Nice chat with Bob Boyer today

I just had a nice chat with Nando.

It felt like we've spoken to eachother on yesterday.


Thank you Nando.
 
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Thank you for your call, Miles. Nice to hear things are going well on the other side of the world. You are a bit of a night-owl. It's rare for me to be up past 10:30 p.m. on most nights - unless it's movie night.

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Nando.
 
Thank you for your phone call, last night, Bob. I learned about more than just tape-related stuff in our discussion., even though, initially, the topic began there. Got to find out more of Bob's future plans and how we are, presently, coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and Bob's past work history, which is quite interesting.

Nando.
 
Enjoyed hearing more of your story as well, Nando. Though I feel like I've known you for some time, it's still great to connect in person. And old power plants are just cool. It's good to know folks who keep 'em operating.
 
Here is a picture of the old Pelton Wheel Turbine circa 1947. Sure - at most, it only develops 1.9 MW of electricity - of which we need about 400 kW to operate our site and the excess power generation is sold to BC Hydro. The electricity sold, equates to about 3/4 million $ per year. One of my duties is to operate the Pelton Wheel, do daily checks on it and help with yearly maintenance. As impressive as the old Pelton Wheel is, the infrastructure required to feed water to the Turbine is much more impressive.

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Nando.
 
Nice one guys!

Speaking of power plants, my last company did an on site coating job in a LBGT facility in Minnesota in February I think it was... nothing but corn fields all around... and cold. We worked alternated 13 hour shifts, so we had an hour overlap on the handoff at each end.

One highlight was the ports-potties. You had a choice: one had a heater and the other had a light. Take your pick.

Our coating improved compressor efficiency about 15% if I recall, so imagine the turbine was suddenly 15% larger. There were three or four other turbines at this “farm” but I don’t believe we ever went back to do the others for some reason.
 
Oh! We did peloton wheel coatings as well. The silt eventually erodes the buckets to the point they don’t work...
 
Cool, Jim, but what does sexual-orientation have to do with a power plant - "LBGT facility in Minnesota."

Probably, a little early in the day to get a funny in there.

Nando.
 
My former (idiot) boss thought the same every time he saw that on documentation.

Land
Based
Gas
Turbine

not LGBT
 
Oh, you're sharp this morning, Jim.

Nando.
 
While we're talking hydro power, here's a shot of mine from a tour TVA was giving to other utility execs back in the 1990's. It's Raccoon Mountain Pump Storage Plant, just outside Chattanooga

A peak load provider, Raccoon Mountain can wheel 1600 MW of electricity for summer or winter peaks as needed. The turbines are also pumps. Water is pumped from the Tennessee River up to a lake on top of Raccoon Mountain, several hundred feet above this powerhouse and held there until needed. It is then released back down through the pipes, through the turbines and back into the Tennessee River. It was a massive project for TVA in the 1970s, being completed in 1978, IIRC.

This observation deck is just above the turbine floor and used to be accessible to the public from the visitor center on top of the mountain via the damndest elevator ride you ever took short of the World Trade Center. Sadly, after 9/11 this elevator and observation deck are closed to the public because this is a seriously cool piece of engineering.

Overlook2.jpg
 
I was on the floor at Baie James hydro plant one winter.

Hot as hell in there, even more so when wearing Canada Goose and several layers for -20 outside...

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Not my photo, but this is what the sluiceway looked like when we were there.
 
Yeah, when I went looking for the photos of Raccoon Mountain I knew I took for my stock file, I found I had not saved them to CD. I donated the transparencies to the UTC Library a few years ago and they haven't gotten everything online yet so I can't give you the pristine, no-people-in-the-picture architectural shot of that turbine chamber but it is second only in amazine to standing on the turbine deck of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, I can assure you. Not much beats 3300 MW of electrical generation capacity.

And, in the spirit of wrecking a thread while honoring John Prine at the same time, here's my hero shot of Paradise Fossil Plant, which as of this year, operates no more.

Paradise.jpg
 
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