How is UK electricity generated?

[Cudzoziemiec]

About 20 years ago, flipping channels, I caught the end of some classic BBC sitcom of the 70s. Maybe The Two Ronnies? A long time ago but also a long time after its original showing. One of the Ronnies (the little one, if indeed it was the Ronnies*) was in an office when a mystery parcel arrived, which turned out to be a calculator similar to what Wow describes, accountants for the use of.

*Makes them almost sound like a Motown girl group.

[Cudzoziemiec]

But that's got nothing to do with electricity generation. What fool introduced the subject of calculators? Oh!

(Modern TVs must also consume less electricity than their CRT ancestors, but this might be offset by the additional energy and resources used in making them and transporting them, due to their size, and the additional time we spend watching them. Which is also time we spend not doing other things with other people.)

[Kim]

Modern TVs must also consume less electricity than their CRT ancestors, but this might be offset by the additional energy and resources used in making them and transporting them, due to their size, and the additional time we spend watching them. Which is also time we spend not doing other things with other people.

Ignoring plasma as a temporary aberration (those things were basically convection heaters), for television (rather than computer monitors, which have generally remained fits-sensibly-on-your-desk size) I reckon it's a case of what LCD giveth, screen area taketh away.

Of course we spend a lot less time watching telly than we did in the CRT area, but many of the activities that have displaced it involve similar amounts of electricity consumption.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I doubt if we spend less time telly watching now. There are so many ways to watch it! Not just cable and satellite but things like Netflix and Prime. And then there are those things like Wii, which use a TV screen but aren't TV.

[sojournermike]

Back to calculators, when I was at school I had a Casio fx-39

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/113700515681?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=113700515681&targetid=910044633967&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006766&poi=&campaignid=1669190336&mkgroupid=88374263757&rlsatarget=pla-910044633967&abcId=578896&merchantid=113601272&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4r7yq6eD5wIVh63tCh0uiw1eEAQYBSABEgLRZ_D_BwE


The interesting feature, which made it dual purpose, was that it had a Vacuum Fluorescent Display. Not only can it do 'hard sums', but also you can hide under your blankets at night and read books by its gentle glow - long after your parents believe you should be asleep.

Given my -9 optical prescription, I have always encouraged my own children to keep their lights on when they want to read. As a consequence they seem to drop off much later than I do these days, but I ope they will have better vision than I had prior to my cataract replacement.

[Kim]

I doubt if we spend less time telly watching now. There are so many ways to watch it! Not just cable and satellite but things like Netflix and Prime. And then there are those things like Wii, which use a TV screen but aren't TV.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269918/daily-tv-viewing-time-in-the-uk-by-age/


I'd like to see a longer term graph.  I remember routinely watching television out of boredom as a child.  Haven't done that since The Great Our-Favourite-Teclo Dispute of 2007.  I watch plenty of video, be it films, or YouTube or even occasionally live broadcast television, but since it competes with general spodding, the Wikipedia random article button and indeed gaming, it tends to be something I'm actively choosing to watch.  It's massively easier to find something worth watching these days, but I find myself watching less and less.

OTOH, there are plenty of people, probably increasingly older demographics, who still use television^[1] as wallpaper.



_{[1] Using radio as wallpaper is obviously completely different(!) and not something the middle classes tend to get snobby about.}

[orienteer]

In my first job in the motor industry in the late 60's, the office calculator was a mains-powered device that chuntered away. If a division by zero was attempted, it went into an eternal loop. The remedy was to unplug and return to the cupboard for the next user to deal with it.

[Tim Hall]

It display was incandescent wires, each decimal place having enough wires to generate all 10 digits.

Nixie tubes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxL4ElboiuA

Jurek knows about those I think.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I doubt if we spend less time telly watching now. There are so many ways to watch it! Not just cable and satellite but things like Netflix and Prime. And then there are those things like Wii, which use a TV screen but aren't TV.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269918/daily-tv-viewing-time-in-the-uk-by-age/


I'd like to see a longer term graph. 

All I can see of that graph is a fairly level purple (might be blue to you ) line at the top and a big splodge asking me to pay "only $59 a month". I'll just take your word for it. 

[pcolbeck]

Back to calculators, when I was at school I had a Casio fx-39

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/113700515681?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=113700515681&targetid=910044633967&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006766&poi=&campaignid=1669190336&mkgroupid=88374263757&rlsatarget=pla-910044633967&abcId=578896&merchantid=113601272&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4r7yq6eD5wIVh63tCh0uiw1eEAQYBSABEgLRZ_D_BwE

That was the weapon of choice for maths when I was at school as well. We all traded in our slide rules for one of those.
For A-level maths I was bought a Sharp EL-506P which I had for about twenty years before it died.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Sharp-Calculator-EL-506P/143500736825?hash=item21694f7939:g:Dt0AAOSwDUJc~m95

[Wowbagger]

It display was incandescent wires, each decimal place having enough wires to generate all 10 digits.

Nixie tubes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxL4ElboiuA

That's them!

[rob]

I can't remember which thread it was where it was mentioned that total demand is a lot lower now, but anyway.

Peak system demand 10years ago was 59.5GW.   This Winter's looks like it is going to be sub 45GW.