My Easter Message

Seeing that it is Easter Sunday, a little light hearted humour of the religious kind.

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, (and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices the Pope is still standing on the curb.

'Excuse me, Your Holiness,' says the driver, 'Would you please take your seat so we can leave?'

'Well, to tell you the truth,' says the Pope, 'they never let me drive at the Vatican when I was a cardinal, and I'd really like to drive today.'

'I'm sorry, Your Holiness, but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! What if something should happen' protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that morning.

'Who's going to tell' says the Pope with a smile.

Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 150 Mph (205 km/h)(Remember, the Pope is German.)

'Please slow down, Your Holiness' pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens.
'Oh, dear God, I'm going to lose my license -- and my job!' moans the driver.

The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches, but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio.

'I need to talk to the Inspector,' he says to the dispatcher.
The Inspector gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going 150 Mph

'So bust him,' says the Inspector.

'I don't think we want to do that, he's really important,' said the cop.

The Inspector exclaimed, 'All the more reason!'

'No, I mean really important,' said the cop with a bit of persistence..

The Inspector then asked, 'Who do you have there, the mayor?'

Cop: 'Bigger.'

Inspector: 'An MP?'

Cop: 'Bigger.'
Inspector: 'The Prime Minister?'

Cop: 'Bigger.'

'Well,' said the Inspector, 'who is it?'

Cop: 'I think it's God!'

The Inspector is even more puzzled and curious, 'What makes you think it's God?'

Cop: 'His chauffeur is the Pope!'

Give me a sense of humour, Lord,
Give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some humour out of life,
And pass it on to other folk.

Water, Water everywhere…….

Well not really. Here in the sunny south east of the UK, it’s purported that there is a hose pipe ban in force. and that anyone failing to comply could be hit with a fine of up to £1,000.

But is there really a ban? If for instance you don’t watch TV news or the MSM, or local media, how would you know? I suppose that letter from your water company that dropped through the letter box would.

But wait. Filthy Engineer Towers has never received any formal notification from the thieving bastards. So how am I to know? Telepathy, Ouija board, a sign from God?

Bearing in mind recent surveys that show only a tiny minority would dob their neighbour in anyway, due to the fact most people consider the water companies are another set of thieving bastards (Tourette's syndrome at work here), by their shear incompetence in stemming leaks, over share holder profits, they could be in  for a near zero sum game.

Of course I’m a model citizen. Here is my project for the summer.

Smokefree

More likely they want “Free of smokers”.

Birth day

Blogging will be light to non existent today. My daughter has gone into labour.

Electric cars.

Thinking of buying an electric car and saving the planet?

If you look at the diagram above (Sorry for the poor quality), you’ll see what is required to get the power for the car battery from the source.

Lets look at the efficiencies of the various parts of the diagram, starting with the generating station first. Even a non CO2 emitting nuclear plant is at best 30% efficient due to the lower steam temperatures employed. That’s a start down the slope.

Next comes the step up transformer. Ever wondered why they have to be oil cooled? Using a step up transformer to increase the voltage does not give you something for nothing. As the voltage goes up, the current goes down by the same proportion. The power equation shows that the overall power remains the same.

P=V x I  Power = Voltage x Current

In reality, the power output is always less than the power input because the changing magnetic field in the core creates currents (called eddy currents) which heat the core.  This heat is then lost to the environment, it is wasted energy. It’s actually not too bad at 2%. But 2% never the less.

Now we come to transmission of this power. This is usually transmitted at voltages of around 133kv in the UK for long distances. Here again we lose energy. Estimated at approximately 6%.

Of course we now have to transform it down again to a realistic voltage for consumers to use. Another 2% lost.

Bearing in mind  charging the batteries of your electric car is going to involve turning that AC voltage into a DC voltage and step down to a voltage that will be suitable for your battery, the efficiency falls further. Lets say another 2%.

Overall by my reckoning that makes the whole jiggery pokey to have you on the road is about 58% efficiency overall.

Contrasting that to a modern common rail fuel injected diesel engine at 50% efficiency,  the efficiency is not vastly better.

Of course you have to buy the car first before you can drive an electric vehicle on the open road. Now the agony really becomes real. Even with a generous government subsidy (£5,000), a Nissan Leaf is going to set you back a whopping £25,990.

And for that price you only (On a good day) get a mileage of 109 miles between charges.  

And finally the cost of a replacement battery will set you back over £5,000. (Conservative price. Some sites have reckoned it could be as high as £8,000).

Still want to buy one? Me. I’m sticking to my diesel powered car, which has a range of 350 miles even when my heater is on in the winter. I don’t want to take 3 days to visit my son. (And three days back) After all, who would feed the cats?

I’ve received an invite

Hahahahahahahahaha

Hi TFE,
With your keen interest in the wind space, I’m surprised to see that you haven’t yet booked your place for the Wind O&M Summit.
It’s only 3 weeks away, and we’re almost at the venue limit but I’ve reserved a pass in your name just in case you can make it but haven’t let me know. However, with tickets selling fast I will be forced to release your ticket back to general sale if you do not register by Monday (April 9th).
Alternatively, if you register online (link below) I’ll make sure it gets processed by the Customer Services team.

secure.windenergyupdate.com/operations-maintenance-usa/register.php

I hope to see you in Dallas in April.
Jon
Jon Harman
Head of Renewable Industries | Wind Energy Update
7-9 Fashion Street, London, E1 6PX, UK

Now if they were to throw in a complementary free first class ticket, I’d go. Bugger my carbon footprint.

