Power Station Sabbing

[andygates]

Is power-station saboteuring the new black? 

If the government aren't willing or able to cut emissions, people who see sites like Kingsnorth and Drax as great evils will take matters into their own hands.  The protest argument has been won, but the powers that be look to be speaking with forked agenda: plenty of declared commitment but the praxis seems to be lagging dangerously far behind.  Hardly surprising then that the next thing to be done is direct shutdown action.  Prediction: There will be more of this. 

Mostly, though, this sab is a warning shot.  What this says, very clearly, is that any construction of the new coal plant at Kingsnorth will not go unopposed. 

Comments

[despaer.livejournal.com]

Hope that lad isn't using any electricity to power the internet-connected PC he will no doubt boast about this on. Or for that matter heating his house.

Yes, stuff needs to be done and yes, I wish the government would get on and fund every house to do some of its own microgeneration and invest in hydrogen cars with the hydrogen produced by splitting water with micro-generated solar power in every garage but this is more or less terrorism. It sounds good but it risks hurting innocent people either directly by breaking the power station or through the loss of the power they were using to keep themselves alive, and that aint acceptable.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Come on, Paul, you know better than to use a reduction ad absurdam fallacy.

[despaer.livejournal.com]

Not at all. The point where you endanger the lives of those who are in your vicinity is the point where you have crossed the line. Tear down the fence he climbed, write rude messages on the cooling towers, find some way to prevent Drax making money from the thing by mass picketing it, and dig tunnels and climb trees swampy-style on the site of the new plant, but don't endanger the lives or health of those who are involved with it.

I agree with his aims, but that doesn't mean I have to condone his methods. We may disagree on this but that is why we got a brain each.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

We can agree to disagree on the methods, I think.

"Within minutes, says E.On, "he had tampered with some equipment" - believed to be a computer at a control panel - "and tripped unit 2, one of the station's giant 500MW turbines"."

Sounds like he hit the big red "off" (that, IIRC, is pretty prominent on kit like that). That's not endangering lives, it's a standard shutdown mode (albeit a rare and un-fun one).

[shifty-176.livejournal.com]

Maybe 1/80 of the generated total at the time? Should be covered without too much difficulty - that's why we have grid balancing engineers in the first place. They should be covered for the loss of the biggest single generator (UK, usually Sizewell B, 1,300MW). The end of Eastenders probably gives them more trouble.

Realtime demand here (http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Realtime/Demand/Demand60.htm)

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The specific outage is as meaningless as your switching to green lightbulbs. :)