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Posted: 10/26/2014 3:17:53 AM EDT
[#1]
Ice got us one morning. The river froze and our wier pump that pumps warm water from the condenser discharge was out for repair. We had been seeing ice in the river and we told them it was coming. Screenhouse at river froze and screens would not turn so we stopped taking intake water. Lost all 5 units to low vacuum. 500 MWs right down the toilet.
Control room operator. 33 years, same plant. Me and the plant both are retired now. 
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Posted: 10/26/2014 3:26:24 AM EDT
[#2]
Probably the worst thing I've seen was a 2300v Bus fire. Water had somehow leaked down on top of a 2300v breaker and caused it to short and burn. No one really goes up to that level much so by the time we noticed the smell and the smoke it had spread to other breaker cubicles. This was a live fed 2300v electrical fire shooting lightning bolts and burning metal.
It took some creative switching just to isolate the Bus. The entire Fire Dept showed up. Cant use water on an electrical fire. They already know we have Hydrogen lines running the entire length of our plant. Now we have a fire. They just stayed outside waiting for an escort. They aint comin in. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 3:33:00 AM EDT
[#3]
Hydrilla and Asian clams have also shut us down. Hydrilla blocked our water intake and the clams blocked our condenser tubes.
We actually built a net out in front of the plant to stop the hydrilla. 
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Posted: 10/26/2014 3:38:19 AM EDT
[#4]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Sounds like you've worked in some shitty places. I haven't seen anything crazy at the Co-gen plant I work at. I've only been here a year but I work with guys who have been here since commissioning and they don't have any stories like yours. All of our steam is superheated. I work in an itty-bitty cogen plant now, truly a piss-hole in the snow compared to the other plants I worked at, but this place is (mostly) the Energizer Bunny...it just goes and goes and keeps on going. All trash to energy plants suck, although you sometimes can get a pretty good run in between the craziness. It's been over 16 years since I've had to rod out plugged hoppers,clear plugged ash dischargers, or break slag. Breaking slag is great fun, it litterally is breaking big rock into smaller rock. Nothing like having all the doors open at the front of a Detroit stoker and you can't see the bed or the fire, because slag built up on the back wall and it fell, worked its way to the front, and is now damming everything up behind it because it's too tall to fit under and drop into the drags and quenching bath. We'd be on the front with big pick bars or my favorite length of square channel just pounding the slag untill we could get it broke up....it'd be hours, and if we were lucky, we could get it done without a secondary effect of getting plugged feeder down chutes....and then squeeze in between the boiler and down chutes to rod those out. Repeat after me....natural gas...sweet sweet natural gas. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 3:42:17 AM EDT
[#5]
How about this one... shad. Yes shad shut the whole plant down. Thousands of them somehow made their way around our intake screens and got sucked into the condensers.
The whole basement smelled like fish for a while and contractors had to remove a shitload of 55 gal drums full of shad. Divers went down and found the route the shad took around the screens and blocked it. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 3:56:51 AM EDT
[#6]
Sometimes all you can do is just let out an exasperated WTF???as you lose the plant around you and know you don't have the power to save it, like the night we took a bump and only lost part of the plant...to include the make up water pumps to the dea. All we could do was hope we could get an electrician in before we ran out of feed water, which didn't happen. We just watched the glass on the dea get lower and lower, then called it and took everything off line while we had at least a little water left.
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Posted: 10/26/2014 4:19:25 AM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Sometimes all you can do is just let out an exasperated WTF???as you lose the plant around you and know you don't have the power to save it, like the night we took a bump and only lost part of the plant...to include the make up water pumps to the dea. All we could do was hope we could get an electrician in before we ran out of feed water, which didn't happen. We just watched the glass on the dea get lower and lower, then called it and took everything off line while we had at least a little water left. Happened to me all the time. Something fails and you know that's it boys, we are going down. (Glad it aint a ship). Many times we lost a unit because it was the midnight shift and something would fail. None of our support people were there. We got smart later and started having Maint, I &C and electricians available 24/7. But that cost too much money in OT. So they would usually be available only for startups. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 4:23:22 AM EDT
[#8]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
There was a thread about that and what may have cause it. I never did see the results of the investigation.  Quote HistoryQuoted:
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I no longer work at ANO but someone I knew was out there when they had the horrible crane accident Easter Day 2013. He says it should not and would not have happened if the people overseeing that had followed the rules and not trying to do the changeout as quick as possible, to save money.  There was a thread about that and what may have cause it. I never did see the results of the investigation. The Condition Report Cause Analysis was not released to the public. Pics I saw before & after looked like the generator was being moved on an aerial l steel track with a spanner beam between the two rails The position of the rotor after it went thru the concrete floors indicated a rotational torque maybe from one of the brakes at the end of the spanner not holding. Safety was alwaysthe first casualty during outages. In the case we lost one of our own too. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 4:39:29 AM EDT
[#9]
Here is a funny one. Middle of the night. We get the alarm for a breaker trip. It's the feed to a major waste water treatment plant, directly across the river from us.
