Real World III – Dominion Dodge

In my last post of 2011, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the merit of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and numerous claims. In this third of a series of posts, I consider extrapolated life claims scattered across pages 13 through 15.  The author of the document presents a series of arguments built around a cable that was treated with CableCURE^®/XL fluid at Dominion Virginia Power. The 35kV, 3-phase circuit included 1000 kcm aluminum conductors and 260 mils of XLPE insulation. One phase was treated with XL fluid; another phase was left untreated as a control. The cable lies in thermic soil (12-22°C) about one meter deep with no load. In fact, the circuit has had zero load since it was treated. I will share some of the more colorful assertions by the author below, but first the context suggested by the author is that this “real world” example is representative of the population of aging cables. Presumably the reader is encouraged to assume that the measurements made on this circuit can be extrapolated to what I have taken to call, the “real, real world.”  The “real, real world” includes the 7-strand and 19-strand cables that make up the bulk of the rejuvenated cable universe. Like we saw in yesterday’s post, “Real World II – Duke Deception,” the author has not been very vigilant at choosing representative samples.

Point – Counterpoint

“This makes the result very conservative and only useful as an unrealistically low minimum boundary.”

Using very lively language the author appears to coax the reader that the analysis that follows can be applied to any case … we shall see.

“It is generally assumed that the reduction of breakdown strength over time is polymeric slowing over time. Modeling this reduction as a straight line is absolutely the most conservative approach.” 

This frog is reluctant to put words in the author’s mouth, but I believe he meant to say “a polynomial” where he said “polymeric.” Even with that correction the author is still in error. The dielectric degradation slope of solid dielectric cables is best described as an exponential decay or hyperbolic decay … but I am quibbling now. The real point of the adverb-rich language again appears to be to encourage the reader to accept the analysis which follows without undue diligence. This frog will not willingly suspend her disbelief.

“The absolute most conservative evaluation of its remaining life would be to assume that from this moment on (Time = 14 years post injection) its' decay rate is linear and equal to the decay rate of its un-injected counterpart. In other words, we assume for the sake of absolute conservatism that the fluid at this point has no effect on the cable.”

The analysis is not just conservative it is absolutely conservative. It’s difficult for me not to correct the grammar and punctuation, but I successfully restrained myself.

“Assuming that [the treated cable] will age from this point on at the same rate as its un-injected counterpart is obviously nearly ridiculously conservative. By doing so however we are able to arrive at irrefutable proof of injection effectiveness as well as absolute certainty of the absolute minimum value of added life.”

These two sentences are gems. Thinking about the meaning of “obviously nearly ridiculously conservative” is a bit like thinking about one of those science fiction time paradoxes. If I went back in my time machine and swallowed my father when he was a tadpole, how could I have ever been spawned in the first place?  What does “nearly ridiculously” mean? Almost, but not quite, ridiculous? This frog is not sure about that, but I am quite confident the author is trying to sell me an idea I shouldn’t be buying. I can be confident, because if the author actually had irrefutable proof, why would he hide it within the shroud of a “Confidential and Proprietary” document and actually sue his customer to prevent its public disclosure? (See UTILX v. City of Tacoma, No. 11-2-11594-7 in the Superior Court of the State of Washington in and for the County of Pierce.)

Fallacy of the Anecdote II

Putting aside the overenthusiastic use of adverbs and hyperbole the author makes a reasonable case for the efficacy of his product in an unloaded, 1000 kcm, 35 kV feeder cable buried in thermic soil. The problem arises because he holds out this example as one of a handful of “real world” examples and implies that these few anecdotes prove the universal efficacy of his product. The Dominion cable is not representative of the population of “real, real world” cables. In the table nearby I tally up the estimated impact of some differences between this single sample and the “real, real world.” In yesterday’s post, we saw that the Duke cable was off the mark by about a factor of 240X.  The Dominion Dodge is not nearly so egregious. Here the error is a paltry 20X-150X! The author appears headed in the right direction.

