River1, I believe you are correct. Seems to really like White for some, unknown reason.

 

Experience, knowledge and most of all friendship envy?

 

Good morning Thinkers!- River, i agree with you- our papermill has its own boilers to make steam for our own power plant. We converted to gas a couple of years ago- it is great!- operators love it, ( set the auto gas controls and hit the igniter!)
And the maintenance costs dropped like a rock! (Coal processing for boilers our size is a huge cost) And its better for the air quality.
Coffee mug is empty, gotta go!

 

Bear... I know I've asked you before, but which papermill are you at?

 

LOL, I don't know why anyone would like me either.

Thanks Bud!

 

The old Mead Paper mill (now Pixell Specialty)- in Chillicothe Oh. We have (now) two power boilers that supply steam to (now) three turbine generators, and we have a black liquor recovery boiler and a waste wood boiler that supply utility steam.I say now, because we have a small idled power boiler and two idled small output turbine generators that have been out of service for several years.
If youre curious, Google Earth 299 s. Hickory st., Chillicothe, Ohio ( my house) then move south just a tiny bit- you cant miss the plant!

 

If I lived that close to my office I would still be asleep when I got there.

 

Lovely house Bear, don't get many like that over here in the UK towns...

And wow, at 0.8 miles away, I thought I lived close to work but you deff have that beat...

That place is huge...

 

First, when I wrote that the local coal burner will save $400,000 a day that figure reflects fuel costs between coal and NG alone when the plant is running at full capacity. BUT, this cost does not reflect costs like the transportation of coal. We all know what rolls downhill and marine shipping and the railroad industry are taking in the shorts due to the changeover also and as Bear pointed out, the maintenance cost savings is huge. The plant is rated at 3,300 Mw. A Price difference between coal and gas of $5 a megawatt means $5 X 3,300 X 24 = $396,000 a day.in fuel costs alone. The last labor cost savings I saw to run the plant said that by 2030 75% of the labor\jobs needed are jobs that will be gone. More downhill BUT that's not Marxist, it's pure capitalism. What's Marxist in it's most objective form are the right wing policies that are supporting a shrinking industry. They far exceed Smith's "Hidden Hand" principal for government which is actually meant to support "people" and not industries. Classic capitalism as Adam Smith defined it. The notion that money is speech and that industries are people is an outright perversion of capitalism. These ideas and policies did not come from the so called "socialist left." Add to this that Reagan's Laffer Curve or "Supply Side" Economics was and is an utter failure due to it being supported by right wing government policies and we're digging a hole. (That's not an opinion of mine. Laffer Curve Economics came out of the Chicago School of Economics and they say time has shown the Laffer Curve to be a failure.)

Bear in mind this hasn't brought up the effects of tariffs from that Doe Equis (double X) guy.

Granted, there are a good number of tree huggers out there that are a PITA and they get a their share of attention and appeasement but it's pennies on the dollar compared to the socialist policies of corporate welfare. FWIW, we probably agree more than not but again Smith pointed out the problems with corporate welfare years ago and he's been proven right time and time again. Concisely said, corporate socialism or corporate welfare equals, "Why do today what we can put off until tomorrow." It leads to failures to innovate, remain relevant and supporting itself from the inside out. For example, 40 years of falling wages and the shrinking of the middle class. If you doubt any of this do some reading about Reagan and the "Woodshed Incident" with Stockman. Kudlow was a big part of this. See who's predictions were the more accurate. It's all led to a noise machine that has people believing that Harris is handing out her book to immigrants at the border and Biden pushing to do away with hamburgers. It's all lies and none of it is true. None of it. The book thing came from someone, not Harris, donating one copy of the book to an immigrant support charity and the hamburger thing from a University of Michigan research paper on the "externalities" (hidden or sunken costs) of the meat industry. I doubt Biden was even aware of the research let alone promoting policies supporting the research's conclusions. Too many accept the noise as facts.

Sorry all, enough of the blowharding and Max "Head"room for the day. lol

 

River1,
I can't argue with you.
Not that I ain't smart enough or am ignorant of the topics, it's that if we discuss this matter in the way I would. Spoat (or another) would come erase our posts and possibly send me another message with a beautiful women (last time it was Barbara Eden) pointing at me saying no.
Gas is currently cheaper fuel in US right now. That is not the case worldwide. Companies could export but in many cases the bottleneck is that coal piers are being shutdown on the west coast by politicians of a certain party.

~1993 we built an automated machine for a company that built hopper side for railroads. Aluminum plate was unloaded from rail cars at one end, conveyors moved the plate to a shear to cut to length, Moved to an automated punch for the rivet holes. sheared again for final shape. etc, etc. Eventually automatically kitted for the fab shop. That place for years made hoppers as fast as they could. Good union wages in Huntington, WV.
Today it is a field with nothing on it. Mines, CSX, NS, many others were customers of ours and now are hurting badly and politicians won't do what is needed to export to willing buyers.

But then again, our machines were automating processes and therefore put others out of work so...

Let's say discussion done.

May you live long and prosper