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44 comments on A different view of the gas situation

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Magnus Redin on December 6, 2005 - 1:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
I wonder about the same thing. If an extended natural gas infrastructure in Sweden mostly for distributing Russian gas will make sense or if UK, USA, etc will outbid us. We have a small distribution network along our west coast, more or less between Malmö and Göteborg distributing Danish gas.  There is also suggestions to distribute Norwegian gas and to build an LNG terminal. The terminal is proposed to be built near Stockholm to feed an old city-gas distribution network and cogeneration plants or near Oxelösund to power a steel mill.

The gas would be used for cogeneration in combined district heating and electricity powerplants and for replacing direct electric heating, oil and propane in industry. Carbon dioxide wise it would be good since it would displace oil and free electricity and give additional electricity production that can be exported to our coal burning neighbours.

My best bet is to leave the decision to the free market. If investors can find customers and contract enough gas to pay back the investment it would be dumb to not let them build. The pipes last for a century and when the gas run out we get a ready made pipe network for storing and distributing methane from biomass. This will give the investors a "long tail" income and money for maintainance untill the day comes when it is time to replace, reline or scrap the system and recycle the steel.

A LNG terminal will probably mostly be scrap metal when tha gas runs out, but you only need to run ot for a decade or two to get a good financial return on investment.

I do not think we will get a gas distribution network thar reaches a lot of individual homes. It will mostly be pipes to powerplants, industries and gas tanking stations for cars.  Most of the densely populated areas already have district heating wich makes it much more attractive with a central gas turbine and a heat recovery boiler then running a parallell pipe network to get lower efficiency. Wonder if the large number of homeowners abroad will outbid those gas users?

I kind of hope the new piplines in Sweden will be built but with someone elses money. ;-)

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LevinK on December 7, 2005 - 1:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The pipes last for a century and when the gas run out we get a ready made pipe network for storing and distributing methane from biomass.

Where do you plan to get biogas to utilise a pipeline network designed for say 1bcf/day? Unless you are planning to say good bye to your forests in several decades better not do it. I'm sure it will start as a "sustainable" practice, but as conventional NG supplies start to drop and people start to feel the cold sustainability will be the first thing to be forgotten.

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Magnus Redin on December 7, 2005 - 5:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Why would we need to fully utilize a depreciated gas pipeline network?  The only problem I know with using it for low flowrates is the fairly large ammount of gas "stranded"  inside the pipelines to keep the pressure up.

The production of biogas methane was 1,5 TWh during 2003. One estimate of the potential methane production from farm waste is almost 17 TWh wich would cover 20% of the current car fuel needs for our population of 9 million.  

It would not be used for producing electricity or district heating, its too valuble as vehicle fuel.

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LevinK on December 7, 2005 - 6:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I am not sure if vehicle fuel is a better use then district heating - the efficiency of the latter is in the range of the 90%... Accorging to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sw.html
Sweden now consumes just about 30bcf (10 TWh) of NG annualy which is about 20 times less per capita than US. If you scale NG to half of our consumption you will need 100 TWh capacity pipelines and the biogas production will utilise some 2% of it. In general it may be a good idea to some extent but I can say I like the current Sweden energy mix better.
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44 comments on A different view of the gas situation

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