Tuesday, February 5, 2019

When news reports boast that Michigan's Consumers Energy has 300-350 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage, that's not really true either

Working gas available is hardly 49% of the current 308.8 billion cubic feet total storage reported by Consumers Energy, or only 150.9 billion cubic feet.

From all companies in Michigan available working gas in storage is only 671 billion cubic feet, not the much-vaunted 1.1 trillion cubic feet. Still, Michigan has more capacity than any other state. Its stored working gas would supply the needs of 4.3 million average households for one year before needing to be restocked, or about 11 million people for one year. Michigan's population is 10 million. Business users are not included in this math.

But when a mere compressor fire nearly incapacitates one utility's ability to service all of its 2 million customers when they need heat the most, think what an Electro Magnetic Pulse event might do.

That's what keeps me up at night. 

The Michigan Public Service Commission clearly states in footnote one to "Michigan Natural Gas Storage Field Summary":

Working gas means the maximum gas that can be cycled in and out of straoge [sic, read "storage"].  Base Gas means gas that is not cycled in and provides pressure support. 


In 2016 Consumers Energy's three main natural gas storage fields had working capacity of 95 billion cubic feet


Michigan's natural gas debacle last week went misreported because of an opaque, indifferent utility and stupid reporters

Over and over again we heard that the facility where there was a fire last week accounted for 64% of the utility's supply of natural gas to its customers in Michigan. And we're still hearing that today in some reports. Unfortunately, this isn't really true. It's unnecessarily alarming. 

The Ray field at Macomb has 41 billion cubic feet of stored natural gas, as only The Detroit News noted at the time, but during a normal winter when Consumers Energy pumps 2.5 billion cubic feet a day, the utility is supplying 150 billion cubic feet in two months' time. It can't all come from Macomb's storage, obviously. It's piped in from all over to be compressed at Macomb and at other stations. The problem isn't the supply, just as the utility indeed kept emphasizing, stating in various reports that Consumers has 300-350 billion cubic feet of stored gas. The problem was too much of the utility's compressor capability (64%) is centralized at Macomb, which they didn't want to emphasize when it suddenly went off-line automatically in the wake of the fire. Examine the news accounts and you will see that the reporters simplistically characterized these details and misled the public.

Critics of Consumers Energy's paltry $3 million in infrastructure spending over the last five years have a point. This utility in Michigan is notorious for spending more dark money than any other to influence politics. Now that they've had this fire, they'll have to spend more on infrastructure, but it remains for Consumers Energy to install more redundancy in its system to prevent against what happened last week. But don't hold your breath. The utility is as unlikely to do what is best for Michigan as reporters are likely suddenly to become more intelligent.

God forbid we have an EMP. I doubt any of this infrastructure would function properly after such an event, redundancy or no.

That's what alarms me. 


On Wednesday night, as temperatures dropped to -43 degrees with the wind chill, Consumers Energy sent an emergency message to Michiganders' cell phones asking them to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees. 

That followed a similar plea from Consumers Energy CEO Patti Poppe, who reported a Wednesday explosion that damaged a Consumers Energy facility that accounts for 64 percent of its supply. In a Facebook message, Poppe urged Michiganders to "protect the system" by turning down the heat. 

But many Michiganders responded to Poppe's plea with defiance on social media during the emergency, frustrated with being asked to pay ever-increasing rates to a private company that essentially runs a monopoly.

The facility where there was a fire is a compressor facility tasked with the job of pressurizing natural gas for its pipeline network. The facility accounts for 64% of pressurized supply, not 64% of supply, a key detail still not reported clearly in the media, which at the time unnecessarily alarmed the public during a period of dangerous, bitter cold weather. 


The Ray plant contributes a maximum of 64 percent of the company's daily average of 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas to customers. Before gas can be put into the pipeline system, however, it needs to be compressed. The Ray station sits above Consumers' largest underground natural gas storage area with a capacity of 41.2 billion cubic feet of storage. Overall, Ray can compress 117 million cubic feet of gas per day, reaching pressures of 1,800 pounds per square inch. ...

