As a child, whenever we went to visit relatives in Bedfordshire, I always knew when we were leaving 'London proper' because of the huge pylons looming up out of the countryside as we traveled up the M1. The point at which I knew we weren't far away from my aunt & uncles house was when we passed Friar's Wash pumping station. Ah, the things we remember eh? ;)
Sometimes you wonder if there are so many tunnels dug under London that the whole city will one day disappear into a gigantic hole in the ground. Another fascinating insight into the hidden engineering feats that keep London operating. Thanks a lot!
+Leannyly ...there are some in "Greater" London just not in inner/central London. If you google streetview say "68 Plough Lane, London" you will see them
+Leannyly you will find some places but not many. It's quite nice actually. The only "pylons" you will find belongs to the telephone lines and even those are disappearing (slowly). You will find the big pylons in the countryside
Yeah, most cities in the UK are devoid of pylons now, I mean you can still find them here and there in areas that have not buried them yet but there was a big move started in the 70's to get rid of overhead transmission in favour of subterranean transmission.
The interesting places in London are the places where the pylons are there, but suddenly stop. The area opposite Wimbledon AFC Football Club (formerly Wimbledon Dog Track) is one of those places. There is a big strip of undeveloped area around the pylons. At the end the power goes down into the ground. One day those pylons will be replace by more tunnels, so that more housebuilding can occur in the Greater London area.
It's quite impressive how compact all this modern 400kv equipment has become! To think that normally a 400kv substation takes up several acres of land and with huge 50m tall towers going into it, yet all this stuff fits into these tunnels and nobody on the street would ever know it was there! pretty neat really.
It blows the mind how much tunnel there must be under London. I wonder how London ranks for this? I know Paris has the Catacombs but that's not really used for anything today.
london underground BT Olympic London power old post office tunnels Thames ring main cross-rail Whitehall tunnels (see duncan Cambell) Embankment tunnel etc etc
@@mhappy01 i'm interested but maybe not in youtube comments? i know there's several shaft locations around stratford but i'm interested to know what else you know?
+AmselGaming They do. What the vid didnt explain is that there is a new electric tunnel from St Johns wood to Elstree. And, not many people know this but there are two new electric tunnels under the Olympic site - the second one was used as an emergency tunnel for Heads of State etc They connect with the tunnels at Hackney and West Ham/O2 centre..
+AmselGaming Also. look above Geoffs head in the completed tunnels and you'll see a single girder (used for a monorail system to transport people and equipment so no need for bicycles)
+mhappy01 im pretty sure that single girder will not support the weight of a monorail... plus. if they had a transport mechanism implemented into the design, why not make it live first, prior to the cabling installation. that would then mean no "tug" was ever required...
mhappy01 well i stand corrected. If you find any more infomation(don't need proof, i believe you!) let me know! sounds like its alot more then a bog standard monorail, sounds like its a semi automated inspection robot that can also carry passengers! Very intresting!
as someone that came over from tom scotts channel, i think the voice over is slightly to fast for me (maybe more non-native english speakers think this?)
Syed Abdul Wasay Doubt it, be a nightmare to police, also they’d have to come up with some kind of bike escalator, and the time going up and down the escalator would probably mean most cyclists wouldn’t use it due to it taking longer overall than dicing with the traffic.
BT Openreach has their own tunnels and conduits for telecommunication use, as do the local water companies and the gas division of national grid. To be fair 400 kV AC cables are safer not sharing a confined space with gas, water or cabling susceptible to damage from electromagnetic induction. The latter is never a good idea while the former mostly only present severe risks in the event of a double failure but considering those risks in this case would be turning the entire system into a giant 32 km long pipe bomb with a charge of up to around 100,000 cubic meters of explosive hydrogen or methane gas with an ignition source probably better we just let them stick to their separate tunnels. (And yes 400 kV can easily manage the electrolysis of H2O turning it into explosive hydrogen gas in a confined space, this is of course not good).
No, the point is to avoid having to negotiate with others in order to carry out maintenence, the tunnels can't be accessed whilst the cables are live for safety reasons so it would be a nightmare if every time Openreach wanted to maintain their phone lines we would have to turn the cables off...
Issue lies not in London but the security/resilence of supply from power stations to the outskirts...the Great Storm of 1987 showed that as great parts of London of were left without power for many hours.
