21 Days North of the Arctic Circle

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

Good Morning, and it's Day 4. At Milne it's -37, -59 with the wind chill, but over at Prudhoe it's showing -40, -60 with the windchill. At minus40 various of our outdoor activities cease, like trenching and crane work. Outside exposure is limited to 10 minute streches. It will be interesting to see how well the camera reacts to the low temperature. Ice road construction will be going ahead full speed. Our fuel truck broke down and with (31) 2 Million BTU portable Heaters, 15 Generator Light Towers, half a dozen Welder Generator sets, 45 Pick-up trucks, 2 Graders, 3 Loaders, several cranes..... we will have to be conserving fuel until the fueler is repaired. The New 6000 Gallon fuel truck is operated around the clock, (24 hrs), by 2 operators and will generally dispense about 8 to 12 thousand gallons of diesel per 24 hour period.

Kwiens · Jan 31, 2009

Lyndon,

WOW!! Thanks for the pictures and the narative. I'm enjoying your updates and thankful it's 70 degrees in Kansas!

K

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

Ice Queen said:
Really enjoying this post, thank you, but where's my snow?

"Where's the Snow"? How much do you want?

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

We have A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,S,T, AND CFP PADS. Each covers between 5 and 20 Acres. There are also some 30 miles of gravel roads. After a "Blow" it takes 3 Laoders, 2 Caterpillar D7's, 2 Cat Graders, 2 Loader mounted Snow Blowers 2 to 3 days to dig us out, working 24/7.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

The snow piles are so big that they actually increase the area of the Pad by several Acres.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

AND there is a bunch of areas that have to be Hand shoveled. Some just don't get done.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

Earlier this morning I mentioned that we are having a problem with our fuel truck. This is one of the 31 Trailer mounted portable 1Million BTU Heaters we have in service. Thay have a 3 or 4 cylinder diesel engine/generator that powers the Oil Burner/Cumbustion Fan/ and Air Blower, and guzzle down about 100 Gallons of fuel every 24 hours.

Just keeping them fueled up and running is a challenge. They have a 16 inch diameter flexible hoses. If a truck won't start, you drag one of these over to it, toss a parachute over it and let it warm up for an hour or two. If a line freezes up, same thing. If you are going to have to do some involved tedious job, like say the electrical connections on a transformer, the carpenters build a wood and plastic temporary structure around the work area, then plug one of these into it and go to work.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

While I'm waiting for the Fueler to be fixed I'll give you a little run down on Arctic Vehicle Heat Systems: All the mobile equipment and vehicles up here have elaborate auxilery heat systems. Many diesels come from the manufacturer with some small auxilery heaters, but this is a step above that. An "Arctic-Pack", full arcitc protection system consists of: A substaintial water jacket heater, of 1000W or more:

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

A set of these Glued in place heaters to heat the engine Oil Pan, Transfer Case, and Transmission.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

since most of the Diesels have Dual batteries there are a pair of these Battery Warmer Blankets;

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

And finally one of these ON-board-battery Chargers.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

Thats kind of the Minimum Requirement and amounts to 7 or 8, 120 Volt Plug-ins. Bigger equipment may also have additional Heat Tape on the Hydrolic Lines. This is special Explosion Proof, Stainless Steel Braid stuff that is real spendy. Also there can be heaters on the differentials and I have heard of Wheel Hub heaters on the big Trac rigs, but couldn't find any pictures.

My 35 electricians Install literally Miles of this stuff. It's one of the main things I inspect and witness testing of. We use it to keep Oil and Water injection lines from freezing.

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

All these heaters amount to a significant laod. Each Cord Drop, a hanging cord has it's own seperate 20 Amp circuit. when you unplug one you get a respectable spark out of it indicating that there is quite a load. The Cord, a special Arctic Rated cord, has Lighted ends to tell you that it's ON and Working.

This Last Picture is of one of 3 new "Bullrails" we just installed last month so that we don't have to leave so many trucks running all night.

When it's windy one of these cords can knock you up side the head pretty good!

Neil · Jan 31, 2009

Dear Professor Strother;

I would like to say what wonderful job you are doing, generously educating all the snow machine folks about your life and experiences as an electrical engineering supervisor in the Arctic. These snow machines that we all share such an affection for are among the tools of the trade that allow folks like you to help the USA maintain some semblance of energy independence.

Although I have followed your adventures for some 40+ years now, it never ceases to amaze me how much I have learned from you and continue to learn from you. You are truly one of a kind, blessed with expertise and skills that no university program could ever instill in even the most motivated student. I know that many in this forum stand in similar awe. I know that Wayman is standing very proud of who you are.

Be well,

- Neil
ex-St-4 co-owner

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

Detail of the cord Drops:

Day 4 is almost over. It has warmed up substaintially to -29, and the Fuel truck is fixed!

