Energy: Are you experienced?

[XemaSab]

Poll question: Energy: Are you experienced?

:shrug:

How many people here work in the energy field? :shrug:

[NMDemDist2]

1. hubby spent a year in the oil patch here in 2007

I learned a lot

[GliderGuider]

2. This one didn't fall far from the tree

:crazy:

[XemaSab]

5. Pardon?

:shrug:

[GliderGuider]

6. I'm a macadamia

As in, "That nut didn't fall far from the tree..."

[XemaSab]

8. Ah yes

:D

[denverbill]

3. Sarah Palin is an energy expert, so I guess I am too.

I have no education or experience in energy either, just like her.

[Believing Is Art]

4. Applying for jobs in alt energy

I'm doing work in alt energy for my thesis and I hope to get a job in the industry once I finish, if they'll hire me :scared:

[HamdenRice]

7. I once worked on a financing of a barge mounted power plant in Pakistan

It was pretty abstract stuff, but I had to learn a lot about how power plants operate, how they sell electricity and how the financing is tied to capacity.

That was a long time ago, though, and I've probably forgotten most of it.

I also worked on a financing for a beer company in Colombia, and strangely, I remember almost everything I learned on that project ... hmmm.....

[AZCat]

9. That sound pretty interesting.

Did they store the fuel on the barge, or was there a pipeline connection to the shore?

[HamdenRice]

10. The idea was to avoid sovereign risk

The power plant was barge mounted because it could be constructed in Charleston and towed into place in Pakistan. That meant that during the entire construction period, there was no "sovereign risk" -- ie no risk of political instability in Pakistan -- which meant it would be much cheaper. The senior guy I was working for was, maybe, the nicest partner I ever worked for, and he was from Pakistan. He wanted to do something for his country, while using the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to change the culture of business in his country -- eg say, we can't bribe you because of ... I had these huge FCPA research projects he used to assign to me, so that we could say, "no" we can't do that, and by the way, if you want to get into international markets you should do this generally.

The fuel was in Pakistan and would be connected to the barge mounted plant once it was towed into place "in country".

One irony was that the guy who was constructing these power plants in Charleston was actually kind of corrupt. My bosses, including the Pakistani-American guy, got really pissed off once and told me, go down to Charleston for due diligence and do a "financial enema" on this guy.

I did. I went to Charleston and did a "financial enema."

This is getting so weird remembering this, because it was a long time ago. So I went down there and did due diligence and their chief counsel was actually a nice guy from New York. While I was down there finding out they were partially crooks, the NY origin chief counsel guy took me to lunch and while we were eating lunch they announced that OJ had been acquitted. Shows how long ago that was, right?

We ended up deciding that they were not too bad, and we insulated ourselves and Pakistan from his little games in the Carolinas, and they had this great technology, and we did the deal in Pakistan.

[AZCat]

15. That is pretty fascinating.

Was/is FCPA that useful in changing business cultures? I know things have been different for the past eight years, but prior to that did you find this sort of experience common?

I've been reading a bit about these power barges. Apparently right around the time of your project they were shifting to combined-cycle power systems to better track the load (i.e. gas turbines, steam turbines powered by exhaust from the gas turbines, and fuel oil boilers for the baseline load) but they were using multiple barges to house the equipment. I guess the Russians began constructing nuclear powered steam barges back in the 1990's, but I don't know if they ever got off the ground. We've had floating nuclear power plants for some time, but they've been powering Navy vessels rather than producing commercial power.

Anyway, thanks for the response.

[NNadir]

11. Depends. Is chopping wood for the fireplace defined as "work?"

[XemaSab]

13. No

:D

[amerikat]

12. Several alt energy jobs, PV, coal to oil, coal to gas

and I bricked and wired the kiln that was used to fire the
ceramic donuts for the first tokamac at Princeton U.

Also built a laminator to construct the worlds larget solar module in the world at the time(1998/99).

Worked at EPV solar in NJ doing aSi modules and research on GIGS PV. Did some installs and built a couple of aSi production lines in NJ and CA.

Worked at Daystar Technologies doing CIGS stuff. That's all I can think of right now.

currently unemployed.

[hunter]

14. I'm highly educated about energy and would work in the field again.

Anybody hiring macadamia nuts like me?

[NYC_SKP]

16. "I work directly with people in the above industries"

But my checks are not signed by them.

[madokie]

17. Well I ran out of energy, you know tired all the time

does that count. :-) I feel I'm a little more educated than the average Joe, off the street, about the burning of wood in stoves as I have built many and still build heating stoves that work on the gasifier principle.