+Vincent de Guard The problem is interlinking all of them together. If one fails it's like a domino effect and can take the whole system down. The Northeast blackout of 2003 (same thing also happened on November 9, 1965) proved that when it effected 50 million people in 9 States in the US and Canada, it was the world's second most widespread blackout in history. Power was out for a week in most places, including New York.
They can create quite a bit and in one tunnel I work at we have a full water cooling system for the 400kV cables. There will be temperature monitoring, but as for fire detection, I would imagine there would be.
The cables (prior to this tunnel, maybe not now) run under Clapham Common. One morning I walked through, and the snow had melted along the line of the cable.
It would be a maintenance and upgrade nightmare (suspending tube services to access the cables). Additionally the tube lines don't necessarily align with the substations.
You must realise the EMF from 400KV cables is immense and would adversely affect all signalling and communications equipment of the railway system. Not to mention if an accident were to happen and one of the cables were to be severed by a train with hundreds of passengers on board... Doesn't bare thinking about! :-o
L Fewell I don’t know how much best you think is generated by these cables but it’s negligible, nowhere near enough to heat buildings. Hence the reason for the higher voltage, high voltage = low current, lower current = less resistance and less resistance = less heat and losses.
I said that very poorly. Yes, electric potencial is not power, but it acts as a multipiler for power (Watt = Volt * Ampere). Higher voltages will also arc longer and pass trough more insulation as Resitance is directly tied to it.(Amperage is too but that is beside the point) Sorry for the long comment (that is porbably even more wrong).
I don't understand why all new power lines aren't buried underground. Above ground lines are such a liability, especially in snowy climates like mine. Just a touch of bad weather and thousands of people are without power.
+Spencer O'Dowd Tunnels are *really* expensive in the first place. To the point where your break even time might be beyond the design lifetime of either option. I wouldn't be maintenance on overhead lines is that much worse either. Tunnels can be much more expensive to maintain (especially if there's structural or water ingress issues).
Also, electricity at that voltage builds up a lot of heat, which dissipates easily from overhead lines, but from tunnels has to be extracted. Have a look at the tunnels they created for electric mountain in Snowdonia, Wales (Dinorwig Power Station).
Overhead Lines are by far cheaper in the long run, they are easier to maintain have fewer permanent faults and take days rather than weeks to repair. Tunnels are mega expensive but do allow repairs in a shorter space but at a huge initial cost. Undergrounding is very difficult to repair and also quite costly to bury in the first place. Don't forget the cables themselves are many times more expensive than the overhead lines and repairing cables is complex and time consuming. Believe me the company wouldn't choose towers over tunnels or cables (I work for them!). Replacing cables is also very expensive, whereas the overhead lines are relatively cheap in comparison. In fact there is little maintenance on overhead lines in the first place.
I have tried to ask National Grid about this before, but they didn't answer me. How does this project fit in with the cables that run under the regents canal, because it's either their fault or the Canal and River Trust, but the towpath is really badly maintained in places and often waterlogged... I think it would be better if TfL were to take over running the canals that run through greater London, they are after all a transport mechanism. The C&R Trust doesn't really seem to care about much else than getting fees from boaters.
The owner of the towpath is probably the C&R Trust, and National Grid will have a wayleave for access, that said, sometimes NG will buy a piece of land instead.
Theres an electrical reason too As cables carry current (electricity), they heat up. The more current they carry, the hotter they get. The heat disappates into its surroundings, and the faster that heat can be taken away means the cable will cool faster meaning they can carry more current. If there the tunnels are smaller, there is less air for the heat to go so the cables stays warmer and the surroundings stay faster. There will likely be some sort of air circulation system too (ie fans), but the more air you can move the faster you can shift that heat.
So why do they have to be so big? Surely they could be about 2/3 the size and still fit the cables with maintenance room - wouldn't that make it cheaper?
+The Natter Nodge Future expansion room possibly? Perhaps there's some health and safety BS which states that two people need to be able to pass eachother
+The Natter Nodge It might have more to do with the machinery used to dig the tunnels. A smaller tunneller would mean smaller parts, so more cost to make. Also a smaller tunneller would mean less earth moved per day, meaning it would cost more in wages and man power as the protect would take longer.
+The Natter Nodge i think its to do with heat, those cables need to be kept apart from each other to prevent heat build up. There are numerous vent buildings along the route to bring in cool air and expel the hot air.
