... is awesome tonight. Thought the castle was completely ablaze for a minute there!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Stuff
Mossmorran flare...
(15 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
-
I cycled down to the waterfront from Broughton and along to Cramond. Then up to the Brig and back down along the coast again. The flare was very bright and visible for most of the ride. Instead of flaring they could use the energy to heat water and drive a steam terbine to export energy to the grid. A sugar beat factory in Suffolk does that. They buy gas and have there own Generating Plant. Excess is exported to the Grid.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I always think of Mordor when I see the flare lighting up the night sky like its doing currently. They've obviously ramped up production of AUKs ready for the new season...
Posted 11 years ago # -
They've been flaring that stuff since the 1980s at least, I know because I used to see it from the top of Wemyss Place as I went down to my job in Lattice Logic (RIP). Sometimes it was so bright that it looked like a second sunrise, only in the north.
What a wastePosted 11 years ago # -
Living close to the red sky area of grangemouth, ive often wondered about excess, wasted energy.
Surely the many flares, many of which operate 24 hours a day could be used to power something ? The steam generated in the cooling towers could also be harnesed, to provide at the very least free hot water for the local area, or electricity,as an apology for the disruption that all the works cause. The noise when the large flares are lit is heard up to 4 miles away and if if you really want to experience it up close, then the car park at Polmont golf club/ski slope is an excellent view/feel point ! You can feel the heat and the ground seems to shake as the material rushes into and burns in the flare .The noise is also quite scary and lets you know just how much energy there is .
Mossmoprran has actually given me a few scary moments as well, driving along the M9, in the dark , when the sky is clear can seem like the forth bridge or surrounding area is alight.....
Theres also a land fill site near Irvine that has a flare most of the time, I asume( I know !) its methane, not sure how sustainable that would be , but clearly yet more wasted energy !
Oh and those huge tanks on the Boness road, the lids arnt really lids, they actually float on whatever is inside !Apparently you can upset them as you walk on top !
Have a friend who is a firefighter for thecombined grangemouth petrocem business, lots of very scary stories ! They have their own security, ambulance, and fire services, even got a morgue etc !
not a lot of people know that.........................
ScottPosted 11 years ago # -
The reason for hydrocarbon flaring is either economics or safety.
In the UK I believe you need a permit to flare and they're not cheap. Most plants in the UK use as much of off products as they can but things like CHP and Co-Generation are not cheap to construct so they have to weigh up the economics of turning the off products to electricity or just buy from the grid. Grangemouth actually has quite a large generator that takes a lot of their waste gases and uneconomic heavy products.
The other reason is safety, in some cases its just safer to burn off gases at point of production than to route them to a re-use point. I think the chems plant flares to clear out the system so they can perform maintenance, I expect a similar thing can be seen at Grangemouth but as its more complex different parts can be cleared and worked on whilst other parts remain operational.
The steam from the cooling towers is generally low level heat and not very useful, too cold and low pressure to run a traditional generator and anything fancy like a heat pump is too expensive.
I understand the chems plant offered to pump its waste heat to the tomato farm next door but they were worried about traces of chemicals prematurely ripening their crop.
Posted 11 years ago # -
It's looking grand right now in broad daylight, must remember and look in that direction after the sun goes down.
they were worried about traces of chemicals prematurely ripening their crop
Stands to reason, ethylene is the chemical that causes fruit to ripen and is also one of the major products of Mossmoran.
I think the main reason that they simply flare the gas off is that it is the simplest way to safely deal with an abundance of it. The plant is still doing other things and more gases are arriving from the pipeline from the North Sea all the time. It's not easy or cheap or convenient to store it and it has to gotten rid of somehow. If you shut down the processes that would otherwise dispose of it, it's probably not thought to be safe to burn it off in a turbine which there may be no demand for its energy.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
-
been a process upset on the feed treatment
In other words a whole batch of naphtha has to be burned off because its off spec or contaminated.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I've been on a Grangemouth site visit, after reading a book on plant safety. I carefully avoided walking on the hatched areas (flame paths), and noted with interest that the control centre was built like those of NASA - some distance from the plant, partially underground and with the plant side of the building walls at about 45 degrees off vertical...
Now, if only road designers could read the same H&S advice as plant designers!
Robert
Posted 11 years ago # -
Also interesting to note the number of bicycles on site, loads just lying round for common use, presumably to get the smokers off site for a cigarette...
Posted 11 years ago # -
ExxonMobil can confirm that there has been a process upset on the feed treatment unit at the Fife Ethylene Plant
A colleague of mine used to work at Grangemouth. He said that if anything went wrong with the chemical process, they'd just blow the whole lot up the chimney, set light to it, and pay the fine! (for polluting the environment)
Posted 11 years ago # -
It's quite the thing up close.
Fire in the sky no.5 on FlickrPosted 11 years ago # -
Definitely some deep purple in those photos. Spectacular stuff, Arellcat.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Uberuce Smoke on the water, fire in the sky?
Posted 11 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
