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Nuclear power stations are not atomic bombs waiting to go off, and are not prone to “meltdowns”. There is a lot of U-238 in there slowing things down – you need a high concentration of U-235 to make a bomb. If the reactor gets too hot, the control rods are lowered in and it cools down. If that doesn’t work, there are sets of emergency control rods that automatically drop in and shut the reactor down completely.
With reactors in the UK, the computers will shut the reactor down automatically if things get out of hand (unless engineers intervene within a set time). At Chernobyl, in Ukraine, they did not have such a sophisticated system, indeed they over-rode the automatic systems they did have. When they got it wrong, the reactor overheated, melted and the excessive pressure blew out the containment system before they could stop it. Then, with the coolant gone, there was a serious fire. Many people lost their lives trying to sort out the mess. A quick web search will tell you more about this, including companies who operate tours of the site.
Nuclear Energy Process
If something does go wrong in a really big way, much of the world could be affected – some radioactive dust (called “fallout”) from the Chernobyl accident landed in the UK. That’s travelled a long way.
With AGR reactors (the most common type in Britain) there are additional safety systems, such as flooding the reactor with nitrogen and/or water to absorb all the neutrons – although the water option means that reactor can never be restarted.
Advantages
Nuclear power costs about the same as coal, so it’s not expensive to make.
Does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not contribute to the greenhouse effect.
Produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel.
Produces small amounts of waste.
Nuclear power is reliable.
Disadvantages
Although not much waste is produced, it is very, very dangerous. It must be sealed up and buried for many thousands of years to allow the radioactivity to die away. For all that time it must be kept safe from earthquakes, flooding, terrorists and everything else. This is difficult.
Nuclear power is reliable, but a lot of money has to be spent on safety – if it does go wrong, a nuclear accident can be a major disaster. People are increasingly concerned about this – in the 1990’s nuclear power was the fastest-growing source of power in much of the world. In 2005 it was the second slowest-growing.
Once the equipment is at the site, the rig is set up. Here are the major systems of a land oil rig:
 Anatomy of an oil rig |
- Power system
- large diesel engines - burn diesel-fuel oil to provide the main source of power
- electrical generators - powered by the diesel engines to provide electrical power
- Mechanical system - driven by electric motors
- hoisting system - used for lifting heavy loads; consists of a mechanical winch (drawworks) with a large steel cable spool, a block-and-tackle pulley and a receiving storage reel for the cable
- turntable - part of the drilling apparatus
- Rotating equipment - used for rotary drilling
- swivel - large handle that holds the weight of the drill string; allows the string to rotate and makes a pressure-tight seal on the hole
- kelly - four- or six-sided pipe that transfers rotary motion to the turntable and drill string
- turntable or rotary table - drives the rotating motion using power from electric motors
- drill string - consists of drill pipe (connected sections of about 30 ft / 10 m) and drill collars (larger diameter, heavier pipe that fits around the drill pipe and places weight on the drill bit)
- drill bit(s) - end of the drill that actually cuts up the rock; comes in many shapes and materials (tungsten carbide steel, diamond) that are specialized for various drilling tasks and rock formations
- Casing - large-diameter concrete pipe that lines the drill hole, prevents the hole from collapsing, and allows drilling mud to circulate
Photo courtesy Institute of Petroleum
Mud circulation in the hole - Circulation system - pumps drilling mud (mixture of water, clay, weighting material and chemicals, used to lift rock cuttings from the drill bit to the surface) under pressure through the kelly, rotary table, drill pipes and drill collars
- pump - sucks mud from the mud pits and pumps it to the drilling apparatus
- pipes and hoses - connects pump to drilling apparatus
- mud-return line - returns mud from hole
- shale shaker - shaker/sieve that separates rock cuttings from the mud
- shale slide - conveys cuttings to the reserve pit
- reserve pit - collects rock cuttings separated from the mud
- mud pits - where drilling mud is mixed and recycled
- mud-mixing hopper - where new mud is mixed and then sent to the mud pits
 Drill-mud circulation system |
- Derrick - support structure that holds the drilling apparatus; tall enough to allow new sections of drill pipe to be added to the drilling apparatus as drilling progresses
- Blowout preventer - high-pressure valves (located under the land rig or on the sea floor) that seal the high-pressure drill lines and relieve pressure when necessary to prevent a blowout (uncontrolled gush of gas or oil to the surface, often associated with fire)
Thigma's largest project is MIPS: Multi-finger Imager Processing Software. MIPS provides a graphical display and sophisticated processing tools for downhole multifinger caliper data from oil wells. All programs run on Windows computers with standard graphics cards.
