Portugal's 11 Megawatt Solar Electric Plant Goes Online

[Mo Heat]

MO? To "Trully answer your question": Stamping "Raillroad standard", the fact the 12 o'clock, is under the winder, and on and on...were you hinting to the fact the glass has to be removed to access the set lever (can't inadvertantly change the time)?

Yep. To me, opening the watch to reset the time was something I'd never seen on other watches and IMO this is a unique feature.

I liked those articles. Defining "a RR watch" gets pretty complicated, but aside from accuracy, jewels, made in America, and the other thing, all of which could probably be said of other time pieces, the "lever set" seems the most unusual to me as a life long watch owner.

Did you ever "talk shop" with them(your grandfathers')???...Forget the questions above...thats the ops side of the house...track work? Here's a good one...what is the "definition" of "wide gauge"?

Never talked much shop. Too bad. My family has a storied past and I think it was sometimes easier just to keep things in the present than to risk navigating the more interesting waters of our past that might inadvertently lead to "difficult topics". I was also mostly separated from that side of my family for the greater part of my life, so conversations were few and far between. I reconnected with an uncle about 7 yrs back and I try to get him talking about the RR's on occasion. I like the RR term "milk run", that stopped at most depots to deliver milk (or mail I suppose), as opposed to the "express run" that didn't.

Wide guage? I always thought of the wide guage as wider than the narrow guage. I believe the RR standardized on the wide guage (or one of them) when interest grew to interconnect lines. Only narrow mountain lines retained narrow guage tracks, and that was out of necessity as there was no room for a wider bed. The guage being some sort of bar of certified width that fit between the tracks.

Along with the watch? Do you have one of the "library cards" issued by the RR he worked for? (The 'pocket certificate' if required???)

Never heard of that, and many other RR things. BTW, both grandfathers worked for the Kansas City Southern IIRC. If I got that wrong, then it is probably the Missouri Pacific, but I think it was the Kansas City Southern.

Were you looking for the answer "leverset" so it can't be accidentally changed?
http://www.timemachinewatch.com/setwatch.htm

Yes. That's what I was looking for. Man, I can't believe all the different people I meet here on hearthnet. And everyone seems to know more about things than Mo.

 

[keyman512us]

MO:

Now my ‘trivia question to you MO’: In railroad terms there are colorfull sayings part of our everyday life...some aren’t.... like “Joining the birds...” What is meant by the saying: “..(to)Put er’ in the ‘big hole’” ??? Why is it signifigant...and why is it ‘dreaded’???

Never heard it, but I’ll guess. Either a big maintenance with “big hole” being the pit under the train where the repair man accessed the undercarriage, or more likely, a decommissioning of an engine, always a ‘dreaded’ time for RR folks.

NOPE,NOPE,NOPE! lol
"(to) Put er' in the big hole"...is railroad slang (Known well by 'Hoggers'-Locomotive Engineers) For the term "Full Emergency Service Brake Application". In other words..."Nailing the brakes". It is a dreaded action...used only in the most dire circumstances...and not without it's own peril. 26L air stands have a feature built into them for quickly instituting this action...and hoggers' have their own trick they use to prevent it...often involving a little wedge or a coin. The 'brass' don't like it...it's against the rules...but a neccesary evil.
This action is dreaded because it can derail the train...nice safety feature huh?
Anyone that knows railroads...knows what it sounds like. Very distinct and can be heard for miles...as irritating as "nails on a chalkboard" becuase it sounds just like that when "the brakes lock up"...take a "listen below"...track men (and anyone that knew anything about RR's) would be running for cover. If I was there and was asked by Fred Roger (and) Andy (The FRA)..."Yup the hogger 'put er' in the big hole":

http://youtube.com/watch?v=o1jiI47KAnI

SSShhh! (You just learned about a 'secret') One that could...save your life.

 

[jjbaer]

Mo,

New one here.....a moderator (you) hijacking your own thread....LOL....from solar panels to nostalgia, all in the same thread....LOL

 

[jjbaer]

I also liked his idea of a dollar a gallon tax on gasoline, but I think he proposed using it to cut general spending, which always seems to create one more pool of dollars for additional spending.

