the stability required?
>
>
>
> I'm perfectly content with allowing corporations to build a bunch of regulation and lawyer free fission plants around your house.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> I would never suggest anything be unregulated, and lawyer free.

I completely agree.

Jamie had said previously that Lawyers keep causing problems with building new nuclear plants.

This was the reason for my sarcasm

Gordy

Leonard said:

Underground tunnels ....funny!
Seems friction losses with walls would kill that wind.

Not to mention cost of tunnels...humm ....I wonder if ......a nuclear powered laser to vaporize the tunnels ....like on Star Trek ..... a larger version of their hand phazor pistols...... hummmmmm

In 50's they actually had a plan for a tunnel melting machine to go thru rock. It used a nuclear reactor for direct heating. ..... what could go wrong with that idea.......

Completely feasible so long as pressure delta is sufficient, and constant.

The Steam Whisperer

Interesting discussion. However, the current use of nuclear power requires the maintenance of an extensive electrical grid. Having centralized power production with a privately owned grid means a large corporation will need to be in place to administer its operation. This protects the status quo of large utilities income and profits. If we are really going to address energy needs in the future, to leave a wasteful, expensive to maintain grid in place is, IMO, ludicrous. I understand India has largely abandoned their grid after damage by natural (?) disasters and most people are now living on solar . Their is no telephone grid either.... that waste of resources does not exist.
In addition, to continue to support an energy system that is only 30% efficient ( the same as the ancient internal combustion engine) seems ludicrous too. Even more bizarre to me is to use electricity to power cars when something as simple as a diesel engine will have nearly double the efficiency and be well matched to the needs ( high low speed torque).
Using energy sources that do not require an electrical grid is probably the first logical step to reducing energy use. I don't think nuclear will fit this picture unless methods are developed that provide energy that are just as safe and bone head proof as typical appliances. A person who is or hires a bonehead to work on their equipment are going to be the chief casualties of their poor decision. I don't think we are there yet with nuclear technology.

Gordy

I don't see grids of various types (electric, gas, water, sewer) going anywhere in the near future, especially inner city. To much corporate, and governmental foot holds.

I understand what you are saying though.

Gordy

I can remember the diesel 60mpg chevette. 6.5 gallon tank

gfrbrookline

Somehow the USN has been able to run it's capital ships on nuclear power since the 50's without issue. I would think a floating nuclear power plant would be much riskier to operate than a fixed location, as long as it is not in a tsunami zone.

The largest contributor of methane gas that depletes the ozone layer which has been attributed to global warming according to a recent reported study is cow belching. One of the ivy leagues is actually doing a study to see if feeding cows seaweed can reduce the effects but they can't figure out how to make the milk not taste like seaweed.

It's ironic that the environmentalists that call for us to reduce our carbon footprint and fight nuclear power aren't willing to say we should reduce the cow population. I guess Elsie is still more popular than science. Not saying that is what we should do but science is science, some groups like to pick and choose what facts they like.

ChrisJ

gfrbrookline said:

Somehow the USN has been able to run it's capital ships on nuclear power since the 50's without issue. I would think a floating nuclear power plant would be much riskier to operate than a fixed location, as long as it is not in a tsunami zone.

The largest contributor of methane gas that depletes the ozone layer which has been attributed to global warming according to a recent reported study is cow belching. One of the ivy leagues is actually doing a study to see if feeding cows seaweed can reduce the effects but they can't figure out how to make the milk not taste like seaweed.

It's ironic that the environmentalists that call for us to reduce our carbon footprint and fight nuclear power aren't willing to say we should reduce the cow population. I guess Elsie is still more popular than science. Not saying that is what we should do but science is science, some groups like to pick and choose what facts they like.

Oh, there's many groups like that.

gfrbrookline

Agreed, being an Audubon member, installing windmills to shred bird is not an option. Solar farms work if you have open land, in the urban NE we do not and have plenty of cloudy days.

Nuclear can be a safe reliable option as it is in Europe.

