Snippits of control room conversation

[iCe]

Some of the terms may seem foreign to those that don't work in the energy industry so I'll preface this with a little definition section first.

Solar- pronounced many ways. Gas turbine manufacturer. In my world, Solar turbines are connected to gas compressors and generators.

H2S- Colorless, heavier than air, very poisonous gas. Has a rotten egg smell at low concentrations. Kills the sense of smell at higher concentrations. Kills you dead if the concentration is high enough and high enough is very low. Like PPM ranges.

SO2- Sulphur dioxide. Causes acid rain. Byproduct of burning H2S

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These are actual conversations that I overheard or had in a control room that I have been working in for the last few weeks. The names haven't been changed because I didn't use names


Conversation #1
<sound of gas venting>
Operator #1: The solar went down
Operator #2: No sh_t? How could you tell (I love witty sarcasm)
Operator #1: f--- you. What did it go down on?
Solar rep: Looking at his computer- It says fire detected
Everyone looks out the window in the general direction of the turbine. It's not visible from the control room.
Operator #1: walking toward the door, says: I'm going to go start it.
Me: to the Solar rep: Shouldn't we put the f--ng fire out first

There was no fire. A door had been left open and a welder's arc fooled the detection system into thinking there was a fire. The only way to know that is to go look.

Conversation #2
The boiler rep and I were in the control room looking over the control graphic that I had implemented on his boiler.

Boiler guy: Man... that's strong (talking about the distinctive odor of rotten eggs that H2S has)
Me: Yeah... too strong. The wind is coming from the east. Lets ease on out of here.
Me: as we walk out the door . Whoa... that's worse... Lets go north. I'll call an operator

Two operators and a supervisor, with beeping personal monitors (which means H2S is present at some level considered to be important enough to warn them with a beeping sound), walk toward a sump that is just east of the control room. For those that know something about H2S... the sump was due east of them and the wind was from the east. They walked directly to the sump... They figured out what had caused the problem and solved it.

later that morning...

Me: Well... at least it doesn't stink in here anymore
Operator: as he walked in the door... damn... it still stinks in here.
Above 100ppm or with prolonged exposure to lower levels H2S kills your sense of smell
Me: Did you guys get the problem fixed?
Operator: Yeah... <checks his monitor> It's not that bad in here. It will clear out eventually. You'll be ok

I felt a lot better after that. Not. It did finally clear. I can smell again. They have a compressor and pump that injects H2S into a well rather than burn it. Someone had left a valve open to the drain system from the compressor scrubbers. That was not a good thing to do. They used to have a sulphur plant but they shut it down. It had issues... The sulphur plant converts the H2S to liquid sulphur. It's not economical to run... just a necessary evil if you don't have re-injection capability.

Conversation #3
Me: Man... that's a lot of SO2 coming out of your flare.
Operator: Yeah. If the wind doesn't switch soon Mr. XXX (guy that lives west of the plant about a mile) is going to get pissed and call again.
Me: Can't say that I would blame him.
Operator: No... that stuff is pretty rank

SO2 is a lot more than just rank

[Torrey]

Natural gas plant? A lot of what you describe sounds similar to the Shell plant my dad used to work at (and I worked at as an electricians helper for a year).

[iCe]

Amine treater. About 35M MMscfd right now. I think the design is about 50 MMscfd. Onshore.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by Torrey

Natural gas plant? A lot of what you describe sounds similar to the Shell plant my dad used to work at (and I worked at as an electricians helper for a year).

Which Shell plant? What town was it near?

[Torrey]

It was a Shell plant close to Payne Springs before they sold it to Occidental. It's changed hands a few times since then, not sure who owns it now. I can't even remember who owned it during my short stint there. He stuck with Shell though and transferred out somewhere to west Texas and occassionally did some work near Texarkana.

[Michelle Allmon]

poo, i wouldn't want that job!

[CanonShooter]

