and these guys run nuclear power stations....

heh, thinking again are you? Now mind you this is JUST an opinion and
NOT established fact as determined by the ivory torwer crowd. But
Stalnism was nothing more than totalitarism with a veneer of communist
trappings and rhetoric. But as I said it's JUST an opinion. 8^) Heven
forbid I actually studied the subject and came to an opinion contrary
to accepted dogma. 8^)

Oh, nothing wrong with liberalism. BUT when you start dictating
changes contrary to what people want whilst assuming you know what
they need...

Bummer. The roads there (two lane in the mountains) are okay for a day
ride. <shrug> Never did like that state except for the mojave desert,
too many people in too small a area. On the plus side it leaves much
of the state wide open like it should be. Visiting the Goldstone
observatory at night is interesting.

 

snip>

It's often the case that on multiple build projects (like nukes) a
conract will be signed where the first one can go over the initial
budget but the follow ups have to have a percentage reduction on every
build. The obvious flaw is some costs from #2 go onto #1 and from #3
onto #2 etc. This works really well until the last one but that
normally gets cancelled...

I can see me trying to remember that one so I can use it when the
knife starts to turn.

 

Bwahahaha! For certain values of on time and on budget of course.

 

You do know I mean the link from Saint Pancras, and not the Tunnel
proper?

 

*ahem* You mean like using connectors that are up to the job, which was
my original point.

Hellbeans, I didn't expect this thread to run. Thanks for the x-post, I
think...

 

Which with V+/Sky+ can all be watched at leisure, and not be reliant on
the broadcaster..... er broadcasting

 

If it ain't liv, it ain't worth it

 

Yeah, and you need to remember that you always get what you pay for.

You'll get the blame so don't thank me.

 

PEBL looks more promising.
Lots of small safe plants closer to the demand.

 

I dunno, I can watch Group B cars from WRC decades ago the same
stages, same corners over and over. <sigh> Who needs common sense
we've 800bhp and 4 wheel drive we don't NEED common sense! <sigh>
Shame that Audi only sent about 600 of the Coupe GT Quattro to the
states. It's just not fair damnit and don't start with that "life
ain't supposed to be fair" shit either!

 

[...]

Large scale engineering projects always have this kind of dynamics,
unfortunately. I consider this to be an artifact of politics. It's
easier for politicians to swallow one small pill and then be told
they have to swallow another and then another than just give them
one huge budget and get approval for that. It can be seen in road
construction, railway construction, military spending and so on. I
can't see why nuclear power should be exempt.

[...]

The 900 MW and 1300 MW series of reactors built by EDF (Electricite de
France) in cooperation with Alstom and AREVA (the 1495 MW series had
some initial problems with the first reactor, the rest were constructed
without hitches). All four ABWR reactors in Japan built by TEPCO (Tokyo
Electric Power Co Inc). Can't be bothered to google for more, especially
as the successful nuclear industries are usually in non-English speaking
countries so it's harder to rapidly find good sources, and I have a
limited time budget allotted to Usenet flamefests. Which, incidentally,
I'm pretty much exceeding right now, damn you. ;-))

[...]

But you don't know what the power they produce will cost.

Personally, I think this is a result of political pressures put on
the nuclear industry combined with the "too large to fail" effect
inherent in all large infrastructure projects.

We shall see how it works out in the next decade or so, with the
renewal of interest in nuclear power. Chinese plants constructed
by foreign contractors so far seem to be going on schedule and
within budget.

[...]

Yes, smaller projects are easier to keep within budget. That is
one of the reasons I keep cheering the various proposed small nuclear
plants.

 

That doesn't really make much sense.

At 10pm, it seems as if you'd be running baseload
plants anyway, so it's not clear what's being saved.

Baseload plants don't stop and start very well, so
they normally run near full load 24/7.

Why try to save power at 10pm in the first place ?

Is there some kind of generation which gets throttled
back or is the power diverted to some other use ?

 

Pumped storage hydroelectric plants.
There are 2 of the beasts in Snowdonia, water is pumped up the mountain
off peak and then used for rapid response peak lopping, for example
when the adverts come on at the end of Corrie.

Not sure, but there are probably a few more elsewhere.

 

Interesting. Maybe a couple TWH of storage ?
The one plant I'd managed to google looked like
about 75% efficiency. How does the storage
compare to base and peak loads ?

Had one friend who was interviewing at a startup
looking to make large scale flow batteries for
some kind of distributed grid connected storage.
Dunno if he's working there now or not.

 

It was (imho) done by the government to break down public support for
striking coal miners who were picketing coal fired power stations.

As stated above, it was a political decision that was designed to
create hardship and create ill feeling towards the striking miners.

These days the UK is never very far from power cuts because most of
our older power stations are past the end of their design life. I
spend about 8 months of the year 'fire fighting' in power stations and
get to see exactly how tired they are. It's not hard to upgrade the
rotating plant, it's the boilers and associated pipework that causes
the problems. We simply don't have the supplies of heavy wall main
steam pipework to keep up with the demands.

 

I was annoyed to find recently, that the V+ box won't boot if it can't
get a cable signal. So you can't even watch pre-recorded stuff if
your cable line is down.

 

<googles>

I see that even Accles and Pollock don't make their own tube now. TBF
their real expertise was always at the other end of the spectrum.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

<intensifies search for decent diesel genny>

 

You would have recorded it on one of its many repeats pre-power off.
QED

 

Thats just silly, I'll ask someone