National Grid cuts off gas to factories
Discussion
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/07/gas...
The Guardian said:
Factories in the north-west of England and East Midlands are today having their energy supplies cut off for the first time in years as the severe weather and creaking power infrastructure lead to 1970s-style rationing.
In the first tangible sign that fears over energy shortages are translating into supply disruption, the National Grid has told British Gas, npower and others in recent hours that they must withdraw gas from those big industrial customers who have signed up to interruptible contracts in a bid to safeguard power to domestic homes.
A few weeks of cold weather and we're cutting off the gas to some factories? Not good...In the first tangible sign that fears over energy shortages are translating into supply disruption, the National Grid has told British Gas, npower and others in recent hours that they must withdraw gas from those big industrial customers who have signed up to interruptible contracts in a bid to safeguard power to domestic homes.
They can't afford to let the domestic gas network run empty.
When the pipes run partially empty they begin to take on air. When the mixture reaches the stoichiometric ratio, the pipes all start exploding.
It's easier to shut off the industrial users, where they can purge the pipes more cheaply / easily than potentially purging / replacing hundreds of exploded domestic mains.
If / when the domestic gas mains become empty, it'll be ages (weeks/months), before it's all up and running again.
When the pipes run partially empty they begin to take on air. When the mixture reaches the stoichiometric ratio, the pipes all start exploding.
It's easier to shut off the industrial users, where they can purge the pipes more cheaply / easily than potentially purging / replacing hundreds of exploded domestic mains.
If / when the domestic gas mains become empty, it'll be ages (weeks/months), before it's all up and running again.
Again, a sign of the pervasiveness of AGW.
Harsh winters? A thing of the past.
Power? Windmills and Wave Power will do.
Plant food gas hysteria has rotted their simple minds.
Edit:- Have you seen how windy it is at the moment? Similar amounts of swell too, I expect.
Harsh winters? A thing of the past.
Power? Windmills and Wave Power will do.
Plant food gas hysteria has rotted their simple minds.
Edit:- Have you seen how windy it is at the moment? Similar amounts of swell too, I expect.
Edited by Tangent Police on Thursday 7th January 14:17
dilbert said:
They can't afford to let the domestic gas network run empty.
.
Perhaps the Governent should ask/tell all domestic users to turn down their CH thermostats by a couple of degrees. The fast spinning gas meter has compelled me to don an extra jumper, and turn the heating down. .
Edited by PPPPPP on Thursday 7th January 14:40
PPPPPP said:
dilbert said:
They can't afford to let the domestic gas network run empty.
.
Perhaps the Governent should ask/tell all domestic users to turn down their CH thermostats by a couple of degrees..
rypt said:
dilbert said:
It's easier to shut off the industrial users, where they can purge the pipes more cheaply / easily than potentially purging / replacing hundreds of exploded domestic mains.
No, it's easier to buy more gas so that we have enough to not turn anyone off.Also would the price be constant? From a business point of view it would be better to cut users off rather than sell at a loss.
As these are foreign own private businesses anyway, would building bigger storage tanks help generate extra profit? I suppose it would but if the cost of the extra investment wasn't covered by the extra that could be sold by having them (rather than cutting users off), then it would be bad business.
First of all have a look here, it shows all the imports into the UK.
NG have a fairly flexible supply system whereby they need to put in as much as people are taking out but the amount of gas in the system (linepack) can cope with short term supply or demand fluctuations.
At certain trigger points NG take buying or selling action to balance their system, this happens all the time.
On very high demand days they take the next step which is a GBA Its simply a safety valve to ensure the absolute integrity of the system and the security of supply for domestic users and NG are known to err on the side of caution.
It's also used when there is too much gas oop North and not enough darn South.
What isn't immediately apparent from the first link is that this morning the system actually started out with an excess of gas, and it is only a temoporary issue with one of the larger suppliers that has got everyone in a pickle, domestic users have nowt to worry about and all that will happen today is that some of the folk at NG will have a bit of a stressful day, some traders will lose some money and some will make some.
Calm down and carry on.
NG have a fairly flexible supply system whereby they need to put in as much as people are taking out but the amount of gas in the system (linepack) can cope with short term supply or demand fluctuations.
At certain trigger points NG take buying or selling action to balance their system, this happens all the time.
