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Worked at a place with a natural gas genny as the second source. You don't have to feed it, it just keeps working.

by xen2xen1 2y ago

ocdtrekkie 2y ago
Technically you are just feeding it power from a different utility company than the electric company.
- hedora 2y ago
  I wonder if natural gas is actually redundant at this point. Around here, phone company decided to take a dependency on the power grid, so phone + internet go down if the power is down. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some utilities have started installing smart meter upgrades or inline compressors or computer-controlled valves that don't have generators attached to them.
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    > phone company decided to take a dependency on the power grid, so phone + internet go down if the power is down I hope it goes down a couple hours later? Around here (Germany) your phone and internet is also dependent on a junction box with routers somewhere within half a mile or so of your home having power. But they have four hours of battery backup, and on normal-sized outages they send people out with diesel generators when the batteries start running low (prioritizing business customers). Having it go down from power loss is a decision made in triage, not something that just happens
    - tharkun__ 2y ago
      How common are power outages? Historically and in the coming years given nuclear power I hear is dead in Germany and France's reactors are old or need to shut down because of rivers being too hot in summer. Is the 4 hours a 1980s decision that needs revising? Asking, coz Canada here. Power outages aren't uncommon (when I say that I mean: expect at least one that makes you get out the generator in 'shoulder season' per year), coz power lines (not talking transmission lines) are mostly above ground, except in large cities of course. But as soon as you get out of the "center" (which depending on city is larger or smaller too) it's good old wooden poles that carry power on the top and cable / phone on the lower level. Bucket transformer[1] on a pole near you blows up is a favourite but the lines are actually fine, including your cable / DSL. Last time we also lost internet it took about 24 hours after power went out that internet went down as well. Cell phone service from the same company was still fine. The entire metro area was out of power for days and I guess they prioritized topping up the diesel/LP for those. [1] These guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_transformer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_transformer
      - 20after4 2y ago
        In small town USA, my cable internet goes offline immediately even if the power outage is just a 1 second flicker. Then takes some equipment to reboot at the cable office before it comes back online. Very annoying. Phone companies typically have a good battery backup though.
      - wongarsu 2y ago
        Large-scale power outages are exceedingly uncommon in Germany, or really all of Europe. The last big one was in 2006 because of some mistakes when taking down a major transmission line [1]. I don't remember reactors being offline ever causing a power outage. When France has to shut down its nuclear reactors Germany just fires up more coal plants, that's the beauty of a large interconnected grid. What does happen are smaller scale outages. Power lines are mostly buried along streets and under the sidewalk, just like telephone lines. That doesn't stop the occasional excavator digging too deep and taking a street off the grid. At an individual level it's extremely uncommon, maybe once a decade. But deploy thousands of boxes with networking equipment all around the country and it happens to your equipment all the time. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout
        tharkun__ 2y ago
        Yeah historically that makes a lot of sense to me. Reactors going offline directly would usually be planned and thus not cause instability. The 2006 one I had read about before. I love reading timelines of such disasters. Shows how hard this actually is and how much work it is to keep it all running. Here's another one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003#Tim... And speaking of Canada and power lines (this time it does include transmission lines) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ic... While not so severe this is basically the kind of thing I was referring to us happening in "shoulder season". There's usually at least one ice storm or very wet snow event at the start and/or end of winter now and it's very likely that in our wooded area we get trees into power lines and boom the buckets go. When we're lucky it's localized and crews are available to come out and fix it in a few hours. If it's all over the place then it's gonna take a while and they'll have crews from other provinces and the US come in to help as well. I'd be interested in your outlook on the future of the grid in Germany and Europe though. Of course when France takes a nuke offline, that's usually planned, even when done for a "river water temperature emergency" it's gonna take a while and you can bring that coal plant online like you mention. But doesn't Germany want to reach the climate goals it set itself? How does coal make sense there? And how is shutting down their own nukes a thing when it's OK to use French nuke power? Or some natural gas, which is quicker. If you have the gas. Re: Russia. In all of the European (NATO) countries together, is there enough generation capacity if you assume zero Russian inputs (save for say untraceable third party transit or resources) and half of France's nukes going offline? Especially when the sun doesn't shine because bad weather and thus the winds are so high that you have to shut down your wind turbines?
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    At least during the Texas grid failures during their freeze the other year, gas ended up not being a backup because the lines froze over. Something is only really a backup if the actual fuel is on site, at this point