I spent 18 years in the fith largest cryo plant in the US located right here in little ol Carthage. 16 of those years was spent as an I&E tech and about 75% of that time was working on Solar turbines. The plant, which is actually 4 plants inside one fence totaled up to 850 mmcfd and had 10 Centar units, 4 saturns, and 2 Mars units. I hated the older turbines which were all relay logic but the newer PLC cotrolled units were pretty good, that untill the got a grimlin in them. We had a few units left that still had the old IR fire detectors but most had been switched to the IR/UV detectors which would go off everytime lightning flashed like the old IR units. Some of the older packages would go down every now and them because all the heat in the packages would melt the wires on the Fire eyes. Most of the time the the units went down on vavle seqence failure, temp because the gas volume was low of oil level because the operators wouldn't get off their butts and make rounds like they were suppose to. We also had four expander units that could be a pain the @## whenever they got a glitch. Along with the turbins there were also 38 recips that consisted of Cats, Waulkashas, MEPs, Whites, Ingrasols, Coopers and two old antique Ajaxs. One control room controled all of this with the help of a Rosemount automation system (which was a pain in the @## somtimes also). The sound of relief valves going off, engines backfiring (wait till you here a turbine backfire!!!) became a part of life and even worse I got so used to it I wouldn't even twitch when Big Birtha went off (a 12" relief valve with 950 lbs behind it which could be heard in Carthage 15 miles away. During lightning storms sometimes we would loose one or all of the plants and the relief vavles would start popping. Of course since some were so high they would get hit by lightning sometimes which would light them up. You really should see 25 or so 2" and 4" relief valves 75' or so in the air burning in the middle of the night during a rain and lightning storm. About all you can do is wait till the relief valve seals off or turn the monitors on them and try to knock them out, really better to let them burn though. We were lucky and very rarely got any H2s in our plant but sometimes it would sneek in so we all had to be trained to handle it, anlond with fighting fires in a gas plant, handling hazardous spills and radioactive material that would come in the plant with the frac sand. Working anywhere from 8 to 24 hrs in a day, being on call every other weekend, getting called out at 2am in the morning, working in engine rooms where the temp would get up to 145deg, working in the rain when it was 10deg, and having to put up with engineers (no offense to any on here) was the reason I said the crap with it and decided to go back to school and get degree as a RadTech and work in a climate controlled hospital for the remaining 15 years I have to work. I do kind of miss it sometimes though , but that feeling goes away very, very fast . I always loved seeing a rookie come in the plant to work. It was fun to watch them jump at every noise they heard and then they would look at the company employees to see if they should be heading for the gate or putting their heads between their legs and kissing their @## goodbye. Awww the memories. I started hating the job about the last 7 years i was there and I don't care to go back but I do miss the pay. It wasn't hard at all to make over $100,000 a year with the ot.

[Ahh!]

Originally Posted by CanonShooter

...I always loved seeing a rookie come in the plant to work. It was fun to watch them jump at every noise they heard and then they would look at the company employees to see if they should be heading for the gate or putting their heads between their legs and kissing their @## goodbye. Awww the memories.

Rookies! Ah!

Reminds me of when the EMS people would look at the first reponding police officers...kinda like the old days when they used canaries in the mines.

[Clint_Smith]

when I was a kid I used to run the Natural gas wells with my grandfather. He would ride around the country side with his little Boston Terrier, drink his coffee, shoot snakes and have an overall good time just making sure that the gas got from the pumps to the local electric plant. Pretty easy job and one I really liked because I got to go to work with my granddad..

We had lots of fun, till one day we were walking back to the truck when we noticed that Cookie, the dog, wasn't with us. She wandered into a leak and it killed her instantly. We walked about a mile to the nearest house and phoned in that there was a leak.

My grandfather didn't want to start up the truck or use the radio fearing an explosion. That was the first time I saw him cry. He really loved that dog.

He changed jobs shortly after that, and started working on guidance systems for the Maverick missles. Which he still does today pushing 70.

[Cope]

your post reminded me of being in a CS after dark, and seeing a Waukeshawith bad plug wires. The top of the engine looked like a small lightning storm. The company wouldn't spend the money to replace the wires, but they had the usual safety policy about lighters and no smoking and so on.

I was walking between two 7042s one cold icy day on my way back from taking station readings. I didn'y get out in the field often, and was walking next to our emissions tester who was in the field every day. The client's emissions tech and a couple of mechanics were working on one and the other was running. Suddenly the one they were working on backfired, and I went prone. I immediately felt like a fool, until I looked over and my co-worker was prone also, and looking at me with golf ball sized eyes.

PS, why did you change your forum name?
Turbines letting loose aren't a pretty sight. I didn't want to be anywhere around when that happened.

[CanonShooter]

Me? I was having some problems with a person here in town that got mad at me, well actually a lot of problems. He got kicked out of the baseball park and I was asked to escort him to his car, he blamed me for his mistake when i was only the one who walked him out. I haven't logged out from under my other name for a long time and now I can't rmember my password and I also can't remember my password or even my login name for the email I used when I registered, my mind is slowly going . This account was newer and I can still remember the password so I'm just using it till I find where I wrote everything down.

I remember seeing the ignition wires on some of the older units arcing and sparking at night. I also remember seeing the turbos glowing red hot, you could almost see the impellers inside them. The enviromental department in the plant I worked at used to drive the mechanics crazy. He would come around and set the air/fuel ratio to the specs but in the hot summer some of the engines wouldn't carry a load unless they ran a little rich. The mechanics would just wait till he left and they would set them back to where they would run. Of course the next day the cycle would start all over again.

I been near one turbin when it let loose and it was the first time in several years I actually took off running, it wasn't a pretty site or sound. Something got into the vanes and when it them all #$!! broke loose at 18,000 rpms (wasnt up to full speed yet). Some people say a turbine won't backfire but trust me they will and even though they're not that loud (or as loud as a recip) it's still freaky because of the RPM's they turn. The one thing that always keep me on my toes was when a turbine went into surge, man I didn't like that sound.

[iCe]

Originally Posted by Michelle Allmon

poo, i wouldn't want that job!

The job is not so bad... generally speaking location in these images is like a blast from the past. There have been a lot of safety rules implemented over the years so 99.99% of the plants I work in are a huge pita do anything for. Somehow these guys get by. Probably because they've never had an accident. As cruddy as it looks and as dangerous as it sounds it's a fun place to work. The operators crack me up... I'm almost done with this project. That's what I really like about what I do... it's never the same old crappage...