Health and Safety laws, especially in "CDM" areas, (Construction, Design Management), I work for National Grid and they are shit hot on safety! They even once told us we had to wear Hi Viz in a telecoms room! I mentioned that if we had a car in there we have more problems that Hi Viz couldn't solve!!!
Eddiecurrent2000 LOL meanwhile my mom makes me put on a high visibility jacket when I'm trying to walk down the street to the store, even when there is zero traffic lol
All of the UK has subterranean power, only in rural areas do we have overhead power lines now, I think Charlie Still hasn't been outdoors since the 1970's.
+Rob Fraser Having said that most of the transmission grid (225 kV and 400 kV networks) that come under the responsibility of national grid do in fact run overground around since their network mostly goes around the edges of towns and cities connecting to the local electrical distributor's substations on the outskirts of population centres it's the electrical distributors networks that are mostly bellow ground elsewhere in the country.
Surprising that they would put 400KV lines deep under London, when London is barely above sea level. What happens if the Tsunami from that unstable island in the Atlantic comes in? They might wish the wires were high up on graceful towers.
+Arnþór Gíslason yes, it is technically incorrect. But reducing the technical speak... "power" has become the term of choice when describing a feed of electricity to a specific area/installation/venue/house/etc... EG: When there is an interruption in the electrical feed to your house you don't say "we have had an Electric Cut" or "I tried to turn my telly on and there is no voltage being applied" you say that there is a power cut! same as you done say "I have fractured one of my phalanges!" you say you broke your finger! :)
Quick note: 400 thousand volts (kV) is a standard, national line voltage for the transmission network in the UK which runs from scotland all the way down to the south cost of england. There is also 275kV network. These networks then step down to a 132kV network, then to 33kV then 11kV before finally arriving at your plug socket in your home at 230V. The 132kV to 230V networks are run by distribution companys and generally if you have a power cut this it where it is. To confuse things more, the power ratings at all levels these can vary quite dramatically and will decrease as the voltage gets lower, but 400kV transformers can have different power ratings depending on what demand is on that bit of network. For instance you could have a 11000 volt transformer with a rating of 1000W, or 800W, or 500W - again depending network it feeds. And yes, anyone else with some electrical sense, I did not say VA on purpose, just to keep it simple ;)
London and the United Kingdom would have similar problems to Australia or even a bigger national grid capacity problem in the future. The cost of expansion is the biggest dead end. Do yourself and the UK and the world a favour and look into this. Underground tunnels are totally overlooked and underground distribution and future grid capacity. In Australia the nuclear promoters want to stop CO2 emissions and have a no fossil fueled future. 18% of Australia’s energy was electric energy in 2021-22. So 5 TIMES MORE ELECTRICITY is needed. So 5 TIMES bigger national electric grid, including transmission and distribution. The Australian grid new build is $1million per klm. Grid is 1million klm. New nuclear generation $2billion and 400 SMRs are needed. Small Modular Reactors. 100years to build the existing national grid. The UK would have similar costs. Or more for the below ground electric supply. This is a huge story and nobody has put the numbers together. On top of that problem is that if the sunniest continent on the planet goes nuclear and Australia’s CO2 emissions are from the worldwide CO2 emissions then Australia will have spent a $GAZILLION an still suffering climate destabilisation. Australia’s latitudes is the same as the Sahara Desert latitudes.
Alan Partridge alot of money is produced in/from london so theyre more than justified in more being spent there. All the electricity infrastructure across the country that supplies the small towns and villages is constantly being upgraded and maintained, you just don't see it
But the other cities need some spending in order for them to improve their economies. Look at the spending per person, in London it's roughly twice what it is elsewhere, that's not just infrastructure but schools as well. Addressing the problem of the funding and development imbalance will help solve many other problems HS2 is just the latest example, many in the north don't want it as they fear it'll suck more jobs to London, why the money was not spent on improve the time to get from Leeds to Manchester? Rather than improving the time from Leeds to London and Manchester to London?
Alan Partridge because the route to London is more in demand and serves more people therefore being more economically viable? Plus they could probably charge a bit more for going to london to help cover costs
JonnyD3ath But it's going to push up house prices in Birmingham yet not make any more jobs there, so in effect the people of Birmingham get poorer. It does nothing to help the local economy.
