Keystone 9

Well, another long-ish day at the plant.  Today was mostly about tying up loose ends.  Brett worked on altering the sensor heads and aligning the system.  I worked on air regulators and air pistons, plus assisting Brett and packing  up our crates.  Spent too much time in the 300 + degree heat, Brett and I did today (rather Yoda-like, eh?).  The good news is that we have installed the system and it is working as it should.  After 9 long days of working in the elements, we took time out to do our happy dance.  Sorry, no videos of this dance.  Should be able to tie up the last of the loose ends tomorrow and then look forward to getting back to my wife in Colorado.  Yaaayyyyy!!!  Two weeks away is about all that I can handle, being away from my family.  It is nice to be able to provide for them and get out from all credit card debt, but still sucks being away from them for so long.  Good thing Skype was invented, else I would go absolutely bonkers.

I am pooped, so I am going to keep this post relatively short tonight.  I've been formulating one for my bartender friends and plan on posting that in the near feature.

Pictures:

My dirty, coal infused hand after a good washing in the john.

Herr McCool at the office.

Sunset over the PA mountains.  T'aint the Rockies, but still looks good.

Regulator to be adjusted.

Note that the regulator in the picture above is right against the boiler wall (shiny wall to the left).  Hard to believe that it is only 130 F at this location, when just 4 feet to my left it is 2300 F.  Still friggin' hot where the regulator is...

Why we are here...

This is the screen shot of the system's program.  This is a tomography graph of the boiler.  Think of it as a CAT scan of the coal-fired boiler, about 100 feet from the bottom of the same.  We send lasers through the center of the combustion zone and measure the following:  Temperature, H2O %-age, CO and O2 concentrations.  This data is provided in real-time to the plant, in this case to a Siemens Optimizer (P3000).  This Optimizer is used to adjusted many inputs into the boiler's combustion process in order to meet the targeted goals of the boiler's operation (efficiency, heat rate (about the same), oxygen concentration, etc.).  If our system is used correctly, then the plant would be (hypothetically and realistically) running much more efficiently and producing fewer emissions and reduced coal consumption.  A lot depends on how the plant, or the plant operators, utilize the data that we provide.  Zolo Technologies is the only company in the world that is able to measure in the combustion zone.  The nerd in me sure enjoys this aspect of the job,  Getting to this screen shot is a pain in the arse.

That's it for tonight.

Thank you for reading,

Kevin