Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UK National Grid Sizewell - Longannet Blackout


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Wizardman 23:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

UK National Grid Sizewell - Longannet Blackout

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quintessential WP:NOTNEWS. A pair of power stations shut down for two hours - and we have an article on it? Were there any deaths, did it gain more attention than a couple of BBC articles going "today, the power went off"? No. Ironholds (talk) 17:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete but consider putting the information in the Sizewell B article . This certainly isn't notable enough for an article in its own right, but a failure on that scale might be significant in an article about the power station itself. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 20:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, agreed on that point; I believe it's already covered, though. Ironholds (talk) 20:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In the current debate over intermittent power this is a highly significant piece of news. It HAD long been pointed out theoretically that the biggest source of intermittency on the UK Grid was a large nuclear power station, not the thousands of wind turbines that were planned, and this amply proved the point when the prediction came true. Thus this is a highly significant fact, and is referenced in many other related articles.  It would be stupid, in my opinion to remove, because people want to find out about this specific fact, therefore it needs its own article. Engineman (talk) 20:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent citing of policy and guidelines there. Is there any evidence that it is highly significant outside your statement? Has it been covered in, say, a range of academic journals? No. It's been covered, as far as I can see, by two news websites at the time, both of which covered it as "oh look, a power station has shut down", not "OMG THE POWER GRID IS INTERMITTENT IT'S COMING TRUE". If you can cite some kind of professional news source or academic that supports your assertion, do so. If you can't, make comments based on policy or guidelines, not comments based on the fact that you wrote the article, and are therefore predisposed to thinking it's important. Ironholds (talk) 20:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Article is about Britain's "worst blackouts in a decade", involving half a million people, when seven power stations stopped working within hours of each other, see . Plenty of reliable sources, highly notable event. Johnfos (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Based on the Times story it was a cutoff to a few hundred thousand people, not million, and lasted less than an hour. If this is the worst to happen in a decade, either they're very fortunate or the system is better than they think. FWIW, though, we do not need academic journals to show significance, or we'd be removing most of the articles on athletes and musicians, and similarly in most other fields.   DGG ( talk ) 04:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I simply meant for showing the significance of some fact. If you want to say something like "this was widely seen as evidence of claims that the power system was intermittent" the daily mail is really not good enough for what should, ideally, be academic claims. Ironholds (talk) 05:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The two factors that sway me to delete are: 1) There was very little coverage of this incident after the event, and 2) There does not seem to be any real scope for this to grow beyond a stub. I've now noticed that this incident is already a section in its own right in the National Grid (UK) article, and I think this is the best place for this information. In the event that enough encyclopaedic information can be found, this can always be split off into a separate article lalter. Finally, to address the the issue of people wanting to find out about this fact, they can do so in the National Grid article. It sometimes helps to create a redirect for the benefit of people looking for this information, but no-one's going to enter "UK National Grid Sizewell - Longannet Blackout" as a search term. Redirects from "Sizewell Blackout", "Longannet Blackout" or "Sizewell-Longannet Blackout would make more sense. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 11:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete for the reasons already given. This isn't comparable to the Northeast Blackouts. No one is under the illusion that power plants are immune from problems. —WWoods (talk) 17:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.