How are Prime owners reacting to the Gas Shortage of 2021??

One carries diesel/heating oil precursor stock, and the other carries basic gasoline.

 

I have a couple CARB spouts and have never had a problem with any of them once I got the hang of them. When I am working at my folks ranch they have old jerry cans with flexible metal spouts and those things leak everywhere and require a wrench to fully seal them against the tank.

We are on week 5 of our new prime and have used maybe a gallon over 800 miles!

 

That's about how I have to tighten the CARB spouts and they still drip leak on my hands while pouring. It's the sliding mechanism that makes them such a pain. The "sliding action" gets gummed up on every one I have of three different brands after a couple of uses so that it won't stop pouring right away when pressure is released. Sometimes they get stuck in the open position and you have no way of knowing it's going to happen until you're trying to stop the flow of gas. Then you have to make the choice between overflowing or pulling away to tip the can back and spilling everywhere. In a non-clown world there would be gas cans available with any type you wanted to buy and people could just get whatever they prefer.

 

Indiana fuel is supplied by different systems of refiners and pipelines. Did anyone see the photos of the morons in Florida? There is no disruption of supply to Florida, but others were panicking, so some Floridians panicked...started hoarding gasoline, more panicked and hoarded more, and gas stations were selling out faster than the regularly scheduled delivery trucks could get to them.

 

Unaffected here, but really amazed at the stupid hoarding going on around me. Our next door neighbor was among those who dashed out to top off. She said she was thinking of going to GA over the weekend. I told her I didn't think she'd want to try that right now.

Actually, I did fill up the other day. But I had two reasons. One was that I was under 1/4 tank so it was time. The other was that my new solar panels went into prroduction and I will want to adjust the price per kWh in my spreadsheet the next time I need gas in 3-6 months.

 

There's a gas shortage??

 

Even in California there were lines at Costco gas stations extending out onto public streets and blocking intersections. Sometimes I marvel at how society manages to function as well as it does when it's clear that a large majority of people are barely functional.

 

Up here Costco gas stations are ALWAYS backed up; drivers sit idling for 15 min’s or longer, to save 4~5 cents per litre. Maybe the same bunch that sit backed up in the Starbucks drive-thru...

 

They have lines out onto public highways and going through several intersections? That's crazy. Here it's usually just a line in the parking lot. The price justifies the wait as currently Costco is selling gas for $3.53 and the regular gas stations are at $4.20 or so.

 

Save $$$ at Costco to spend it at Starbucks.

I guess it's just not an American thing.

 

I last filled up in October of 2020.

 

No it's not.

 

But the electrical infrastructure is more critical that the fuel distribution network. When power is down, everything is down. In the Texas Big Freeze the companies that had interruptible power contracts (willing to be shut off in exchange for lower rates) included some natural gas supply and distribution companies! When they got shut off due to low power generation, that stopped the fuel flowing to other power plants and forced more generator shut downs. Many of us can greatly reduce fuel consumption (even non-Prime drivers) while few of us can greatly reduce electricity consumption.

A reminder of how electric power is generated in a thermal plant:
Fuel (natural gas, coal, fuel oil, wood waste, or nuclear fission) is burned or reacted (?) to create heat in a boiler.
Steam from the boiler (up to 3,500 psi and 1,100°F) goes to a turbine (like a super-sophisticated wind mill) and causes it to rotate at high speed. The exhausted steam goes to a condenser that is air or water cooled, condensed to water, and is re-used in the boiler.
The turbine causes the rotor of a generator to rotate moving electrical fields past conductors thus generating electricity. The generator is like a very large electric motor that is wired so that mechanical energy goes in and electrical energy comes out, just the opposite of a motor.

 

There are thermal power plants that don't use steam turbines. Many gas turbines, for example, are basically jet engines and I have a gas plant near my house that uses internal combustion engines.

Also, you don't need to rewire a motor for it to become a generator. Just apply torque to the shaft in the direction of rotation and it's a generator.

 

I seldom fill my prime, so I can wait till the "shortage" is over. Of more concern is the fact that the fire season has been declared in central Calif. This means that the power companies may soon start the preemptive power outages to prevent forest fires. For us, that means days without power. Fortunately, we have backup generators but even though they are quite efficient they are gas powered.

 

Lee Jay, usually a "thermal" plant is just fossil fuel. My addition of a nuke was a stretch. A gas turbine or gas fueled diesel wouldn't be considered thermal by most. The excitation of the generator will need different wiring connections. A voltage regulator for a generator is different from the excitation control for an efficient motor, and I tried to make the description very simplified. I know that generators can become motorized--I've frequently tested reverse power relays that trip a generator off line when it becomes motorized. (Say you have multiple generators running in parallel. One gets an oil leak, the low oil pressure trip shuts down the prime mover, but electric power now flows into the generator, it's motorized, and it's still turning without lube oil. The reverse power relay trips it off line to save it.)

The motor-generators on our Primes work so well, so smoothly, so efficiently because of the very smart designers of their electrical control circuits.

 

Only in those states served by the Colonial pipeline. A line at Costco is not proof of a shortage.

 

It's "thermal" if it burns something.

That's almost universally not true.

Too simplified. You described only one type of generator using one type of excitation.

They're power electronics - they directly control the three-phase voltages and currents in the windings. Incidentally, those machines have no control over "excitation" since they are permanent magnet machines.

 

Nope.
Ivanpah Solar Power Facility - Wikipedia
Solar - thermal.

Excepting of wind and photovoltaic solar, nearly all "power plants" generate electricity with steam turning a turbine. Coal, natural gas, nuclear, geothermal, landfill gas capture, and on - all generate heat, boil water, use steam to turn a turbine.

 

If it burns something it's thermal. That doesn't mean everything that's thermal burns something (though, the sun is "burning" hydrogen).

Again - no. Gas turbines burn gas to heat air to run a turbine to turn a shaft to generate electricity. It's a jet engine. No steam involved. Combined-cycle turbines use the waste heat to make steam and run a turbine but not all gas turbine plants are combined-cycle.

How Gas Turbine Power Plants Work | Department of Energy
Combined Cycle Power Plant | GE Gas Power