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Post by thomas on Jul 9, 2023 8:03:58 GMT
UK still ducking the issue on gas storage
Discussions over the full reopening of Centrica’s Rough facility appear to have stalled
On the continent, the warm winter, so far, has enabled opportunistic refilling of gas storage facilities, almost unheard of in January, with record back-up levels providing comfort not just for this winter, but for next.
This is good news — but it’s notable that the UK isn’t fully taking part. The Rough offshore gas storage facility, partially reopened with great fanfare last October after its 2017 closure by owner Centrica, has been steadily withdrawing gas this year. At about 54 per cent full, on National Grid numbers, it is far from the 80 per cent-plus levels on the continent. And European storage capacity, on average, is about 25 per cent of annual consumption compared with less than 1 per cent for the UK, a situation that could easily have left the country short had the weather been harsher this winter.
Despite the hoo-ha around Rough’s revival, which even at only a fifth of its former capacity immediately became the UK’s largest gas storage site, the country still hasn’t decided what it is doing about gas storage — and doesn’t seem in any particular hurry to make that call.
Can the UK fix its gas storage problem?
The UK’s lack of gas storage leaves it vulnerable to price fluctuations, but it might be too late to intervene in time for next winter.
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Post by thomas on Jul 9, 2023 8:06:10 GMT
Inside the ‘crazy’ decisions that left Britain with no gas storage and vulnerable to Putin
A decade of ministerial failures and Whitehall complacency has squandered efforts to improve energy resilience
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Post by Pacifico on Jul 9, 2023 10:42:15 GMT
You dont need so much storage if you are cosntantly pumping it out of the ground domestically - large amounts of storage capacity are only needed when you are reliant on intermittent imported supplies. What utter garbage. Gas storage is crucial to guarenteeing security of energy supplies. If you have a constant supply why do you want to store it? - if you have too much then you turn off the taps until demand returns. This is exactly what the fracking industry in the US does when prices fall - the mothball wells until the prices rise. |
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 9, 2023 10:57:59 GMT
What utter garbage. Gas storage is crucial to guarenteeing security of energy supplies. If you have a constant supply why do you want to store it? - if you have too much then you turn off the taps until demand returns. This is exactly what the fracking industry in the US does when prices fall - the mothball wells until the prices rise. That's how coal fired power stations worked, when demand went up (Typically at breakfast & early evening) power stations would increase electricity output. When demand went down power stations reduced output. It was relitively simple quick efficient and above all reliable and cheap. It was called self sufficiency, them were the days. |
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Post by see2 on Jul 9, 2023 15:39:44 GMT
If you have a constant supply why do you want to store it? - if you have too much then you turn off the taps until demand returns. This is exactly what the fracking industry in the US does when prices fall - the mothball wells until the prices rise. That's how coal fired power stations worked, when demand went up (Typically at breakfast & early evening) power stations would increase electricity output. When demand went down power stations reduced output. It was relitively simple quick efficient and above all reliable and cheap. It was called self sufficiency, them were the days. And full of pollution. |
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 10, 2023 9:07:17 GMT
That's how coal fired power stations worked, when demand went up (Typically at breakfast & early evening) power stations would increase electricity output. When demand went down power stations reduced output. It was relitively simple quick efficient and above all reliable and cheap. It was called self sufficiency, them were the days. And full of pollution. Well no, they weren't. Pollution went up the chimney, the station wasn't full of it. But with investment and as technology improved, pollution was being reduced all the time. At great cost coal power stations in this country from the early 2000's onwards were fitting all sorts of scrubbers and flu gas desulphurisation devices* which massively reduced flue gas emissions, and the industry were spending £millions on R&D to reduce it further. But it was all thrown away, the government decided that in order to look virtuous coal power stations would close and the UK would rely on French electricity and Russian gas. What a plan that turned out to be. * In 2007 at a cost of £75 million the station I worked at bolted on an FGD plant (Flue Gas Desulphurisation) which reduced emissions by 90% and more pollution reduction plans were in the pipeline. |
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Post by dappy on Jul 10, 2023 9:44:54 GMT
Whether you think that the historic decision to phase out coal fired power stations in the UK was the right call or not (in my view it was but understand those who lost their jobs as a result may have a different view) it is largely irrelevant now. Neither they or a UK coal mining industry have any prospect of coming back.
