Billingsley road power plant noise

bones1

New Member
Is there anyone else out there that is bothered by the unacceptable noise that this new plant emits?.We , our neighborhood, live 2 miles from it as the crow flies and the rumbling keeps us up at night and you can hear it all day.We have complained to the plant and the county with little response although the plant says they are working on the noise problem. At least they admit to it.
Charles County used to have very tough noise ordinances but I understand special variances were approved for the plant which is now the biggest taxpayer for the county. Imagine that.
Any thoughts?.Anyone know any higher up county contacts?.
 
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Kinnakeet

Well-Known Member
Is there anyone else out there that is bothered by the unacceptable noise that this new plant emits?.We , our neighborhood, live 2 miles from it as the crow flies and the rumbling keeps us up at night and you can hear it all day.We have complained to the plant and the county with little response although the plant says they are working on the noise problem. At least they admit to it.
Charles County used to have a very tough noise ordinances but I understand special variances were approved for the plant which is now the biggest taxpayer for the county. Imagine that.
Any thoughts?.Anyone know any higher up county contacts?.

The new plant across from the gravel plant?I did not know it was up and running I was just at the dump Saturday and did not hear a thing.I assume its a gas fired plant.
 

bones1

New Member
That's the one. It is a natural gas fired twin GE turbine. The gas is pumped underground from Virginia.It was quite loud Saturday night around midnight.
 
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black dog

Free America
That's the one. It is a natural gas fired twin GE turbine. The gas is pumped underground from Virginia.It was quite loud Saturday night around midnight.

You sure about the gas coming from VA?
A gas line was run about 6 years ago from Calvert NG storage to Billingsley, for the turbine plant.
I would think that Morgantown PP would have NG if it was run from VA.
 

officeguy

Well-Known Member
Is there anyone else out there that is bothered by the unacceptable noise that this new plant emits?.We , our neighborhood, live 2 miles from it as the crow flies and the rumbling keeps us up at night and you can hear it all day.We have complained to the plant and the county with little response although the plant says they are working on the noise problem. At least they admit to it.
Charles County used to have very tough noise ordinances but I understand special variances were approved for the plant which is now the biggest taxpayer for the county. Imagine that.
Any thoughts?.Anyone know any higher up county contacts?.

It's 'green energy', don't cha know ? I am sorry to tell you, but you are going to have to take one for the team here. The team being the polar bears which are being saved by switching from coal to combined cycle natural gas.




















Imnho, it is nuts to install 3 gigawatts worth of generation (Panda/Mattawoman LLC, CPV St Charles + PSEG Keys energy center) in the middle of what is mostly residential land while we have 3 existing more remote energy sites (Morgantown Station, Chalk Point station, Calvert Cliffs) that could have hosted the plants. Within the next 10 years, the rate payers will pay hundreds of millions to decommission Chalk Point and Morgantown while the investors in the new plants carry sacks of money to the bank.
 
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officeguy

Well-Known Member
You sure about the gas coming from VA?
A gas line was run about 6 years ago from Calvert NG storage to Billingsley, for the turbine plant.
I would think that Morgantown PP would have NG if it was run from VA.

It's all part of Dominiums system. Calvert is now an export facility, so the gas is coming from inland and is going to the new gas plants and the export facility at Cove Point. The work on the pipeline was to upgrade and turn the compressor stations around. Also, a new compressor station was built in Bryans Road to move gas from VA to the new users.
 

black dog

Free America
No natural gas yet at Morgantown, Chalk has NG and also already has a few gas turbines on the property. I don't remember who owns the gas turbines but I believe that Panda still runs them. Normally they only run during heavy load periods. At least when I worked at the three coal burners in Md.
 
The Eastern shore folks need to be thanking their lucky stars that the wind turbines never appeared. With wind turbines comes a constant hum and buzzing feeling that cause many folks and animals 24/7 distress due to the constant stimulation. If you don't believe me, read up on how the people and farmers in Central City, PA are making out with their wind turbines.
 

black dog

Free America
It's all part of Dominiums system. Calvert is now an export facility, so the gas is coming from inland and is going to the new gas plants and the export facility at Cove Point. The work on the pipeline was to upgrade and turn the compressor stations around. Also, a new compressor station was built in Bryans Road to move gas from VA to the new users.

