Matteeboy

Just had (um, allegedly, unconfirmed)reports from Oldbury of a conventional-side (so non-nuclear) explosion/fire in the transformer building. The reactor has shot down, lots of flames, smoke and oil fired everywhere. Will probably end the life of oldbury as a reactor now, due to unfounded safety fears, politics and screaming environmentalists.

Shame, it had just come back into service.

Coffin Dodger

Just for the Black Country folk as I know they're a bit slow, that's Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire, there isn't a hidden nuclear reactor in Oldbury, West Midlands. Ok

Ray_li

I work with black country folks and they are a bit slow

davegtt

so are these unconfirmed reports confirmed or bull?

Shark Man

The only thing slow is the traffic and the brummies

Mind, I did have to check if Oldbury (West Mids) had nuclear facilities. But if there were an inccident nobody would have noticed, as it looks like it already has suffered a nuclear inccident, judging by the inbreds, I guess it may have been 50 to 20 years ago

Matteeboy

Dave - No one hurt but I reckon you'll hear it sometime soon.
Quite a few cars damaged by flying ceramic.

Sonic'

Sounds like the local council estate near me

Matteeboy

You have a council estate near you?

Peasant.

Daz34

They are still waiting for the steam powered facility to get planning permission last time I heard.

logiclee

They are all steam powered anyway, it's just whether you use coal, gas, oil or nuclear to boil the water.

Cheers
Lee

Daz34

Yes yes I know


Not technically true. I think you will find that unfortunately The Black Country has more fast breeders than anywhere else.

carl

So, electricity prices are going to go up, I guess?

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

They weren't trying to run up the standby Proteus engines / generators were they?

From what I recall, Olbury only had something like a 300MW generating capacity, so we won't be suffering an energy crisis just yet

Oh, and not all powerstations use water - some smaller co-gens are driven by gas turbines

Petem95

435MW from both reactors at Oldbury I believe.

I did an IT placement at the training centre there during 2001/2 and I think both reactors were in operator for only a very small period while I was there!

Oh well, we'll be able to make up the shortfall with more gas power stations and imported power from France..

hades

Pete - you're close enough to the rated power (217 per reactor) to not quibble.

Context of Oldbury's output power, recent lack of generation due to graphite core safety case work, and planned shutdown date, it ain't going to make a lot of difference to electricity supply capability / prices nationally.

In the absence of further info, very difficult to say whether it'll be the end of Oldbury generating. If it's just one of the generator transformers overheated and popped (which would be my guess), generally all the nuclear stations have several of these, combined with some form of switch-over arrangements and some amount of excess capacity, so the station will physically be able to continue generating at slightly reduced output power. However, convincing the NII/HSE that the other transformers aren't about to blow up might be trickier.

Loss of outlet route for the electricity due to loss of grid, damage to turbines or whatever will always result in a reactor trip, part of the standard precautionary safety systems.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

Which are horrifically inefficent - less efficent than even Coal fired. Conversly, a Combined Cycle Gas Turbine is one of the most efficient ways of producing electricity, being able to run generators from the shaft of the turbine as well as running steam generators from the heat produced.


We are such a shocking bunch of geeks.

logiclee

Yep geeks we are.

We have quite a few internal combustion engines in V20 Turbo configuration running 1.8MW sets burning Methane from mine and landfill sites.

As Methane is more damaging to the environment than CO2 producing electricity in this way is actually having a positive effect on global warming.

Cheers
Lee

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

Can I point out that I only know this stuff so that I can tell people how to blow them up.. which is far more fun..

Shark Man

So I guess at least one of you guys has links with Alstom or GEC...those gas turbines are much more lucrative being used as pumps for oil lines in hell holes like Libya and Nigeria.

I feel sorry for the commissioning engineer who gets posted over there (although I'm not sorry about the wage)

logiclee

I think the UK guys are Converteam now. The old GEC/Alstom has been heavily split in recent years.

Cheers
Lee

Shark Man

Yeah sorry, I'm still in yesteryear with all these splitups, take overs and mergers. I presume Seimens are still doing their thing up Lincoln way, though.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)