Worked at a place with a natural gas genny as the second source. You don't have to feed it, it just keeps working.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago

Technically you are just feeding it power from a different utility company than the electric company.

hedora 2y ago
I wonder if natural gas is actually redundant at this point. Around here, phone company decided to take a dependency on the power grid, so phone + internet go down if the power is down. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some utilities have started installing smart meter upgrades or inline compressors or computer-controlled valves that don't have generators attached to them.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  > phone company decided to take a dependency on the power grid, so phone + internet go down if the power is down I hope it goes down a couple hours later? Around here (Germany) your phone and internet is also dependent on a junction box with routers somewhere within half a mile or so of your home having power. But they have four hours of battery backup, and on normal-sized outages they send people out with diesel generators when the batteries start running low (prioritizing business customers). Having it go down from power loss is a decision made in triage, not something that just happens
  - tharkun__ 2y ago
    How common are power outages? Historically and in the coming years given nuclear power I hear is dead in Germany and France's reactors are old or need to shut down because of rivers being too hot in summer. Is the 4 hours a 1980s decision that needs revising? Asking, coz Canada here. Power outages aren't uncommon (when I say that I mean: expect at least one that makes you get out the generator in 'shoulder season' per year), coz power lines (not talking transmission lines) are mostly above ground, except in large cities of course. But as soon as you get out of the "center" (which depending on city is larger or smaller too) it's good old wooden poles that carry power on the top and cable / phone on the lower level. Bucket transformer[1] on a pole near you blows up is a favourite but the lines are actually fine, including your cable / DSL. Last time we also lost internet it took about 24 hours after power went out that internet went down as well. Cell phone service from the same company was still fine. The entire metro area was out of power for days and I guess they prioritized topping up the diesel/LP for those. [1] These guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_transformer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_transformer
    - 20after4 2y ago
      In small town USA, my cable internet goes offline immediately even if the power outage is just a 1 second flicker. Then takes some equipment to reboot at the cable office before it comes back online. Very annoying. Phone companies typically have a good battery backup though.
    - wongarsu 2y ago
      Large-scale power outages are exceedingly uncommon in Germany, or really all of Europe. The last big one was in 2006 because of some mistakes when taking down a major transmission line [1]. I don't remember reactors being offline ever causing a power outage. When France has to shut down its nuclear reactors Germany just fires up more coal plants, that's the beauty of a large interconnected grid. What does happen are smaller scale outages. Power lines are mostly buried along streets and under the sidewalk, just like telephone lines. That doesn't stop the occasional excavator digging too deep and taking a street off the grid. At an individual level it's extremely uncommon, maybe once a decade. But deploy thousands of boxes with networking equipment all around the country and it happens to your equipment all the time. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout
      - tharkun__ 2y ago
        Yeah historically that makes a lot of sense to me. Reactors going offline directly would usually be planned and thus not cause instability. The 2006 one I had read about before. I love reading timelines of such disasters. Shows how hard this actually is and how much work it is to keep it all running. Here's another one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003#Tim... And speaking of Canada and power lines (this time it does include transmission lines) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ic... While not so severe this is basically the kind of thing I was referring to us happening in "shoulder season". There's usually at least one ice storm or very wet snow event at the start and/or end of winter now and it's very likely that in our wooded area we get trees into power lines and boom the buckets go. When we're lucky it's localized and crews are available to come out and fix it in a few hours. If it's all over the place then it's gonna take a while and they'll have crews from other provinces and the US come in to help as well. I'd be interested in your outlook on the future of the grid in Germany and Europe though. Of course when France takes a nuke offline, that's usually planned, even when done for a "river water temperature emergency" it's gonna take a while and you can bring that coal plant online like you mention. But doesn't Germany want to reach the climate goals it set itself? How does coal make sense there? And how is shutting down their own nukes a thing when it's OK to use French nuke power? Or some natural gas, which is quicker. If you have the gas. Re: Russia. In all of the European (NATO) countries together, is there enough generation capacity if you assume zero Russian inputs (save for say untraceable third party transit or resources) and half of France's nukes going offline? Especially when the sun doesn't shine because bad weather and thus the winds are so high that you have to shut down your wind turbines?
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  At least during the Texas grid failures during their freeze the other year, gas ended up not being a backup because the lines froze over. Something is only really a backup if the actual fuel is on site, at this point