08/08/2011 - 14/08/2011
So the beginning of a new week and we didn’t get off to a good start at the power plant. The plant tripped (shutdown automatically, kind of like when you stall your car) because of a vibration in bearing 6 of the steam turbine. I had only been in the analysing lab for half an hour when this happened. On returning to the office Gabriel offered me to tag along with him and do some inspections on equipment and structures round the plant.
The vibration in the steam turbine was apparently caused by what is known as ‘rubbing’. I won’t go into too much detail but basically when you heat metal it expands and if the temperature of the metal is not uniform across the material certain areas will expand more than others. This can result in the rotary blade ‘rubbing’ against other parts of the machine. This is bad.
On Tuesday the Metrhom guy came back to upgrade our chromatograph, giving us more accurate readings of the purity of the steam being used in the turbine. Later in the afternoon we finally injected steam into the steam turbine, reaching another milestone though we still have many more to achieve before commissioning is finished.
In keeping with the last few weeks’ pattern of ending the week on a high note, on Friday for the first time ever Moerdijk 2 reached full baseload of both the gas and steam turbines (about 420 MW). This means that the power plant reached its maximum power output albeit only for about two hours. The important thing is that it worked!
Onto Friday night for baseload celebrations: the usual, Irish pub then clubbing in Breda! Please note that it doesn’t matter how good you are at engineering; you can construct and commission a power plant but it doesn’t make you any good at trying to chat up girls! I have learned my lesson and the next time I talk to a girl in a club I’m just going to say I’m a guitarist in a band, which is kind of true anyway…
As I retired a bit earlier than a usual Friday night I decided to rise from my kip before midday, around 10.30am, and get the laundry and grocery shopping out of the way. I then went shopping with Samuel around Breda, we found an awesome computer game shop right around the corner from my house, it was selling loads of old skool gear like N64 and Sega Mega Drive games as well as lots of game posters and action figures, very nostalgic indeed. I say screw Call of Duty and Halo.
On our travels we also found another record store, an actual old fashioned record store with good music, not like HMV or anything. You feel the ambience as you walk in: the papery smell of the vinyl covers; the cat sleeping on the cashier’s desk as he reads a book; sixties blues rock playing quietly in the background as you gaze upon row upon row of CD’s filled with artists that you won’t hear on a Club Earth/Twig/Chalmers playlist. Heck, I hadn’t heard of some of these artists, even better! As I have been playing my acoustic guitar that I bought here, I have been focusing on blues/country style playing to broaden my musical pallete and with this in mind I was browsing through the store’s blues section and stumbled upon the complete recordings of Robert Johnson (google him) for eight euros, yaldi. When I approached the cashier’s desk he presented me with the vinyl version of the album. As this was a rare opportunity and quite cheap as well I decided, ‘When In Rome’. I should also point out that the store is located on the corner of a crossroads…
Laurent joined Samuel and I at the cinema later in the afternoon to watch ‘Super 8’. In this film critic’s opinion the film was overall well made with enjoyable performances from the actors. However, even though the movie began well and continued this to the middle, I felt the end was a bit flat and crappy. It was as if there were a few scenes missing or someone forgot to finish the script. Oh well, at least if got us out of the rain and there were no lowlifes up the back of the cinema talking loudly throughout the whole movie, unlike when we seen Captain America the previous week. Seriously, I could have punched those dudes.
The question of what to do next as we vacated the cinema was answered in the form of a group SMS sent by our manager Gregory inviting the team to his apartment for drinks before heading to a Turkish restaurant for our friend Mikel’s birthday. There were around twenty of us there and we were treated to a kind of tapas setup. I have to say this was my favourite meal of the internship so far and I will definitely go back there before I return to Scotland.
Next week my family are coming over to Holland to celebrate my birthday over the weekend, should be good! My last week of being twenty one! Be sure to tune-in next week to read all about it!
Chris x