You hit the nail on the head....give the crooked SOB's another dollar per gallon revenue stream and they'll go on a shopping spree........this is why we will NEVER be able to balance the budget or reduce the national debt through tax increases.......

 

[restorer]

When I was just in the Bay area I noticed a lot of areas where it said "high wind warning" especially around the northern bay. No windmills in sight...and the areas are already developed and semi-industrial.

I would love to see a massive wind farm and PV effort, and also small scale water projects. Even seasonal (spring/snow melt) generation projects would be useful if we can produce the generation equipment cheap enough.

I know they have a big one on the freeway that goes east from Oakland - about 30 minutes away if I recall correctly. It is a rather ugly area out there so I guess it was an easy sell.

I am not so convinced I'd want them everywhere... as you say, there are plenty of unattractive places they can go. But if they start going up on scenic ridges and mountains, it'll cause the kind of backlash that has been observed in parts of NY.

-Colin

Web,
As an old rocker you should know this one. It's Altamont Pass. Used to travel the 205 several times a year. It's between Livermore and Tracy. It started with a few, old style generators and now must have hundreds. The land is pretty worthless for any productive use, but is a great spot to use it's natural resource. There are also huge farms in Wyoming that cover hundreds of acres.

 

[berlin]

11 megawatts?? that's not going to replace anything, why all the interest in a rediculas subsidized 11 megawatt plant?? i could pee on a turbin and generate 11 megawatts, that's nothing. most of our projects out of 100 or so new coal plants coming online will be permitted/ under construction before any new co2 regulation schemes requireing some cap and trade nonsense, so everyone in the green room, ya'll have fun w/ that. i'm happy we pretty much got done what needed to be done... now i'm going to go burn some coal.

 

[jjbaer]

11 megawatts?? that's not going to replace anything, why all the interest in a rediculas subsidized 11 megawatt plant?? i could pee on a turbin and generate 11 megawatts, that's nothing. most of our projects out of 100 or so new coal plants coming online will be permitted/ under construction before any new co2 regulation schemes requireing some cap and trade nonsense, so everyone in the green room, ya'll have fun w/ that. i'm happy we pretty much got done what needed to be done... now i'm going to go burn some coal.

Berlin,

Not everyone in the world hogs energy like Americans do........in 2003, Portugal's total installed electrical capacity was only 10 GW so the 11 MW will offset about 1/10th of 1% of their capacity.

(broken link removed to http://www.iaea.org/inis/nkm/aws/eedrb/data/PT-elic.html)

Also, the per capita electrical usage in Portugal is about 4300 KW-hrs/yr whereas in the USA it's three times that at about 13,000 KW-hr/yr. So.....that 11 Mega-watts that's "not going to replace anything" will really supply 22,500 homes with 100% of their total electrical energy capacity................and there are only 4.3 million households so.....the 11 MW will supply 0.5 % of all households.... not bad for one stinking solar station...

Now, let's compare: there are about 112 million households in the USA so 0.5% of these would be 560,000 households and at 13,000 KW-hrs/yr (1.48KW/hr on average) these 560,000 homes would require about 830 Mega watts.......so...that "little solar plant" in Portugal is equivalent to a mid-sized, 830 MW coal-fired plant here in the USA in terms of providing electricity to the same percent of homes the solar one in Portugal does.........actually it would take about 1.25 of these 830 MW plants because of downtime. And, solar doesn't put any CO or CO2 into the atmosphere like coal does. Let's face it, the only way coal as a power plant fuel source survives the near future is if they start sequestering carbon.........

P.S. I worked as an engineer for a few years at a coal fired power plant and they get coal to burn efficiently by having the largest surface-area-to-volume they can get with a coal particle..... and that means grinding it to the consistancy of face powder...so fine that it got everywhere! I mean it even came into the engineers office through the duct work........and even with electrostatic precipitators, the smokestacks would dump fine particles onto all the cars in the parking lot. So bad in fact that they provided a free, on-site car wash (a basic "n" shaped pipe you drive under that flooded the car with water) for employees to use at the end of the day to rinse the coal and sulphur off their cars.........so.....while coal is abundant and wonderful for power production, as an engineer, I gotta tell you that there has to be a better way to produce electricity and believe me, every engineer who has ever worked at a power plant is either working on this in his/her garage at night and/or brain-storming better ways to do it.....LOL........

