'No big deal" Just an atmospheric phenomenon' some outages green energy absolved

[BeyondKnowledge]

Haven't been through all 8 pages so apologies if this has been posted already. Just saw this today.

Spain Three Years Ago

Spain Three Years Ago 2

ETA:
Congrats to Spain!

Well you can't shut down a gas, oil, or coal boiler for any length of time, like years, and expect it to ever run again without an expensive rebuilding.

The corrosive chemicals from the combuation build up in the refractory cement and fire bricks in the boiler. Without the heat to keep them dry, the metal pipes are eaten away quickly when any moisture in the air gets to those corrosive chemicals.

I saw one fall apart that way after setting for 5 years. I helped replace all the tubes in it afterwords. It was a small boiler compared to the power generating ones, about the size of a house. No explosion, just started falling apart internally when I was testing it during first fire up after installiation of that used boiler. It got to about 20 pounds of pressure before hot water started pouring out and chunks of cement were going up the stack. Normal pressure was 120 psi.

That was an experience I don't want to do again.