Maybe Birmingham should do what Manchester did and reinvent itself as a commercial hub instead of wallowing over closed mines and mills like most English cities do? If London has about an 8th of England's population but generates a quarter of England's revenue then they have the right to spend a quarter of the revenue, or do all the anti-socialists suddenly believe in socialism when it's them who are not getting the money someone else has earned? London makes it, London can spend it.
makes me sad when i see pylons etc as why do people need so much electricity, and what a waste sending it such long distances, wonder how much gets lost along the way. Locally produced renewable power is the way to go. i am off grid, if i can do it anyone can.
Not much is lost because it's high voltage, and unfortunately locally produced renewable power is no good for heavy industry and whilst it works for you, it doesn't work for everyone. Locally produced power isn't as efficient either as the larger machines tend to be more efficient.
@@LondonRider12 Yes, but transmission losses are much lower - the majority of power loss is actually in the final cabling coming into your house at 240v
1 mile = 1.6 kilometres I am also English but try my best to use metric whenever I can, it's far better. In any case I imagine the reason he used it here was that construction and science generally use metric, both to be in line with the world (where some of the parts and people came from) and because it's easier and more accurate. They teach it in school in the UK anyway, unless you are too old to get to that bit, in which case, learning is not that difficult.
The unit of measuring length in the UK is metres. Only road distances and speeds are signed in miles, but even the location markers on motorways are in metric.
As a child, whenever we went to visit relatives in Bedfordshire, I always knew when we were leaving 'London proper' because of the huge pylons looming up out of the countryside as we traveled up the M1. The point at which I knew we weren't far away from my aunt & uncles house was when we passed Friar's Wash pumping station. Ah, the things we remember eh? ;)
Andddd... also here from Tom Scott... :) and subbed.
Sometimes you wonder if there are so many tunnels dug under London that the whole city will one day disappear into a gigantic hole in the ground.
Another fascinating insight into the hidden engineering feats that keep London operating. Thanks a lot!
brendan coffey this is the plan
Wow, never noticed there are no pylons in London!
+Leannyly ...there are some in "Greater" London just not in inner/central London. If you google streetview say "68 Plough Lane, London" you will see them
+Leannyly you will find some places but not many. It's quite nice actually. The only "pylons" you will find belongs to the telephone lines and even those are disappearing (slowly). You will find the big pylons in the countryside
Leannyly thats pretty much every city, all fed by cables
Yeah, most cities in the UK are devoid of pylons now, I mean you can still find them here and there in areas that have not buried them yet but there was a big move started in the 70's to get rid of overhead transmission in favour of subterranean transmission.
The interesting places in London are the places where the pylons are there, but suddenly stop. The area opposite Wimbledon AFC Football Club (formerly Wimbledon Dog Track) is one of those places. There is a big strip of undeveloped area around the pylons. At the end the power goes down into the ground. One day those pylons will be replace by more tunnels, so that more housebuilding can occur in the Greater London area.
Holy, never expected a colab between you two :O
It's quite impressive how compact all this modern 400kv equipment has become! To think that normally a 400kv substation takes up several acres of land and with huge 50m tall towers going into it, yet all this stuff fits into these tunnels and nobody on the street would ever know it was there! pretty neat really.
SF6 switchgear is great, just need to avoid it leaking as SF6 is terrible for greenhouse effect :(
Can you go behind the scenes at London buses ?
It blows the mind how much tunnel there must be under London. I wonder how London ranks for this? I know Paris has the Catacombs but that's not really used for anything today.
london underground
BT
Olympic
London power
old post office tunnels
Thames ring main
cross-rail
Whitehall tunnels (see duncan Cambell)
Embankment tunnel
etc etc
@@mhappy01 there's a few more appearing in the not too distant future too, got my eye on them
Share it when you can ;-) and i'll swap you for the 2 x olympic tunnels and exits..
@@mhappy01 i'm interested but maybe not in youtube comments? i know there's several shaft locations around stratford but i'm interested to know what else you know?
@@mhappy01 there's 4 olympic tunnels that are parallel, and a spur tunnel, i could probably tell you more about it lol
Tom Scott sent me here, now Geoff’s sending me back to Tom Scott. Then back to Geoff, then Tom, then Geoff.
I’m going to be here awhile. 😱
Apparently they have been running tunnels under bexley in se London for power as well
Do these tunnels run close or parallel to some underground tunnels?
+AmselGaming They do. What the vid didnt explain is that there is a new electric tunnel from St Johns wood to Elstree. And, not many people know this but there are two new electric tunnels under the Olympic site - the second one was used as an emergency tunnel for Heads of State etc They connect with the tunnels at Hackney and West Ham/O2 centre..