MIPSPro
MIPSPro is a sophisticated interactive multi-finger caliper processing package. Reads Sondex MIT field data, LAS 2.0, ASCII and customized formats. Full data processing, joint detection and analysis. Data export includes LAS 2.0 and static image capture. Displays include 2D view of caliper data, shaded auxiliary logs, cross-section, explorer-type input files, and processing history. Configurations can be saved for use in MIPSView and MIPS3D.
MIPSView is an end user interpretation viewer for redistribution to clients. Enables delivery of reports in digital and web formats. Reads processed data using displays configured in MIPSPro processing package. Users can change displays but not alter data. License free!
MIPS3D
MIPS3D is a fully interactive 3D multi-arm caliper visualization tool. Supports incremental and continuous rotation about all axes, depth panning, colour coded surfaces, static image capture and API movie generation. 3D display can be linked to MIPSPro/MIPSView so both views operate in tandem. The 3D viewer can also be redistributed to clients. Graphics utilise OPENGL.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Oil Reserves: Proven oil reserves are deposits of crude oil in the ground that geological and engineering data have demonstrated with reasonable certainty could be extracted using existing technology. Data for Canada include the unconventional oil held in the oil sands, which are more expensive to access. Most of the largest oil-holding countries are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and directly control their reserves through state-owned companies. If world oil demand grows, we all will be more dependent on oil from the most oil-rich countries.
This is a system of transporting crude oil, using an oil rig, an oil loading platform, a refinery and oil tankers (ships and rail). The oil rig handles passenger transport using the tugboat James Hart and helicopters. Ships operate on invisible track at ground level, with helicopters at any level to suit. My invisible track shows in Surveyor, but not in the minimap or Driver for TRS2004. It does show in the minimap in TRS2006, for navigation. Water level is 3 metres below the track level.
Image | Description |
 | Oil Rig This is an oil drilling rig model, industry enabled for passeneger transport to and from the rig. It does not actually deliver oil to ships, this is the function of the oil and LNG loading platform. Large tanker ships are not used close to a drilling rig, the oil is pumped to storage or to an off shore loading platform for transfer to tankers. A platform is shown behind the rig. Passengers can load at the heliport or the ship wharf at the lower level. Download Link |
 | Oil Tanker Globil Oil The oil tanker Globil Oil is 178 metres long, and able to load crude oil and LNG at the loading platform. The model is based on my tanker asset built into TRS2004. The tanker has a slow load process and settles deeper into the water as it is loaded, and floats higher when unloaded. |
 | il Loading Platform and Tankers The Tankers are loading oil and LNG at the off shore loading platform in a stopped load process. The loading tubes on the platform are animated. In the picture, crude oil is loaded from the right side of the platform and LNG on the left side. |
 | Oil Refinery and Unloading Platform The oil or LNG is unloaded from the tanker ships at the refinery model. The loading tubes on the facility are animated and the amount of oil in the tanks is indicated by a gauge on the side of the front tank. Oil and LNG are unloaded on the same track at the wharf, but at different points. The refinery process accepts crude oil and LNG, processes crude oil to diesel and delivers oil, diesel and LNG to tank cars. |
 | Oil Refinery and Loading The oil or LNG is loaded into rail tank cars at two separate locations on the left track shown in the picture, signs indicate the loading point for each. Refined diesel is loaded from the right track. The refinery supports the Auran animated pipe load on the tank cars. This is a picture at dusk in the refinery. Download Links |
 | Small Oil Tanker Amanda Stewart The smaller tanker Amanda Stewart is 119 metres long and has more detailed pipework on the deck than the Globil Oil tanker. It handles oil and LNG products. All ships use an invisible interior. When you first go into cab mode, you see a view from the bridge but no ship model or interior. Use the [ and the ] keys to cycle around the different views witihin cab mode. |
 | LNG Tanker Artic Princess The tanker is 160 metres long and 17 metres beam and has the typical spherical LNG gas tankers for transport. It will transport LNG and crude oil, and is seen unloading LNG at the refinery. Tanker Ship Download Links |
Friday, August 7, 2009
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