Power cut and ken livingstones comments

johncas · Post by **johncas** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:16 pm

Dureing a new interview to ITV news channel ken livingstone mayor of london made these comments

He Said "London Underground has items \ things on it that would be in a railway museum in any other country"

Waht do thinck on the comments and what needs to be done to upgrade the underground system.

After the power cust do you thnck the chelsea power station should be reopened whats your general thoughts on thre pweer cut it could happern near you in the winter they said on the news

Horgy · Post by **Horgy** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:21 pm

Jesus man sort out your spelling! I can hardly decipher what you say nowadays..

Horgy

markw · Post by **markw** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 3:13 pm

We already get regular power outages, lasting from a few seconds to an hour, usually after thunderstorms. The problem out here in the Norfolk Broads is most of our power lines are at ground level across fields on telegraph poles because of the way the ground is largely marsh and farmland, so we have to expect it in some ways. If a bird flies into the lines, or an angler with one of those over-long river rods touches them, or wind blown debris gets tangled up, we have a cut (and they have all happened in the past twelve months - shame for the bird, served the poser angler right for not checking around him). They are usually pretty good at getting it sorted, but as a precaution I have a battery back-up supply for the computer, battery emegency lights fitted to the walls and a Primus stove in case of prolonged outage.

But of course it doesn't usually rate a column in the Eastern Daily Press or a mention on Anglia News round here. London (or part of) has the lights go out and there's a public inquiry.

markw · Post by **markw** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 3:15 pm

Oh, forgot to mention that in last winter's blizzard when large parts of Suffolk, Cambridge and Essex were without power for up to two days, we were off for ten minutes....work that one out.

bjdick · Post by **bjdick** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 4:39 pm

How about a battery backup?

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 10:50 pm

For the Underground? It'd need to be a friggin monster battery

ThinLizzy · Post by **ThinLizzy** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 11:15 pm

Electrified railways used to have dedicated dc power power stations {i mean the southern}

johncas · Post by **johncas** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 11:25 pm

What about London Undergrounds Battery Locomotive they do or did have one

they also had Chelsea power station to power the network

markw · Post by **markw** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 11:33 pm

They were built at a time when electricity was supplied on local grids by local authorities or local power companies, before the creation of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the National Grid in 1948, which of course by the 1980's was a nasty Socialist nationalised industry despite it being the envy of the world. the railways wanted guaranteed supplies and cost, which local supply companies and authorities couldn't give or provide.

Since deregulation and privatisation the demand for cheap electricity means that we don't keep reserve circuits and over capacity in the grid the way we used to in the days of the "nasty, centrally planned and expensive" CEGB.

I wonder how many of those who sat moaning and complaining about yesterday's blackout thought electricity privatisation was a good thing and bought shares in the companies, preferring to see a profit and cheap electricity than investment in "just-in-case" capacity...

markw · Post by **markw** » Fri Aug 29, 2003 11:38 pm

johncas wrote:What about London Undergrounds Battery Locomotive they do or did have one

they also had Chelsea power station to power the network

The Battery locos wouldn't have been any help as they were taking people off the trains and it's not a good idea to send other trains running into tunnels in that case. Also they don't have many and there were far too many trains stuck for them to even contemplate trying to use the battery locos for rescue.

Lots Road closed last year. In fact, since the 50's there had been a gradual shift over to supply from the National Grid and to close Lots Road. It was expensive to run, LT wasn't an electricity generator and only did got into it because the supply in the 20's and 30's was erratic (see previous post) and it is not a good idea to have power stations in built up areas. In any case, the whole point of the Grid is supposed to stop this kind of thing happening.

Goingnorth · Post by **Goingnorth** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 12:28 am

There's not been much in the media, but the electricity industry is in serious problems. Rather than the all out success many believe it is, there is serious problems with profitability of many power stations. Several generating companies have gone bust, including the one that runs the UK's nuclear plants.

The system is very similar to the railways, with National Grid acting as a type of Railtrack. They take bids from Generators to supply electricity to the Grid, from mega stations like Drax, to small Hydro plants and wind farms. The whole lot controlled from a central control centre in Berkshire. Naturally, generators have tried to under-cut their competitors...the result is bankruptcy in some cases and closures of power stations. The capacity of the grid has gone down, and some experts have predicted that a cold snap could cause parts of the grid to 'fall over', as we saw the other week in the Eastern USA.

Recently we have seen a 'dash for gas'. A much cheaper fuel than coal and nuclear, and quite clean. This has made nuclear power in particular, uneconomic. The problem is, North sea gas has a very limited life. And we could find ourselves totally reliant on gas and coal imports in the future, which is not a particularly desirable situation.

I think one of the problems with Lotts road power station, was the plant was life expired and the distribution system was past it's sell by date as well. Remember Lotts road was put in long before the Grid was even thought of. The Grid started to be formed in the 1930s, but was not anything like it's current form until the 1960s.

In many ways, it would be sensible for NR and LUL to have their own power station, just in case. However this would mean a large network of distribution cables which would be uneconomic. In theory, the Grid should cope with most eventualities, that said, only if the generators don't let capacity drop too much.

bjdick · Post by **bjdick** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 7:13 am

One frigging big battery coming up.See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.j ... tid=100423

If only for the underground,I'm sure it'd last more than 7 minutes.How far timewise to the next station?

60085 · Post by **60085** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 9:32 am

Yes, they should. The government should pay off the debts of power stations like Drax. Think I read it's somewhere in the region of 1 billion in the red, with its operator in admin.

We seem to be heading for a state worse than Russia

.

60085 "MANNA".

johndibben · Post by **johndibben** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 10:34 am

I reckon we need 'liberating' like Iraq.

No power cuts there (what's a firiggin 'outage' for heavens sake?) .... no power.

rikfarish · Post by **rikfarish** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 10:40 am

Why bother with power stations, did you know you can move a Class 319 on a 6volt battery!

Rik

Atomic Systems

Power cut and ken livingstones comments

Sjould the London underground have it;s own power supply and chelsea power station be re-opened

Power cut and ken livingstones comments