I honestly think some environmentalist would object to anything except candle power but would then protest about the pollution caused by the paraffin.

JUGHNE

Cow belching.....yes I believe I read that somewhere.
However from having been around cows as a young farmhand, it seemed the methane came from the other end of the animal.

Maybe a flare off igniter is needed (at either end of offending cow) as in the oil wells.
That would let you find your critters after dark.

But perhaps the diet has changed to where the emissions release has reversed.

My beef is entirely grass fed, there is no seaweed available here.
I now feel guilty that my cow may have emitted methane and not only at the dinner table but upon the world.

And some Ivy Leaguer would have flown out here in a small private jet to study cow farts/belches.

ChrisJ

I'm definitely pro nuclear.

What I am against is cheaply done nuclear.

gfrbrookline

I think it was Harvard that had the study.

It is amazing what our government will waste money on instead of helping us make our steam systems work more efficiently to lower our energy costs. For all of the money spent studying cow farts they probably could have purchased a main vent for everyone that has steam heat and reduced our carbon footprint.

Jamie Hall

The comments on India's grid are interesting, and it certainly does not function well. I wonder, however, how much of that is attributable to storm damage and the like, and how much is attributable to some truly staggeringly incompetent management by the state controlled bodies that run it. Or, more accurately, try to...

One of the very real problems with energy supply -- and use -- is that it is very much a one size fits all doesn't work at all. Most of us on the Wall here are very accustomed to 24/7 availability of electric power and gas and oil, and our vehicles can be fueled (energized?) conveniently pretty much whenever we choose. This is true in even rather rural parts of the US (although there are still some areas where this isn't quite true). Unhappily that power demand is not particularly evenly distributed. I doubt that even the most enthusiastic devotee of clean energy would claim that it was possible to meet the power demand of any of the larger cities in North America or Europe with local power sources which were not either nuclear or fossil fueled (possible exception: Las Vegas, Nevada, if you count Boulder Dam as local, which it really isn't). Therefore, some form of grid distribution from the generating source or sources to the consumption location is going to be required. For very good reasons, to maintain reliability it is desirable to have the grids interconnected, so that problems in one don't result in total failure (yes, I know, that has happened; the causes have largely been corrected). In more rural areas, it may be possible to meet the power demand of the individual house locally; further it is possible to reduce the power demand of an individual house substantially for new construction without major impact on the life style, although with some loss in reliability and some other environmental tradeoffs (is the environmental damage done by mining and manufacturing photovoltaics, for instance, more or less than the damage done by running a natural gas fired power plant? Good question... Is the loss of good farmland to a solar power installation positive or negative? And so on).

In transportation, there are other considerations. Such as -- would it really be a net environmental benefit to power all rail service in North America electrically? It could be done, of course, although the capital costs would be staggering. But -- if the power is being generated from an ordinary fossil fuel source, the efficiency gain is nil or negative. So why do it, unless one has adequate non-polluting electricity available? How do you pow, er an airplane? There are a few light sport airplanes with all electric power flying -- but for any sort of commercial use, that is going to be a very long way off, if ever. Ships at sea? I love the old square riggers as much as anyone -- but the idea of modern commercial sea traffic powered by sail is just funny -- and nuclear power, while perfectly practical (as has been noted -- ask the US Navy), is also somewhat limited by public fear.

None of this even begins to touch on the problems in second and third world countries. While some applications -- like communications -- can leapfrog the grid stage using satellite technology -- others, such as energy for daily use, transportation, and the like, cannot leapfrog so easily (population density in some second and third world cities is greater than most first world cities, for instance). It would be the worst kind of exercise of unmerited privilege to suggest that a citizen in a slum in Bangladesh or Nairobi should be limited in the availability of this sort of thing -- unless the first world countries are prepared to reduce themselves to that level. And good luck with that...

Jean-David Beyer

I dislike nuclear because there is no way a nuclear power plant can earn enough money during its 40 years operation to have enough money left over after paying the construction loans, and operating costs, and compensation to the stock holders, to take care of the nuclear waste for a quarter of a million years. And the risk of damage of a nuclear power plant is so high that no insurance company will write a liability policy for one.