Phone rings and its the guy that runs the electrical switching operation for the company that gets our power. He tells me the breaker tripped at **** ****** and the only other feed is already tagged out. I told him I know I saw it. I ask him if he wants me to try and close it back in from here, I can do that. He says, no we have problems. Someone has to inspect the substation. He says he thinks they are dark totally out of power. I said, dont tell me all that shit is going into the river. He said well...probably yes. I went out and looked and I have never seen it so dark over there. News reports said that 700,000 gallons of raw human sewage went into the river. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 4:59:04 AM EDT
[#10]
How about Riesel burning up their boiler during commissioning? From what I heard, feedwater was left in manual and nobody noticed it as they increased firing. Set them back about a year I think. That was a costly mistake...
I've seen a frozen transmitter cause multiple units to hit the dirt and cause massive power outages. 
I've seen operators sleep for 12hrs straight and I've seen them work for 12hrs in freezing rain without a break. You do whatever it takes to keep the unit on line. It's definitely the easiest and hardest job I've ever had. You never know what is going to happen next. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 5:25:44 AM EDT
[#11]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I've seen operators sleep for 12hrs straight and I've seen them work for 12hrs in freezing rain without a break. You do whatever it takes to keep the unit on line. It's definitely the easiest and hardest job I've ever had. You never know what is going to happen next. Yep. I've seen it all. We did some amazing shit to keep units on line. I've seen people come together and do a terrific effort at all costs to keep the unit on line. Fighting fires, emergency equipment maintenance with a time limit... |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 5:28:52 AM EDT
[#12]
Love this thread. Worked at several plants and seen all the usual stuff. One was a small co gen plant ghat powered a mfg facility, 500 people or so, not hooked into the grid at all. We had 6 Cat 399's and a 5mw solar gas turbine and a Fairbanks Morse 3.65mw OP all in parallel. Plant was designed on a napkin with everything being added and a hodgepodge of control systems. Got an alarm one night while all alone. Looked out in the engine room to see one of the cats that was online is totally engulfed in a fireball happliy chugging along. Course the 4160 bus was above this engine, and the 500 gallon #2 day tank was right beside it. Very interesting night!!
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Posted: 10/26/2014 5:57:46 AM EDT
[#13]
Just to put this in perspective...For those who have never been in a coal / fuel oil plant...
Put out over 100 fires at the plant. Some by myself, some with others, and some with all hands. Just another day.
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Posted: 10/26/2014 7:40:34 AM EDT
[#14]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Yep. I've seen it all. We did some amazing shit to keep units on line. I've seen people come together and do a terrific effort at all costs to keep the unit on line. Fighting fires, emergency equipment maintenance with a time limit... Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
I've seen operators sleep for 12hrs straight and I've seen them work for 12hrs in freezing rain without a break. You do whatever it takes to keep the unit on line. It's definitely the easiest and hardest job I've ever had. You never know what is going to happen next. Yep. I've seen it all. We did some amazing shit to keep units on line. I've seen people come together and do a terrific effort at all costs to keep the unit on line. Fighting fires, emergency equipment maintenance with a time limit... This sums it all up very well. I was amazed how often shit catches fire, then I got used to it. Just another day. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 8:26:40 AM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Somewhere I have a picture of a squirrel that bridged across a 26.4kV insulator. It was like a carbon replica of a squirrel. All of the water in its body instantly went away. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
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Squirrel taking a nuke plant offline. What happened? Somewhere I have a picture of a squirrel that bridged across a 26.4kV insulator. It was like a carbon replica of a squirrel. All of the water in its body instantly went away. Han Squirrelo in Carbonite... |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 11:35:40 AM EDT
[#16]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Squirrel taking a nuke plant offline. I've had two of the little fuckers commit hari kiri this morning. Two 13.8 breaker operations. Before noon. On a Sunday. Lol. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 11:43:08 AM EDT
[#17]
I was at the RDF plant and we were just bringing it up after a scheduled outage. The trash boiler was built next to an old existing plant, half built way back in 1906, the other half added on in 1916....all the auxiliaries were over there, including the flash and drain tank. It was a cold February and the blow down header to that tank had frozen.
