No more coal power stations

[cheb]

Even more obviously, I've phoned the power companies to tell them of a power cut.

 

[MetalMonkey]

Do you know this for sure or is it just supposition?

I would assume he is referring to the fact BT will be turning off all the PSTN lines which were powered via battery backup in the exchange, and rolling out VoIP instead, which will require you to have a powered adapter to use it. This won't work in a power cut unless you have a UPS or similar alternative to grid power.

 

[Mark 5]

Just watching bbc it says port Talbot is closing down for good.

I thought that was Ratcliff?

 

[premmington]

I would assume he is referring to the fact BT will be turning off all the PSTN lines which were powered via battery backup in the exchange, and rolling out VoIP instead, which will require you to have a powered adapter to use it. This won't work in a power cut unless you have a UPS or similar alternative to grid power.

Correct - they gonna do all bussiness premises by Jan 2025.

I have had our workshop done already.

It all a bit of blackmail really - only bussiness and OAP's will want to keep there landline numbers - everybody else will just dump the landline and go over to fibre broadband and use there mobiles.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Do you know this for sure or is it just supposition? I live somewhere that used to have a lot of power cuts and the phones still worked, both landline and mobile. The small local exchanges round here have automatic back up power systems.

They are planning to phase out "POTS" (plain old telephone systems) and the copper wire based communication networks that it's transmitted over, and transition landlines onto VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) as "Fibre to the premises" is rolled out.

There was a news story today about Openreach having negotiated a deal to sell all that un-needed copper (I guess as futures contracts tied to the Fibre Roll-out) for a particularly attractive price.

Unlike the copper carrier of POTS, which can supply it's own power to "passive" recieving equipment, the optical fibers require an active receiver (usually a modem, that also manages internet service). That active equipment has to be supplied with power by the householder, to recieve or transmit.
I suspect that we will eventually see manufacturers of the modems offering UPS (uninterruptible power supply) functionality as an option for at least the people who have a critical need (like the existing vulnerable customer lists).



The reason I am so aware of this, is that my house has now been transitioned to fibre to the premises, and no longer has a POTS connection...

Whilst the modem would allow me to have a landline, it requires DTMF dialing, and the only phone in the house is a GPO 232L (and № 26 bell set) which had been in service, unmodified since the mid 1930's.

I have a "get round to it" job of setting up a pulse tone dialing compatible PBX, so I can use the phone without modification... But TBH I use my mobile 99% of the time anyway these days.

 

[lchris21]

Just watching bbc it says port Talbot is closing down for good.

First mistake is listening to the BBC, but .........not quite yet, the Indians are going to kick the can down the road for a few years, get into all sorts of procurement, skills and resource issues, try and source everything as cheaply as they can from the home country. Take the money off the taxpayer, half build an EAF then moan about the cost of running it, and buying scrap for it..........in the same way they have moaned and groaned about the cost of energy since they took over the place. The plant used to generate 65% of its own electricity demand from the waste gasses from the process. Those waste gasses stop today.........and guess what? that imported energy aint gonna get cheaper with an EAF spinning the meter at light speed !...........white elephant anyone?

 

[Smallfry]

......no more coal power-stations......and joining them in the "no more" category....no more blast furnaces from today. Plug is being pulled today, no more virgin steel production capacity, what a travesty. Nerrr mind all them highly paid, highly skilled green jobs will need filling tomorrow morning . All the woke envrio campaigners can now pat themselves on the back, move onto the next victims, whilst thousands of locals line up at the local benefits office.
Adding an electric arc furnace on the grid demands seems like a good idea They better hurry up with HPC or that EAF will be on and off more them my kettle in the kitchen

And by the time the new arc furnace comes online, if it ever does, and Tata have not bunked off with the cash.

Customers will be buying elsewhere, and may not be prepared to change unless the price is much less, which it more like than not will not be.

 

[eddie49]

You will have to be over 60 to remember the three day week, no tv after 10.30, sitting in the dark with candlelight and listening to a transistor radio ,eating sandwiches as the power was cut off for a few hours in the evening. That could happen again for a different reason now.
Please no responses about trade unions etc. Purely an observation that nobody under 50 will remember what it is like to be without power or go home early from work as you are about to be plunged into darkness.

Staff at the Portslade, Brighton factory of the company I worked for - Business Computers Ltd. - were assembling PCBs using soldering irons heated on gas rings, and were sent home about 4 pm when it was too dark to work.

 

[lchris21]

And by the time the new arc furnace comes online, if it ever does, and Tata have not bunked off with the cash.

Customers will be buying elsewhere, and may not be prepared to change unless the price is much less, which it more like than not will not be.

as a local insider.....I will not be buying shares in the latest "green" steel miracle cure

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

....not quite yet, the Indians are going to kick the can down the road for a few years, get into all sorts of procurement, skills and resource issues. Take the money off the taxpayer, half build an EAF then moan about the cost of running it..........in the same way they have moaned and groaned about the cost of energy since they took over the place..........white elephant anyone?

Tata has much better lobbyists than Liberty Steel in that case.

A couple of years back Liberty asked for a much smaller sum of co-funding to de-risk building a world-first Hydrogen-Reduction based primary steelmaking unit (which would also have used an EAF to melt the ore) at Rotherham.

Despite having the technology, local vendors for all the equipment, (including Sheffield based ITM Power to handle green hydrogen production) and "green steel" customers all lined up behind the project... They were roundly rebuffed by BEIS.

