If you live in Scotland, then you may be well advised to check your preparations for an electricity blackout after an accident disabled one of the country’s main coal-fired power stations.
A conveyor belt that carries coal to Longannet power station, near Fife, collapsed and forced the station to shut down.
This should not have been a major problem except that the nuclear-powered Hunterston B power station is also shut down, due to safety concerns.
According to the Scotsman newspaper, Longannet and Hunterston B make up about half of Scotland’s electricity generation but, more importantly, are the two main back-up power stations that cover the shut down of other power stations.
Scotland has been lucky that the double closure coincided with an unseasonally warm spell, but if temperatures dip sharply again there would be “rota cuts where parts of the country would have had their power supply switched off at times of low demand”.
In a typically bureaucratic piece of understatement, a spokesman for National Grid told the Scotsman: “We are aware of the situation. The situation in Scotland is a little tighter than normal with two generators off.”
I’d say losing half of Scotland’s electricity generation is more than a little “tight”!
The Scottish Executive is apparently going to look at legislating to allow Longannet to burn gas instead of coal, while repairs to the conveyor will take until the end of February.
Oh, and forget about bringing electricity in from England. Scotland exports electricity to England to meet the demand there and apparently bringing some back is not an option.
We already have good stocks of wood for the Victorian range, bottled gas for more convenient cooking, candles, batteries, oil lamps and lanterns, and so on.
Even so, I’ll be stepping up our preparations another notch but how many other people will?
I suspect most people will be either unaware of the situation or not care until Scotland gets normal winter weather and rolling energy cuts are imposed. Then, there will be some very unhappy voters out there.
Welcome to the future.
Hmmm, situation sounds fairly normal for public utilities Stoney. Yes, we are in the 21st Century.
From what you say the collapse of the conveyor belt sounds like a typical lack of maintenance/repair which governments do not like to spend funds on anymore. It is the same down here in Aust.
What worries me about that sort of situation is that for people like me living in the urban jungle and who would be prepared it’s hard when you live in a standard house. I have no means of burning wood/coal inside and central heating and cooker are connected to the mains. Luckily it’s a problem we have never had to face. I’ve got candels and tourches and camping gas but there would be no way to keep warm.
If it does happen in your area I’ll bet it will be the unprepared person, as always on the news moaning about how they are freezing to death.
Stoney you did not mention longjohns!!
Lets hope it stays windy and the wind turbines pick up some of the slack!