The boiler was fairly large, trash having such a low BTU content that you need a large boiler to burn enough at once to expect any kind of usefull steam flow. Anyway, the drum level is getting the expected swell and needs to be blown down, but where...if the blow down header is frozen? The red neck engineering solution was to break the blow down line apart at a union, attach a nipple piece, hose clamp a fire hose over that nipple and run it out the back of the building. I get a call to blow the boiler down, head over to the mud drum blow down valves and spin them open a bit. The fire hose is whipping around outside, but the control room is demanding more blow down. I tell them the fire hose is already plumping like a ball park frank, but the supervisor is just giving me the just do it line. I spin the valve open as much as I dared and got about 25 feet away and watched, gee....what an unforseen surprize....the hose blows apart. I now have an open line blowing water that instantly flashes to steam and has filled that area of the plant. I takes a little bit before I can get in there and get the valves shut, and by that time the steam had gotten into the electrics of the trash feeding system and wrecked havoc, it wasn't repaired and operational for another couple of days. Oil costs money and is only to get the boiler barely on line, trash takes it the rest of the way, so with no trash now, they just shut the unit back off and took the hit. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 12:27:19 PM EDT
[#18]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Sorry, you have to be a power plant operator to know of these upsets of which I speak. Every now and then I see a thread where a number of operators chime in, so I know they're out there. Another little one, trash plant, electrician has his meter in an electrical box and trips the feed pump, the steam turbine driven feed pump is valved out, both boilers showed red to the bottom of the eye-hyes...barely saved from a trip that time. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
Sorry, you have to be a power plant operator to know of these upsets of which I speak. Every now and then I see a thread where a number of operators chime in, so I know they're out there. Another little one, trash plant, electrician has his meter in an electrical box and trips the feed pump, the steam turbine driven feed pump is valved out, both boilers showed red to the bottom of the eye-hyes...barely saved from a trip that time. 21years as a Boiler Tech in the Navy I  can tell you some stories.
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Posted: 10/26/2014 12:48:47 PM EDT
[#19]
At the older of the two trash to energy plants I worked at, the trash boiler was fired on flow control...didn't care about pressure, just wanted to make steam flow set point.
The old side of the plant had the turbine deck and 3 other boilers that fired to maintain the header pressure set point and took the swing. Two of the units were old field erected ones from the 30's, and one package unit from the 60's. One of the old ones was a B&W cross drum with a jillion hand holes. About a year before I got there, they had an issue with a cantankerous demineralizer system. On one occasion, the demins put out make up water in the 3 ph range, not good when you're trying to keep about an 11 ph in the boilers. The 3 ph water got into the boilers, all but one boiler survived, after taking them down and flushing them out, but the one with a jillion hand holes was blowing water out of all of them, the gaskets just came apart and they were lucky to keep water in it. The day shift came in, and rightfully said what the fuck...are you guys serious?...shut this thing down now! They condemned that boiler over that and it never ran again. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 2:15:46 PM EDT
[#20]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
The Condition Report Cause Analysis was not released to the public. Pics I saw before & after looked like the generator was being moved on an aerial l steel track with a spanner beam between the two rails The position of the rotor after it went thru the concrete floors indicated a rotational torque maybe from one of the brakes at the end of the spanner not holding. Safety was alwaysthe first casualty during outages. In the case we lost one of our own too. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
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I no longer work at ANO but someone I knew was out there when they had the horrible crane accident Easter Day 2013. He says it should not and would not have happened if the people overseeing that had followed the rules and not trying to do the changeout as quick as possible, to save money. There was a thread about that and what may have cause it. I never did see the results of the investigation. The Condition Report Cause Analysis was not released to the public. Pics I saw before & after looked like the generator was being moved on an aerial l steel track with a spanner beam between the two rails The position of the rotor after it went thru the concrete floors indicated a rotational torque maybe from one of the brakes at the end of the spanner not holding. Safety was alwaysthe first casualty during outages. In the case we lost one of our own too. It was an inadequate crane design. The lifting company told the contractor and plant that they had used this crane before, when in fact it had been modified. Was never load tested before use. Bad calculations also. My plant still has a million or so pounds of concrete blocks from when we did our generators 10 years ago. We made them load test it on sight before use. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 4:27:20 PM EDT
[#21]
We had a boiler high pressure event, and at about 2,000 + psi... the safety valve released right on specs.
