Is there anything you'd like to know about stationary engineering and power plant operations?

How would your power plant be involved in a cold start of the grid and have you ever participated in one before?

Well a complete cold start wouldn't really ever happen in my current position. But, plenty of equipment is taken offline/bypassed during maintenance.Getting things going from cold, in my experience, is about going slow and steady. What that might look like though? Depends on the system. We have several turbines, boilers, and a HRSG (think a combination of a turbine and boiler in one big box). So most things are brought up slowly if thats an option. That might mean bringing the fire rate up by X% every X minutes. How you bring XYZ up from cold is a commonly asked question on my state licensure exams actually.
- Thanks for the detailed answer. Coming back up slow and steady seems like the right thing and it makes sense that each piece of equipment would have its own procedures for coming back up.
  I was reading somewhere about a grid failure in the midwest and how it was really difficult to bring the whole grid up from cold and they had a special kind of power plant that basically, I can't remember the details, but it was a very, very small power plant which did the initial start and everything else kind of came back up from that one.

How much innovation has there been in the ballpoint pen in the last decade?

A fucking ton dude

How much of the math is memorized versus just knowing where to look for answers?
Hypothetical: you have no access to paid tools for things like FEM and CFD, how do you accomplish your hobby project?
Solar panel challenge: What would you produce as a physical, marketable product of value as passive income based upon a mostly self contained system powered by a single solar panel? You may add precursors, but may not interact further until the cycle is complete. There is no other temporal constraint.

To answer your first question engineers usually add a two to three times safety factor to their equations so it doesn't really matter they just make numbers up.
Lots of equations are memorized but ones that aren't commonly used are forgotten after licensing testing. Anything you need to figure out can be looked up or a chart exists to simplify it. Mollier charts are a good example of this. If you've never seen one, definitely look it up.
I've never tried to design a hobby system. I just keep current ones running. Understanding every aspect of a boiler system that includes chillers, various boiler types, turbines, heating systems and emergency generators takes a considerable amount of time. Just to grasp what each component does and how it interacts with the rest of the system.
No idea, you'll have to check shark tank for your next million dollar idea.

How do you know when the grid needs more power? Does a bell ding?

How long does it take to ramp up from cold?

Does a bell ring? Basically yes, at least in my state. Days that are extreme in either direction (hot/cold) require considerably more electricity. Say its gonna be 105 F today. Major utility plants will all be operating at as close to max output as possible. Some plants even exist mostly to only come on line in high demand times.
How long does it take to ramp up from cold? Completely depends on the system but ideally you bring any boiler/steam system up slowly and progressively. Most boilers are kept warm enough to start relatively quickly. To truly start from cold takes awhile, trying to rush that process can be dangerous.
- That's pretty neat! Is there a central computer system that determines which power company or which specific plant needs to turn on or ramp up, or do y'all just jockey to fill the need first so your company gets paid?

I assume there's some sort of main relay that connects the turbine/generator/hampsterwheel to the grid. I suspect this relay might be more beefy than the ones I've worked with in 24V, 230V and 400V systems...

How is a relay of powerplant-beefidity constructed so that the contacts aren't welded from the current upon initial contact?

I don't know the answer to that aside from transformers being utilized to feed back to the grid.

This is all just so you can kill-a-what? isn't it?

I MEG I dont KILL 😉
- Sounds like you are pretty current!

How much would it cost to update the US power grid?

How much would we save in reduced costs?

Absolutely ridiculous amount of money. I don't have any idea how to estimate the cost across all the states.