Tar sands vanadium pentoxide furnace problem

Brief mention — Tom got hired on a tar sands job in Alberta because they had the same vanadium problem Wolff had diagnosed at Boston Edison decades earlier. Modern processes remove the vanadium, but earlier operators didn't know.

Today the American Petroleum Institute has specs on getting the vanadium out. There is really only one alloy — a nickel-chrome alloy — that can survive vanadium. I actually got hired briefly on a job up in the tar sands area of Alberta, because they have vanadium in their oil too. They have processes now to get rid of the vanadium, but back then no one really knew about it, because the US always had the nice crude from Texas that didn't have this problem. John Wolff knew about it at the right time and found the right client who had a big enough problem that he could put a couple of kids through college on that one answer. You've got to be at the right spot at the right time.

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