The safety valve release nozzle on the roof was a cone type, high pressure, heavy steel nozzle, like on a huge garden hose nozzle. Somehow it was not properly bolted down. This one was about 8ft tall and weighed about 300lbs. We launched into the atmosphere. It went high enough that it came down and made a hole in our roof and just missed the turbine room and landed on the Auxiliary floor and broke the floor. We were lucky that no one was killed, and we did not suffer a catastrophic failure from the bomb hit. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 4:54:29 PM EDT
[#22]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
We had a boiler high pressure event, and at about 2,000 + psi... the safety valve released right on specs. The safety valve release nozzle on the roof was a cone type, high pressure, heavy steel nozzle, like on a huge garden hose nozzle. Somehow it was not properly bolted down. This one was about 8ft tall and weighed about 300lbs. We launched into the atmosphere. It went high enough that it came down and made a hole in our roof and just missed the turbine room and landed on the Auxiliary floor and broke the floor. We were lucky that no one was killed, and we did not suffer a catastrophic failure from the bomb hit. Did anybody do the math to see how high it went? And forgive my ignorance, what's the safe working pressure? |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 5:50:09 PM EDT
[#23]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Did anybody do the math to see how high it went? And forgive my ignorance, what's the safe working pressure? Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
We had a boiler high pressure event, and at about 2,000 + psi... the safety valve released right on specs. The safety valve release nozzle on the roof was a cone type, high pressure, heavy steel nozzle, like on a huge garden hose nozzle. Somehow it was not properly bolted down. This one was about 8ft tall and weighed about 300lbs. We launched into the atmosphere. It went high enough that it came down and made a hole in our roof and just missed the turbine room and landed on the Auxiliary floor and broke the floor. We were lucky that no one was killed, and we did not suffer a catastrophic failure from the bomb hit. Did anybody do the math to see how high it went? And forgive my ignorance, what's the safe working pressure? Not sure how high we launched it but we were very lucky, it went straight up and straight down. No outside the property damage, No witnesses, and no calls. As for safe working pressure, its pretty standard, several things come into effect to stop high pressure events. And runaway turbine events. Stop valves, intercept valves, relief valves, safety valves... As for boiler pressure, ours would react at just over what our engineers thought was safe for our plant considering that Money was king. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 5:54:05 PM EDT
[#24]
Had a gate blow off a barometric damper when a pulverizer mill puffed. Missed me by about five feet, went through the wall and ended up about 50 feet in the parking lot. Scared the fuck outta me for a minute.
Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:01:08 PM EDT
[#25]
you operators keep me busy (OEM field engineer)
old dirt burner plants are always entertaining
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:25:14 PM EDT
[#26]
I saw photos of a generator that exploded from improper hydrogen inerting.
I saw photos of the GSU transformer fire at a 740MW plant. I heard all about a turbine manway that was thrown across a turbine deck. Apparently the mechanic unbolted all of the bolts holding the 3 foot diameter cover. He noticed, but failed to appreciate, there was still a couple PSI pressure inside the housing. The CO2 emissions monitor at a plant I was working at took a shit. It sent erratic readings to the DCS which caused FD dampers to open and close, upsetting and tripping the unit. We have had custodians bump relays with mop handles trip the units. I heard about a plant that synched to the grid... 180 out of phase. I worked with an electrician who was there. He said he thought the place was bombed. The first plant I worked at kept tripping off. At least once a week for a couple of months. They finally decided it was buzzards on the power lines causing ground traces when they shit on the insulators. I had Christmas lunch with some very old old-timers. I was relating frustrations with one of the old boilers that was still operational. One old timer laughed and said he remembered setting a 50 pound bag of cement next to the chemical bench. When he went back to get it, it was open. While he was standing there scratching his head, the unit tripped. Someone added a few pounds of cement to the boiler thinking it was TSP. (Pumped in from a batch tank) Chemistry went crazy and the control room tripped the unit. The old timer told me not to lose any sleep over that particular boiler. It survived, and kept running until it retired this year. I had glycol get into the boiler one time. pH dove down to 4. The GM wouldn't listen to me at first to take the unit off ASAP. After a couple hours he realized he couldn't fix the problem by throwing more chemicals at it. tripped, drained, flushed, filled, and back online. Lucky as hell we didn't start blowing tubes from hydrogen damage. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:31:11 PM EDT
[#27]
Afloat, not ashore, but blown generating tubes, blown superheater tubes, empty DC Heaters, heavy salt contamination, heavy oil contamination, loss of forced draft blowers, lighting off on the brickwork, panting air casing, feed pump tripping, feed water regulator failure, packing gland failures, etc.
I stopped someone once from recreating the Iwo Jima brass nuts casualty once. With a few minor exceptions, most casualties I've dealt with boiled down to grilling the watch engineer about the last thing he touched or adjusted. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:38:40 PM EDT
[#28]
Quote History    I worked in them for 11-13 years as a field service machinist / millwright , but it was usually during shutdowns , so everything was fairly 'quiet' . . . . . for the most part |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:49:57 PM EDT
[#29]
Nothing very crazy. Seen stuff like a rat getting in a 4160 breaker and tripping the plant. We had someone get in a loader point it at a power pole and jump out while it ran it over. I guess the best would be a wind storm that blew down 30 miles of our privately owned power line.
