- No flashy product launch, no app, just "we quietly replaced a 1960s failure point before it failed."
- Anyone have any idea why the cables are arranged like this? https://8400e186.delivery.rocketcdn.me/articles/wp-content/u...
What's the zig-zag pattern for, seems like a fair bit of extra conductor.
- Impressive piece of work, first time I’ve heard of this.
I had heard that tunnels were a good first step for rolling out super conducting cables, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing.
Superconducting cables have progressed a lot. I’m assuming that setting up a cryogenic system to keep cables cool enough, in a confined space wasn’t thought to be worth it.
The tunnels look tight enough, and boiling liquid nitrogen from a leak could cause asphyxiation I imagine.
by zimpenfish
1 subcomments
- I'm slightly confused by the "New Cross substation in Southwark" whilst the map immediately above clearly shows it in Lewisham[0][1].
Best I found was a page talking about vertical boreholes on Old Kent Road (opposite Commercial Way which is just inside Southwark) but nothing about a substation there on any page.
[0] Estimating off the National Grid map, it's roughly vertically centred between Lewisham and Greenwich DLR stations - absolutely not in Southwark!
[1] I feel like I'm going mad - the number of pages I found whilst trying to find the exact location that said the same thing under the same map is honestly discombobulating.
by nopurpose
5 subcomments
- Cables on overhead high voltage lines are mounted using stacks of ceramic insulators, but here they seemingly just sleeved in some protection and hang on a tunnel wall. Why is that?
- How was it tunnelled, most tunnelling machine are large, large enough for things to have enough space to work.
The conveyor belt to remove the debris, the machinery to place the concrete segments to form the wall.
I guess it could be shrunk, but there wouldn’t be space for people to get through
Mention is made of the North London tunnel, but in preparing for the 2012 Stratford Olympics pylons there were replaced by an Underground tunnel too, and there was a lead time of 7 years from the Stratford winning.
by londons_explore
1 subcomments
- Is it actually the most cost effective method to pay cables in such a large tunnel?
I would imagine trench and bury or mole-digging to be a much cheaper way to install it?
- I used to live by Brown Hart Gardens which is a modified 1902 electricity substation. There's lots of odd electricity supply stuff in London, including "the most popular modern art museum in the world", the Tate Modern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Hart_Gardens
- essentialy no choice in putting infrastructure underground as the cost's and
delays in putting a power corridor right of way through is unthinkable, they will almost certainly be useing old established locations for transformer substations that have the required set backs and other services, which must from time to time, come to the frenzied attention of developers, agast ,that they cant relieve someone of this "vacant" land
- Things like this are useful when for example you want to charge a fleet of electric busses overnight.
- That sounds like an excellent use for narrow boring company tunnels.
by blackhaj7
3 subcomments
- Anyone know why the power cables in the image zig zag up and down?
Seems like it would require more cable than a straight line so I am guessing there is a reason for it
- I'm looking forward to the next Amendment to the 18th Edition's conduit-fill factors.
by jimnotgym
9 subcomments
- So Everywhere else in Britain it is 'too expensive' to put cables underground. Just goes to show how London centric this country is.
by nephihaha
2 subcomments
- "In total, the £1 billion London Power Tunnels 2 (LPT2) project, which began in 2019, spans 32.5km across seven South London boroughs from Wimbledon to Hurst."
In spite of devolution and the so called "levelling up" programme for other parts of the UK, London obviously continues to be heavily subsidised by the rest of the UK.
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