Conversion of Almaty Thermal Power Plant #2 from coal to gas may lead to irreversible disaster.
Accumulation of gas may blast away half the city, and there will be human casualties – warns Kazakh scientist Serik Burkitbayev.
Physics and Mathematics PhD, author of more than 60 theses, ex-Minister of Transportation and Communications is confident that the Plant’s conversion to gas is one convoluted matter.
— Experts assure us that the high level of Almaty air pollution is caused by the Plant and that conversion to gas will cut annual gas emissions by more than 80%. But that is not true. The Plant’s contribution into air pollution is miserable. More harm comes from vehicles. I told Almaty Mayor that the Plant should at all not be discussed and that it was impossible to convert it to gas-driven configuration. But his advisers would not listen. All I have to tell them is –
Guys, don’t mess with things you don’t understand.
Modification Is No Picnic
This Plant, by present industrial standards, cannot be modified, so to be gas-driven. Official specification of the Plant states that the Almaty Thermal Power Plant #2 is world’s only coal-driven heat generation station that was designed and built specifically for the Town of Almaty, which urban community is located in a rather volatile seismic zone. Its boiler-room is buried at the 12-meter depth, to maintain sustained standing of the station. Gas conversion must not be done, by all technical regulations and provisions. Gas may collect in underground reservoirs and, one day, it may break through on the surface, causing a disaster. During the public discussions of the gas-conversion project, the Plant’s Technical Director confirmed that theory.
Mr. Burkitbayev adds, that Almaty Thermal Power Plant #2 even cannot be converted to another grade of coal.
— Boilers in such major industrial facilities, as the discussed plant, were designed and calibrated for one particular grade of coal. That was back in the Soviet times, when all Thermal Power Plants were designed to only use coal from the Ekibastuz Coal Basin, and no other coal. Once they made attempt to go for coal from the Kuzbas Coal Basin, but with no use. A thermal power station is not a motor-vehicle, which may be converted to a gas-driven engine. Yes, gas is a cheaper option, but if we convert our Plant to gas, half a city may go up in flames and turn to ashes. Let us not talk hokum and misinform our President.
Gasification Tales and Safety Regulations
— Let us restore the mountain-valley natural circulation of air, for the winds to clean the city air in the natural way. If we need gas conversion, let us just build a new Thermal Power Plant and not go for such modification. New gas-driven equipment in an old coal-driven plant – that is nothing but a tale. When will be have those new pieces of equipment – in the next century? First, we need to build gas-sweetening facilities in western provinces of Kazakhstan. After that, we will have to invest billions of dollars in the construction of pipelines to Almaty. The key question about all that hassle is the technical safety provisions and regulations.
Do you only know what that is – converting all electric stations and thermal power plants of Almaty to gas? Not coal, not mazut (fuel oil), but gas… That means, we need to build ourselves a mega-tank, where we will store a three-month emergency stock of gas for all those facilities.
What if something goes wrong in that new 1,000 or 3,000-kilometer long pipeline? What if a tractor suddenly breaks the integrity of a pipe? Almaty will be left without heating for 3 months!
Yes, we can confidently store a million tons of coal, but for gas we do not have adequate storage conditions. There is an underground gas storage facility, but it is 500 kilometers away from Almaty, in the Zhambyl province. In the case of emergency, what are we supposed to do – travel there to warm-up?
In a major city with major environmental problems, like Almaty, conversion to gas will require a complex approach. Where is the feasibility study, where is the technical and economic substantiation, front-end engineering design? On what grounds were those decisions made?
It is just so, that one day somebody said –
“Hey lads, let us convert ourselves to gas”. Who is that somebody? Who signed the technical substantiation, if any? We did not see that person!
Astana Gasification Takeaways
As they say – the deeper are jungles, the more brutal are booby-traps! We crave quick wins, and for that we are ready to deplete our National Development Fund. For what? We are wasting our time and making wrong decisions. Let us analyze it, let us invite professionals to do that.
We have spend billions to gasify Astana. But where is the back-up gas storage mega-tank? We do not have it. Soil in the vicinity of Astana is aggressive, so you just cannot bury a pipe there. So, let us not yank around and waste billions in vein!