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:50:45 PM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I saw photos of a generator that exploded from improper hydrogen inerting. I saw photos of the GSU transformer fire at a 740MW plant. I heard all about a turbine manway that was thrown across a turbine deck. Apparently the mechanic unbolted all of the bolts holding the 3 foot diameter cover. He noticed, but failed to appreciate, there was still a couple PSI pressure inside the housing. The CO2 emissions monitor at a plant I was working at took a shit. It sent erratic readings to the DCS which caused FD dampers to open and close, upsetting and tripping the unit. We have had custodians bump relays with mop handles trip the units. I heard about a plant that synched to the grid... 180 out of phase. I worked with an electrician who was there. He said he thought the place was bombed. The first plant I worked at kept tripping off. At least once a week for a couple of months. They finally decided it was buzzards on the power lines causing ground traces when they shit on the insulators. I had Christmas lunch with some very old old-timers. I was relating frustrations with one of the old boilers that was still operational. One old timer laughed and said he remembered setting a 50 pound bag of cement next to the chemical bench. When he went back to get it, it was open. While he was standing there scratching his head, the unit tripped. Someone added a few pounds of cement to the boiler thinking it was TSP. (Pumped in from a batch tank) Chemistry went crazy and the control room tripped the unit. The old timer told me not to lose any sleep over that particular boiler. It survived, and kept running until it retired this year. I had glycol get into the boiler one time. pH dove down to 4. The GM wouldn't listen to me at first to take the unit off ASAP. After a couple hours he realized he couldn't fix the problem by throwing more chemicals at it. tripped, drained, flushed, filled, and back online. Lucky as hell we didn't start blowing tubes from hydrogen damage. Saw that one to. That was a fuck up of the highest orders. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:52:02 PM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Saw that one to. That was a fuck up of the highest orders. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: I saw photos of a generator that exploded from improper hydrogen inerting. I saw photos of the GSU transformer fire at a 740MW plant. I heard all about a turbine manway that was thrown across a turbine deck. Apparently the mechanic unbolted all of the bolts holding the 3 foot diameter cover. He noticed, but failed to appreciate, there was still a couple PSI pressure inside the housing. The CO2 emissions monitor at a plant I was working at took a shit. It sent erratic readings to the DCS which caused FD dampers to open and close, upsetting and tripping the unit. We have had custodians bump relays with mop handles trip the units. I heard about a plant that synched to the grid... 180 out of phase. I worked with an electrician who was there. He said he thought the place was bombed. The first plant I worked at kept tripping off. At least once a week for a couple of months. They finally decided it was buzzards on the power lines causing ground traces when they shit on the insulators. I had Christmas lunch with some very old old-timers. I was relating frustrations with one of the old boilers that was still operational. One old timer laughed and said he remembered setting a 50 pound bag of cement next to the chemical bench. When he went back to get it, it was open. While he was standing there scratching his head, the unit tripped. Someone added a few pounds of cement to the boiler thinking it was TSP. (Pumped in from a batch tank) Chemistry went crazy and the control room tripped the unit. The old timer told me not to lose any sleep over that particular boiler. It survived, and kept running until it retired this year. I had glycol get into the boiler one time. pH dove down to 4. The GM wouldn't listen to me at first to take the unit off ASAP. After a couple hours he realized he couldn't fix the problem by throwing more chemicals at it. tripped, drained, flushed, filled, and back online. Lucky as hell we didn't start blowing tubes from hydrogen damage. Saw that one to. That was a fuck up of the highest orders. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:56:02 PM EDT
[#32]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
it's happened more then once too Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I saw photos of a generator that exploded from improper hydrogen inerting. I saw photos of the GSU transformer fire at a 740MW plant. I heard all about a turbine manway that was thrown across a turbine deck. Apparently the mechanic unbolted all of the bolts holding the 3 foot diameter cover. He noticed, but failed to appreciate, there was still a couple PSI pressure inside the housing. The CO2 emissions monitor at a plant I was working at took a shit. It sent erratic readings to the DCS which caused FD dampers to open and close, upsetting and tripping the unit. We have had custodians bump relays with mop handles trip the units. I heard about a plant that synched to the grid... 180 out of phase. I worked with an electrician who was there. He said he thought the place was bombed. The first plant I worked at kept tripping off. At least once a week for a couple of months. They finally decided it was buzzards on the power lines causing ground traces when they shit on the insulators. I had Christmas lunch with some very old old-timers. I was relating frustrations with one of the old boilers that was still operational. One old timer laughed and said he remembered setting a 50 pound bag of cement next to the chemical bench. When he went back to get it, it was open. While he was standing there scratching his head, the unit tripped. Someone added a few pounds of cement to the boiler thinking it was TSP. (Pumped in from a batch tank) Chemistry went crazy and the control room tripped the unit. The old timer told me not to lose any sleep over that particular boiler. It survived, and kept running until it retired this year. I had glycol get into the boiler one time. pH dove down to 4. The GM wouldn't listen to me at first to take the unit off ASAP. After a couple hours he realized he couldn't fix the problem by throwing more chemicals at it. tripped, drained, flushed, filled, and back online. Lucky as hell we didn't start blowing tubes from hydrogen damage. Saw that one to. That was a fuck up of the highest orders. You have to make some serious mistakes to fuck that up. We were talking about it at work and this mouth breathing mechanic goes " Ya that basically a hydrogen bomb like the military uses". 
