Living without electricity

[JohnD]

we can't land gas fast enough to meet peak winter demand, so we have to store enough to get us over (a certain number of) days when it is particularly cold.

As evidenced only a month ago, we are teetering on the brink of "not enough." It wasn't even an exceptionally cold winter. Prior to closure of Rough, it was known that this would make us short of capacity, but anyone who said so was brushed aside.

My information is that Centrica didn't want to bear the cost of maintaining Rough. In the same way that I don't want to pay for a snowplough to keep in my garage in case the town suffers bad weather. But the citizens of the town, communally, contribute to a fund for emergency equipment, in the knowledge that it will not be used very often.

Its the nation that suffers when we run short of gas, so it's sensible for the nation to bear the cost of maintaining supplies.

The answer to your "technical" question is that we are short of capacity. The answer to the "political" question is that we can have more capacity if we want it and are willing to pay for it. The two questions and the two answers are inextricably linked.

p.s.
Unsurprisingly, the spot price of gas rockets when a buyer (such as the UK) has a shortage and is urgently seeking supplies.
The ant and the grasshopper...

 

[StephenOak]

That sounds rather bizarre, unless you are talking about pumping of 'imported gas' (imported from countries afar) into nearby wells - can you explain a little more?

The UK has imported gas from Qatar for almost a decade, carried in ships as liquid. According to Wikipedia this is c. 25% of our gas supply. I read a while back that with US prices being so low due to fracking we have also started (or are soon to start) importing LNG from the US.

 

[JohnD]

It is to our national benefit to keep a good supply to tide us over a cold spell.

http://www.ercequipoise.com/graph/uk-natural-gas-nbp-spot-price/

 

[JohnW2]

we can't land gas fast enough to meet peak winter demand, so we have to store enough to get us over (a certain number of) days when it is particularly cold. ... The answer to your "technical" question is that we are short of capacity. ...

Fair enough. That is the simple answer to my question, then. As I said, it would only make sense if what we were storing (under the North Sea) was gas imported from foreign parts - and it sounds as if that is what you are talking about.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I think governments fail to consider how items interact with each other. It does not matter if it's the closing down of steel production which means coke is not required so the gas from the coke ovens is not generated. Or a light bulb swapped to light only type with no heat output so thermostats need to be programmable. They seem to want to look at things in isolation.

Today we need electricity, even the gas central heating needs electricity to work. This was a point made with wood burners with condensing boilers, although the rocket home made wood burner has flue temperatures below 100°C most commercial types need flue gases to be maintained at around 150°C, there is an exception however it uses electric pumps, and unlike gas when the electric fails the wood continues to burn.

I wrote to the company asking what happened in a power cut, there was no reply. Of course this is not new, I have needed to drop the irons on a Aga coke cooker and carry the burning coals outside when the water supply failed to stop the water tank being damaged.

As to stand-by power, I remember on the Falklands having problems with fan belts on the RR Eagle engines on our generators, as a result a battery powered stand-by was installed, but by that time the fan brake problem was resolved and the loss of power was due to the stand-by unit failing not the main generators.

But even the Power Stations need power, Sizewell 'B' has I think 12 x 1.5MW Diesel generators dotted around the complex to keep the pumps running if it lost grid power, it does not need 18 MW but also allows for some of the Diesel generators to fail as well.

As RAYNET we have been called to floods to keep the coms going, Just outside Rhyl was the last big one in this area, the telephone exchanges were flooded so we had to assist the em services, however this means cars with engine running to maintain batteries so still using electric.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Elsewhere I came across a link to this report, "Living without Electricity, One city's experience of coping with loss of power". From the foreword :
In December 2015, life for more than 100,000 people in Lancaster reverted to a pre-electronics era. A flood at an electricity substation resulted in a blackout over the entire city that lasted for more than 24 hours. Suddenly people realised that, without electricity, there is no internet, no mobile phones, no contactless payment, no lifts and no petrol pumps. Although these dependencies were not difficult to see, few had thought through the implications of losing so many aspects of modern life at once.
Three months after the event, Lancaster University brought together representatives from local organisations with policy makers and power system specialists. The conclusions of the workshop are summarised in this report. The failure of the power supply in Lancaster was an important reminder that things will occasionally go wrong and we must learn the lessons from such events.

