Message-ID: <33467A70.628E@uniontel.net> Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997 08:14:40 -0800 From: David Johnson <mailto:pinefarm@UNIONTEL.NET> Subject: Power politics To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
I spent a good portion of my working life in power plants in Asia
and South America. I don't do that work anymore but, I watch with
interest the power situation disintegrate in the third world. Load
shedding, blackouts, brownouts etc. I also read with interest all of the
proposals and grant requests for high tech systems and projects in these
same countries.
It was my observation while I was in these places that most of
them have a good supply of Phds and scientific types. There are also
often other highly educated citizens of these countries who live in
Western countries, not wishing to return to places which lack
opportunities for them.
What it seemed to me was lacking was not more phds but, first
line foremen types. The equivelant of Master Sargents and Chief Petty
Officers.
These people get no respect in these countries and so parents
don't encourage their children to enter these fields. There are few
master plumbers or Journeyman electricians. Those that do exist often
look for office work for the prestige attached to being an "office
Wallah", as opposed working with your hands.
This is a disasterous situation and, in more ways than most
people realize, accounts for much of the lack of maintenance and rapid
failure of equipment such as power plants once the startup people have
left.
There are other factors as well. There is the constant quest for
new plants rather than the repairing and/or upgrading of old plants.
There is the fact that the really good engineeers in these
places, and there are some, have no interest in simply operating old
equipment. That's not on anyone's career path. New construction and
modern technology is where its at.
Routine maintenence is not very interesting to young eager minds
but it is is vital.
These kinds of projects are also not very interesting to outfits
like the World Bank and USAID. Like the third world engineers, the people
in these institutions prefer new exciting projects. I have to admit that
I do too, that's why I chased all over the world rather than settling
down in an operating plant.
In spite of that, I could see very clearly the need for the
steady day to day attention to detail keeping these plants running year
after year required. I also saw the results of failure to attend to this
work.
There were moves to address these problems but, they tended to
escalate and then be forgotten. If problems such as lack of maintenance
in a country's power plants was presented to US consulting firms they
would respond with elaborate programs, studies, task forces etc., etc.
when what was really needed was possibly one guy to make sure the
operators changed the oil and filters on a regular basis.
There was no money in that for the US company and no prestige for
the USAID guy who would have to set it up. No drama and few bucks results
in no progress. If your contemporaries are studying huge dams and you are
trying to decide when to calibrate the guages in a twenty year old power
plant you might want to re-consider how you spend your time.
There are top officials in these power companies who recognize
the need for some sort of on-going monitoring of routine operations but
they, also, don't care to actually be the ones who do the work or
sidetrack their careers by getting too involved at the expense of other
more prestigous projects.
Several times I offered my services at about half what they were
paying for my time through the company I was working for to do just what
I have described, ie: to set up routine schedules and stay and see that
they are carried out. The companies were interested but, their hands were
tied because they had no money of their own. All their funds came from
aid agencies with strings attached. They couldn't move without the
approval of some foreign office wallah.
When they submitted my proposals to these people, they were
immediately turned down and studies, run by foreign consulting firms,
were suggested instead. It was not too hard to get grants for such things
but, to simply hire one guy to do simple routine things was not even on
the board.
Even the plants which were not run down were often operated in a
wasteful manner. Usually there weren't any clouds of steam blowing out of
the stacks, nor were there water and oil leaks running out on the floor.
What there was was internal steam leaks due to dump valves hanging open,
excess air to the boilers carrying wasted heat up the stack, excess
cooling in the cycle whch then had to be made up by re-heating etc.
These were not hard things to identify nor to correct and often
resulted in the gradual loss of ability to carry a full load. They went
uncorrected because they didn't show up to the casual observer and it was
accepted that, as plants aged, they lost load carrying abilities.
Often it would require a plant shutdown to repair these things
and, because the system had become overloaded, the tendancy was to hang
in there at whatever cost. Availability always took precedence over
efficiency. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for blackouts. And so.
the whole shebang goes slowly and quietly down the tubes.
Ah well, its not my problem anymore, in fact, it never was. It
wasn't anybody's problem and probably still isn't. Dave Johnson