+AmselGaming Also. look above Geoffs head in the completed tunnels and you'll see a single girder (used for a monorail system to transport people and equipment so no need for bicycles)
+mhappy01 im pretty sure that single girder will not support the weight of a monorail... plus. if they had a transport mechanism implemented into the design, why not make it live first, prior to the cabling installation. that would then mean no "tug" was ever required...
have a read of this, groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.railway/if1mq0GdzQ0 i'll look for more proof.
mhappy01 well i stand corrected. If you find any more infomation(don't need proof, i believe you!) let me know! sounds like its alot more then a bog standard monorail, sounds like its a semi automated inspection robot that can also carry passengers! Very intresting!
as someone that came over from tom scotts channel, i think the voice over is slightly to fast for me (maybe more non-native english speakers think this?)
+mercotui still subscribed tho, i love citys and thier infrastructure, would love to see a channel like this for every city
+mercotui Thanks mercotui, noted! We'll tell Geoff to slow down. Hope you have a click around all our playlists - loads of good stuff!
might have just watched all of the secrets of the underground... Should really get back to work
+Londonist Ltd I actually really appreciate how fast he talked! Often I have to increase the speed of the video because it is too slow.
+mercotui Was fine for me.
That accent though.
There's also one in South East London, although it is a bit shorter.
those tunnels look like a cyclists dream....
+Syed Abdul Wasay Apparently there was some talk of converting some old unused tube lines into cycle routes.
Harry Akira Eaton So is there one coming or not....
Except for the combination of slimy standing water and slick, smooth concrete in the very bottom-center. "Mind the slime!"
Syed Abdul Wasay Doubt it, be a nightmare to police, also they’d have to come up with some kind of bike escalator, and the time going up and down the escalator would probably mean most cyclists wouldn’t use it due to it taking longer overall than dicing with the traffic.
As a cyclist and someone learning to skate, can confirm
Nice video! Looks like a Railway tunnel
I expect these tunnels are kept very secure and closely monitored! Subterranean London is fascinating, its like another city beneath the city.
I'm guessing the Wimbledon substation is where the lines come down to ground level at Colliers Wood.
Apparently they are digging from bexley to falconwood under sidcup
It's impossible not to smile while riding a bicycle, as demonstrated @2:31 :D
Fascinating!
So was Tom Scott filming Geoff for his video and Geoff filming Tom for his?
Wonderful!
Would they add other lines down there like phones or gass/water
BT Openreach has their own tunnels and conduits for telecommunication use, as do the local water companies and the gas division of national grid. To be fair 400 kV AC cables are safer not sharing a confined space with gas, water or cabling susceptible to damage from electromagnetic induction. The latter is never a good idea while the former mostly only present severe risks in the event of a double failure but considering those risks in this case would be turning the entire system into a giant 32 km long pipe bomb with a charge of up to around 100,000 cubic meters of explosive hydrogen or methane gas with an ignition source probably better we just let them stick to their separate tunnels.
(And yes 400 kV can easily manage the electrolysis of H2O turning it into explosive hydrogen gas in a confined space, this is of course not good).
No, the point is to avoid having to negotiate with others in order to carry out maintenence, the tunnels can't be accessed whilst the cables are live for safety reasons so it would be a nightmare if every time Openreach wanted to maintain their phone lines we would have to turn the cables off...
Issue lies not in London but the security/resilence of supply from power stations to the outskirts...the Great Storm of 1987 showed that as great parts of London of were left without power for many hours.
+Vincent de Guard The problem is interlinking all of them together. If one fails it's like a domino effect and can take the whole system down. The Northeast blackout of 2003 (same thing also happened on November 9, 1965) proved that when it effected 50 million people in 9 States in the US and Canada, it was the world's second most widespread blackout in history. Power was out for a week in most places, including New York.
A pretty random question I know but how much heat do those 400KV Lines create?
And do they have fire detection loops fitted throughout the tunnel?
They can create quite a bit and in one tunnel I work at we have a full water cooling system for the 400kV cables. There will be temperature monitoring, but as for fire detection, I would imagine there would be.
That's why you never see snow in London. The whole city is inadvertently heated by underground works.
The cables (prior to this tunnel, maybe not now) run under Clapham Common. One morning I walked through, and the snow had melted along the line of the cable.
