Eight years on.
Grenfell Tower to be demolished

Shocking

Please continue here. Thanks.

EIGHT YEARS on... And:

Seven organisations to be investigated over Grenfell fire
wrote:

Seven organisations criticised in wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster could be banned from bidding for public contracts, the government has said...

... The fire in the west London tower block killed 72 people in 2017. The inquiry found all their deaths were avoidable...

Have we moved onwards?

Or does passing a hot potato between seven scammers mean that none of the scammers gets 'caught out'?...


Still to be chased up?

Only in the UK??
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Watch: Chaos as MPs throw smoke grenades in Serbian Parliament

At least three Serbian MPs have been injured after opposition members threw smoke grenades during a chaotic session inside the country's parliament on Tuesday.

Politicians were seen on live television clashing with security and launching tear gas in an apparent show of support for student protestors.

Demonstrations sparked by a railway station roof collapse [EDIT: reasons still unknown: Chinese renovation; non-transparency,...] that killed 15 people four months ago have morphed into a wider movement that poses the biggest threat yet to the Serbian government.

One of the injured MPs suffered a stroke and is in a critical condition, according to the speaker. "Serbia is rising up for the regime to fall," read a banner unfurled on the chamber floor.

Trump Turnberry vandalised by pro-Palestinian group

A pro-Palestinian group has vandalised parts of Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.

Palestine Action posted photographs on social media showing red paint daubed across one of the buildings at the Ayrshire course.

The words "Gaza is not for sale" are sprayed across one green and another green appears to have been dug up.

The UK building trades have a funny way of showing their competence.
While removing cladding, identical to that used on Grenfell Tower, they fitted the windows inside-out.

Apology over inside-out windows on tower blocks

It's the "Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off" school of design. :^)

(Yes, that story is apocryphal.)

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Yesterday at 12:30 local time (METDST: UTC+0200) a blackout occured throughout Spain and Portugal; for a short time in some Basque villages in Southern France as well as in Andorra (micronation in the Pyrenees mountains at the border between ES and FR).

The blackout lasted almost 12 hours until most parts of Spain and Portugal could be reconnected to the transmission grid. Train services, subway, metro, airports, escalators, traffic lights, gaz stations, e-cash payments...; everything went out of order for hours throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

Reasons are still unknown; detailed investigation by ENTSO-E (Assoc. of Europ. transmission grid operators) is pending. At the moment the blackout started, Spains power generation exceeded domestic demand by ~30% (32 GW vs. 25 GW) which is not unusual (daytime solar peak, exports). Vast energy was exported to Portugal and France (2.7 GW to PT; 1.7 GW to FR), the remaining excess generation was stored in pumped hydros:

diagrams of generation & demand in Spain (Source: Fraunhofer ISE, Freiburg, Germany; data: ENTSO-E; in English)

Cross border physical flows for Spain (Source: Fraunhofer ISE; ENTSO-E):

There were reports about a wildfire in Southern France that affected a high-capacity 400kV AC interconnector to Spain... eventually tripping this link. The N+1 redundancy required by ENTSO-E grid rules should have prevented a chain reaction that supposedly led to grid separation and subsequent blackout. Due to supposedly oscillating grid frequency in the disconnected Spanish grid, all four active Spanish Nuclear PPs (3.3 GW) disconnected immediately from the grid. They are still disconnected almost a day later; expensive gas turbine PPs replaced them for the moment.

Apparently, something went terribly wrong with grid control or redundancy. Imagine the economic costs...

BBC: 'Everything went off': How Spain and Portugal's massive power cut unfolded

just to add...

demand & generation diagrams (in English) of the Spanish TSO Red Eléctrica de España

Shocking news... puuuh no longer shocking:

Las centrales nucleares Ascó, Vandellós, Almaraz y Cofrentes recuperan el suministro eléctrico exterior

The Spanish nuclear fleet restored grid connection for own consumption an hour (already 11hrs) ago...

It's never comfortable to know there are a couple of nukes running on Diesels if you live on the same continent and the wind often blows in your direction (see Fukushima/Japan).

Forgot if this is the main thread... This shocking killer debacle is lingering on for far too long...

See this for a very good summary and the present state of play:


The Grenfell Tower Fire: London’s High-Rise Scandal


Incredibly callous and greedy deadly.

Our building industry are all rogues and thieves, the lot of 'em??...

Sure seems that way...


Stay safe folks?
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Will it turn into a case of...
Out of sight, out of mind?