I held on until 3pm and was home in an hour, a journey that is normally 40 minutes or so. The route was reasonably clear for the first 2 miles, due to the Police throttling the traffic. We heard of people who left much earlier taking 2-3 hours just to get to the motorway.

A non-wintry view of this scene can be seen here.

Last week, I saw a cracking blockpost about the four elephants in the room that none of the Political parties are mentioning. Trouble is, I can’t find it again. Does it ring any bells with either of my readers?

It wasn’t anything to do with Discworld and the great A’Tuin. The elephants were the EU, the National Debt, the Energy Crisis & something else that will be obvious with hindsight.

EDIT- Found it- Christopher Booker in the Telegraph.

Tom Paine of Last Ditch put up some figures for American electricity demand which didn’t seem to show much impact on electricity (lack of) consumption. He asked if there were figures available for the UK and as I have looked into that sort of info before, I decided to see if there was.

Unfortunately, the National Grid website had a problem and whilst it normally shows real time and recent historic data, it was unable to provide anything useful at the time (and is still broken for anything other than 60 minute figures). They do publish historic demand data however, and today I was able to download half hourly figures for January to March 2009 in the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. (Last time I had checked it was only up to February).

It took me some time to get my head round what the information was telling me as there are four sets of figures showing the total added up in different ways. There are also related figures for storage and import/export of power between us and the Republic of Ireland and France. (It is mostly imported from France, as they have extensive nuclear capacity). Also of interest in another sheet of the document is a list of the various types of generating capacity, rather a lot of it gas &/or oil. In the end, I worked out that three of the four sets were essentially the same characteristics, the fourth also showing the early morning pumping storage going on.

Now storage is a misnomer, as it actually means consumption of power in order to pump water up a hill so that the kinetic energy gained can be reclaimed at short notice by using hydro-electric power (at significant efficiency losses). Indeed, it takes a Megawatt of power just to keep one of the six large 290 Megawatt Dinorwig turbines spinning using compressed air so that it is ready to go to full output in seconds. The pumped storage stations are like the large weights on the bellows of a church Organ, there to keep the wind at a constant pressure regardless of how softly or loudly the Organ is being played.

The National Grid needs to match the available power exactly to demand, which means that some power stations are up and running offline (known as spinning reserve) but not actually generating some of the time (but they could be called upon to synchronise with the grid and start providing power at short notice). Now I imagine that they have a substantial team of forecasters who factor in weather forecasts, Christmas dinner turkey roasting, national events and the like. (The peak maximum demand was reputedly straight after Coronation Street one year, when ten million households put the kettle on during the adverts). BT certainly do similar planning in order to protect their network as otherwise the likes of X Factor voting would result in a severe shortage of successful regular call connections. (BT activate something called “Gapping” for predicted high volume TV or Press advertised phone numbers where the majority of the calls are given busy tone from the local exchange without actually attempting to make the call across the network.)

So, having the peak load figures available in thirty minute increments, are we able to see the impact of Earth Day? Well the graph below shows the the power demand for three successive Saturdays in April for the full twenty-four hours. Power demand rises steadily from 6am -8am and remains reasonably flat during the day until teatime, peaking at 6pm then slowly falling off back down to base load as the evening goes on. The three curves are a very similar shape although it is noticable that the first date is higher than the second which is higher than the third. (I imagine this is down to weather as the seasons progress).

I make no apologies for the lack of polish in this graph, it is pretty much a raw Excel graph knocked up quickly whilst I was eating my lunch.

I have highlighted earth hour, 8:30pm – 9:30pm. I have to say that I cannot see any discernable obvious dip for the figures then at all. In some ways, this is to be expected, the sort of people who would have taken part would probably have energy saving lamps anyway and they were only encouraged to switch off lighting, not the main switch in the fuse box. Conversely, there were probably a number of curmudgeons who went through their houses turning all of their lights on just for the hell of it.

The Grey family were driving along the M3 heading back to Ealing for earth hour. I can’t say I noticed any vehicles driving without lights, fortunately!

The published data is quite interesting to analyse and has a wealth of data there, although the explanations are somewhat arcane to the point of being almost incomprehensible to an industry outsider. The graph is based on the IO14_DEM column (which excludes storage pumping and exports) and subsequent Saturdays were chosen because Sundays have a slightly different load peak pattern.