Why need separate tunnels? Why not just thread wires through crossrail/underground tunnels?
It would be a maintenance and upgrade nightmare (suspending tube services to access the cables). Additionally the tube lines don't necessarily align with the substations.
Ah fair point.
You must realise the EMF from 400KV cables is immense and would adversely affect all signalling and communications equipment of the railway system. Not to mention if an accident were to happen and one of the cables were to be severed by a train with hundreds of passengers on board... Doesn't bare thinking about! :-o
what kind of 'crossrail series ' were mentioned in the beginning of the video?
+Janis Three part BBC documentary that was show last year, here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04b7h1w
+Londonist Ltd Thank you. Keep up the great work.
Londonist Ltd love your videos they are great!
What happens to the waste heat from these cables? Is it put to use heating nearby buildings, or just wasted.
L Fewell I don’t know how much best you think is generated by these cables but it’s negligible, nowhere near enough to heat buildings. Hence the reason for the higher voltage, high voltage = low current, lower current = less resistance and less resistance = less heat and losses.
I suspect the energy loss isn't actually negligible, but it would be low grade heat and difficult to harness.
Yes, the heat is captured and used to heat buildings at the substations like the telecoms rooms and switch halls :)
I came from Tom Scott
how comes hackney does not have a under groud
Every time hurricane hit the USA, they’re crying in the dark for the entire month.
WoW !!! Amazin Whats Under Us
Annnd The Sky Above
But We Can See The Sky ... !+)
Volts isn't a unit of power.
No, but it is the unit for potencial power.
+Sod Alfredsod it's not even that either. Where did you get that from?
+Sod Alfredsod You can have 5V and 1000A
I said that very poorly. Yes, electric potencial is not power, but it acts as a multipiler for power (Watt = Volt * Ampere). Higher voltages will also arc longer and pass trough more insulation as Resitance is directly tied to it.(Amperage is too but that is beside the point)
Sorry for the long comment (that is porbably even more wrong).
@@asj3419 it's referred to as "current", amps are the units of current.
I don't understand why all new power lines aren't buried underground. Above ground lines are such a liability, especially in snowy climates like mine. Just a touch of bad weather and thousands of people are without power.
+Spencer O'Dowd Much more expensive to build tunnels, that's why!
+Londonist Ltd Up front, yes. But the decades of saved maintenance costs balances it out IMO.
+Spencer O'Dowd Tunnels are *really* expensive in the first place. To the point where your break even time might be beyond the design lifetime of either option.
I wouldn't be maintenance on overhead lines is that much worse either. Tunnels can be much more expensive to maintain (especially if there's structural or water ingress issues).
Also, electricity at that voltage builds up a lot of heat, which dissipates easily from overhead lines, but from tunnels has to be extracted. Have a look at the tunnels they created for electric mountain in Snowdonia, Wales (Dinorwig Power Station).
Overhead Lines are by far cheaper in the long run, they are easier to maintain have fewer permanent faults and take days rather than weeks to repair. Tunnels are mega expensive but do allow repairs in a shorter space but at a huge initial cost. Undergrounding is very difficult to repair and also quite costly to bury in the first place. Don't forget the cables themselves are many times more expensive than the overhead lines and repairing cables is complex and time consuming. Believe me the company wouldn't choose towers over tunnels or cables (I work for them!). Replacing cables is also very expensive, whereas the overhead lines are relatively cheap in comparison. In fact there is little maintenance on overhead lines in the first place.
damn he speaks fast...
I have tried to ask National Grid about this before, but they didn't answer me. How does this project fit in with the cables that run under the regents canal, because it's either their fault or the Canal and River Trust, but the towpath is really badly maintained in places and often waterlogged... I think it would be better if TfL were to take over running the canals that run through greater London, they are after all a transport mechanism. The C&R Trust doesn't really seem to care about much else than getting fees from boaters.
The owner of the towpath is probably the C&R Trust, and National Grid will have a wayleave for access, that said, sometimes NG will buy a piece of land instead.
I wonder why the tunnels have to be so large. I know that people have to move though them, but they seems a lot bigger than they need to be.
Aids in expansion in the future, among other things. Easy to put in a new cable, hard to drill a new tunnel.
