Cast_Iron said:

Chris, you're suggesting that the powers that be engage in some
planning are you??

As "Sir Humphrey" might say, "That's a novel approach, Minister".

LOL!

--
=============================================

Chris Game chrisgame@!yahoo!dotcodotuk
=============================================

John Turner said:


"Depresion" wrote

Why isn't this plastered across all the US news channels the
way there power cut was across all of ours?

It was, or must have been. I got an email from a friend in
Georgia who asked if the power cut in London had affected us in
Hull. Bah!

According to Yahoo! the U.S. quoted shares of National Grid took a
tumble at the same time as the cut; the Americans were certainly
awake!

--
=============================================

Chris Game chrisgame@!yahoo!dotcodotuk
=============================================

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 18:55:09 +0000 (UTC), "Terry Harper"
wrote:

"David Hansen" wrote in message
.. .

Trains consume large amounts of electricity. I hate to think what
size the battery bank would be to run a railway on UPS. There would
not be a standby generator, but a standby power station. Think in
terms of the size of some of the old ones.

You perhaps missed the report recently about the commissioning of a UPS to
serve the town of Fairbanks, Alaska. Apparently it is the biggest NiCad
battery array in the world. They don't have a grid connection outside Alaska
apparently.


There are some details of this at

http://www.gvea.com/projects/bess.php .

Produces 27 (eventually, 40) megawatts for 15 minutes; I haven't been
able to find the specifications for how long it takes to get going,
but I suppose it could be a true UPS. Cost is quoted as $35 million,
and the batteries alone cost $10 million.The battery life is quoted as
10 to 20 years.

Any useful equivalent for the LU would have to be at least ten times
larger!

Yes, it would be a big gas turbine. Would a few hundred MW be adequate, do
you think?

Trains take around a megawatt at full thunder, don't they? And there
are around 500?

Perhaps it might be interesting to think about installing much smaller
UPSs or other generating capacity at each station. Centralised power
generation isn't always the best way. (and no, I don't think going
back to coal-powered trains would be a good idea)

R

Roland Perry wrote:

BBC reports that the Greenwich standby generator is "designed to power
safety lights in trains and stations".

The Times said something similar this morning. It seems we may have been
seriously misled about the capability of the Greenwich power station. All
this stuff about LU's legal obligation to have a second power supply. Not
much good if it can't run the trains.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"Richard J." wrote in message ...
Roland Perry wrote:

BBC reports that the Greenwich standby generator is "designed to power
safety lights in trains and stations".

The Times said something similar this morning. It seems we may have been
seriously misled about the capability of the Greenwich power station. All
this stuff about LU's legal obligation to have a second power supply. Not
much good if it can't run the trains.

Why not spit the trains up into groups so only a hand full would be moving at
a time in a power cut? So group 1 gets the go ahead to move to the next station
at 25% speed then when they all check in group 2 and so on to keep the loads
on secondary power down.

Roland Perry said:

In article , Chris Game
writes
The faults were generally reported as 'unrelated'. Do you know
better?

I haven't seen any reports that used the word "unrelated".

The Energy Minister's comments on the BBC on Friday.


For example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3190405.stm

That report is entirely consistent with a theory that the second fault
was triggered by the first. It even includes the expression "chain of
events".

The simplistic journalist's term 'Chain of Events' doesn't imply one
event caused the next in the chain, it merely means one followed
another. As yet there's no 'theory' to connect the two.

My point is that if they're not related (i.e. with a common cause)
then it's stretching the idea of co-incidence a bit to imagine two
events happening within seven seconds.

This point came up in the Three Mile Island enquiry, where apparently
unrelated systems failed at the same time, the cause eventually being
traced to design faults. The kind of reliability calculations that
people thought protected them against disaster were thus found to be
wrong (systems that were thought to be independent weren't, and
probabilities therefore couldn't be multiplied together).

--
=============================================

Chris Game chrisgame@!yahoo!dotcodotuk
=============================================

BBC reports that the Greenwich standby generator is "designed to power
safety lights in trains and stations".

The Times said something similar this morning. It seems we may have
been
seriously misled about the capability of the Greenwich power station.
All
this stuff about LU's legal obligation to have a second power supply.
Not
much good if it can't run the trains.

Why not spit the trains up into groups so only a hand full would be moving
at
a time in a power cut? So group 1 gets the go ahead to move to the next
station
at 25% speed then when they all check in group 2 and so on to keep the
loads
on secondary power down.

Or real low-tech solution:

1) On power cut all trains turn power to zero. Wait for return of power.
2) Each n minutes following return of power roll a die.
3) If you roll a 6, move at low power into next station.

Would produce a phased increase in load.

Or if total load is an issue when trying to maintain services, simply slow
the timetable and require all units to run at a sufficiently low power
setting. This would surely reduce total power consumption by 50%, even if
it tripled journey times?

Richard

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 21:13:24 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be "Peter
Masson" wrote this:-

Where exactly is Hurst in Kent?

The BBC has a little map that shows the system and rough positions.
This link might take you to it,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...263/html/1.stm

if not then go to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3190143.stm and click on
the "Open" bit in the "POWER CUT SOURCE" box near the bottom.




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 18:55:09 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be "Terry
Harper" wrote this:-

You perhaps missed the report recently about the commissioning of a UPS to
serve the town of Fairbanks, Alaska. Apparently it is the biggest NiCad
battery array in the world. They don't have a grid connection outside Alaska
apparently.

Why would a whole town need a UPS?

Yes, it would be a big gas turbine. Would a few hundred MW be adequate, do
you think?

Google should pull up the "Power cuts and the Tube" thread on
uk.railway of a week or two ago. That should have links to
Greenwich, which was supposed to be able to power the central
section of the London Underground if there was a Grid failure. I
will be interested to see what the PFI contractors have to say about
Greenwich when they explain their actions.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

On 29 Aug 2003 09:56:23 -0700 someone who may be
(Richard Catlow) wrote this:-

Perhaps a small scale in terms of the number of substations, or even
the geographical area affected, but big in terms of consumers,
megawatts, gigawatt hours and ciruits to which the surface railway are
connected.

Thanks for the information, which I am considering along with the
BBC's map which may be at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...263/html/1.stm
as I said in an earlier message.

Of course having this information makes me a terrorist, according to
Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, so you may not hear from me
again for a while.

We tried to restore supplies from Byfleet, Croydon and Northfleet
132kV supplies, but the voltage drop and charging currents involved
made this a non runner.

That is in essence the question that I think needs raising. DC
railways have these high voltage circuits running along the lines,
though feeding the London terminals is a rather different matter to
some rural section.

Looks like some NGC folk have got some explaining to do

They are certainly the ones with the majority of the explaining to
do.

as have LUL.

I think Mr Livingstone shot himself in the foot with his
ill-informed criticism. As a result it may be difficult for him to
ask the real questions that need answering.

I wouldn't mind betting that
the situation between LUL and EDF was uncertain immediately after the
fault, whilst its impact was measured up. Eventually, LUL decided that
it could be long time before supplies could be relied upon that they
would take no chances and evacuate the trains and hey presto 20
minutes later in mid evacuation, the power comes back on.

That is my suspicion too.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.