Then I swore at the newspaper when I read about the MEP accusing us of  Binge flying being as bad as stabbing a person on the street. That is rich coming from an MEP- the junket of moving between Brussels & Strasbourg must fill several Bread & Circus tents with Carbon Dioxide.

Then I swore at the computer when I read about David Attenborough’s joining of the Optimum Population Trust. They have a pledge to stop at two children you can sign. For years now, we hve been told that Europe is a declining population, that the growth is down to Africans, Chavs  & Muzzies who don’t know or care about contraception. Indeed population growth in Britain is down to more hopeful immigrants coming in than so-called white flight emigrants leaving trying for a better life elsewhere.

The Optimum Population Trust believes that Earth may not be able to support more than half its present numbers before the end of this century, and that the UK’s long-term sustainable population level may be lower than 30 million. 

Well, if our energy supply is knackered, our economy is a busted flush and we are living in Yurts then they are probably right.

Giant plasma TVs face ban in battle to green Britain

Another story caught my eye was about fridges shutting themselves down at the behest of the Electricity Board to save energy. This is complete and utter cockwaffle, it isn’t anything to do with saving energy at all, it is a mechanism for the national grid to be able to shed load at the times of peak demand. If you turn off your fridge for an hour, it will simply use that energy running continuously until the chiller compartment reaches working temperature again.

Fridges (and night storage heaters) are the only domestic appliances that can be deprived of power for short periods without anyone noticing or it making much difference.

It isn’t widely understood that electricity supply has to meed demand or otherwise the voltage dips and the frequency drops. This is because all those huge power stations with their generators spinning at 3000 RPM are feeling the load and slowing down. (Think back to when you were a kid and how much more effort was needed to work the dynamo for the lights on your bike, assuming you didn’t have batteries, or even acetylene).

Now there is a failsafe mechanism to protect the grid called the frequency service. If the mains frequency dips below a certain level, certain large industrial companies instantly shed large loads that are not critical to their business, i.e. a cold store can do without refridgeration and a smelting works  can cope without power for twenty minutes. These customers are paid for the privilege of course, but as we don’t actually make very much in Britain any more, I imagine that is pretty much max-ed out.  (Once demand exceeds supply then once the two welsh storage facilities are empty then it is rolling blackouts).

By the way, if a fridge is not cooling due to load shedding, I’m sure the light inside will still come on. There might be a little green LED to show it isn’t running, although a brown LED might be more appropriate.

(This initiative brought to you by the EUSSR, thinking about the future so you don’t have to. Look out for more bansturbation coming your way soon!)

As for UFOs destroying a wind turbine, the best explanation I have seen is from Ministry of truth.

I do believe in some ghosts though, there is one in Ealing… 

A ghost bus.

(Hat tip Mark Lawrence)

My mum lives in Ealing, I’ll buy a proton pack on ebay and send her it.

I couldn’t hear him (the sound was very low and I’m a bit hard of hearing anyway) but the real-time sub-titles were on. During the course of the statement, he mentioned the EU Bingo pledge- 20% reduction in emissions by 2020, along with 20% decrease in energy use and 20% of power from renewable sources.

As an aside, though, he slipped in that we would be going for 30%.

What? Does he understand nothing of electricity generation? Is he now way past Dagenham and almost at Upminster?

It is either some bizarre scorched earth policy for the next Government, or he genuinely believes that anything other Countries can do he can do better.

Annie, get your gun…

The first house I bought in Maidenhead was off a foreign family and I inherited an interesting colour scheme- bright wallpapers and naked 200W lamps in every room, apart from the kitchen which had twin 6? florry tubes. I rapidly tamed it, fitting various track fittings,  reflector lamps and downlighters, along with a brass finish traditional triple shaded fitting from the lounge. Most rooms had touch dimmers fitted, I was a regular customer at Habitat, BHS and B & Q.

Now most of the fittings in my house have energy efficient lamps, with two notable exceptions- the lounge uplighter and the bedroom ceiling fittings. The bedrooms have 100W Tungsten Halogen lamps in which are long lasting. The ability to put the light on very low to go into a room without disturbing someone or to put it on full to clean or put out washing is very useful.

However, the EU does not agree with my personal choice, even though it is me who pays the bill. The bulbs must be banned in order to save the planet and ASDA is already on the glide path to this.

(I really must stock up…)

(Sorry, but any comments previously left on this blogpost have been lost)