Basically, for historical reasons, all 3 132kV feeds for the city go into one substation down by the river, with Storm Desmond in Dec 2015 the river level rose higher than the improved flood protection for the substation, and the city got blacked out. From the sound of things, Electricity Northwest (ENWL, the DNO) did an amazing job of getting supplies back up.

Makes very interesting and sobering reading. I think a lot of us will have thought about the dependence of things like the internet and mobiles on electricity. But the majority of people probably just assume that they "will always be there" - especially with a belief that "mobiles don't need power"

Someone told me once (and I have never bothered to look into it, so IHNI how true it was) that Greater London relies on three main HV grid substations, and that if they were all knocked out in ways that took weeks, or months, to repair, then the whole of London would be without power for weeks, or months. A city that size without power for that long is basically uninhabitable.

 

[Nozzle]

But even the Power Stations need power, Sizewell 'B' has I think 12 x 1.5MW Diesel generators dotted around the complex to keep the pumps running if it lost grid power, it does not need 18 MW but also allows for some of the Diesel generators to fail as well.

4x8MW units and a pair of 1MW units - for essential use only. When at-power, house loads are ~60MW
Nozzle

 

[ban-all-sheds]

When at-power, house loads are ~60MW

Mine isn't.

Thank god - I couldn't possibly afford that much electricity.

 

[winston1]

A city that size without power for that long is basically uninhabitable.

People lived there before electricity.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Apologies to all readers - I had forgotten that there are some people here who will seize any opportunity they can find to be deliberately obtuse, one being me not writing "A present day city that size, presently configured with the expectation of electrical power being available, is basically uninhabitable without it".

What fun this forum is going to be when we all have to take scrupulous care not to leave the tiniest crack for the deliberately obtuse to insert their pointless wrecking bars into.

 

[EddieM]

maybe one should consider investing in an inexpensive ham radio set and associated transmission license. Still needs electricity of course, but a battery is fine.no reliance on internet/mobile phone masts etc.

 

[EddieM]

also if you have the room install an esse wood burning stove with heating / hot water capabilities.

Basic communication/heating and cooking electricity and gas free.

And buy plenty of candles of course

 

[JohnW2]

maybe one should consider investing in an inexpensive ham radio set and associated transmission license.

Got them - but, in the scenario we are discussing, they would only be useful if a lot of other people did likewise.

Still needs electricity of course, but a battery is fine.no reliance on internet/mobile phone masts etc.

The internet, per se, is largely 'catastrophe-proof', unless one has very wide-ranging power failures, provided one can connect to it. A battery powered satellite connection ought to do it - but, again, only useful if people with whom you wished to communicate also found ways of connecting to the internet.

Kind Regards, John[/QUOTE]

 

[EddieM]

emergency services can be obtained via ham radio. satellite internet... not sure how that works without a phone line as you would require a satellite uplink as well? One was meant in the broad sense.

 

[JohnW2]

emergency services can be obtained via ham radio. satellite internet... not sure how that works without a phone line as you would require a satellite uplink as well?

Yep, that's what I meant - a portable battery-operated satellite uplink and dish - like the journalists use when they are in the middle of nowhere!

However, communication obviously requires the ability to exist at both ends of the conversation.

Contacting emergency services would probably only be of any use for a pretty limited period of time, since if the absence of electricity was widespread, the availability of any sort of fuel (to facilitate moving around and/or run generators), and the ability to distribute it, would fairly rapidly become a thing of the past - and I don't think that the emergency services have all that many horses!

As BAS has said, the total absence of electricity for a significant period of time would make life, as we know it, essentially impossible, particular in major urban areas. It's all very well talking about the pre-electricity era but I imagine that, for example, once mechanised transport disappeared, countless 21st century people would find it impossible to find enough sources of food within walking distance to keep them alive for very long.

Kind Regards, John