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Posted: 10/26/2014 6:59:18 PM EDT
[#33]
The smaller plant I worked at is winding down and burning the last of its coal pile.
Late August Early september we got a TON of rain. Dozers could hardly push the coal slurry to the pit. An operator described what he saw being fed to the feeder from the bunker as a continuous coal turd. It was amazing the plant stayed online. Good coal from the mines was very hard to come by. The railroad was readily accepting penalties from not delivering on time because of the extra profit they were getting from moving oil. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 7:06:21 PM EDT
[#34]
OP I been in power plant for over 35 years and still there. From what I read sounds like what we had one time. Secondary combustion in rear pass of boiler in super heater section, blew out side walls and building side wall wiping out a lot of tubes all the way to the drum. I have seen mill blow ups and just about everything. As on person said it IS a bad day to work there when that happens. As most of power plant workers will agree normal days can be super quiet with 30 seconds of pure terror which turns into weeks and month of work not to mention expense. There is a reason why they pay well not only for skill, it is very dangerous place to work. Working in a power plant means a lot of hours, weekends, nights, holidays and always when your got something planed at home with family you get that call to come in for a problem, might be there for a couple hours or couple days. I do have to say it has been a great job (plan on retireing in a year or so) good pay and the overtime helped send my kids to school. Now its time for me and family time.
Reading all the post here you can tell what these people do for a living by the first few words talking about a power plant (coal fired). Most people in the US thinks the ele power comes from that switch on the wall or the pole outside. They have no idea what we do so they can have all the conforts. well a power outage (storm or other) then they complane. Wait another year or two Obama and gov takes a lot of the coal fired power plants off line permant and we have another winter like we had last winter in the Midwest and heat wave in summer, then they will wonder why we have no power or brownouts. Green energy cannot produce enough power for this country like they think they can. and bills will double or triple. just this old power plant workers opinion. To all my fellow plant workers and linemen stay safe.. you have to. Come home to your family each day like you left. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 7:44:06 PM EDT
[#35]
Had a flyash gate hang open and blow hot ash out of the inspection port into my face and all over my upper body. 1st and second degree burns on my face, neck and forearms. It was a newb's mistake on my part, but taught me an important lesson about complacency.
I've seen a welding rod driven through a hard hat, completely missing the owners head, during commissioning steam blows. That was an extremely close call. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 7:48:41 PM EDT
[#36]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Had a flyash gate hang open and blow hot ash out of the inspection port into my face and all over my upper body. 1st and second degree burns on my face, neck and forearms. It was a newb's mistake on my part, but taught me an important lesson about complacency. I've seen a welding rod driven through a hard hat, completely missing the owners head, during commissioning steam blows. That was an extremely close call. Thats brutal man. Do you guys have to wear FR clothing? |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 7:52:16 PM EDT
[#37]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
OP I been in power plant for over 35 years and still there. From what I read sounds like what we had one time. Secondary combustion in rear pass of boiler in super heater section, blew out side walls and building side wall wiping out a lot of tubes all the way to the drum. I have seen mill blow ups and just about everything. As on person said it IS a bad day to work there when that happens. As most of power plant workers will agree normal days can be super quiet with 30 seconds of pure terror which turns into weeks and month of work not to mention expense. There is a reason why they pay well not only for skill, it is very dangerous place to work. Working in a power plant means a lot of hours, weekends, nights, holidays and always when your got something planed at home with family you get that call to come in for a problem, might be there for a couple hours or couple days. I do have to say it has been a great job (plan on retireing in a year or so) good pay and the overtime helped send my kids to school. Now its time for me and family time. Reading all the post here you can tell what these people do for a living by the first few words talking about a power plant (coal fired). Most people in the US thinks the ele power comes from that switch on the wall or the pole outside. They have no idea what we do so they can have all the conforts. well a power outage (storm or other) then they complane. Wait another year or two Obama and gov takes a lot of the coal fired power plants off line permant and we have another winter like we had last winter in the Midwest and heat wave in summer, then they will wonder why we have no power or brownouts. Green energy cannot produce enough power for this country like they think they can. and bills will double or triple. just this old power plant workers opinion. To all my fellow plant workers and linemen stay safe.. you have to. Come home to your family each day like you left. Was at a MISO conference last week and one of the topics was last winter. There is much concern that with all the coal plants being forced off, there will not be enough generation to meet demand. Wind is failing miserably. They referred to 2016 and beyond as the "post coal years" several times. Things are going to get interesting and I am glad I no longer operate the plant, now I work the grid. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 8:00:28 PM EDT
