Fuel oil used for electricity during the cold snap

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Feb. 09, 2018 1:48 pm

franco b wrote:
Fri. Feb. 09, 2018 1:45 pm
Using heating oil seems to me not true. All large heating plants in my experience use heavy no. 6 oil, what is left of crude after refining.
That used to be the case in my area as well, most of them switched to natural gas and have tanks of No. 2 for backup.

Would not surprise me if it is illegal to burn No. 6 in some states.


 
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Post by franco b » Fri. Feb. 09, 2018 1:55 pm

No. 6 can burn clean, but might be high in sulfur.

 
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Post by BigBarney » Fri. Feb. 09, 2018 2:17 pm

# 6 oil can be burned either by heating it or mixing with #2 to lower

the VI so it can be pumped and burned.

It is usually high in sulfur and cannot be burned on ships in many

if not all US ports , this is usually called bunker c oil. They burn it

when on the open sea. Power plants usually use #4 oil or a combo

of it and #2 . Power plants cannot easily switch back and forth because

they are setup for a specific blend similar to why a refinery cannot do

the same.

BigBarney

 
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Post by BigBarney » Fri. Feb. 09, 2018 2:57 pm

Coal is excellent for home heating especially with a boiler like an EFM ,

close to the the anthracite area is real attractive.

I am further away (WNY) so Bit coal is my choice.

There just aren't many choices to burn bit because the manufacturers

left this area in the 1950 - 1960 due to cheaper and easier choices such

as gas and oil. In 1960 crude oil was ~$3.00 bbl ($0.07) about what 2 gal costs

~65.00 bbl today ($1.55) up about 2200% in 57 years . Anthracite was about

$ 8.00 per ton in 1960 Bit coal was ~$ 4.75 per ton in volume purchases .

Oil has about 5.8 m /bbl and coal about 25 m /ton so 4.3 bbl per ton so

about 60% more for oil . Consumers choose convenience over cost.

BigBarney

 
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Post by hank2 » Fri. Feb. 09, 2018 4:51 pm

Cuba used be supplied with the lowest grade Bunker oil for years from the Soviets. They had enough to run their plants for a few hours a day. Reports held that there was a stinking cloud over the island. Gorbachev cut them off in 1986, along with some other former Communist friends and family. Sherritt, a Canadian company does some oil production in Cuba, although their offshore drilling hasn't panned out. I suppose that's where they're getting their oil from now. Maybe they should have looked into burning Anthracite from South America instead.

 
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Post by titleist1 » Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 8:38 am

This is not the first time. The polar vortex that got all the news a couple years ago caused the same thing when the natural gas power plants in New England weren't getting enough gas to generate what was needed. A couple older fuel oil power plants in NE were brought on line to meet demand for a few weeks.

 
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Post by David... » Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:03 am

I suspect less or no oil is burned in the summer because there is much less demand for NG then. People complaining about renewables need to move on, they aren't going away. Coal is too expensive to be used to generate electricity. That is why plants are shutting down. Unfortunately we will have to settle for less pollution as a result.

David


 
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:15 am

David... wrote:
Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:03 am
I suspect less or no oil is burned in the summer because there is much less demand for NG then. People complaining about renewables need to move on, they aren't going away. Coal is too expensive to be used to generate electricity. That is why plants are shutting down. Unfortunately we will have to settle for less pollution as a result.

David
Coal is not too expensive for generating electric,they don't use the same stuff we buy for heating .
That is NOT why coal fired plants are shutting down.
Coal plants are shutting down because of the environmental wackos..

 
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Post by coalnewbie » Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:29 am

Coal is not too expensive for generating electric,they don't use the same stuff we buy for heating .
That is NOT why coal fired plants are shutting down.
Coal plants are shutting down because of the environmental wackos..
+1

I love those enviro guys. In some small way they help the electric supply problem and go broke in the process as no one taught them how to use a $4 calculator. Darwin was right.

I have sprawling ag farm and I would need to spend $100,000 on solar to make any meaningful impact. I am not talking off the grid I mean at least some impact. I have HO installed and it is 4x more expensive to use that stuff. Enter the thought of coal and I thought. OK, if I spend $!0,000 can I get a return on capital in 3-5 years... Answer yes. OK, it's sooo simple.

