The Thorold Co-Gen

The job I am at right now is the Thorold Cogeneration Project close to Niagara Falls. I'm living out of a hotel, which pretty much sucks. If you don't mind spending a lot of money, living out of town can be fun, but it becomes easy to spend too much and find yourself stuck. Anyways according to the OPA (Ontario Power Authority) the Thorold Co-Gen is natural gas-fired 305 MW industrial cogeneration facility located in Thorold, Ontario. The project will be capable of burning high and low pressure natural gas, as well as landfill gas. In addition to electricity, the adjacent paper mill will receive steam produced by the cogeneration facility.

http://www.powerauthority.on.ca for more info

Working on this site is interesting, as always there are hassles about safety and break times and so on. The crew for the company I work for is at 35 men which is quite large for most job sites. As a crew we insulate and metal clad steam piping and water lines, as well as the large boilers and other major piping sections in the plant. The insulation thickness on this site is quite thick ranging from minimal at none and a half inches thick to heavy at six and a half inches thick, with up to three layers of mineral fiber insulation on it. This is as mention before to prevent energy loss through the steam pipes but it also helps with personal protection stopping burns as well as acoustic values, keeping the noise of the fast moving steam down.

Now this job is reaching its substantial completion date where most of the work is done and turned over to start up crews, who now run live steam and water through the finished lines testing them for leaks and defaults before the plant goes online and can produce power.

These Co-Gen stations are being built all over Ontario to help solve the issue of power dependency that we all learned about during the 2003 blackout of most of this province. These plants help fill a need that sees energy put onto our grid that doesn't come from out of Ontario. If you like to know more check out the links I posted.

Intro of Insulation

Hello to Everyone, My Name is Bob Blaschuk and I am a Union Insulator for Local 95, working out of the Toronto area.I am 28 and a 4th year Apprentice. The Longer I have been in this trade the more I learn that most people haven't a clue as to what a insulator does, and trust me its more than just the pink stuff in your walls. Our work includes pretty well all major factories, refineries and malls, hockey rinks, taco bells, so on and so forth.

So it bugs me a bit that i can go to work, with the Canadian government pushing a new era of greener industry, and still most people don't know what I do or how it helps them in their own backyard.

Since I am working out of town I have decided to start a blog detailing my daily life on the road for work and what i do and how it includes you :-) Hurray!

According to heatandfrostinsulators.ca this is our official job description

Heat and frost insulators fabricate, assemble and apply insulation materials to plumbing, heating, cooling and refrigeration systems, as well as piping equipment and pressure vessels, to reduce the passage of heat, cold, sound, smoke or fire. Their role is essential to Canada's economy and environment. Nearly every large industrial, institutional and commercial construction project requires a heat and frost insulator. And their work helps save energy, reducing pollutants and preserving valuable natural resources.

Some of the main duties of a heat and frost insulator include:

* applying and securing insulation
* measuring and cutting insulating material using hand and power tools
* installing vapour, fire and smoke barriers
* applying waterproofing cement over insulating materials to finish surfaces, and
* reading and interpreting specifications to select the type of insulation required

The short of it, we keep things hot and cold, can be used for personal protection against burns and we help large refineries and power plants save a ton of money through stopping the loss of heat or energy... this house example is the easiest way to explain it, If you do not have adequate insulation in your house it will cause the heat generated inside to flow freely outside costing you money :-( The same concept for pipes and steam turbines in oil refineries and power plants.


So thats the basic for now... if you don't insulate your house you lose heat, causing you to lose money, and the same if major plants and refineries lose heat and energy it ends up costing you money again.... kinda sucks huh.