PowerSwitch

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6118161 ... falls.html

No surprise to anyone here who's been paying attention...

I would certainly agree that rolling blackouts are likely, and probably sooner than the "end of the next decade" mentioned in the article.

I, and other doomers have however forecast this previously, and nothing much has happened as yet.

The approaching problem would be somwhat different to the 1970s rolling powercuts.
The problem then was a lack of coal to fuel power plants due to the coal miners striking. The government rationed power in order to stretch out the existing coal stocks.
This was done by a rota power cuts, and by limiting the working week to 3 days in most industries, and by prohibiting electricity use for some non essiential uses.

The approaching problem is one of lack of generating capacity, rather than lack of fuel for power stations.

This would likely lead to unexpected power cuts rather than a carefully planned rota.
Under normal conditions, the national grid has sufficient capacity in reserve to cope with the largeset likely single failure of generating plant.
When such a failure occurs, partly loaded plant immediatly takes full load, and the consumer notices nothing.
One could forsee a future in which just sufficient capacity is available to meet the expected load, but without any margin for breakdowns or greater than expected load.
Any breakdown, or increased load due to extreme weather, would then lead to an immediate blackout of part of the country.
There would be no advance notice or pre planning, and such power cuts would be arguably worse than a pre planned rota.

Or rolling blackouts could be used to maintain the same margin we have now?

I followed the South African problem quite closely - my Mom still lives there - and concluded that far from being a shortage of power stations/elec. exports to neighbouring countries/wet coal, as was hyped in the press, (and believed by the majority of the population), it was a simple matter of coal supply. No, not a shortage, just the "free market" working correctly. Due to the rocketing price of coal - a hell of a lot of which was going to China - Eskom, (the quasi-government elec. supplier), could/would not pay the prices, so the private mining companies shrugged thier shoulders and said "no problem, Chindia is taking everything we have to offer at market rates, you don't really HAVE to buy anything from us!" Dunno what the government did - maybe threatened to nationalise a few mines or something, but whatever it was, the problem was solved overnight!

Our problem is going to be quite different, me-thinks.

adam2 wrote:
This would likely lead to unexpected power cuts rather than a carefully planned rota.

As South Africa discovered, rota power cuts are a gift to burglars, who know when the burglar alarms and the telephone lines to private security firms won't be working. I read that this was why SA switched to unannounced blackouts.

mmmm - time to buy an uninteruptable power supply thingy for soft shutdown rather than hard power off?

This may not really be a problem.

The UK could be under water by 2020, and electric doesn't work too well under water so the demand would go down.

but according to....

DECC: Talk of 1970's blackouts is 'alarmist'

http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/news/natio ... rmist.html

ah...everything is fine, what a relief.

This is probably a stupid thing to say, but wouldn't substantial cuts in consumption mitigate the problem?

eatyourveg wrote:This is probably a stupid thing to say, but wouldn't substantial cuts in consumption mitigate the problem?

Oh yes, very stupid, in a sort-of exceedingly intelligent and realistic fashion.

But who wants to hear the right answer, stupid or otherwise? There's no money in right answers.

emordnilap wrote: But who wants to hear the right answer, stupid or otherwise? There's no money in right answers.

Come on e, use your imagination. Of course there's money in it.

If powercuts happen then there will be tons of people claiming to have the answer.

Of the top of my head:
Don't use lights during the day. (timing switches that can be sold)
Only use LEDs or CFLs and switch the lights off when you don't use them. (can sell LEDs, CFLs and timing switches).
Use solar hot water heaters to save on electricity for heating the water.
Microwave your cuppas instead of boiling the water.

I'm sure I could think of more....

eatyourveg wrote:This is probably a stupid thing to say, but wouldn't substantial cuts in consumption mitigate the problem?

Yes cuts in consumption would reduce or even eliminate the problem, but it seems improbable.
Look at the sheeple protesting at the phasing out of some incandescent lamps !
Look at the rush for ever larger widescreen TV sets, and the consequent need for air conditioning.
And almost every new or refurbished home is lit by rows of halogen spotlights.

Dooooom

I blame the government

fifthcolumn wrote:

emordnilap wrote: But who wants to hear the right answer, stupid or otherwise? There's no money in right answers.

Come on e, use your imagination. Of course there's money in it.

If powercuts happen then there will be tons of people claiming to have the answer.

Of the top of my head:
Don't use lights during the day. (timing switches that can be sold)
Only use LEDs or CFLs and switch the lights off when you don't use them. (can sell LEDs, CFLs and timing switches).
Use solar hot water heaters to save on electricity for heating the water.
Microwave your cuppas instead of boiling the water.

I'm sure I could think of more....

Yeah, there's money to be made from disasters big and small. This latest flu scare has spawned a total new industry in personal hygiene, for instance.

I meant that the right answer includes absolute reduction, such as ditching the car or giving up meat and dairy or insulating the house with scavenged materials, from all of which no money can be made.

Andy Hunt wrote:Dooooom

I blame the government

So are the Tories and Lib Dems.