Airport

[Mo Docherty]

heathrow fire,ususal trash blaming Russia,if it was, uk could do nothing about it,not even their so called allies could do nowt

[vic mcclymont]

Heathrow Airport had reliable standby Diesel Generators, they had them converted to biomass in effort to claim green credentials.
The first time they were required to start in anger they failed.
Vic

[John Arton]

Vic
Not too sure that those standby generators had sufficient capacity to keep the airport fully operational as Heathrow requires the equivalent of a reasonably large towns electricity consumption to be working at full capacity. Believe the standby generators kept runway lighting and air traffic control operations going.
The sub station had 3 transformers in close proximity to each other so when the centre? one blew up it's sister transformers could not be accessible to put them on line. One expert engineer in electrical power distribution said he was amazed there were no firewall protection between each unit.
Even the electric capacity on those mega cruise ships probably don't manage to match that required to keep Heathrow fully operational..
Those transformers take voltage at some 400000 kv from the national grid and convert it to the required voltage for the airports consumption.
Fishers of barrow had the aberthaw fisher which was designed to transport those transformers from the ship canal to sites around the U.K.
Rgds
J.A

[vic mcclymont]

John, understand that, the biggest problem from yesterday's outage was restarting the critical computers..
From experience computers don't like being switched off when operating. Usually corrupts data or damages electronic components.
Surprised really that critical site such as Heathrow has only one HV supply.
Vic

[Johnny Kieran]

It's no wonder really, when you think of all the mobile phones plugged in, plus all the telly's on, and all the other electrical things, needed to live normal lives these days. It's only going to get worse, with all the EVs charging as they do away with normal vehicles.
I saw a clip on the telly the other day, where there were hundreds of illegal coming ashore at Dover. Almost every one of them was flashing their phones. Probably asking where they can plug them in?

[Des Jenkins]

Hi Mo.
Cleanest air they have had in London for years, maybe a wake up call.
Des

[James Curry]

Apparently the explosion when the transformers failed caused transformer oil to leak. The transformer oil is I believs used for keeping thinhs cooler, This oil then caught fire which was then difficult to get under control. When I was on a new build Chemical boat the cargo tank heating system was oil filled, It was a fixed system so no need to coil up. The oil used was non flamable , think it went under the name of Thermal oil. Why are large electrical tranformers not using Themal oils?

[vic mcclymont]

The current oils used HV transformers has two functions:
1 cool the core of the transformer
2 act as an insulator.
Vic

[happy daze john in oz]

A city the size of Heathrow should have a second power supply at hand, not rely on some suspect generators.

But airport do use a lot of power.

Our airport at Tullamarine is no where as big but we have a solar farm set within it.
Over 2,000 panels but even that i am informed only at best supplies about 15% of total needs of power.

[John Arton]

Latest is that the head of the national grid claims Heathrow had adequate back up secondary electricity supply to continue operating normally when that sub station went up in flames.
As regards thermal oil, all the chemical tankers I sailed on used thermal oil for cargo heating. Primary heater situated in ballast pump room supplying heat to secondary circulation system to heating coils in cargo tanks or to deck heaters. All cargo tanks fitted with individual deep well cargo pumps.
Rgds
J.A