Gordy

There are plenty of nukes that are, and have been functioning with out incident for longer than 30 years. Most have monies for waste disposal. Awaiting a designated site.

The world hangs their hats on three mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima incidents.

ChrisJ

Gordy said:

There are plenty of nukes that are, and have been functioning with out incident for longer than 30 years. Most have monies for waste disposal. Awaiting a designated site.

The world hangs their hats on three mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima incidents.

Chernobyl was functioning fine for 30 years before the incident in 1984.


Three Mile Island didn't go very far...……..

Just saying.

Jamie Hall

Actually, it is not the risk of damage to a nuclear plant which is particularly high, although granted the level of training of commercial plant operators doesn't approach that of a Navy nuke. Rather it is that the probability of an outrageous legal settlement stemming from a trivial problem is much too high.

As to storing nuclear waste... well, let me just observe that a colleague of mine, some 35 years ago now, developed technology to stabilize and store nuclear waste safely indefinitely (the process involves some curious minerals known as zeolites). The process is not difficult, nor particularly expensive -- but it was not politically correct. His research grants were cancelled (as were mine on climate change, in the same time frame) and we both have moved on to other things.

ChrisJ

Jamie Hall said:

Actually, it is not the risk of damage to a nuclear plant which is particularly high, although granted the level of training of commercial plant operators doesn't approach that of a Navy nuke. Rather it is that the probability of an outrageous legal settlement stemming from a trivial problem is much too high.

As to storing nuclear waste... well, let me just observe that a colleague of mine, some 35 years ago now, developed technology to stabilize and store nuclear waste safely indefinitely (the process involves some curious minerals known as zeolites). The process is not difficult, nor particularly expensive -- but it was not politically correct. His research grants were cancelled (as were mine on climate change, in the same time frame) and we both have moved on to other things.

Yeah,
I suspect the build quality of a commercial plant doesn't approach that of a Navy nuke either...…..

Solid_Fuel_Man

What did your research on climate change focus on?

gfrbrookline

I am not going to comment on the Soviet Union, but the rest of Western Europe seams to functioning well on nuclear power.

There is no reason why new plants can't be built to the same standard a we put on Navy vessels. We are just told we need more solar and wind mills because it makes the environmentalist feel better about themselves.

Ask them about the number of birds the wind turbines kill and they start stuttering. Different causes for different folk.

Maybe the Navy should be put in charge of our energy production since they seem to be the only ones that can get it right. I don't think anyone would argue that they should go back to coal or diesel.

Gordy

ChrisJ said:

Gordy said:

There are plenty of nukes that are, and have been functioning with out incident for longer than 30 years. Most have monies for waste disposal. Awaiting a designated site.

The world hangs their hats on three mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima incidents.

Chernobyl was functioning fine for 30 years before the incident in 1984.


Three Mile Island didn't go very far...……..

Just saying.

Chernobyl was commissioned in 1977.construction started in 1970.

BobC

The problem with most nuclear plants is they are all prototype builds, each one is unique. That is not the way to make anything repeatable or reasonably priced.

We should build modular plants where all the components can be shipped by a flat bed freight car. The nuclear reactor sb built in a factory and shipped out as a singe piece. This means they would not be megawatt plants but perhaps 100kw plants, install as many as you need on a site to meet demand. The lowered production costs should offset the requirements for multiple reactors.

If you use low pressure designs you won't need a huge containment vessel (can you imagine the cost of a huge containment vessel that has to withstand 2,000 PSI?)- just a big drip pan that drains into an underground containment tank. Because everything is built the same way training would be simplified and parts would be readily available.

We had a reactor like this running at Oak Ridge back in the 60's and it ran dine for 5 years. The shut it down every Friday when people went home and restarted it on Monday morning when people came back to work. There were no safety incidents during the 5 years it ran because it was a walk away design, if something happened the reactor would shut down and drain the liquid fuel into a containment eank where a reaction could not happen. No fuel rods to worry about and no water needed for cooling.