"Most of the damage was on plant two. We have plant one flowing and three mostly has heat-related damage. We are working on that now," [VP Garrick Rochow] said. "Plant three will take maybe three weeks to get back online. Plant two is more significant. It was closer to the fire and flames and heat. It looks like it originated there. It is out for the season, but not going to impact ability to deliver to customers."

The layout of the Ray facility, which was built out over time, is three separate buildings and three separate plants on the site at 69338 Omo Road, in Armada Township. Station No. 3, which was built in 2011, is the largest of the three.

"We don't know what activated the fire gate system," Rochow said. "We are looking at that. We do know that in the process of venting the gas that the natural gas caught fire. There was a fireball like in the pictures. As a precautionary measure, plant 1 and 2 were in operation and fire-gated. Personnel fire-gated the entire facility. When that occurred, probably 50 yards separated the buildings .... gas from plants one and two caught fire."

Rochow said it is unclear why automatic controls vented the system and how the gas caught fire. "We can see the sequence of events but still looking at the reasons," he said. ...

But Rochow said one lesson Consumers might have learned is that the plants might still be too close to one another, given the fact that venting of gas of all stations at the same time led to the fireball igniting everything at once.

"We have systems there and the proximity of the systems has eliminated (favorable) redundancy," he said. "We will learn from it and think about how investments can create more redundancy on that particular site."

Monday, February 4, 2019

Not hiring whitey: 82% of new jobs since Republican tax cuts went to minorities

2.159 million new jobs added, but 1.765 million of them went to minorities, not whites. Hispanics received over 52% of the new jobs.

Thanks Donald Judas Trump! Thanks a lot! Thanks corporate bigots! Thanks a lot!



Winning


The Rams . . . won't be coming . . . to The White House


The Times of Israel never heard of Sid Luckman and Fred Biletnikoff evidently, nor of the priority of matrilineal descent

Alzado was never mvp

Sunday, February 3, 2019

We hate the ads you libertarian fool, every last one of them is offensive or stupid, like you


Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for January 2019

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for January 2019

Max Temp 51, Mean Max Temp 48
Min Temp -10, Mean Min Temp -3
Av Temp 21.8, Mean Av Temp 23.7
Precip 2.9, Mean Precip 2.06
Snow 30.5, Mean Snow 18.6
Snow Season To Date 48.1, Snow Mean Season To Date 41.4
Heating Degree Days 1333, Mean Heating Degree Days 1272
HDD Season To Date 3805, Mean HDD Season To Date 3758

So after all the drama of the last week, using HDD we are just 1.25% colder than the mean, season to date.


Real Clear Politics at this hour has the guy who was for segregation in 1975 as the Democrat front-runner in Iowa

White guy by a mile. Maybe the black candidates need to adjust their policy positions.


Hillary was just fine with Northam and raised money for him less than two years ago

Hoo wee, that's some vetting process they've got there, now ain't it?





Kathy Tranny-turns on a dime

No one is safe around Kathy Tran.

The alt-right isn't too hot for "victim heirarchy", which is merely the flipside of proportional justice

Without proportional justice, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you're back to Draco where every crime is punishable by death because you couldn't think of a more appropriate punishment. Of course, when your entire political party is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of infants in the womb, the entire party must pay.

Persistent injustice inflames the passions, suspending the thinking function.




Saturday, February 2, 2019

But, but . . . you loved me when I got elected


Joe Biden, outed on Friday for opposing desegregation in 1975, says Gov. Northam (D-VA) should resign for racism

Old Joe is pretty confident the furies aren't coming for him. Either that or he doesn't know yet that he's been outed.

Ralph, the one in the hood, check ✔️


Actually, Planned Parenthood doesn't want anything with a black face to go full term


Ed Gillespie had a stunning loss to Northam because everyone in Virginia knew who the real friend of white people was

CNBC 11/7/17: Democrat Ralph Northam elected governor of Virginia:

  • Northam led Gillespie by nine points late Tuesday, a margin of victory that stunned political analysts and pollsters, who had expected the race to be close.

