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Didcot powerstation

I saw on the news earlier that this morning they blew up the last of Didcots cooling towers the demolition went ok but the dust cloud caused a flashover in the substation that is still used to supply parts or maybe a

all of Oxfordshire I bet the grid engineers were tearing there hair out after last weeks events

0 Former Community Member over 4 years ago

OMS:

However, Magic Grandad is a complete imbecile and has not the faintest perception of what re opening a UK coal industry would require - plus it appears he has no concept of the falling demand for coal, worldwide

That pretty much describes all British politicians and their understanding of the energy industry.
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0 Harry Macdonald over 4 years ago

It may well have been dust but I had an interesting job a number of years ago.

The context was Hunterston A Power Station where the station had been nearly all demolished and the Local Electricity Board wanted to take over the 11kV cabling that had originally supplied the construction works and then had supplied some of the standby to the standby plant. The problem was that the 11kV cabling meandered all over the place and had joints and more joints like they were going out of fashion.

I'm just wondering if there was a live cable under the cooling towers that no one knew about.
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0 davidwalker2 over 4 years ago

Interesting to note that on Gridwatch, Coal has started up again.

David
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0 kfh over 4 years ago

OMS:

However, Magic Grandad is a complete imbecile and has not the faintest perception of what re opening a UK coal industry would require - plus it appears he has no concept of the falling demand for coal, worldwide

OMS

I am not convinced that coal use is going to decrease much with China still increasing production and financing coal power stations in other countries.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/01/23/coal-is-not-dead-china-proves-it/

I wonder how much of our decrease in CO2 is a result of off shoring our manufacturing to other countries using coal for much of their electricity generation.
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0 Chris Pearson over 4 years ago

ASMTECH:

Brown and Mason may be in a little spot of bother. The 33KV line was outside the demolition safety perimeter.

Brown & Mason - those well-known insurers?

Well now, you can define safety perimeters in terms of probability, but not certainty. Which is where the insurers come in because "risk" is a matter of chance.
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0 Roy Bowdler over 4 years ago

I posted the material below in another thread last year. It is history now, but the National Coal Board offered the majority of Engineering Apprenticeships and Graduate Engineer training schemes in some parts of the country. Mining was also one of the cornerstones or our national prosperity through history.

I hope that we have a better quality of argument, than throwing tabloid style abuse at political leaders. For the record, I agree with the remarks recently attributed to HM Queen.

His father David…became a brilliant electrical engineer working for the war effort… His mother was a female scientist, who later became a maths teacher… When the couple met, David Corbyn was an engineering apprentice living at his parents’ home… the Corbyns moved to Wiltshire, where David worked as an electrical engineer for Westinghouse Brake and Signals in Chippenham… In 1956, the family moved to Shropshire…Those surroundings helped nurture in Jeremy and his brothers a creative, inquisitive streak. Edward, the eldest brother, became a test engineer on Concorde, built a forge in the garden and tinkered with cars; Piers, who would become a meteorologist, constructed devices to study the solar system; Andrew, the second brother, became a geologist but later died….; Jeremy was the least scientific of the four, preferring to read.(source Daily Telegraph)

One our most vituperative recent contributor’s to these forums, a veteran IEng who in resigning complained of serious mistreatment both personally and for his category, was I understand for a time mentored by David Corbyn, which may have influenced his arguments.

I also spoke recently with someone who was at Grammar School with Jeremy, although not a friend. Coincidentally, I attended a reasonably nearby Comprehensive (ex Secondary Modern) some years later and the two are now linked in an academy foundation. He remembered Jeremy as a “difficult boy” with his own unpopular (in that school at least) left-wing ideas. Had he been more conventional and developed similar aptitudes to his siblings, then perhaps this thread would involve our leaders partaking in a lusty chorus of; “ Jeremy Corbyn! - He’s one of our own!” ?
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0 Former Community Member over 4 years ago

kfh:

OMS:

However, Magic Grandad is a complete imbecile and has not the faintest perception of what re opening a UK coal industry would require - plus it appears he has no concept of the falling demand for coal, worldwide

OMS

I am not convinced that coal use is going to decrease much with China still increasing production and financing coal power stations in other countries.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2019/01/23/coal-is-not-dead-china-proves-it/

I wonder how much of our decrease in CO2 is a result of off shoring our manufacturing to other countries using coal for much of their electricity generation.

This use is short term though - overall the market is dying a death, and the use of coal fired generation is clearly on the way out

Regards

OMS
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0 Former Community Member over 4 years ago

Roy Bowdler:
I posted the material below in another thread last year. It is history now, but the National Coal Board offered the majority of Engineering Apprenticeships and Graduate Engineer training schemes in some parts of the country. Mining was also one of the cornerstones or our national prosperity through history.

I hope that we have a better quality of argument, than throwing tabloid style abuse at political leaders. For the record, I agree with the remarks recently attributed to HM Queen.

I grew up in a heavily industrialised part of the country, Roy - I did my apprenticeship with a German company heavily involved in both steel and coal mining. I studied alongside a lot of NCB and BSC apprentices, and the training was excellent - including the student apprenticeships that put me on the course to higher education.

Mining also killed an awful lot of people, and the desire to retain it caused an awful lot of unpleasantness in the communities of my youth - I was a young apprentice during the miners strike so saw much of it first hand.

Just because JC's family happened to be in engineering and science doesn't make him a saint - and history records just what a creature the man really is.

Regards

OMS
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0 Denis McMahon over 4 years ago

Chris Pearson:

. . .

What rather staggers me is that the lifespan of the place was only about 40 years, which begs a couple of questions:

(1) What was the intended lifespan in the original business case?

(2) How much energy has been consumed in both building and demolishing the place?

I have usually reckoned that 40 years is about standard for the working life of a power station. Some have gone on for longer, e.g Ferrybridge C, 50 years, in spite of having three of its cooling towers blown down by nature in its early years. Some have had shorter lives, e.g. North Tees C, 30 years.
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0 Alan Capon over 4 years ago

davidwalker2:

Interesting to note that on Gridwatch, Coal has started up again.

Cottham will come down soon, but still has a large coal stock. I believe burning it in the station is the most cost effective method of removal.

Regards,

Alan.
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Didcot powerstation

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