Theres an electrical reason too As cables carry current (electricity), they heat up. The more current they carry, the hotter they get. The heat disappates into its surroundings, and the faster that heat can be taken away means the cable will cool faster meaning they can carry more current. If there the tunnels are smaller, there is less air for the heat to go so the cables stays warmer and the surroundings stay faster. There will likely be some sort of air circulation system too (ie fans), but the more air you can move the faster you can shift that heat.
RoulinBrooks if they made it just the size of a man, do you fancy trying to pull countless metric tons of copper/aluminium down miles of tunnel? Lol
So why do they have to be so big? Surely they could be about 2/3 the size and still fit the cables with maintenance room - wouldn't that make it cheaper?
+The Natter Nodge Future expansion room possibly? Perhaps there's some health and safety BS which states that two people need to be able to pass eachother
+diceyface I'm no expert but it's probably a combination Even when operating at max capacity, it must be able to follow health and safety regulations
easy movement through the tunnels
+The Natter Nodge It might have more to do with the machinery used to dig the tunnels. A smaller tunneller would mean smaller parts, so more cost to make. Also a smaller tunneller would mean less earth moved per day, meaning it would cost more in wages and man power as the protect would take longer.
+The Natter Nodge i think its to do with heat, those cables need to be kept apart from each other to prevent heat build up. There are numerous vent buildings along the route to bring in cool air and expel the hot air.
What kind of accent/dialect does the guy in orange have? (I'm not a native speaker) It sounds kinda funny, but is still fairly good understandable!
+panda1384 Scottish!
alison grace Thank you!
Why does Britain love reflective jackets. So much?
Greg Koc mostly safety laws I think, I live in New York so it ain't like I'm an expert lol
Health and Safety laws, especially in "CDM" areas, (Construction, Design Management), I work for National Grid and they are shit hot on safety! They even once told us we had to wear Hi Viz in a telecoms room! I mentioned that if we had a car in there we have more problems that Hi Viz couldn't solve!!!
Eddiecurrent2000 LOL meanwhile my mom makes me put on a high visibility jacket when I'm trying to walk down the street to the store, even when there is zero traffic lol
Greg Koc Because we don’t like being crushed or hit by machinery. Crazy idea I know
yay london
All to drive Haarp weather control.
lmao here in the U.S. if you look up all you see is a bunch of power lines :)
burgerboy gaming it's like that in the rest of the uk but londons too crowded for the lines
thanks for the knowlege
burgerboy does some shit in the centre of your major cities? I doubt it
All of the UK has subterranean power, only in rural areas do we have overhead power lines now, I think Charlie Still hasn't been outdoors since the 1970's.
+Rob Fraser Having said that most of the transmission grid (225 kV and 400 kV networks) that come under the responsibility of national grid do in fact run overground around since their network mostly goes around the edges of towns and cities connecting to the local electrical distributor's substations on the outskirts of population centres it's the electrical distributors networks that are mostly bellow ground elsewhere in the country.
that you for video
Surprising that they would put 400KV lines deep under London, when London is barely above sea level. What happens if the Tsunami from that unstable island in the Atlantic comes in? They might wish the wires were high up on graceful towers.
rtel123 nothing happens. Cables are waterproof
until they develop an insulation crack, unnoticed until immersion occurs. I have worked for utilities and seen it happen.
It's not in the Atlantic ?!!
*extra high voltage power cables
joncurtis199 *super duper extra plus voltage cables
"400kV, that's a lot of power we thought" Voltage and power is not the same y'know..
+Arnþór Gíslason still allot of power though, hes not wrong
+Arnþór Gíslason yes, it is technically incorrect. But reducing the technical speak... "power" has become the term of choice when describing a feed of electricity to a specific area/installation/venue/house/etc...
EG: When there is an interruption in the electrical feed to your house you don't say "we have had an Electric Cut" or "I tried to turn my telly on and there is no voltage being applied" you say that there is a power cut!
same as you done say "I have fractured one of my phalanges!" you say you broke your finger! :)
+TornTech another url: file:///C:/Users/Michael/Downloads/bts%20flyer%20-%2012th%20dec%202013%20london%20power%20tunnels%20final.pdf
+Arnþór Gíslason No the proper term is uuumph!!!