Northam’s margin of victory stunned political analysts and pollsters, many of whom had predicted that the race would be extremely tight. [Northam +3.3 lol]

Gov. Coonman (D-VA): That's not me in blackface on that page for Ralph Northam

"I think I'll have another beer" is the guy in the hood talkin' then.

Stonewall Coonman is his real name, I think.

That Gov. Coonman (D-VA) is one wily cracker, has plausible deniability because of the hood, which is why they wear them, same as Antifa


Trump promised a hardened concrete and rebar wall (Manassas, Virginia, Dec. 2, 2015)




Diversity: The Jews and the Muslims are havin' themselves a war . . . in the US House

I still say we give the Muslims Washington State, the Jews Florida, we take over the entire Middle East and let Disney run the Bible Lands concession.

A Jewish Republican accused a Muslim Democrat of anti-Semitism, she accused him of Islamophobia




Cold titties invade the cities


Friday, February 1, 2019

Kamala Harris isn't really black


Piss my pants February 1st funny


A Friday twofer, first the Democrat Governor of Virginia and now Joe Biden outed as racist, all the way back to 1975

Man, that means the Democrat-controlled media have been burying this thing for 44 years. Gotta be a record or sumptin'.

The progressives have been saving up this stuff for this very moment.


In September 1975, Biden supported an anti-busing amendment to a federal bill. It was proposed by Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a segregationist until at least the 1960s and regarded by most to be a racist. Delighted by Biden's shift, Helms welcomed him "to the ranks of the enlightened."

Biden believed social homogeneity would be to the detriment of black people, but we know what he really meant.

Virginia's elected baby-killer Democrat governor turns out to find blackface and the KKK funny at medical school

Flew under the radar of Democrat-controlled media . . . FOREVER.


The NSC wouldn't be telling us in Michigan to obey our masters if Consumers Energy really had 350 billion cubic feet of stored natural gas

The NSC must know Consumers Energy had more like only 64 billion cubic feet before the Macomb fire, not 350 billion or even 300 billion.

How much was lost of Macomb's 41.2 billion cubic feet?

One third? All of it?

The NSC wouldn't get involved over the loss of just 11.77% of a utility's supply, now would it?

 


It reads as if Consumers Energy both vented-off gas into the atmosphere without burning and burned off gas in Macomb compressor incident


On the coldest day of this winter, an equipment malfunction at the utility's Ray Natural Gas Compressor Station on Omo Road near of 32 Mile in Armada Township apparently resulted in the fire that burned for about five hours, according to fire and utility officials. ...

Wednesday's fire at the compressor station -- one of three stations at the Armada Township site -- was reported about 10:30 a.m. after personnel at the facility first saw flames, utility officials said. 

Residents reported hearing an explosion, followed by flames that burned into the air and were visible for miles.

Consumers Energy officials said automatic equipment known as a fire gate shut off the flow of gas to the fire, which limited damage to the site and vent out the gas.

The utility's onsite incident management team determined the fire was contained and allowed a controlled burn to exhaust natural gas product remaining in the pipes.

Armada Township Fire Chief Dan Reynolds said a team of firefighters arrived at the scene and consulted with utility officials, but were advised to let the fire burn itself off.

"The fire looks dramatic but there is no risk to the general public," the chief  said.

"I just saw some video on (WXYZ-TV) Channel 7 and it looks like Armada is burning down. But the reality is, this is out in a field and is contained at this point."

The fire eventually burned out by 3:30 p.m. ...

The Armada Township facility accounts for about 64 percent of the utility's supply, officials added.

News reports don't add up about how much natural gas Michigan's Consumers Energy lost in the 4.5 hour compressor fire

News on the day of the blast had indicated total supply at 350 billion cubic feet, but a day later down to 300 billion cubic feet, without making a single reference to the discrepancy in the light of the explosion and 4.5 hour fire at the Macomb compressor station.