On very high demand days they take the next step which is a GBA Its simply a safety valve to ensure the absolute integrity of the system and the security of supply for domestic users and NG are known to err on the side of caution.
It's also used when there is too much gas oop North and not enough darn South.
What isn't immediately apparent from the first link is that this morning the system actually started out with an excess of gas, and it is only a temoporary issue with one of the larger suppliers that has got everyone in a pickle, domestic users have nowt to worry about and all that will happen today is that some of the folk at NG will have a bit of a stressful day, some traders will lose some money and some will make some.
Calm down and carry on.
Edited by DJFish on Thursday 7th January 15:23
DJFish said:
First of all have a look here, it shows all the imports into the UK.
NG have a fairly flexible supply system whereby they need to put in as much as people are taking out but the amount of gas in the system (linepack) can cope with short term supply or demand fluctuations.
At certain trigger points NG take buying or selling action to balance their system, this happens all the time.
On very high demand days they take the next step which is a GBA Its simply a safety valve to ensure the absolute integrity of the system and the security of supply for domestic users and NG are known to err on the side of caution.
It's also used when there is too much gas oop North and not enough darn South.
What isn't immediately apparent from the first link is that this morning the system actually started out with an excess of gas, and it is only a temoporary issue with one of the larger suppliers that has got everyone in a pickle, domestic users have nowt to worry about and all that will happen today is that some of the folk at NG will have a bit of a stressful day, some traders will lose some money and some will make some.
Calm down and carry on.
NG have a fairly flexible supply system whereby they need to put in as much as people are taking out but the amount of gas in the system (linepack) can cope with short term supply or demand fluctuations.
At certain trigger points NG take buying or selling action to balance their system, this happens all the time.
On very high demand days they take the next step which is a GBA Its simply a safety valve to ensure the absolute integrity of the system and the security of supply for domestic users and NG are known to err on the side of caution.
It's also used when there is too much gas oop North and not enough darn South.
What isn't immediately apparent from the first link is that this morning the system actually started out with an excess of gas, and it is only a temoporary issue with one of the larger suppliers that has got everyone in a pickle, domestic users have nowt to worry about and all that will happen today is that some of the folk at NG will have a bit of a stressful day, some traders will lose some money and some will make some.
Calm down and carry on.
RichardD said:
rypt said:
dilbert said:
It's easier to shut off the industrial users, where they can purge the pipes more cheaply / easily than potentially purging / replacing hundreds of exploded domestic mains.
No, it's easier to buy more gas so that we have enough to not turn anyone off.Also would the price be constant? From a business point of view it would be better to cut users off rather than sell at a loss.
As these are foreign own private businesses anyway, would building bigger storage tanks help generate extra profit? I suppose it would but if the cost of the extra investment wasn't covered by the extra that could be sold by having them (rather than cutting users off), then it would be bad business.
Scottish power have been building the underground storage facility at Lach Dennis for the last 3 years so you're a little out of date.If you had attended some of the public meetings you would also know how much anger there was locally and also how government cowtowed to Scottish power
Oakey said:
Just try to build some storage. There's a company who want to store gas in unused salt caverns in the North West. Guess what the NIMBY's said?
http://www.canatxxpreesall.co.uk/index.htmThis one?
There are quite a few storage and import expansion projects in the er...pipeline, the fact that you can find nothing about the above company on t'internet would suggest that this isn't going to be one that succeeds.
Edited by DJFish on Thursday 7th January 15:39
smifffymoto said:
Scottish power have been building the underground storage facility at Lach Dennis for the last 3 years so you're a little out of date.If you had attended some of the public meetings you would also know how much anger there was locally and also how government cowtowed to Scottish power
There is always going to be local objection to any new energy project, especially with the advent of the internet and giving women the vote, but the stuff has to come from somewhere.That said I live "in the shadow" of a decomissioned nuke station which is also the proposed site for new one, salt cavern storage by comparison has a very small impact.
PPPPPP said:
dilbert said:
They can't afford to let the domestic gas network run empty.
.
Perhaps the Governent should ask/tell all domestic users to turn down their CH thermostats by a couple of degrees. The fast spinning gas meter has compelled me to don an extra jumper, and turn the heating down. .
Edited by PPPPPP on Thursday 7th January 14:40
I was pretty warm as a result.
The roads are pretty dicey around here though. I had to rescue someone else, and separately almost got stuck myself.
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