Why God invented the diesel engine.
 

Rudolf Diesel committed suicide. If that's your God does that mean you're part of a suicide cult?

I worked on a new power plant (wow 20 years ago!). They [outfit named 'Bigge'], brought in a turbine engine (350-375 tonnes), built in S. Carolina via Panama Canal to San Diego, then trucked up to Escondido CA. One truck pulling it, took 9+ hours to travel 25-30 mi.
Trailer had 96 tires on the ground, 8 across & 12 long. Each tire on a knuckle with a hydraulic ram, & individually steered. Once off the pavement {= level}, one man operated a lever back & forth to keep trailer level, this system ran off a small one cylinder diesel running a hydraulic pump. The turbine ran on natural gas, but burned the equivalent of about 60 gallons of diesel per second. Two gassers, a steam turbine & 3 generators.

The turbine ran on diesel and natural gas?

I'm still struggling with Rudolf Diesel being god.....

I thought it was that Black guy Morgan Freeman :P .

This is not uncommon in the power generation world.
(especially for GE machines made in South Carolina...)

You can only run on one at a time.
Natural gas is normally the cheaper fuel, but firing it on fuel oil is a handy backup for a few reasons:

1) Easy to keep a large tank onsite
2) Gas suppliers count "power generation" as "industrial" users. Industrial users get gas only after residential demand has been satisfied (this doesnt make sense to me).
-If it is so cold that Natural gas suppliers don't have much left over after the home heating loads, then electricity prices are already so high that running on fuel oil is still a money-making proposition.


Also - I once saw the rigging crews drive a 150ton turbine on top of a "Goldhofer" - crazy how the dude drove so much weight with a handheld remote control

(not a good example - put pictures are here:
https://www.barnhartcrane.com/equipment/?cat=transportation-systems&subcat=platform-trailers&equip=goldhofer-spmt

Yes.

These engines can be re-jetted or whatever they do to run on either fuel. The engineers response was equivilant fuel usage.

For those who remember the Chrysler turbine car of 1964, it would run on almost anything: unleaded gas, diesel, kerosene, JP-4, or veggie oil. In a demonstration for the president of Mexico, it was run on tequila.

Lest we forget, 1967 Indie 500, Parnelli Jones almost won in his turbine powered racer. Trans went south, not the engine.

Lest we forget, Richie Ginther has a class win at Le Mans in 1963 with a turbine car built by Rover-BRM.

More personally, I had a ride in the Chrysler turbine car at the '64 Worlds Fair.

1964 World's Fair In New York
 

IIC it ws held in Flushing Meadows... (?) .

I went but was not allowed to look at any of the transportation themed exhibits .

Yes it was.