Propane generator for blackouts?

[krw]

Long-term outages rarely cover a wide-area, except in perhaps a CA earthquake. NG will likely be problematic then, too.

[BQ340]

When the Ohio & New York grid went down for a couple of days a few years ago my NG was not interrupted.

MikeB

[The Daring Dufas]

You don't think something as mission critical as a control center for a utility is going to have backup power? Hell son, nuclear plants have diesel generators to run operations when the reactor/s are shut down. GEEZ!

TDD

[Steve Barker]

ya, i wonder how many days worth of stale diesel fuel these NG control centers have on hand?

[George]

Why wouldn't the control center that houses the SCADA system not have redundant power? That would be one of the main considerations when designing such a system. The center I have seen has utility electric power feeds and multiple CAT diesels and a big fuel tank. They even went so far as to place a huge Jersey bank between the building and a railroad track that isn't that close to prevent damage if there is a train wreck.

We have experienced at least two long blackouts and the NG system kept on humming because it was designed to work that way.

[Steve Barker]

well we can only hope. for those of us who heat with it. But there's nothing wrong with having a backup plan. And propane fueled electricity is a pretty good one, i think. 500 gal will keep the fridge, and minimal heat going a long time.

[Frank]

I skipped the details but I also keep mine filled with stabilized gas and run every few months. Power outages never happen at opportune times and I don't want to mess with pouring gas and a cranky machine.

[RBM]

Well, I'm just a guy with a family, not a utility. I don't have NG in my area, I don't use propane, so decent storage would be expensive if I went that way, gasoline is only practical for short term use, but I heat my house with oil, so I opted for a nice prime power diesel unit. It burns about 1/2 gallon per hour, and I keep 1500 gallons in storage tanks. You do the math. My guess is that a critical utility is better prepared than I am.

[Larry W]

I've personally seen diesel's start and run on fuel more than 20 years old.

[willshak]

dgk wrote the following:

The one thing different is that a gasoline generator can be refueled while it is still running. Yes, I know it may not be recommended, but it can be done with care. Besides, that 3500 watt may not be adequate for a complete household electrical system. I have a 5500 watt gas generator and I have to turn the breaker off on the CAC before running the generator, or the house browns out when it kicks on and doesn't recover. As it is, my 230 volt 3/4 hp well pump causes a momentary brown out when it kicks in under auxiliary power.

[willshak]

...or in the NE during a widespread heavy snow or ice storm, or hurricane. Hurricane Floyd back in 1999 took out a wide range of wired services besides electricity, and included telephone, cable, and internet. The outage lasted 72 hours for me. It took the help of a number of utility companies from other inland states to restore power .

[Kurt Ullman]

One of the fun things up north along I-65 during hurricane season-- counting how many different utilities are represented in the South-bound convoys (grin)

[willshak]

Kurt Ullman wrote the following:

I saw the same along I-95 when returning home from Southern Delaware after a huge snow storm there some years back (1999?). The southbound lanes had a long convoy of utility trucks including some from my area.

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Sat 02 Oct 2010 04:50:50a, Frank told us...

True, very low maintenance. At one time my grandparents lived in an area with no electricity. They had a whole house propane generator, but they had a huge propane tank burned in the yard. I don't know the rate of consumption.

[krw]

Nope. Outages are never widespread and long-lasting. Even when some homes have been knocked out for three weeks, most have power restored in hours.

Some were likely back on line in hours after the winds subsided.

[aemeijers]

You are usually correct, but not always. After Katrina, entire parishes were dark for upwards of a week. When 30 miles of poles and wire are flat-out GONE (not to mention the road itself), and the right-of-way they were on is still flooded, you can't repair it until mother nature cooperates.

Hell, a couple of the more pissant beach towns were pretty much completely scrubbed away. Not sure if they bothered to rebuild, or just bought out their deeds to their patches of the mud flat, and called it done. Towns should never have been built there in the first place. There were debris collection points that I saw with my own eyes, larger than a football field, and 3 stories tall. Never did find where they were hauling it off to. You can't do local landfills in areas where water table and ground level are the same thing.

[The Daring Dufas]

A friend of mine was in charge of the communications division of a power company and that utility actually used their electrical power grid to carry communication if the phone system went down. If you've ever been in a phone company central office, you will have seen massive battery banks taking up a whole large room or more. Data processing centers and most ISP's have quite elaborate backup power systems that are constantly tested and maintained. Most folks have now idea of the redundant power systems they walk past every day. Last weekend I was installing some network equipment in an office building and when I looked out the window on the back side of the building, I saw two generators. The darn things are everywhere.

TDD

[Evan]

That is without a doubt the largest load of bullshit I have ever heard of...

Problems with the delivery of electricity involve some kind of failure with overhead wires being pulled down by a broken tree limb or snapped pole... Or by overloading underground wiring or transformers during an overload condition... It is the vulnerability to damage wherever overhead power lines pass near trees and aging wooden poles with rot that make the electrical system easier to fail during weather events...

The natural gas delivery system is entirely underground, and utility company operations control centers are in hardened buildings which have standby power systems... Any equipment crucial to supplying the natural gas to customers is able to be fed from back up power systems...

Also I love how you seem to know for certain that there is no electric service available at a natural gas station since you have not dug up the ground under the access road to the gas substation... Just because you can't see something above ground within a half mile doesn't mean its not being fed by a protected underground line from somewhere else to increase its odds of remaining powered during an outage...

~~ Evan

[Evan]

How often do you have your diesel tanks inspected... In many areas storing that much fuel for any purposes requires an environmental permit and the permission of the fire department/fire marshal having jurisdiction...

~~ Evan

[RBM]

How often do you have your diesel tanks inspected... In many areas storing that much fuel for any purposes requires an environmental permit and the permission of the fire department/fire marshal having jurisdiction...

~~ Evan

You're such a nanny state whiner