Quick note: 400 thousand volts (kV) is a standard, national line voltage for the transmission network in the UK which runs from scotland all the way down to the south cost of england. There is also 275kV network. These networks then step down to a 132kV network, then to 33kV then 11kV before finally arriving at your plug socket in your home at 230V. The 132kV to 230V networks are run by distribution companys and generally if you have a power cut this it where it is. To confuse things more, the power ratings at all levels these can vary quite dramatically and will decrease as the voltage gets lower, but 400kV transformers can have different power ratings depending on what demand is on that bit of network. For instance you could have a 11000 volt transformer with a rating of 1000W, or 800W, or 500W - again depending network it feeds.
And yes, anyone else with some electrical sense, I did not say VA on purpose, just to keep it simple ;)
London and the United Kingdom would have similar problems to Australia or even a bigger national grid capacity problem in the future.
The cost of expansion is the biggest dead end.
Do yourself and the UK and the world a favour and look into this.
Underground tunnels are totally overlooked and underground distribution and future grid capacity.
In Australia the nuclear promoters want to stop CO2 emissions and have a no fossil fueled future.
18% of Australia’s energy was electric energy in 2021-22.
So 5 TIMES MORE ELECTRICITY is needed.
So 5 TIMES bigger national electric grid, including transmission and distribution.
The Australian grid new build is $1million per klm.
Grid is 1million klm.
New nuclear generation $2billion and 400 SMRs are needed.
Small Modular Reactors.
100years to build the existing national grid.
The UK would have similar costs.
Or more for the below ground electric supply.
This is a huge story and nobody has put the numbers together.
On top of that problem is that if the sunniest continent on the planet goes nuclear and Australia’s CO2 emissions are from the worldwide CO2 emissions then Australia will have spent a $GAZILLION an still suffering climate destabilisation.
Australia’s latitudes is the same as the Sahara Desert latitudes.
Sahrawi histoire 1976 Le Sahara occidental capital de le monde car le dernier gouvernement du mahdi el montader c'est logique pour information
Look at all that money being spent in London whilst the other towns and cities are left to wither and decay
Alan Partridge alot of money is produced in/from london so theyre more than justified in more being spent there. All the electricity infrastructure across the country that supplies the small towns and villages is constantly being upgraded and maintained, you just don't see it
But the other cities need some spending in order for them to improve their economies.
Look at the spending per person, in London it's roughly twice what it is elsewhere, that's not just infrastructure but schools as well.
Addressing the problem of the funding and development imbalance will help solve many other problems
HS2 is just the latest example, many in the north don't want it as they fear it'll suck more jobs to London, why the money was not spent on improve the time to get from Leeds to Manchester? Rather than improving the time from Leeds to London and Manchester to London?
Alan Partridge because the route to London is more in demand and serves more people therefore being more economically viable? Plus they could probably charge a bit more for going to london to help cover costs
JonnyD3ath
But it's going to push up house prices in Birmingham yet not make any more jobs there, so in effect the people of Birmingham get poorer.
It does nothing to help the local economy.
Maybe Birmingham should do what Manchester did and reinvent itself as a commercial hub instead of wallowing over closed mines and mills like most English cities do? If London has about an 8th of England's population but generates a quarter of England's revenue then they have the right to spend a quarter of the revenue, or do all the anti-socialists suddenly believe in socialism when it's them who are not getting the money someone else has earned?
London makes it, London can spend it.
makes me sad when i see pylons etc as why do people need so much electricity, and what a waste sending it such long distances, wonder how much gets lost along the way. Locally produced renewable power is the way to go. i am off grid, if i can do it anyone can.
Will Datsun mostly the increasing demands as people buy more objects, not to mention more people moving in in general
Not much is lost because it's high voltage, and unfortunately locally produced renewable power is no good for heavy industry and whilst it works for you, it doesn't work for everyone. Locally produced power isn't as efficient either as the larger machines tend to be more efficient.
Actually distribution losses are enormous, with around £1.28b of electricity lost each year in the UK.
@@LondonRider12 Yes, but transmission losses are much lower - the majority of power loss is actually in the final cabling coming into your house at 240v
why are you saying kilometres? this is England NOT europe so can you please convert to miles so we can understand the distances
1 mile = 1.6 kilometres I am also English but try my best to use metric whenever I can, it's far better. In any case I imagine the reason he used it here was that construction and science generally use metric, both to be in line with the world (where some of the parts and people came from) and because it's easier and more accurate. They teach it in school in the UK anyway, unless you are too old to get to that bit, in which case, learning is not that difficult.
The unit of measuring length in the UK is metres. Only road distances and speeds are signed in miles, but even the location markers on motorways are in metric.