Cooking with Corona - coping with power cuts

The effect of a power cut is often large – and can be extremely large, as we saw last year after the lightning strike – but the cause is usually damage to a comparatively small area of infrastructure. This means the number of people required to repair it isn't so enormous that we're likely to run out of workers. The weather is notoriously difficult to forecast long-term, so I guess the best anyone can say is that it's one of the less likely outcomes!

Three or four inside a plant-pot stove will boil a pan or kettle. Several plant-pot heaters containing tea lights or candles will warm a room up a bit; thick-walled terracotta pots trap and retain heat for quite a while. My granddad's large workshop was heated by one small paraffin heater surrounded by an open-topped lattice of housebricks, which worked on the same principle. The amount of convected heat was really surprising.

 

You seem to be very good at doing careful research before buying stuff, Wonko. I like that

I have a small Trangia stove with a spirit burner. I chose it because it's very compact and easy to use, and because alcohol-based fuels are usually easy to find. Also, it's what my family used to bring when we went camping etc back in the day.

https://trangia.se/en/choose_the_right_trangia_stove/

 

After spouting all this waffle about surviving the three-day week, I'll now 'fess up to the fact that our independent living co-ordinator knocked on the door on Friday to ask whether I had any plans to protect myself from the possible epidemic.

"Umm, punk rock and witchcraft?" She laughed, and I realised she was actually trying to find out whether people are beginning to feel scared by it.

I've no bloody idea, so I'm not doing anything different to usual. I'm hopeless at worrying about things I can't forecast, but I'm conscious that this doesn't help people who do worry...so I'll try and shut up.

 

Research is only any use if the researcher understands the basics, and the terminology, of the subject.

All areas have areas of assumed knowledge, that everyone involved seems to assume are obvious, that people that aren't haven't a clue about.

Without that background knowledge false conclusions can be reached, and often are.

By me.

All part of the learning process, but possibly, usually, an expensive and wasteful part.

 

Are you in a location where a power outage likely to occur ? I thought they were pretty uncommon, only stats I can find suggest that each year about 1/25th of the population are affected for an average outage duration of 50 minutes.

 

Not especially, but then I'm not in an area where the water gets cut off, very often, and yet the local supermarket is out of fancy waters (only having budget still water left - even the budget fizzy water is gone).

Oddly they had plenty of potatoes, coffee, corned beef and bread, the things they normally claim to have none of.

I've also never encountered a shortage of toilet roll, until now.

I agree it's probably not necessary, but it is only a few months since an entire section of the national grid completely failed, it is the sort of thing that literally everyone used to have, just in case, and I do quite like to eat stuff occasionally.

 

Depends where you are. So far, most of the US power grid still runs on the standard if 24/7/365, with suburbs expecting occasional localized outages due to a downed wire. While I don’t think things are as well-run as they once were - there was a massive, cascading multi-day blackout caused by pure *&$% incompetence at one utility in 2005 - electric companies here have plans for various hazards, and many are overstaffed for the normal workload. There’s more than enough staff to do routine maintenance, and US utilities have mutual aid pacts. In the US at least I’d expect the impact on your power to be exactly zero.
The US state of California appears to have dropped the always-on standard and will cut power preemptively during fire season rather than cutting down/controlling vegetation sufficient to create a non-combustible corridor under the wire. That applies with or without Wuhan virus.

UK doesn’t appear as serious about 24/7 power, from what I can tell.

 

For short power cuts you could maybe consider using a vacuum flask or two to fill up with hot drink, soup, while power on.

 

It's better here than it used to be, in the 70s, or even the 90s.

Now all I normally experience is the odd brownout - picked up more by my UPSs logging than by me noticing them.

I think the last power cut here was about 2-3 years ago and it was only 50 minutes or so - it was dark and time to start cooking dinner obviously

But my understanding is that our grid is at capacity, all the time, like our health service, meaning that anything unexpected could tip it over into a cascade failure type situation quite easily.

Built in redundancy doesn't make profits.

 

How much notice do they normally give you of power cuts, they don't tell me squat

 

They usually just happen in my experience. I spent about 3 days on my own at the caravan one year without power, so glad we had our own gas supply! I had my lovely summer cat, dear Ginger Biscuit, to keep me company though, which made it very much more bearable. At least I could boil a kettle on the hob from the gas cylinder.

We have 2 kinds of gas here now. The tall orange cylinders that feed the caravan cooker, fire, and boiler (for hot water and central heating). And short green (according to OH but he's a bit colour blind) cylinder for the barbecue, which I wouldn't want to use inside. The gas cooker won't work in a power cut, and boiler won't either. But the fire does (we know that from power cuts this winter!) and so does the gas hob.