[#38]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
There was a thread about that and what may have cause it. I never did see the results of the investigation. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
I no longer work at ANO but someone I knew was out there when they had the horrible crane accident Easter Day 2013. He says it should not and would not have happened if the people overseeing that had followed the rules and not trying to do the changeout as quick as possible, to save money. There was a thread about that and what may have cause it. I never did see the results of the investigation. Quite a few non-Entergy people will tell you it is b/c they rushed the job to have good numbers (meaning it took less time to do this swapout at ANO versus another plant) and b/c of the cost renting certain pieces of equipment, such as the crane. I know the family of the young man who was killed filed a lawsuit against Entergy but that company can keep it tied up until their grandkids are in college. I wonder how the lawsuit is going. |
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Posted: 10/26/2014 8:14:28 PM EDT
[#39]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Quite a few non-Entergy people will tell you it is b/c they rushed the job to have good numbers (meaning it took less time to do this swapout at ANO versus another plant) and b/c of the cost renting certain pieces of equipment, such as the crane. I know the family of the young man who was killed filed a lawsuit against Entergy but that company can keep it tied up until their grandkids are in college. I wonder how the lawsuit is going. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: I no longer work at ANO but someone I knew was out there when they had the horrible crane accident Easter Day 2013. He says it should not and would not have happened if the people overseeing that had followed the rules and not trying to do the changeout as quick as possible, to save money. There was a thread about that and what may have cause it. I never did see the results of the investigation. Quite a few non-Entergy people will tell you it is b/c they rushed the job to have good numbers (meaning it took less time to do this swapout at ANO versus another plant) and b/c of the cost renting certain pieces of equipment, such as the crane. I know the family of the young man who was killed filed a lawsuit against Entergy but that company can keep it tied up until their grandkids are in college. I wonder how the lawsuit is going. terrible shame about the guy who was killed, although it was fortunate there was only one fatality |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 4:23:05 AM EDT
[#40]
We had a very rare cold iron outage near finishing up.
It was time to fill one of the boilers and get it lit off. I was doing something, damned if I can remember now, but I remember the hollering . I go investigate and they were filling a boiler that hadn't had the man-holes closed up. I don't know how they came to be filling a boiler that wasn't walked down first, but they did.....filling with open man-holes is egregiously fucked up. The steam drum level was a good solid 100' plus tall, so that water fell a good way onto a good amount of contract workers. At least we were cold and the water wasn't the regular 235 deg F that the deaerator put out. |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 5:35:42 AM EDT
[#41]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Thats brutal man. Do you guys have to wear FR clothing? Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
Had a flyash gate hang open and blow hot ash out of the inspection port into my face and all over my upper body. 1st and second degree burns on my face, neck and forearms. It was a newb's mistake on my part, but taught me an important lesson about complacency. I've seen a welding rod driven through a hard hat, completely missing the owners head, during commissioning steam blows. That was an extremely close call. Thats brutal man. Do you guys have to wear FR clothing? We do now, but not back then. We were still in the final stages of commissioning and a lot of rules hadn't been developed, or weren't communicated well. The safety handbook probably had a section on that, but "ain't nobody got time fo that!" It was painful, scary and left me with some ugly scars on my arms and collar bones, but I'm kinda glad it happened. It put a halt to my reckless behavior. A coal burning plant is no place to be screwing around with your head up your ass. |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 10:51:31 AM EDT
[#42]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
We had a very rare cold iron outage near finishing up. It was time to fill one of the boilers and get it lit off. I was doing something, damned if I can remember now, but I remember the hollering . I go investigate and they were filling a boiler that hadn't had the man-holes closed up. I don't know how they came to be filling a boiler that wasn't walked down first, but they did.....filling with open man-holes is egregiously fucked up. The steam drum level was a good solid 100' plus tall, so that water fell a good way onto a good amount of contract workers. At least we were cold and the water wasn't the regular 235 deg F that the deaerator put out. That happened to me. I was firing a boiler after repairs, it was a cold start. We got up to 25psi and I sent a guy up to close the drum vents. He was a rookie. He came back running and looked wet and flustered and he said something terrible happened. Steam and water everywhere up there. I had to get someone to watch the station and I went up and the main steam drum manhole cover was blowing something terrible, it was spraying all the way over to the next boiler. It was in place but they had not tightened it. Had to kill the fire and wait for maint to come in the morning. That was only 25psi, this boiler was 850psi at load. |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 10:55:38 AM EDT
[#43]
I've seen a few "glitches" during steam blows and on start-up.