Lyndon · Jan 31, 2009

Greetings Neil: There's only a couple of people here on the 'Slope' that call me 'Professor'. However, two different groups, one at Ft. Lewis in Washington, and the guy's at Pump 6 and Pump 10 on the Trans Alaska Pipeline often called me "LYNDONSTEIN". It probably derrived from an Einstein 'T' shirt I used to wear that had a picture of Einstein on it and the Quote: "186,000 Miles per Second, NOT JUST A GOOD IDEA, IT'S THE LAW!" I'm kind of thinking that maybe YOU gave me that shirt!

Ice Queen · Feb 1, 2009

Any snow you can spare will be most welcome - well by me, anyway, I can't speak for my neighbours!

snowbird · Feb 1, 2009

I'd also like some of it. Apparently you have lots to spare.

And I thought it was pretty nifty plugging in a heater inserted in the water jacket of my diesel farm tractor plus dumping anit-gell compound into the fuel tank. Sometimes I even left a trickle charge on the two batteries. That was kid stuff compared to your efforts in the frigid north. Thanks for sharing.

Lyndon · Feb 1, 2009

Good Morning, it's Day 5. The talk of the Camp is the up coming "Game". It's -28 with at 12 MPH Wind, -44 windchill. This has to be one of the only places on earth that people get PAID to watch the Superbowl. The "chief's", or bosses, will let everone off, around 2:15 (6:15 East Coast time) and there will be all kinds of "Treats" put up by the cooks. We have a dozen Big Screen TV's. Because Sunday is an Overtime day, all day, a person will earn between 150 and 400 $ while the game plays out. One of the 'Perks' of working on what resembles a Space Station, or the Moon. I head out to witness a test at a location that may become inaccessable for a bit because of a Rig Move today. We'll see how the camera does. How many of you will be out Snow-cattin--vs-Watching the game today?

Neil · Feb 1, 2009

Lyndon,

My sister wants to know what sort of camera you are using that can work OK in such rugged conditions.

- Neil
ex-ST4 co-owner

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

Day 6, Was real busy yesterday so I didn't get to watch the game or make much for pictures. It's -28, 15MPH winds, -50 with the windchill. The Camera I'm using is a Cannon, that is actually the companies. In the course of all the inspection work we do we find it useful to document stuff by photograph. We have no less than 5 full time Inspectors on staff at any given time, an E & I (electrical & instrumentation) QC(That's Me!), and E & I QA, a Mechanical QA, and 2 Mechanical QC's. In addition there are a gang of Ex-Ray technicians, and a full staff of document control personel. There are also 5 full time safety inspectors. The Fuel truck finally got fixed!

pixie · Feb 2, 2009

Glad to hear the fuel truck is fixed.

There must be a garage to fix stuff in ??

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

Re: 21 Days North of the Arctic Circle,

Tour of the "PADS"
There are about 15 Work sites at Milne, Pads A Thru L, S,,T, "Pig" and CFP.
This is A-Pad. It's a busy place. There are shops for fixing equipment, for the Welders, the Electricians, the Scaffold builders, the Insulators and some other trades. It is also a primary storage place for materials.

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

D- Pad was a "Bust" oil wise, so now it is just a junk yard and the insulators have a shop there to fabricate special Blankets to insulate big valves and there is a Fire Training facility there.

This Fire training complex gets set on fire with diesel fuel pumped in, in underground pipes, then they practice putting out the fire and evacuating dummies. This site gets pretty serious when they stage a practice. 40 foot flames that can be seen for miles. For a Fireman this is quite close to the "Real Thing", and can be quite hazardous.

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

This is B-Pad, a working, producing Pad.

mattfidaho · Feb 2, 2009

The fire training is cool. we always trained in a metal shipping crate like that in flash over training... they can be built into almost anything.

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

This is C-Pad, also a working, producing pad. A "rig' is scheduled to go on one of the wells this afternoon and it's getting pretty busy here.

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

At C-Pad there are a pair of Injection compressors: One is a giant Locomotive Engine driving a giant compressor. Unfortunately there was UV Fire Detection systems here so I couldn't get any picts of the inside. Next to the building with the huge radiator is a second compressor, but driven by a gas turbine.

That's a pretty good sized radiator!

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

I was at C-Pad to witness the 'Hypot'(High Potential) test of a cable. This 5 KV (Kilovolt) cable will be energized to 20,000 Volts for a duration of about 45 minutes and all the data recorded.

The Operator of this pad was a bit nervious about me taking pictures as there are fire protective systems all over the pace.

Lyndon · Feb 2, 2009

Here is E-Pad which sit's right across from the CFP. Central Processing Facilities is where the processing equipment and the Camp sit.

The 2 smoke stacks in the background are Oil Heaters that heat up the oil so that it is easier to pump around.

21 Days North of the Arctic Circle

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