On 22/04/17 17:14, newshound wrote:
On 4/22/2017 11:06 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/04/17 10:36, Andy Burns wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

ARW wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39675418
I thought we had already done that.

I thought we'd had "more solar than coal" one bright saturday?

we had that some time ago,

I was mis-remembering the BBC article from March when

"For the first time ever, the amount of electricity demanded by
homes and businesses in the afternoon on Saturday was lower than
it was in the night, because solar panels on rooftops and in
fields cut demand so much"

and there was a brief couple of hours in 2016 whene there was no
coal, but this is a no coal *day*, and the greens are wetting their
pants thinking its terribly wonderful.,

Wait till be get a 'no electricity day'. The sad part about that is
that
Gridwatch wont be able to record it.

What? Not running in a datacentre with n+1 UPS and standby generators?

I am sure the server is, but whether it could do 24 hours without
power is another matter, BUT if the grid at large goes down, can you
guarantee all the meters in and around powers stations and the grid
and the UK internet itself would stay up? I doubt it.


I hope someone somewhere at GCHQ or MI sioomething or other hgas run a
detailed scenario of what actually would be left functional if we had
a national power cut.

My guess is apart from a few MILSPEC comms links and a red telephone
shoved um T Mays bottom, 'not much' is the answer.

All supermarket food spoilt.
No transactions possible except cash.
NO working petrol or diesel pumps.
No road transport after a day or so
No water
No sewage.
No central heating or hot water
No lights
No radio
No TV
No Internet
No mobile phones.
(Landlines would work for a bit, if you had a POTS to plug in)

Never mind the Greens, it only takes half a dozen shaped charges on a
few major transmission line pylons to trip the lot I would think.

Done properly should take out 50% of all city dwellers in a few days



I often wondered why the IRA never had a go at this. (ISTR there might
have been one sabotage/terrorism attempt a fair while ago).

I don't doubt that the SAS or the Royal Engineers or demolition
specialists could do it, but I suspect it might not be quite as easy as
you think. In any case it is a pretty obvious target, and we don't know
what security there might be these days. Also I suspect that a single
downed tower could be replaced in a day.

you would take out half a dozen round te country.


And no, not in a day for a big pylon. More like a week working full
emergency.

I suspect they would lay a cable along the surface around the downed
tower first.

Given proper mobile phone coverage and access to electricity...oh dear.

The point is the repairs would be undertaken from a nation already
crippled, and the grid would need to be black started.



--
"If you dont read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed."

Mark Twain