Oh that.
I don't take any notice of these prophecies of doom, they are put out by people who have something to gain, and I can't imagine that we'll have no electricity because one or more of the following will occur: gas powered stations will be up and running the EU will be told to 'f*ck off' we'll import power from overseas an extension will be granted by the EU in light of it being told to 'f*ck off'
never mind. I hedge fuel prices with investment in oil futures. But my air rifle is now back in full working order.
IIRC there is force majeur in place - you can fire up 'dirty coal' in an emergency...
Not much help once you have decommissioned the whole plant though..
I'm told by owners than Listeroids are much longer lived and more fuel economic than modern higher speed designs.
Other options:
NT
Harry, you must inform Caterpillar of that, right away. For years, they've been erroneously telling their customers to run their big, heavy, powerful earthmover engines on paraffin if that's the only fuel available. Mind you, there is a percentage of lube needs to be added.
I don't doubt them. The typical domestic user is unlikely to have power cuts, that would be politically disastrous.
What will happen is that high industrial consumers will be on a tariff where they can be cut off at notice, with some compensation possibly in the form of a lower cost per unit.
On Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:35:48 +0000, Bill wrote:
I sold a lister petter engined set on Saturday , 8 KVA. Originally ran one of those lighting towers at motorway road works. Then it was used on a boat for a while till I bought it for £100 about
16 years ago for use at my parents farm as they were getting elderly the local electric supply was interrupted frequently and the loss of deepfreeze contents became too common and central heating was no longer gravity but pumped. On the boat it was hand start but knowing Dad was no longer strong enough I bought the starter motor for it. £400 and something even back then. Then spent some more having a proper changeover switch arrangement installed. Sods law then said the power company replaced loads of insulators and conductors and they have only had a couple of longish power cuts in those 16 years. Engine badly needed a de coke as it smoked like crazy but it generated well. The farm has been sold and rather than leave it I had to sell it quickly and accepted £200 from the scrappy who was collecting other stuff. Bargain really and I was sorely tempted to bring it home but for a standby Gen for where I live 8 KVA would be overkill and by the time I'd spent time and money on transport and parts to overhaul it, an exhaust with silencing on it and an acceptable to the missus weatherproof housing I'd be half way to a newish small one that I can store easily. Ironically before the mains came to the farm we had a Lister generator that was only 2KVA so I have always been fairly frugal with electric use. If cuts do come I could probably keep the essentials going from a large 1000 watt inverter and leisure battery I already possess and run the diesel engined car to charge it. The essentials being freezer and ,fridge , . For lighting still got some oil lamps, for hot water cooking and heat still have means to that with solid fuel. It'll be like reliving the 1970's without the orrible clothes.G.Harman
Are you not a bit pessimistic? The figures suggest that this will only occur if there is a rise in demand or some big station outage. Of course turning off the coal stations will push us closer to the limit, but one hopes they got their sums right. I would also suggest from what I've heard that although they will be turned off a a few will be maintained in mothballs in case of emergency. Sod the eu. Brian
I grew up in the 70s, so remember coming home to light the candles. Then as a teenager, and in my 20s to 30s I can probably count on the fingers of one hand how many power cuts I experienced.
We've had 5 in the past 12 months. So *something* is going on. Even if the power stations are enough it only takes some scrote nicking copper to knock out a substation and you can easily lose power for a couple of hours.
Will they be naphthalene-powered if they get switched back on?
I was involved in the run up to those cuts. We had a huge room set up, with lots of desks facing a wall-sized chart of areas and lists of which areas would be cut and when. Then the Unions decided that only press office staff could be allowed to answer calls about the cuts, so just two people ended up using the room.
I've had five in the past few weeks. I blame Morrisons as they have been building a new store nearby.
Colin Bignell
Close but no banana. 28 sec is paraffin aka heating oil for modern pressure jet boilers. It's what our pressure jet boiler burns.
Agreed if you want to use the existing house wiring. It's not the power (live and neutral) but the neutral earth bonding and earthing arrangements that start to get complicated. Extension leads and floating live and neutral are lot easier to deal with.
If you don't want to buy a cheap (£300-£400) generator then you are probably looking at £1k+ for a Honda.
Alternatively you can buy a 100AH leisure battery for around £100. So buy 6 - £600. a big charger - £100 a big inverter 1kW - £130. Just over £800 the lot.
Then unless the power outage goes on for days you are covered for rolling brown outs.
We will just move into the camper - only problem is protecting the fridge and freezer but we could use a long lead from the camper batteries with an inverter.
Cheers
Dave R
Ignoring efficiency losses, that only buys you 7.2kWh of supply. What's the average household consumption? 24kWh/day or so? Even if you eke it out at 1/3 of that rate, it's not going to last much more than one day.
Probably a bit lower but not a lot. We used to be about 20kWHr/day, cooking by electric but TBH that doesn't take that much maybe a single unit.
Our all in bed asleep lights out base load is 300W or 7.2kWHr/day...
Just shows how out of touch many people are with how much energy they consume.
You could make a lot of lead acid battery for £100
The only thing that needs running is freezer, and in summer the fridge. Lig hting can be gas or LED, which doesn't add much load. IIRC a fridge freezer is in the vague ballpark of 1kWh/day. It'll also keep ok for 24 hours afte r the leccy runs out.
£800 for a few days freezer cover doesn't make much sense though, a genny 's far cheaper.NT
Cheap genny yes - comparison was against a reliable Honda :-)
Point being that unless the rolling brownouts are for more than a day then you should be fine. From vague memories of the '70s I don't think anyone was off grid for a day - I think that everyone got some power for part of the day, just not everyone all the time.
Ah - memories of when working a three day week was seen as some sort of problem!.
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