Interesting Thanks, a quick read on Dominion's website was very informative.
It says the line is Bi- directial, do you know if the new turbines have NG storage tanks?
Being Bi- directial makes me wonder if NG is cheaper to import they will reverse the flow. idk :confused:
 

bones1

New Member
Your correct, the gas comes from Calvert. I know they were putting pipe in down to the 301 bridge for what I thought was the new plant in St Charles.
 

black dog

Free America
The Eastern shore folks need to be thanking their lucky stars that the wind turbines never appeared. With wind turbines comes a constant hum and buzzing feeling that cause many folks and animals 24/7 distress due to the constant stimulation. If you don't believe me, read up on how the people and farmers in Central City, PA are making out with their wind turbines.

They build a wind farm about 8 miles west of me in Elwood, In. What a huge eyesore.
When driving by you can hear the harmonic's him when the blades are spinning.
Everyone around them is pissed off except the land owners that get a monthly rent check. The sad part alot of the farms are corporate farms, so they don't have to listen to them.
Ladybird Johnson would have a meltdown about these albatross's.
 

officeguy

Well-Known Member
Your correct, the gas comes from Calvert. I know they were putting pipe in down to the 301 bridge for what I thought was the new plant in St Charles.

The pipe down the center of 301 goes from the Mattawoman water treatment plant near Indian Head to the new CPV St Charles energy center on Billingsley. It carries non-potable water (purple hydrants) that is used for cooling purposes at the plant. The county is selling waste-water to the powerplant.
There is a separate proposed wastewater pipeline from the WSSC Piscataway water treatment plant to the proposed Panda plant in Brandywine.
 
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officeguy

Well-Known Member
Interesting Thanks, a quick read on Dominion's website was very informative.
It says the line is Bi- directial, do you know if the new turbines have NG storage tanks?
Being Bi- directial makes me wonder if NG is cheaper to import they will reverse the flow. idk :confused:

Most NG is stored either in the high-pressure pipelines themselves or in underground rock formations that can hold gas (e.g. depleted oil fields). I don't believe that either of the new plants will keep significant amounts of gas on site.

The Cove Point terminal was built in the 70s when gas prices were high and supply in the US was constrained. The original plan was for liquified natural gas to be imported from cheerful places like Algeria, gasified at Cove Point and fed into the east coast pipeline system. The original operator of Cove Point built the thing along with a pipeline to move the gas to market. I believe they unloaded one or two ships before gas prices in the US collapsed and it stopped to make sense to import LNG to the mid-atlantic (there has been some LNG import to supply the Boston area).

In recent years, through the magic of hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling, the US has markedly increased its domestic production of natural gas. This has caused a number of different things:
- it is now cheaper to burn NG than coal
- we have a glut of NG, prices are low and it now starts to make sense to export gas.

As a result, Dominion is in the process of building a big compressor plant at the Cove Point terminal which reverses the LNG process. Rather than importing LNG from ships at the pier, they take gaseous natural gas and compress/cool it for liquefaction (using some of the gas in the process). As part of that project, the pipeline that was originally designed to carry gas from Cove Point to its interconnect with the rest of the Dominion system, has been upgraded to carry gas from the Dominion pipelines down to Covepoint. I don't know whether the new Cove Point facility would be equipped to import gas if need be.
 
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black dog

Free America
The Cove Point terminal was built in the 70s when gas prices were high and supply in the US was constrained. The original plan was for liquified natural gas to be imported from cheerful places like Algeria, gasified at Cove Point and fed into the east coast pipeline system. The original operator of Cove Point built the thing along with a pipeline to move the gas to market. I believe they unloaded one or two ships before gas prices in the US collapsed and it stopped to make sense to import LNG to the mid-atlantic (there has been some LNG import to supply the Boston area).

.

In recent years, through the magic of hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling, the US has markedly increased its domestic production of natural gas. This has caused a number of different things:
- it is now cheaper to burn NG than coal
- we have a glut of NG, prices are low and it now starts to make sense to export gas.

As a result, Dominion is in the process of building a big compressor plant at the Cove Point terminal which reverses the LNG process. Rather than importing LNG from ships at the pier, they take gaseous natural gas and compress/cool it for liquefaction (using some of the gas in the process). As part of that project, the pipeline that was originally designed to carry gas from Cove Point to its interconnect with the rest of the Dominion system, has been upgraded to carry gas from the Dominion pipelines down to Covepoint. I don't know whether the new Cove Point facility would be equipped to import gas if need be.

I get what you are saying, but Bi- directial Gas line doesn't mean flows only one way.
 

bones1

New Member
The power output will increase from 725MW to 750MW. There is an open hearing on July 17th for those opposed. You bet we'll be there.
 
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