Another week has passed here at the Moerdijk site and the weather has been as unpredictable as Charlie Sheen! One minute the rain was battering down and there was literally a small river flowing through the site and then the next day the sun was out, hot enough to fry most Scottish people.

This however, is not just any week. This is more of an M&S week as the team has been preparing for a milestone event in the commissioning of the power plant; First Fire.  I’m very lucky to be doing my internship at this point in the project life as I get to witness many ‘firsts’ such as rotary shaft crank tests, gas filling and false fire tests. Basically this is the first time any of these operations have been carried out and everyone sits and waits with dread, like a penalty shoot out at a cup final, as nobody knows for sure if the equipment will work as planned.

Most of the week was spent doing various tests and checks, then on Friday afternoon the whole team were called into the control room for a quick briefing of the afternoon’s events for First Fire. I was to assist Gabriel, a Spanish engineer (really funny guy) atop the plant boiler system which is about 30m high (a lot of stairs to climb). We had to open and close several valves, monitor pressures and check for any water or steam leaks (we found a few but nothing serious). Try to picture a 30m high kettle and we were on top of the spout. It was pretty cool to see the stack tower spew out all this horrible browny black smoke. For all you hippies and eco warriors out there, this smoke only occurs the first time the plant is fired up as it is the vaporised form of a protective gooey coating inside the stack tower. This coating is required as the stack is constructed and erected about a year before the first fire event happens and therefore has to be protected against corrosion. Anyway, if there are any hippies reading this, you need power plants like this to be able to switch on your computer, see this blog and be upset in the first place. Jus sayin is all.

Several guys in the team were telling me the First Fire was an exceptional success. They have worked on commissioning sites all over the world and apparently First Fires rarely go this smoothly, so go us. In fact, our site manager was so happy with the day’s results we were treated to the most enormous amount of pizza I’ve ever seen. I don’t even think the delivery dude had seen an order this size! After la pizza gratuite we all met up back in Breda at the Irish pub for a well deserved 0.5 litre (a pint, I’m in Europe remember?) of Guinness.

I was presented the following day with another Facebook photo album opportunity when I was invited to the city of Utrecht with some of the team. After a pleasant day of sight seeing, sampling freshly squeezed fruit juice  and ‘obtaining’ another Dutch beer mat for my collection (some people collect stamps, I do not) we hit the road back to Breda. I quickly tidied up the apartment and put on a nice shirt as I was expecting guests for my flat warming party! After a mis-translation with the French guys we referred to the party as ‘Hanging The Cream’, I’m just as confused as you are, believe me. Yeah so the night was a blast, good turn out by the GE team, good music (my i-tunes), and some education in French and World wines!

Sunday consisted of breakfast at the Irish pub with the football on the telly (I should get a discount card for that place), my weekly trip to the laundry shop, a pleasant walk around Breda and rounded off with pizza and Star Wars in the evening.

Darth Vader was Luke’s father, who knew?

Chris x