 
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:37 am

I am always amazed that we have anti-coal members among us..

Why are they burning coal ????

Only 1 reason....

MONEY !!!

Yes, money means more to the enviro-mental type than doing right for the environment they claim to be saving.

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 12:46 pm

David... wrote:
Sat. Feb. 10, 2018 9:03 am
I suspect less or no oil is burned in the summer because there is much less demand for NG then. People complaining about renewables need to move on, they aren't going away. Coal is too expensive to be used to generate electricity. That is why plants are shutting down. Unfortunately we will have to settle for less pollution as a result.

David

Just west of here we haul into several plants that are equipped to burn waste coal. These plants are cleaning up generations worth of eyesores from mining activities from long ago. I think you would be very surprised to see how much electricity is generated from this waste with nothing more added than a little bit of lime dust to help filter the emissions. One of these is located just out of Johnstown in the Seward area, and is the largest waste coal power plant in the World. The waste coal costs nothing other than the excavation.

I respectfully disagree...that’s the first time I have ever seen power plant coal and expensive used together. As stated before, the war on coal that has been pushed by the Left is the reason for plants closing down. The coal itself is cheap and plentiful... converting old plants to meet nonsense and silly regulations has been the expense that caused the shuttering of these plants.

I know... I’m right in the thick of it everyday here.

 
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Post by BigBarney » Sun. Feb. 11, 2018 11:08 am

These coal power plants that reduce the waste banks could be subsidized to

get rid of the waste coal mounds that dot the areas where mining was done

previous years. The real cost is the transportation of coal that has a very

low energy value , you need the power plant near the waste coal so you

can retrieve the energy and transport the ash back for landfill disposal.

In the future , anybodies guess when , all plants fueled with any fuel that

cost above 0 will be uneconomical , because the speed of innovation in

the solar energy will deem them obsolete. Power companies are now

planning for this eventuality by shutting down the most costly and older

plants and not building any new ones , same with the oil industry , they are

all conserving capital .

This is different for an individual using coal to economically heat their home

and DHW , especially when you are close to the source of the coal. I heat with

coal for that reason and I don't have many other choices with natural gas not

available as first choice because of the low cost.


BigBarney

 
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Post by BigBarney » Sun. Feb. 11, 2018 12:02 pm

I just came across this in my e-mails....

This is disruptive technology , many videos on you tube to see what

happens in different industries.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/11/solar-panel- ... exclusive/

"That’s a big enough change, but when solar and wind get cheaper than electricity from 20-year-old, 10-year-old, and even 1-year-old power plants … things get interesting, and messy. This is a different kind of disruptive."

This is what industry experts say....

"The short story is what Royal Dutch Shell acknowledged in 2013: Solar power is going to dominate the energy sector this century. The question is just how quickly it will bring down costs and take over the world. Yet again, the answer seems to be: quicker than people thought."


BigBarney

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Sun. Feb. 11, 2018 1:26 pm

BigBarney wrote:
Sun. Feb. 11, 2018 11:08 am
These coal power plants that reduce the waste banks could be subsidized to

get rid of the waste coal mounds that dot the areas where mining was done

previous years. The real cost is the transportation of coal that has a very

low energy value , you need the power plant near the waste coal so you

can retrieve the energy and transport the ash back for landfill disposal.

In the future , anybodies guess when , all plants fueled with any fuel that

cost above 0 will be uneconomical , because the speed of innovation in

the solar energy will deem them obsolete. Power companies are now

planning for this eventuality by shutting down the most costly and older

plants and not building any new ones , same with the oil industry , they are

all conserving capital .

This is different for an individual using coal to economically heat their home

and DHW , especially when you are close to the source of the coal. I heat with

coal for that reason and I don't have many other choices with natural gas not

available as first choice because of the low cost.


BigBarney
Barney the one lone phrase in your post that I can agree with was "In the future, ANYBODIES GUESS WHEN".

See... I do agree with you on something.

 
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Post by CapeCoaler » Tue. Feb. 13, 2018 4:23 pm

no more VT Yankee...
Big base electric...
Pilgrim in Plymouth, MA to close in 2019...
680 MW...
Bye Bye...


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