The law

 

1.Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.

2. Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

3. Law of Probability - The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

4. Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

6. Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

7. Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

8. Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with ...Or you are wearing something you don't want to be seen in!

9. Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

10. Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

11.  Law of the Theatre - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

12. The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

13. Murphy's Law of Lockers - If there are only 2 people in an entire locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

14. Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jam sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

15. Law of Logical Argument - Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

16. Brown's Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they're ugly.

17.  Oliver's Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet.

18. Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy - As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

19. Doctors' Law - If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you'll feel better.. But don't make an appointment, and you'll stay sick.

Reduce your carbon footprint you damned old biddy.

It would seem that there are climate evangelists in the medical profession as well.

Housebound Mrs Mulcahy, 83, was astonished to receive a letter from her practice saying she lived too far away, and giving her 28 days to find another doctor. She has been registered there for 30 years.

Their excuse is:

In the letter, the surgery states: ‘Our greatest concern is for your health and convenience but also taking into consideration green travelling issues. Re: Carbon footprints and winter weather conditions, we feel it would be advisable for patients to register at surgeries nearer to where they live.

I despair.

Is it just me…….

or am I stupid? I know I wasn’t the best at chemistry at college, but it would seem that strange things can happen to a common, every day substance. Apparently it can change depending which part of the country you live in.

Water:

I always thought that this consisted  of H2 + O = H2O. Maybe not if this is to go by.

Dr Barnaby Smith of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology said: ‘There are issues to consider, as water has a different chemical composition in the North and the South which can affect the ecosystem.

Maybe I’m worse at chemistry than I thought.

Fancy a cruise?

 

I was just pondering as an ex marine engineer, about the latest Cruise liner to be stricken down at sea with a loss of propulsion and main electrical power.

I’ll describe the propulsion system of my last ship, which although not being a cruise liner, due to it having GUNS and things, had the same basic principle of propulsion and power generation.

Our main source of power was 4 x 4.7 Mw, 6.6kv (6,600 volts), diesel generators. Now 6.6kv voltage is something you have to be really scared about. A small error can submit you to a lethal mini lightning bolt, that will fry you in instant.

These diesel generators have a fuel injection system that supplies fuel to the cylinders at approximately 300 bar (dependant on engine manufacturer). A loose connection, or a split in the pipework can result in a high pressure mist that could impinge on a hot exhaust. Here again I’m speculating as normally the high pressure systems are normally shrouded.

Anyway lets suppose that’s the cause of the fire in the engine room. The first thing that the control room staff would have had warning of this would normally a leakage alarm, rapidly followed by Flame flicker and smoke alarms. Some confusion can occur if the staff check the CCTV cameras, and delay action. I was on one ship where there was a fire in a machinery space, where the engineers entered the control room, looked at the CCTV monitor, saw no picture, and concluded that the camera was defective. In fact it was because the smoke was so dense the camera couldn’t operate. (That was only 90 seconds from the smoke detector operating).

Anyhoo, I digress.

How do you fight a fire when the equipment has such high voltage? The last thing you’re going to do is attack a 6.6kV generator with a saltwater fire hose. you’d be a dead, smouldering corpse, within seconds. ( remember the lightning bolt).

The answer is to inject the machinery space with an oxygen denying gas such as CO2 or Halon. This will hopefully starve the fire of oxygen and result in a non fire position. However it takes a short while to shut down the other generators in a safe manner as many commercial generator take their air supply direct from the machinery space. The last thing you want to happen is the diesel sucking the smothering gas in and then consequently chucking it up the funnel to the outside.

I hope you’re not getting bored.

Whilst the generators are being shut down a team needs to be shutting down all flaps and openings to the machinery space in order that the smothering gas is not going to be dispersed. Time is of the essence.

Once the gas has been released it should extinguish the flames, but will not cool the space significantly. It then becomes a waiting game for the space to cool down to a safe level to allow re-entry without re-ignition of any hotspots caused by air from the re-entry.

One unfortunate side effect is that you’ve lost all your electrical power and the lights have gone off and your fire pumps have stopped. Oh dear.

However, help is at hand. All ships have an emergency generator that will start automatically and supply limited power. This includes supplying limited lighting (usually 50%), power to an external fire pump, steering gear, navigation lights, and radio equipment.

Monitoring of the boundaries should continue until three consecutive drops in temperature of the machinery space, before any attempt to enter. This can take 24 hours, to be sure it is safe to re-enter.

This gives you time to make sure your firefighters are rested and in a good state. This includes getting a plan for re-entry in a safe manner, and sorting out your logistics. I.E, All breathing apparatus fully charged, enough hoses, considering that entry ladders may have melted or distorted, lack of lighting, etc.

Re-entry. There must be enough length of fire hose to enable the team to reach the furthest reaches of the compartment in case of a flare up. If not you might have made matters worse.

The happy ending: You have recovered the machinery space.

THE END

Maybe I’ll write a post of the trials and tribulations of attending the firefighting and damage control course at HMS Phoenix.

Sleep well and don’t have nightmares as you cruise the seven seas. (I’m still alive after 43 years. A great many of those years as Officer in Charge of the Fire and repair party, on a number of ships).