Page 105 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong
P. 105

  ANACORTES, WASHINGTON
Peterson’s first rental was in 2001 for the Equilon Refinery in Anacortes, Washington. By then California’s power crisis was drubbing the entire West Coast. Energy costs had skyrocketed from forty dollars per megawatt-hour to four hundred, prompting the Equilon plant’s desire to generate its own power on-site. “We had very little experi- ence with turbines at that point. I wasn’t techni- cally proficient enough to stand up to engineers’ questions yet so I took a couple of high-level So- lar people with me,” says Hamilton “They were a tremendous help in those early rentals, and they didn’t have a clue about the rental market.”
The Anacortes job was a one-year contract to pow- er their refinery with four Solar T60 turbines. They ran for six months nonstop. Then the power crisis ended. Overnight. “That’s when I realized we were in trouble,” recalls Hamilton. “We had three more turbines on order and Cat Rental Power had or- dered another ten when the whole thing started to unravel.” So Hamilton hit the road looking for leads. “I was the cold-call king. I thought I had tanked my career. I turned over every rock—some- times twice—searching for opportunities. I went to the East Coast, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa going door-to-door. I looked at bid lists for projects and anything that had to do with power. Jeff [Goggin] and Duane [Sr.] asked questions but they hung in there—patiently.”
CUSIANA, COLOMBIA
In 2002, Hamilton got a call for a turbine down in Colombia. “BP had three large G.E. turbines at a plant out in the middle of nowhere. One had failed and they needed a stand-in until they could get theirs repaired and back online. They’d already lost a month’s worth of oil production.” Hamilton made several trips to the site at Cusiana, Colombia. “The security is entirely different down there, even
WHAT IS A TURBINE, ANYWAY?
A Caterpillar Solar Turbine is basically a small jet engine connected to a generator housed in two trailers. The concept is similar to Peterson’s diesel-powered mobile Cat generators. The big difference is that turbines can run on a wide variety of fuels—from diesel to natural gas to biofuels—with very low emissions. They also take up less space than an equivalent-sized reciprocating engine.
  Anacortes, Washington—Peterson’s first rental turbine installation
at a Caterpillar dealership like Gecolsa [Bogotá, Colombia]. You don’t just walk into their facility. You sign in, they look inside your briefcase, they check your laptop, then they wand you. And the security guard in the front lobby isn’t some over- weight guy with a flashlight either. He’s a twenty- one-year-old marine-type with a big revolver and a serious attitude.”
From Bogotá, Hamilton flew to a small region- al airport on the other side of the Andes, about thirty miles east of the BP facility. He heli- coptered the rest of the way to the compound. Kidnappings-for-ransom were still a big risk, es- pecially out in the drug lords’ backyard. Andres
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