[57372] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Looking for advice on datacenter electrical/generator
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Woodcock)
Fri Apr 4 20:06:59 2003
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 17:01:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill Woodcock <woody@pch.net>
To: Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org>
Cc: "'nanog list'" <nanog@merit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20030405004816.GA52409@ussenterprise.ufp.org>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> 1) Storing natural gas is significantly harder (both in the
> containers and permiting) than Diesel.
Having done both, I would say that gas is much simpler from a practical
point of view, and a little worse from a permitting point of view. I'd
rather go through the one-time hassle of the permitting rather than the
continuing hassle of maintaining diesel facilities, any day.
> It also has less energy density, so it takes more space.
That's true, though it's never been a sufficient difference to be
problematic for me.
> 2) Having natural gas trucked in, rather than delivered via
> pipeline is also extremely difficult...
> It's very easy to get "guaranteed response time" diesel contracts
> I'd love to know if anyone has even attempted that with Natural Gas
> delivery by truck.
Yeah, it's no problem. Certainly no different than deisel in a metro
area, and much easier than diesel in rural areas. I've never had to ask
for a rush delivery, but I've always been offered delivery the same day
I've called, and I believe the contract guarantees four-hour deliveries
when we need it. My tank is a 96-hour supply, so that's fine for me.
> 4) In larger sizes, Diesel gensets are _cheap_.
The only difference between the diesel and gas genset is the carburetor,
which is just different, not more expensive.
-Bill