The Detroit News, below, repeats as others have that the site of the fire is where Consumers Energy has 64% of its supply, which would be, theoretically, 224 billion cubic feet of 350 billion cubic feet, if that's truly how much they have. Yet the story below says the Ray Compressor Station, Consumers' largest storage field, has only 41.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage. If that's really true, Consumers Energy total supply was never 350 billion cubic feet, let alone 300 billion cubic feet, but barely 64.4 billion cubic feet.

Do you know how far that would go? It certainly wouldn't supply the natural gas needs of Consumers' customer base of 1.8 million. In fact, it would supply just 413,000 average single family households for one year, that's it.

None of these stories add up.

Someone is not telling the truth, either about the real quantity of total available natural gas stored by Consumers Energy for its customers, or about how much gas was lost in the controlled burn, or both. 

The unprecedented and repeated appeals by Consumers Energy and Michigan Governor Whitmer to residents of Michigan to dial back their thermostats to 65F during a massive below-zero blizzard which shut down hundreds of schools and businesses for almost a week suggest that Consumers Energy never had the massive supply it claimed and that Michigan's population was at real risk of disaster. 




Consumers said the Ray Compressor Station, where the fire occurred, accounts for roughly 64 percent of its supply. ...

The fire erupted at 10:33 a.m. at Consumers Energy's Ray Natural Gas Compressor Station on the 69300 block of Omo Road, north of 32 Mile. ...

Consumers said despite the blast and burn-off of natural gas, the utility had filled 15 large storage facilities with extra supply for their 1.8 million natural gas customers across the state in preparation for winter fuel usage. 

Personnel on hand who handle emergencies at the Ray station contacted emergency responders, who contained the fire while letting it burn until 3 p.m., said Garrick Rochow, the company's senior vice president of operations.

" ... It's the best way to make sure all of the gas is used up," Rochow said of the contained burned [sic, read "contained burn"]. "Next, we'll do a root-cause evaluation ... It's too early to know what caused this." ...

Consumers Energy's Ray Compressor Station on Omo Road, just north of 32 Mile in Armada Township, has 41.2 billion cubic feet of storage. It is the company's largest underground natural gas storage and compressor facility. (Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News) ...

The blast that accompanied the fire was felt miles away. Sherry Ventimiglia lives about two miles from the Ray station, said she thought something had happened to her home.

"It felt like something fell against the house, like a tree or something like that," Ventimiglia said. "It shook the whole house. ... I literally went running through my whole house to make sure nothing had exploded or fallen. It was very intense."


Tax and spend porn: New Democrat women climb over each other for attention




Thursday, January 31, 2019

Did Michigan's Consumers Energy lose 50 billion cf in the compressor fire this week?

On Wednesday the utility was reported to have 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage. Tonight it is reported that the utility has 300 billion cubic feet, 50 billion cubic feet less than a day before. That would mean 14% of its storage went up in flames in the fire in Macomb County.

No one was bright enough at today's press briefing to ask about this.

This was a catastrophic loss of capacity during the most severe cold snap in twenty-five years, rescued only by the efforts of consumers and businesses who voluntarily cut their consumption while the utility scrambled to bring reserve fields on line.

You can turn your heat back up after midnight, Consumers Energy says:


The Jackson-based utility has 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage across Michigan. On Wednesday, the company broke a record, needing 3.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Laugh of the Day: Reddit spelling flash mob


The number one thing holding back American cities?


I'll see your $100 billion and raise you $100 billion, you desperate, clawing grifter


No more goat-f*cking sand refugees


The New Republic attacks The Jew Howard Schultz for getting The Protestant debt religion

Which teaches that real capitalism is about risking savings, not about leveraging debt.

It's The New Republic which has learned nothing, not Howard Schultz. As usual the liberals engage in projection of their own failings onto their enemies. 


Without savings—and with his mother seven months’ pregnant—the family was forced to rely on Jewish Family Services. Later, when debt collectors called their home, Schultz’s parents would put him on the phone to turn them away; when the family ran out of money, they sent him out to family and friends to ask for loans.  