These are all engineering problems that were solved 50+ years ago and we were to greedy (solid fuel is a VERY lucrative business) and stupid to take advantage of them. We built the A bomb in less than 4 hears and we put men on the moon in 8 years, safe nuclear power is a lot easier then either of those, we just need the will to do it.

Bob

Jamie Hall

Solid_Fuel_Man said:

What did your research on climate change focus on?

My research focussed on the dynamics of very large (continental) ice sheets -- think Greenland and South America in the current day -- in response to climate and sea level variations. The resulting computer program is still in use at CSIRO and as the continental ice component of the European Climate and Long Range Weather forecasting models.

"These are all engineering problems that were solved 50+ years ago and we were to greedy (solid fuel is a VERY lucrative business) and stupid to take advantage of them. We built the A bomb in less than 4 hears and we put men on the moon in 8 years, safe nuclear power is a lot easier then either of those, we just need the will to do it."

yup...

Gordy

@BobC . A typical containment is designed for 40-80 psi. I don’t know where you are coming up with 2000psi.

Jamie Hall

Gordy said:

@BobC . A typical containment is designed for 40-80 psi. I don’t know where you are coming up with 2000psi.

He may be quoting the design test (not operating) pressures in the steam circuits.

ChrisJ

Gordy said:

ChrisJ said:

Gordy said:

There are plenty of nukes that are, and have been functioning with out incident for longer than 30 years. Most have monies for waste disposal. Awaiting a designated site.

The world hangs their hats on three mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima incidents.

Chernobyl was functioning fine for 30 years before the incident in 1984.


Three Mile Island didn't go very far...……..

Just saying.

Chernobyl was commissioned in 1977.construction started in 1970.

My mistake.
I was thinking of the age of the RBMK design, which btw, there are plenty still in use.

Jamie Hall

Reactor design -- like almost everything else -- has come a long way since 1970. Even in Russia. And the RBMK design which was built at Chernobyl was obsolete even when it was built. It is of no more value to base a conclusion as to nuclear power on a design which was obsolete 50 years ago than it is to comment on a 1970 truck as an example of motor vehicle capabilities and safety today.

SlamDunk

PBS NOVA has an excellent documentary called “the nuclear option” made in 2017. It discusses chernobyl,fukishima, three mile islasd with workers of those plants. It also discusses what was learned and how to make future nuke plants even safer.

you can watch online or on netflix

Fred

I heard on the New this evening that the Courts have ordered Columbia Gas to immediately cease any and all non emergency work. I don't know what the game plan may be but it would seem to me that almost any work, at this point would (could) be considered "Emergency" work.

Bob Harper

Thanks for bringing this massive thread drift back home

leonz

As a result of the recent tragedy in Massachusetts I am wondering out loud if district heating would work due to the heating systems being condemned by the utility?

With some of the residences being totally destroyed by the explosions perhaps with the owners permission/sale of the property a district heating system could be built there.

Please don't yell;

An All Canadian Heater coal stoker could be set up quickly in a small building with slab on grade construction to make hot water for a district heating system.

The largest All Canadian Heater is the NAC40 using the vertical tube boiler design with an afterburner and diffusers in the boiler tubes to pull all the heat out of the coal as it is burning and it is rated for 2,300,000 BTU to make hot water and it has a 4 inch tapping in the top of the boiler to supply hot water. The NAC40 is rated to heat 80,000 square feet of area.

The system uses 110 and 220 volt single phase power to operate the coal stoker auger, the forced draft combustion blower and the 2 single aquastats.

The four models of the "All Canadian Heaters" are UL and CSL approved boilers.

The building would not be all that large as the NAC40 boiler is 12 feet tall and has a 14 inch diameter chimney that would pass through the metal roof of the building. The compression tank needs to hung in the ceiling above the boilers 4 inch tapping and the piping connected from the ceiling down to the concrete slab where the header pipes would be connected to the PEX tubing lines that would feed hot water to the homes.

