OT SF6 Very interesting topic.

[harry]

I was involved, oil was mainly used.

[nightjar]

SF6 was introduced as a safer alternative to PCBs.

[Andrew]

And this was discussed 10 years ago. Not sure why the BBC have suddenly 'discovered' a problem.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Because its a massively nasty greenhouse gas, allegedly.

Another hollow laugh moment: Gas, as you know, per kWh, emits less CO2 than coal.

At the point of burning.

It transpires that from well to burn the methane loss into the atmosphere makes it as bad as coal overall in GHG terms

[newshound]

I assume that's a rhetorical question?

[newshound]

I'd say *not* an interesting topic. It would have been interesting if they had explored the many benefits of SF6, and how they stacked up about the supposed costs. But that is modern journalism for you.

[news19k]

If I read

correctly, the UK alone emits about 450Mt of CO2 per year; the same warming effect from SF6 would (using the figure of 23,500 times) require the UK to lose over 19,000t to the atmosphere; which would seem like rather a lot. Wikipedia has this statement "Given the small amounts of SF6 released compared to carbon dioxide, its overall contribution to global warming is estimated to be less than 0.2 percent.[32]" - not that that small relative contribution should stop people looking for alternatives.

#Paul

[Chris Hogg]

Quite. According to

The UK emitted 557000 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent of SF6 in 2010 (they don't seem to have a more recent figure. That's about half what it was in 2000). Using that conversion factor of 23,500, gives the actual emission of SF6 as 23.7 tonnes. Not a lot.

[The Other Mike]

From the perspective of the grid and distribution networks it leads to much more compact switchgear, less land area, massively extended maintenance intervals, higher reliability, no possibility of oil leaks, no need for oil containment and oil in water management, no need for air compressors and a massively reduced possibility of catastrophic switchgear failure.

First large scale install in the UK was mid 70's at a site on the Sheffield

275kV ring

For the UK there has been stringent management in terms of filling, leak detection and gas recovery for many decades.

Touching a 400kV metalclad busbar casing with the live conductor just 100mm beyond your fingertips is possible. It's no more than an earthed bit of pipework.

--

[newshound]

That's what I love about this group. It's sometimes even better at answering arcane questions than Google!

:-)

(Spent my 50 years on the generation side, had very little to do with transmission).