Executive Summary

If you have a cable, like the Dominion cable with no load, treatment with even low performance injection fluids should provide several decades of post-injection reliable life. However, that success cannot be extrapolated to 7- and 19-strand cables that carry cyclic loads. The old fluid utilized at Dominion Virginia Power was deployed by a Novinium founder and is available from Novinium for non-demanding applications.  Perficio™ 011 fluid works well in non-demanding applications, like cables with really thick insulation, low loads, and non-constrained conductors. In the decades since the introduction of the first generation of technology, the masters of reliability at Novinium came to recognize that one cannot treat all cables the same. Novinium is the only supplier in the world of patented technology (U.S. Patent 7,611,748) which addresses the full spectrum of cable types and sizes.

Using adverbs sparingly,

Real World II – Duke Deception

In my last post of 2011 one of my local fans, Wondering in Western Washington, questioned the veracity of the claims made by UTILX^® in a document titled, “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid.”  That document includes 17 pages and a bunch of interesting claims. In this second of a series of posts, I consider two claims proffered on the bottom of page 3.  To wit …

“[Micro Infrared spectroscopy is] performed routinely on post injected cables. An example is provided by the published paper [3]; ''Case Study: Rejuvenation Fluid Injection Results from Duke Power's Little Rock Retail Tap Line, a 115kV XLPE, Buried Transmission Circuit."  Figure One shows a chart from that paper demonstrating that the quantity of fluid, even after 10 years, exceeds the target concentration for a six to nine month old injected cable. Two points are established by Figure One. The first is that fluid in optimum injection quantities still exists in the cable's insulation. The second is that the rate of fluid decay is too small to measure after 10 years.”

Notes: Reference 3 above is to a non-peer-reviewed paper provided Stagi & Kimsey at the IEEE T&D Conference (Dallas, TX), May, 2006. An augmented facsimile of "Figure One" referenced above is shown in the graph below in the third illustration. All punctuation and grammatical errors were left as they were found by this frog.

Fallacy of the Anecdote

The author is attempting to make a case for the efficacy of his product.  This Duke cable, and as we shall see in future posts, all of his examples except for the example of Northeast Utilities, is not representative of the population of “real world” cables. Let’s enumerate the problems with this single anecdote.  Of the population of treated cables, the vast majority is single-phase URD cables with 7- or 19-strand conductors. The vast majority has insulation thickness of less than 260 mils and is unjacketed with bare concentric neutrals. The Duke cable has a 61-strand conductor, holding much more fluid and the insulation thickness is three to four times thicker than the population norm.  The Duke cable has a copper taped shield, semi-impervious to permeation, and a 170 mil thick PVC jacket. In the table nearby I tally up the estimated impact of some differences.

All of these differences place the Duke cable among the least representative samples one might choose to make a population extrapolation. On top of the unrepresentative nature of the Duke cable design, the author makes an egregious omission.  The Duke cable was not only treated from the conductor outward, as is the norm within the population of treated cables; the annular space under the cable’s jacket was also treated. The cable was treated from the inside-out and from the outside-in. This highly salient fact is not to be found in the author’s papers or accompanying slides.  Taken together the differences put the Duke cable outside of the norm by about a factor of 240!  That's not 240%; that's 24,000%!

First Assertion:  Fluid remains in optimum injection quantities

In this season of presidential debates, I am reminded of the single Reagan-Carter debate of 1980, which I recently watched on YouTube.  Over and over again, when Jimmy Carter made some bizarre claim, Ronald Reagan would chuckle and say, “There you go again.”  Frog to author:  There you go again – assertion without proof. What precisely are the “optimum injection quantities?”  Are you suggesting that if the concentration profile were say, 20% higher, that the reliability of the cable would be poorer? That notion is silly and directly contradicted by earlier peer reviewed work done on the same cable. I will reference that work in the next paragraph. In the graph that I reproduce nearby, the author presented a green dotted line labeled “Target Concentration,” just below 1.5%_w. If I were a betting frog, I would bet that the Target Concentration was chosen after the micro-infrared data was compiled. How else to explain an utter lack of justification for the figure? There you go again – assertion without proof.

