Delegation and Iguanas

I have an important delegation coming around Monday to inspect the plant, it is part of the expansion project that we have here. I will at that event raise the issue of the massive intake of moths into the Air Filtration system that we have installed on the gas turbines and these are not your typical little screen things that you slot in front of A/C systems, no indeed, this monster is of gigantic proportions, it is 50 feet in the air and is a box that is 80 feet wide and 60 feet tall and has three sets of filters that cost in the area of $50,000 to replace and because they have so many lights illuminating the plant it attracts moths from the south pole. It looks like a snow storm when you look up at the floodlights. In a morning around the base of these lights there is a carpet of totally exhausted moths that just hang about to die and this is what hasn’t been sucked up into the turbine. The turbine draws in about 60 cubic meters per second. That is a big volume and it has a significant velocity and the moths get into the slipstream and go right into the filters. The unit does have a cleaning system on it to try and prevent it getting all clogged up but the mass of moths going through must be in the tens of pounds per night. So when this delegation comes Monday I will be making my speech about how we have to minimise the death toll and reduce the lighting scheme and eliminate as much as possible and even change the lighting philosophy. We must only illuminate what is absolutely necessary and not just light everything just in case. if we do not attract them to the plant then they will not be drawn into the turbine and that is basically it. Some of the floodlights are too powerful and emit a wavelength that is more visible to moths but my aim to get rid of them and to have well shaded lighting, pointing downwards to the ground and illuminating just what is needed. The other thing is that the fin fan cooler banks are too close together and create a wind tunnel by having a large recirculating effect, this cannot be changed on the existing plant but can be changed on the layout of the new plant. That is the engineering stuff out of the way, I am still far too excited about the new house to sleep properly and was waking up dreaming about picking my own fruit from the trees in the garden and watching the bats slip out from under the roof at dusk and looking at the green iguanas eating all the vegetables, yes they are vegetarians you know, not flesh eating dinosaurs. So I need some beer and that is 3 weeks away for me and so I need to chill about the house and think about more relaxing things like planting vegetables for the iguanas to eat and putting lots of flowering plants in for the hummingbirds. Life is strange isn’t it.