NeverTrump Ben Shapiro reassures America today about Howard Schultz

BS: Howard Schultz is Jewish, not white. And he'll siphon votes from Trump, not the Democrat candidate.

Thank you, BS. Finally one of you admits you are not white.

Go Howard!

Heh.

Trump threatens to take down border wall in California, reinstall it in Arizona and Texas

Haha.


How much natural gas does Consumers Energy have for its customers in west Michigan?


Consumers has 15 storage fields with 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage, [Consumers Vice President Garrick] Rochow said.

"There's not only a large supply to meet our customers' needs for the entire winter, but there's the ability to pull even more gas into state through the pipeline system," Rochow said. "So there is no risk from a long-term reserve perspective."

The utility has 1.8 million business and residential natural gas customers.

Here's the math (I think):

350 billion cubic feet of natural gas = 350 trillion btu (1 billion cf = 1 trillion btu);

I use roughly 156 million natural gas btu per year, on average, in my single family household (approximately 150,000 cf X 1.037 million btu per 1000 cf.);

If all Consumers' customers were like me, which they aren't, Consumers Energy could supply 2.24 million such households for one year before needing to resupply the storage fields, or 59% of Michigan's households.

Michigan has roughly 3.8 million households X 2.55 people per household = 9.7 million. Estimated population in 2017 was just under 10 million.

Supplying electricity is a completely separate issue.

Michigan residents asked to keep thermostats no higher than 65F through Friday evening during cold snap


A Wednesday night plea for customers to turn their heat down made an impact, [Consumers Energy spokesman Brian] Wheeler said.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took to Facebook to ask Michiganders to reduce usage and an emergency alert was sent to cellphones.

Residents should keep thermostats down through the end of the day Friday, officials said, to avoid the possibility of service interruptions.

I went out in the subzero temperatures to grocery shop yesterday, and it was chilly in the store: Now I know why

The natural gas company had a fire at a compressor station and basically had to burn off an entire natural gas storage field yesterday in a controlled manner in order to prevent an explosion. It was their main field supplying us here in Michigan for the winter. Now they'll have to tap reserves.

They're asking everyone to reduce thermostats to 65F to conserve gas in the meantime.

It's -11F this morning.

Now ain't that a kick in the head.


Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Learn to code: Diversity is just code for . . .

. . . nonwhite.

The utility companies in Minnesota wouldn't have to say this if natural gas were reserved for residential heating and coal for electricity


“We need those in Becker, Big Lake, Chisago City, Lindstrom, Princeton, and Isanti to reduce use of natural gas. Until further notice, you are urged to turn down your thermostat to 60 degrees or lower and avoid the use of other natural gas appliances including hot water,” Xcel Energy said. WCCO’s Reg Chapman said shortly before noon Wednesday that Xcel Energy is asking customers to lower thermostat to 55 degrees. Xcel Energy says residents’ cooperation is critical to prevent widespread natural gas outages. The company also suggests using electric space heaters.



Increasing amounts of natural gas are fueling electricity generation in the state. In 2016, about one-seventh of the natural gas consumed in Minnesota went to the electric power sector, more than double the amount of natural gas used for electricity generation in 2011.

Why were the Tiananmen Square protests so Asian?


No diversity for Asia: China für chinesische, Ausländer raus!


Hey Donald Trump next time let them eat road kill


I wonder if Ron Fliegelman has been to Oregon lately

Weather Underground bomber unmasked — as city schoolteacher

Antifa member gunned down in Eugene, OR, explosives suddenly turn up at police station

Obama beat Romney but never got the House back, best case scenario now for Trump


No, until Hillary Clinton the GOP had no path.

Six more years of gridlock is the future, at best.


Trump never got that separation of powers thingy, didn't realize even a Republican legislative is his enemy

Separate! Separate! Dance to the music . . .