Thyssenkrupp have now beaten them to the punch, and the once in a lifetime opportunity to regain some of Britain's comparative advantage in steelmaking technology squandered.

That could have been a very good news story for UK manufacturing and for South Yorkshire...

Just think of the headlines:

- Sheffield and Rotherham leading the world into a new age of decarbonised steel production,

- Bringing in new high-value manufacturing jobs in one of the country's poorest areas,

- Liberty's finances stabilised by adding a steelmaking technology line to the business securing thousands of local jobs,

- UK Hydrogen production business massively boosted with major export potential.

I strongly suspect (and am not alone in it) that the Sheffield City Region was strongly disfavoured by the powers that be at the time, for some unknowable reason that couldn't possibly be speculated on here.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

as a local insider.....I will not be buying shares in the latest "green" steel miracle cure

It's success or failure is going to be intrinsically tied to whether major economies begin to implement a Duty on embedded carbon emissions when goods cross borders, soon enough to make green steel viable commercially.

If the UK, EU (and ideally USA given the green new deal) don't push forward with that approach it will be a complete betrayal of everyone who is trying to keep indigenous manufacturing alive, and revitalise it to meet the purported needs of the energy transition.

 

[RWD3M]

... everybody else will just dump the landline and go over to fibre broadband and use there mobiles.

Did just that recently and instantly got rid of a whole swathe of nuisance calls!

 

[Mark 5]

Whilst the modem would allow me to have a landline, it requires DTMF dialing, and the only phone in the house is a GPO 232L (and № 26 bell set) which had been in service, unmodified since the mid 1930's.

I have a "get round to it" job of setting up a pulse tone dialing compatible PBX, so I can use the phone without modification... But TBH I use my mobile 99% of the time anyway these days.

Hi,

Do you know about old GPO phones?

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Did just that recently and instantly got rid of a whole swathe of nuisance calls!

Don't worry, they'll be coming for your mobile number soon enough!

Hi,

Do you know about old GPO phones?

Not a huge amount, just what I absorbed from my grandfather (who started his career as a GPO engineer just as the 232's were becoming popular) and what I had to learn in order to work out how I would keep mine going when PSTN/POTS was closed down.

 

[Mark 5]

Don't worry, they'll be coming for your mobile number soon enough!


Not a huge amount, just what I absorbed from my grandfather (who started his career as a GPO engineer just as the 232's were becoming popular) and what I had to learn in order to work out how I would keep mine going when PSTN/POTS was closed down.

Thanks, I asked cos' years ago I knocked some money off a job and in return got two huge bags of old GPO phones and know nothing about them.

Another thread maybe.

 

[lchris21]

It's success or failure is going to be intrinsically tied to whether major economies begin to implement a Duty on embedded carbon emissions when goods cross borders, soon enough to make green steel viable commercially.

If the UK, EU (and ideally USA given the green new deal) don't push forward with that approach it will be a complete betrayal of everyone who is trying to keep indigenous manufacturing alive, and revitalise it to meet the purported needs of the energy transition.

I have spoken with ex colleagues, who are now working on the project......the timescales are already proving unachievable and the accountants are already throwing their weight around....

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Thanks, I asked cos' years ago I knocked some money off a job and in return got two huge bags of old GPO phones and know nothing about them.

Another thread maybe.

There's a guy who runs a specialist antique shop down in maybe Norfolk I want to say, who would be worth a visit to get them appraised, (or possibly sold on consignment).

Some types can be very valuable these days to collectors, but it's the specific models that weren't normally sold to the public: exchange handsets, payphones, "Explosion Proof" models, and the like.

The more normal ones will still fetch £40-£80 on eBay, possibly more if they're retrofitted for DTMF (which needs a £12 PCB kit and some basic electronics skills).

Edit:

- More like £110-250 per phone for normal ones now, having had a look.

- The guy I was thinking of is in Darlington (right side, but wrong end of the country) and runs "Antique GPO Phones",

- There's also a husband and wife duo in Leicester ("Vintage Telephony"), and a chap in Bromley ("Antique Telephones") doing it too now.

 

[Mark 5]

There's a guy who runs a specialist antique shop down in maybe Norfolk I want to say, who would be worth a visit to get them appraised, (or possibly sold on consignment).

Some types can be very valuable these days to collectors, but it's the specific models that weren't normally sold to the public: exchange handsets, payphones, "Explosion Proof" models, and the like.

The more normal ones will still fetch £40-£80 on eBay, possibly more if they're retrofitted for DTMF (which needs a £12 PCB kit and some basic electronics skills).

I don't know what I have tbh, one that does springs to mind is a 1920s candlestick type, a couple fitted on wooden boards, the rest are various colours and some bakelite and at least a couple have these giant jack type plugs on the end.

Must dig them out.

 

[julianf]

My home solar is a example of that
When it’s sunny I could power several houses
Today I’ve switched back onto the gas powered grid..

You needed to keep hold of some of those batteries you had a while back!

 

[cheb]

I would assume he is referring to the fact BT will be turning off all the PSTN lines which were powered via battery backup in the exchange, and rolling out VoIP instead, which will require you to have a powered adapter to use it. This won't work in a power cut unless you have a UPS or similar alternative to grid power.

So similar to very old phones needing a DTMF adapter fitted so they can work on the current system?

As an aside, mobile phones have been widely available now for 30 years at least, the old people that struggle to use them weren't old back then. Don't fear change.