 

[Mo Heat]

You tell him, Cast.

And don't forget this little income and expense item that falls off the financial sheets: Once you build a solar power plant, the fuel just comes streaming out of the sky courtesy of Helios' chariot. There are no railroad cars or highway trucks lined up for miles, dumping thousands of tons of coal per day from who knows how far away. That's got to save a few bucks... and it will be for ever more, quoth the coal covered raven. You know you're going to save some serious money anytime you factor the Teamster's Union out of the equation, even if it is only partially, since they probably find a way in the back door somehow. What can I say, I watch the Sopranos!

Check out how much coal is burned by a 500 MW plant from this link:

For instance, one of our customers operates a 500 MW plant. The boiler servicing the plant consumes 225 tons of coal per hour when operating at full load. This equates to 5,400 tons of coal per day, enough to fill 54 rail cars. Another boiler located at a different 500 MW plant uses 160 tons of coal per hour, which equates to 3,840 tons per day. Less coal is consumed in the second case, since the coal used has a higher energy content.

Good lord, that's a lot of coal! Frightening when you consider that is 40% less coal per day than would be used in the 830 MW power plant in Cast's example.

 

[berlin]

cast, for a smart guy who i generally agree with i'm surprised that you buy into some of that nonsense. if there was dust on your cars it was not coming out of the stack unless ya'll were having serious problems but most likely from the handling and processing of the coal itself; which also should not really be happening; i too have more than a little knowlege about coal fired generation.

btw, i haven't really been online recently but i just got your pm, however as i see you've been posing over at the nepa site and as you are interested in finding out about anthricite equiptment, i feel you may get more complete responses by posting in the general forum over there vs. what i can give you.

 

[jjbaer]

if there was dust on your cars it was not coming out of the stack unless ya'll were having serious problems but most likely from the handling and processing of the coal itself; which also should not really be happening; i too have more than a little knowlege about coal fired generation.
.

the coal in the office comes from coal dust in the air in the plant...when you have face powder sized particles it's hard to contain it without it getting into the air. Most of the stuff on the cars came from either: 1) an "event" where the electrostatic precipitators failed momentarily and the stacks spit out large particles which fell on the cars or 2) the nearby coal house/coal pile/distribution system where the wind or heavy equipment kicked it up and then deposited it onto the cars

btw, i haven't really been online recently but i just got your pm, however as i see you've been posing over at the nepa site and as you are interested in finding out about anthricite equiptment, i feel you may get more complete responses by posting in the general forum over there vs. what i can give you.

yes...looking at maybe getting a small coal stove for a second stove but don't know...so I ask questions on the forum for all to respond to and, when I see members who might have eqpt/experience that I might be able to draw from, I PM them directly. If you care to take a stab at my PM I'd appreciate it. thanks

BTW....I saw the Gov of (I think) West VA and he was showing a reporter a lump of coal and said coal, as currently used, is NOT in our future but that this same coal using Carbon sequestration, IS in our future......

 

[keyman512us]

Sidebar Note:
Cast:

BTW....I saw the Gov of (I think) West VA and he was showing a reporter a lump of coal and said coal, as currently used, is NOT in our future but that this same coal using Carbon sequestration, IS in our future......

I think the TV clip you are reffering to "might" have been the Gov. from Idaho...Being interviewed by Thomas L. Friedman from the NY times..."does TV show style interviews" on the "Discovery-Times Channel" (Direct TV CH 285?). Newest was "Green-The New Red,White and Blue" Without "spurring" a politics debate (left vs. right, cons. vs lib) I know some might view the NY times as a "slanted media outlet"...it was a "good non-biased program"...worth viewing...for those that might be "channel surfing".