Saving feral cats is a fool's errand: Cats account for 90 percent of the domestic animal cases of rabies in New Jersey since 1989

Midland Park allows residents to have more dogs, raises household limit:

According to the New Jersey Department of Health, between January and September there have been 142 cases statewide of animal rabies, including five in Bergen County. Cats account for 90 percent of the domestic animal cases in the state since 1989.

 

Here's what's wrong with Chicago: 1,745 people there are trying to save feral cats from the cold

Memo to you lunatics: God sends cold weather like this to cleanse the earth of vermin. Don't get in His way. You are not doing His work. You are mentally ill. Shelter in place and seek medical attention as soon as it's safe to go outside.

Climate reality check: It's only -3.8F on my electronic weather station this morning in Grand Rapids

The record low for this date was -22F, January 30, 1951. That record was matched as recently as January 19, 1994.

The coldest reading ever in Grand Rapids was -24F, a twofer on February 13-14, 1899.

Meanwhile, Chicago's coldest temperature EVER was as recently as 1985, at -27F. It's -20F there at this hour, which will put this in the top ten lowest lows ever in Chicago.

It could be a lot worse, and has been in my lifetime.


Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Rashida Tlaib closely linked to Palestinian American Congress and Maher Abdel-qader


DC Antifa leader Joseph Alcoff arrested on multiple felonies for November attack on US Marines


True believers are piling on Cernovich in defense of Christianity much like defenders of socialism pile on its critics

True believers say Catholic pedophile priests, Catholic betrayals of its own supporters, and legalized licentiousness everywhere are not representative of Christian civilization, much in the same way that the left has said perennially that Stalin's crimes in Russia and Maduro's in Venezuela, et cetera, do not represent real socialism.

The true believer dies hard because ideology, whether it's religious or not, is the opiate of the people, blinding it to the reality staring it in the face.

And the reality of Islam is that it exalts servility to a religious principle.

George Washington, dear friends, would not take the Lord's Supper, nor kneel in church. The father of our country, first in the hearts of his countrymen for many reasons, including those.


How about DC agree to stop trying for statehood . . .

. . . and we agree not to burn the place down.

How About a 'Grand Compromise' on D.C. Statehood?

Monday, January 28, 2019

Kamala Harris must be on Trump's payroll

She'll have to pry my '97 Olds from my cold dead fingers.

Even President Norman Vincent Peale says you can do it, fired journalists!


Stephen L. Miller: Dear teenage self


The new warden says, grinning: Kamala's gonna put you and me in jail!


She can't wait to get the power. Everything's a nail, and she's the hammer.





Campaign slogan: Free coffee for everyone


Tragedy: Father of the First Shiksa


LOL Arianna Huffington, founder of HuffPo and 4chan plant: Learn to code

code.org/quotes:










I know, I use code while I'm cleaning the toilet. Just seems cleaner.

Trump 4/2011: If there is a shutdown I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States


VIEIRA: So if there were a partial shutdown of the government come Friday, that would be OK with you.
TRUMP: In my opinion--you know, I hear the Democrats are going to be blamed and the Republicans are going to be blamed. I actually think the president would be blamed. If there is a shutdown, and it's not going to be a horrible shutdown because, as you know, things will sort of keep going.
VIEIRA: Well, it's a partial shutdown, right.
TRUMP: But if there is a shutdown I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together.
VIEIRA: Right.
TRUMP: I'm a deal man. I've made hundreds and hundreds of deals and transactions. He never did deals before. How can you expect a man that's not a deal man that never did a deal, other than frankly becoming president of the United States, he never did a deal, how's he going to corral all these people to get them to do a deal?
VIEIRA: So how would you do it now? Now you're in the Oval office right now, it's Wednesday.
TRUMP: I would get everybody together and we'd have a budget and it would get done.
VIEIRA: They've all gotten together.
TRUMP: Well, that's because they don't have the right leader. You don't have the right leader. This is the President of the United States has to get this done, and I think he probably will. Now, I don't say "he." But I think he and the group probably will get it done, but it's pretty sad because the whole world is looking at us and laughing at us.

Ha ha.