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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Just Another Day at Al-Jazeera
1. Widespread horror in Gaza
2. Missiles hitting Israel
3. Army recaptures presidential palace in Khartoum
4. South Sudan blazing into civil war
5. Mass street protests in Istanbul
6. Heathrow closed, thousands of flights cancelled
7. Germany announces huge increase in armament spending
8. Exchange of infrastructure-busting missiles in Ukraine/Russia
9. Myanmar refugees starving after US aid cut
10. South Korea at standstill over presidential impeachments
11. Civil war in north-east India
12. Volcanic eruption in Indonesia
13. Thousands flee fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo
14. Oil pipelines sabotaged in Nigeria
15. Mass graves discovered in Mexico
And now for the sports news.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Heathrow closed. "We must not be complacent." (Everybody) |
AE says, on the contrary, complacency is a very valuable commodity. You ask yourself, "How often has Heathrow been closed because of a failure in electricity supply?" If the answer comes back "Never" then complacency turned out to have been the correct policy.
Which is not to say the position is unchanged. The ructions caused worldwide clearly demonstrates that Heathrow (and maybe Gatwick and maybe a few other places, not necessarily airports) need special attention. The problem is that this will lead to demands that all sorts of measures need to be taken about all sorts of things when, generally speaking, complacency should rule.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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Complacency, and "too busy".
It wasn't the fire at the power station that caused the problem, it was the failure of the backup power supplies. They should have been perfectly adequate to supply all the electrical power required. But, in the event, clearly not.
Why and how?
Part of it is complacency, and part is management unwilling to spend good money on something that was "unlikely" to happen. Especially when that would be expensive capital expenditure on equipment that then sits there unused for 99.9% of the time. Like having snow ploughs. Anyone remember that?
But surely they should have tested these backup powers supplies? To make sure they could do the intended job? Yes they should, but the very act of testing such stuff is itself a cause of disruption. Which t'management would also want to avoid.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| "Although we do sometimes see transformers or bits of electrical equipment fail, actually having them fail so catastrophically that they cause a large fire - which then leads the whole substation to be shut down - that's what really tips this from being a more normal event into something that's very, very unlikely," |
This is total bollox, all these expert folks saying it's unprecedented.
There are 400,000 substations, fires happen, they are dangerous, a 30 second google and a large fire at a substation in Leicester’s city centre in April 2018 caused a power failure affecting 45,000 homes and businesses.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-39341030#:~:text=A%20fire%20at%20a%20high,and%20roads%20to%20be%20closed.
It's just we haven't heard about the Leicester one as that is considered Local News.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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It's not like the Icelandic volcano thing, it's like the ones we had at other substations.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Was it the Kremlin? This has to be the main question for MI5. |
Is there nothing that can't be blamed on Russia?
The boring truth is that Muppetry is far more prevalent than Malevolence.
| Warnings were raised in 2022 about demand outstripping supply at the electrical substations supplying Heathrow. A London Assembly briefing paper, prepared by SSE Networks (SSEN) and seen by The Telegraph, detailed how heavily the North Hyde substation was being used. |
The good thing about warnings is they can be ignored.
| Although the substation’s rated power delivery capacity was 76 MVA (megavolt-amperes, a measure of power capacity), a figure that included a safety buffer. |
The rated power is the maximum the substation is designed to deliver. But nobody would expect to run it at 100%, any more than anyone would expect to run a car engine at maximum revs and expect it to last very long.
| SSEN said that the maximum recorded usage at the time of writing was 80.7 MVA. |
So, running it at 106% of maximum rated power. How long did they expect it to last?
| An upgrade project was planned to add another 22 MVA of capacity to the substation although no date was given. |
That can was kicked down the road.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It seems to me you're all arguing for complacency. If there are 400,000 substations and you're having to go back to 2018 for examples when one failed with severe consequences, why throw good money after bad people--well, provincial people--who once had to stop playing shove ha'penny for an hour or two?
You young shavers who didn't live through the three-day week don't know what 'being kept in the dark' really means. We had to rope up just to get to Tesco's.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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Running any piece of electrical equipment at more than its rated power load for prolonged periods can cause trouble. Overheating is a common issue.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I'll let Thomas Edison know. Keep coming with those tips, Borry, I've got a holiday in Corfu planned for July. [But here's the cunning bit. I have booked the flights from Stockholm in case Heathrow is out.]
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | It seems to me you're all arguing for complacency.. |
No.
I'm starting by illustrating how this kind of complacency - or sloppy management - creeps in, in the first place. It's endemic across all industries and businesses. Management and accountants never want to pay for things that "might" happen, especially when they are "unlikely".
That "unlikely" is used as a trump card for all kinds of things. Like Local Authorities that allow new housing estates to be built on flood plains. Because they want the cash and floods are "unlikely". Which just means they don't want to engage with the chance of the "1 in a 100 years" event coming sooner rather than later.
I've had this battle with management and accountants while designing computer systems. A good thorough system design will include contingency and resilience. Like backup and fail-safe. But management and accountants never want it, unless you can prove to them that it's their jobs on the line if things fail.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I'll let Thomas Edison know. |
His low voltage DC power systems were crap. It's Nikola Tesla you need to talk to, with his high voltage AC.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wiley needed to refine a google search. 2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60916845
The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) has closed after a fire at an electrical substation in east London.
About 28,000 people have been left without power, and the Rotherhithe, Limehouse Link and Blackwall Tunnels have also been shut, while crews make the site on Castor Lane in Poplar safe. | |
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I doubt it's complacency, the dominant safety culture is to over-worry, so it's normally........ everyone thinks it's someone else's job, cf Grenfell.
Can't be us, we ticked our boxes on the agreed contract. New guy was a bit concerned but, as we rightfully pointed out, not our bit.
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