Always fun to see the turbine get baked.
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Posted: 10/27/2014 11:52:29 AM EDT
[#44]
The local Fire Dept showed up one night because our supervisor caved and got nervous and called them.
He thought it was best because the smoke plume could be seen for miles.
They show up with 10 firetrucks and the Chief and everything else they had. But they aint comin in without escort. We tell them we got it out, its over. No problem. You should have seen the looks on their faces as we all stood around a boiler circ water pump, 10 ft tall, that was charred black and burnt, and the whole plant smelled horrible. There's about twenty 55lb CO2 bottles laying on the floor, along with a couple huge Ansul bottles on wheels, and 2 1/2" standard fire hose all over the place. Shit happens. |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 1:17:24 PM EDT
[#45]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Nothing boiler related Some monster clinkers falling off the tube wall at a coal plant scared the crap outta me Belt rollers breaking and dropping 40-50 feet Boiler went positive when we had a port door open during testing was like a dragon. Changed our procedures from then on. Couple of steam pipes with leaks but nothing super heated Nothing catastrophic but I'm still not a fan of working on the boiler or turbine decks. 
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Posted: 10/27/2014 1:54:31 PM EDT
[#46]
We had a meeting, and everyone was told that the local Fire Dept was monitoring our radio.
We shall not curse, or mention the word fire, or say anything to attract attention. I get a radio call from my Aux operator, go ahead and start 5A, I'm looking at it. Copy that... 5A coming on, remote start. OH SHIT... turn it off, turn it off. Copy that 5A off. George, you OK? Everybody OK? |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 1:59:00 PM EDT
[#47]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
We had a meeting, and everyone was told that the local Fire Dept was monitoring our radio. We shall not curse, or mention the word fire, or say anything to attract attention. I get a radio call from my Aux operator, go ahead and start 5A, I'm looking at it. Copy that... 5A coming on, remote start. OH SHIT... turn it off, turn it off. Copy that 5A off. George, you OK? Everybody OK? Insert Curt where you said George and I have lived the same scenario. Except he said "Oh fuck, turn it off, right fucking now".....FD quit monitoring. |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 2:14:12 PM EDT
[#48]
Quoted:
What have you seen that wasn't the usual? I've heard boom, no drum level...generating bank blown tube. Boom! +13" in the drum (for a little bit anyway), blown superheater tube. The basement so cold that it caused my induced draft damper to slam shut. Forced draft fan got sprayed with water and blew. Broken grates, plugged boiler, feeder system fires, stuck retractable soot blowers that burned and sagged, a scrubber vessel dropped wall build up that 100% choked off the breaching to the ID fan at a trash burner...no Maxon valve for trash, burned the plant good and made the paper. Three year old plant had massive hammering at the turbine, in the tank filter screen was plugged, the pump kept losing suction then sending a slug of lube oil. Ran our 100,000 gal #6 tank empty, lost suction, then got a slug of oil onto hot surfaces...boom! trip on high furnace pressure. A turtle blocked our make-up water inlet, ran the cooling loop low and tripped the turbines on high condenser pressure. So many more could be listed, what sticks out that you saw? So ISIS only needs a few dozen turtles to destroy our power grid?
Seriously, it's the 21st century and a turtle can do that kind of damage? |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 2:19:56 PM EDT
[#49]
We burned #6 to get the trash boiler on line enough to transfer over to trash and then kill the oil guns. We also fired #6 over on the other side of the plant for most of the real cold months, natural gas the rest of the year.
The oil heater sets were junk, and after some time, the decision was to phase out #6 and go over to #4, so they could just bypass the heaters instead of replace them. When we were still on #6, a recirc valve was opened over on the trash side so that the oil didn't get trapped in the line and thicken up, the valve was closed only for the 4 to 5 hours while it was on oil to be brought up. The piping that ran from the trash part, ran outside for a short distance to then re-enter into the old part of the plant where the tank,heaters, and pumps were. The piping was bad and they had cut out some of it, but never replaced it, as they decided to switch to #4 and #4 didn't need to be heated or recirculated. They didn't blank the end of the pipe, and they didn't disable the recirc valve. The next time we brought the unit up on oil, after the switch to trash, the operator on the board had forgotten and did what he had done for years....he turned the switch to open the recirc.....which spewed oil outside and on the ground, which, while caught quick enough, still resulted in a strong Clean Harbors responce and clean up over the next couple of days. |
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Posted: 10/27/2014 2:45:30 PM EDT
[#50]
I saw people do things that would make an OSHA inspector have a heart attack.
Especially those crazy welders.
Our boilers were 8 stories high. |
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