The North Sea is increasingly being emptied and fracking was always an illusion. The only realistic prospect today for home grown energy is wind and solar (yet the Government makes onshore wind almost impossible and is discouraging solar) , energy from waste and nuclear. It may be in the future nuclear fusion becomes a reality but that is largely theoretical still. On energy security and green energy as in so many areas, the Conservatives have lost their way in the chaos of Johnson and Truss and the mess they left behind.
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 10, 2023 10:05:19 GMT
Whether you think that the historic decision to phase out coal fired power stations in the UK was the right call or not (in my view it was but understand those who lost their jobs as a result may have a different view) it is largely irrelevant now. Neither they or a UK coal mining industry have any prospect of coming back. The North Sea is increasingly being emptied and fracking was always an illusion. The only realistic prospect today for home grown energy is wind and solar (yet the Government makes onshore wind almost impossible and is discouraging solar) , energy from waste and nuclear. It may be in the future nuclear fusion becomes a reality but that is largely theoretical still. On energy security and green energy as in so many areas, the Conservatives have lost their way in the chaos of Johnson and Truss and the mess they left behind. Dappy, last year for the first time since 2013 global coal consumption was more than 8 billion tonnes. The only effect of closing UK coal power stations has been to make the UK poorer and reliant on foreign energy, it was a knee jerk virtue signalling policy that has had no effect whatsoever on global emissions. You mention shale gas, or fracking. Are you aware that just six months ago Sunak signed a deal for the US to supply the UK with ten billion cubic metres of shale gas, or is it just an illusion. Bulk gas carriers burn up to 400 tonnes of heavy fuel oil a day. Do you think it makes sense to buy shale gas and import it from thousands of miles away when we have trillions of cubic metres in the ground in this country? It's economics of the mad house. Wind and solar will never provide enough energy to satisfy demand, it's too expensive and notoriously unreliable. |
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Post by dappy on Jul 10, 2023 10:39:15 GMT
As I said not much point now in discussing whether it was the right idea to close UK coal stations although in my view it was. Done now. Can't be undone.
It would make sense to dispose of the ban on onshore wind and the frowning on onshore solar as they are the cheapest forms of energy we now have. We are shooting ourselves in the foot badly here.
you are laughably overstating UK shale gas reserves and the time delay and difficulty in extracting them. Even ignoring the environmental costs of drilling, by the time that the tiny expensive quantities came on stream , they shouldn't be needed.
In the meantime, we are importing shale gas from US. Whether the gas we need now (for an interim period) comes from shale or other forms of gas seems pretty irrelevant.
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 10, 2023 10:43:39 GMT
Scientists from the British Geological Survey (BGS) have estimated that the total volume of gas in the Bowland-Hodder shale in northern England is some 1300 trillion cubic feet (central estimate). link |
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Post by dappy on Jul 10, 2023 10:51:07 GMT
As has been explained to you before, the extractable amount of shale gas is significantly less than the gross amount there and that value has been revised down significantly since your article.
UK Shale gas is not the panacea you seem to believe it is - regardless of the environmental issues. In the UK it is largely irrelevant.
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Post by Pacifico on Jul 10, 2023 11:38:20 GMT
If it was irrelevant you wouldn't need to ban it..
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Post by Red Rackham on Jul 10, 2023 11:47:17 GMT
As has been explained to you before, the extractable amount of shale gas is significantly less than the gross amount there and that value has been revised down significantly since your article. UK Shale gas is not the panacea you seem to believe it is - regardless of the environmental issues. In the UK it is largely irrelevant. No link quelle surprise. Perhaps we're supposed to take professor Dappy's word for it. |
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Post by dappy on Jul 10, 2023 12:00:47 GMT
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Post by jonksy on Jul 10, 2023 12:32:50 GMT
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