Prob not very useful post for you, but just a few thoughts on your dilemma.

 

I think a lot of people only drink bottled water and only fill the kettle with tap water so I'm not sure I'd pay any heed of that.

Unless you're unlucky and there's a storm or something then I'm not sure there is much increased risk of power outages. Also I'm sure the folks.who look after transformers & the lines would probably be managing the situation - maybe postponing big changes /project work to ensure they have enough cover for maintenance and routine repair.

 

Is your power from a state-owned utility, regulated monopoly and just random private utility? (I don’t know that the latter actually exists).

 

That's complicated.

It used to be a state owned monopoly, then it was split into several supply companies and a distribution company.

As far as I know the distribution company is effectively still state owned, but the supply companies are now owned mainly by international companies (mainly european power companies).

..and it's more complicated than that, in that there are at least 2 levels of supply company,and there is some weird interaction apparently going on between supply and generation that allows the supply companies generation side to charge whatever it likes to the supply company (the same company other than legally), who then claim they aren't making any profit as they are paying so much for the electricity, that they make and sell to themselves.

And the regulator seems happy with it, so much so that every time they get involved my bill goes up.

 

if there is a manpower shortage, I'd like some warning.

Because of earthquake preparedness (un- in my case) I have saved gallon empty jugs and can fill them up with tap water with advance warning and add some bleach (forget the dilution but it's online...emergency disaster water something) and that will help a bit if short on the bottled water.

 

This is my perception also.

Well you would hope so, but given (istm) that the majority of people are being incredibly blasé about it because they believe it's a load of hype over something similar to flu.... I have no faith in organisations to be thoughtful & sensible enough to make such decisions.

You may know this already, & obviously unexpected outages aren't predictable anyway... but are you on your supplier's Priority Register? They have a register for people who are ill/disabled/more adversely affected by powercuts so they can notify you & supposedly prioritise getting your supply back on. You just ring them/fill in a form to go on the register. Water companies have a register too for same reason. Water company actually contacted me once - by txt i think i cant remember- to let me know of a planned water shut off, which was quite good.

 

I am on the priority register with my electricity supplier.

My local water company does provide notice, very short notice mostly, of some planned works, but 90% of the time when the water is off I have had no notice, and on a couple of these occasions it's been off for about a day (e.g. went off in the morning and back on the next morning, with no notice, and often no idea how long it will be off for.

Obviously I have a water tank but your not supposed to drink water from that - fortunately I always have several liters of water chillin in the fridge (one shelf in my fridge contains nothing but 3l water bottles).

There was an occasion where, for a planned outage, I filled the bath with cold water. I'm not sure if they advised that or if someone else suggested it.

It's a relatively rare event, half a dozen times in the time I've lived here (17 years) and mainly only a concern because I need to drink so much.

 

Sorry, what is istm?

I appreciate we all need to be concerned and to protect ourselves and the most significant risk factor is people being silly by trying to ignore it and spreading it by being idiots.

However - the utility companies and providers will all have scaleable disaster plans in place. They have to they are not just any commercial organisation and will figure as part of government disaster plans. Plans that are in place regardless of who the PM or govt de jour is. If manpower level drops and assistance is needed then they would probably call on the army.

I have worked on disaster recovery plans for certain industries & businesses. Even in big commercial organisations without the additional duty of the utility companies (i.e.don't supply direct to homes and the vulnerable), huge amounts of money and time are spent planning and testing disaster plans.

I also have an in-law who worked for many years as a linesman. This is a dangerous job - they go out in all weather, sometimes to very remote locations and have to go up poles and pylons etc. swapping out transformers and doing all sorts. They get called out at all hours, regardless of Bank Holidays etc..These guys cannot take unnecessary risks doing the job - because there is an immediate risk of death- their own, a workmate or both if they aren't careful. So, not airheads by any means.

Corona virus is serious but we aren't yet at the point where civilisation is completely crumbling. By all means, focus on making sure you can keep yourself fed and warm if you are isolated, but panic is no man's friend.

With regard to power outages - if an outage is planned then it will be possible to give warning.

 

That is grounds for a complaint to the water company. 24 hours without water and no warning isn't accept for lots of people including those with young children as well as the housebound, elderly and vulnerable.

 

From memory it wasn't 24 hours.

Filled kettle for morning brew but next time I tried to fill it no water came from kitchen tap. So probably went off 10-11am.

Supply was not on when I checked before bed, but was on when I got up the next morning.

I suspect I probably went round a friends for the day while it was off.