The coal ashes would be conveyed to a roll off container using a separate auger under the vertical boiler so that there is no manual labor involved with removing the ashes.

A small skid loader could also be used to remove the coal ashes and dumped in the roll off container but there would be more of a mess due to the dumping of the coal ashes into to the roll off container with the skid steer loader.

The rice anthracite coal supply would be stored near the boiler room and it would be fed to the coal stoker using the hopper supplied with the coal stoker being fed by an auger from the coal storage pile in the building.

The 15 dollar per foot heavy wall closed cell foam with 1inch or larger tubing feeding hot water to a series of homes with vaults placed in the ground at each residence would allow splicing of a pex line to the home with a cold return to the shallow buried pex lines.

The hot water would be pumped to the home to provide hot water for heating and domestic use using a heat exchanger to heat the municipal water that would enter the smaller hot water heater.

A lot of shell and tube heat exchangers could be employed in the homes to heat a hot water supply in each home which would utilize a much smaller boiler or furnace as the heating loop would return the cooler water back to the heating loop to be reheated.

I am not sure how or if a district wide heating system using hot water would help a steam heated household other than delivering hot water to a heat exchanger for the smaller hot water heater.


My thoughts at a late hour.

Sailah

I live in MA. Not near the explosion area, but close enough to know that the words COAL and MA have about as much chance as happening as a Trump/Warren 2020 ticket.

District heat would be massively expensive in that area the density isnt there. We have 3 district steam heating loops in Boston, all run by Veolia. Kendall Square, southie and the MATEP loop.

Im not discounting your idea at all, i think district heating is great. I just wonder about the realities of making it happen with the houses so far apart.

leonz

Good morning Sailah,


I have a coal stoker boiler to heat my old house. Small coal stoker stoves that use rice coal are every efficient and can be direct vented through an outside wall with either a powerventer or the forced draft fan of the coal stoker.

District high voltage to low voltage power distribution(<600 Volts AC) is accomplished in at least two villages here in New York State; The village of Groton, New York and the Village of Solvay, New York and probably a many more nationwide that I do not know of personally.
The Village of Groton, New York purchases high voltage power from NYSEG/Iberdrolla.
The Village of Solvay, New York purchases high voltage power from Niagara Mohawk/national grid.
Both of these villages have personnel in their electrical department that are trained in maintaining high voltage power systems.

My desire to mention it as a possibility was simply from the fact that Anthracite Rice Coal burns cleanly with no smoke and the installation of a slab on grade system would allow a quick installation and the heavy wall tubing oxygen barrier pex could be buried quickly with a small vault connection at each residence and the tubing run to the house foundation at a shallow depth.

It would look like hell for a while but these folks would have some type of heat quickly.

Routing the tubing pipeline would be an issue due the location of the homes and apartments and the available area to do the work and for a longer run more than one coal stoker could push the hot water through the single loop providing 160 degree water to these homes and for each additional NAC40 installed in one area it would add 80,000 square feet of heating capacity,

The closed cell foam oxygen barrier pex tubing with the thick tubing carcass has a very low heat loss per foot as well.

This type of coal stoker or any coal stoker for that matter would create the hot water needed on a continuous basis and a simple circulator/centrifugal pump would push the heated water to each residence and the cold water loop would just continue in the loop until it is returned to be reheated.

Many of these homes were heated with coal making steam and gravity hot water heating and over time coal furnaces were installed in the beginning and many of these homes have basements that had coal rooms.

It is going to be a rough cold winter for many of these families and businesses. I cannot imagine how many electrical fires they will have to be ready to fight there due to old wiring and circuit overloads. I am sorry to see that they are essentially going to be lab animals in this "experiment due to human error".

ChrisJ

You do realize 99% of modern people cannot even be bothered to change a furnace filter, right?

You think they're going to deal with a coal furnace?


Not to mention a gas company isn't going to pay to install a system that uses a fuel other than their own.