Second Assertion:  Fluid decay is too small to measure after 10 years

There you go again – assertion without proof.  Where is the measurement from 10 years earlier to make the claim?  The author doesn’t provide the data. Fortunately, Novinium houses the world’s largest library on rejuvenation science and a decent comparison can be found there. In the figure nearby I have inset micro-infrared data from the same cable. The data was published in “Cable fault prevention using dielectric enhancement technology” presented in June, 1995, by Novinium’s own Glen Bertini at the peer-reviewed Jicable conference in Versailles, France. The assertion is false.  The average concentration in 1995 was about 3.5%_w, the average concentration a decade later was about 1.7%_w – a factor of two is not too small to measure.

Executive Summary

There is undoutedely a good reason that the author of “Life Extension Estimate for UtilX^® CableCURE^® Rejuvenation Fluid” tried to keep this paper away from reasonable scrutiny. A cynical reader might even think that the author is trying to mislead his audience.  Rejuvenation fluids do in fact improve the performance of transmission cables, but the author would have you believe that treating such cables is a greater technical challenge than treating a 15kV URD cable.  In fact the opposite is true. Cables like the Duke cable should experience extremely long post-injection life, but that success is not easily extrapolated to 7- and 19-strand cables. The old technology used at Duke was conceived and deployed by a Novinium founder.  That technology works well in non-demanding applications like cables with really thick insulation or low loads. In the decades that have transpired since the introduction of that old approach, those who are masters of rejuvenation technology came to recognize that one should not treat transmission cables the same as one would treat a URD cable. Only at Novinium is patented technology (U.S. Patent 7,611,748) available to address the full spectrum of cable types, sizes and flavors. This frog will not employ deception to convince anyone.

Novinium’s Integrity Value: Truth and knowledge are the foundation of the Novinium character. Each will be advanced at every opportunity and neither will be compromised.

Truly yours,

T. B. Frog

Dearest Green One,

I have a need to rehabilitate some aging URD circuits.  How long have Novinium fluids and injection technologies been in use?  I prefer to use proven technology.

Signed,

Middle East Query – Reinjection? Re-rejuvenation?

Dweller of the Desert asked 22 questions in his post …

Middle East Query – 22 Questions.

In this installment I address question 10.

1.   Can injection be carried out twice on the same cable after 10-20 years of the first injection?

When Novinium^® Ultrinium™ brand fluid is used there is no need to reinject after 10-20 years. Even in the most demanding conditions, including the hyperthermic soils of the Saudi Arabian desert, Ultrinium fluid will extend life for four decades or more. Ultrinium technology enjoys a patented Novinium innovation (U.S. Patent 7,611,748), which involves the tailoring of the fluid formulation to the specific and unique requirements of the each circuit. Older generations of injection technology such as Perficio™ fluid, which cannot be tailored to demanding hyperthermic conditions, would need to be replenished after a decade or so.  Novinium has successfully re-injected cables after 10-15 years that were previously injected with CableCURE^®/XL fluid. Novinium developed the patent pending N-Ter™ process to facilitate the re-injection of cables. Check out a case study at Littleton Electric Light in Massachusetts, U.S.A.  The procedures for N-Ter injection are available online at N-Ter™ Technology.  In short, the conductor is warmed with a low voltage current source.  The warmer conductor reduces the viscosity of the old fluid remaining in the strands and expands the conductor strands creating more interstitial space.  Innovation makes all things possible – safer, faster, better.

For now, Ma’a salama (مع السلامة/Good bye)

T. B. Frog

CableCure is a registered trademark of UTILX Corporation.