UK Energy Descent Continues
Posted by Chris Vernon on February 22, 2007 - 10:06pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: coal, gas, nuclear, oil, united kingdom [list all tags]
Regular readers will not be surprised by the core data, in summary:
Main points
In 2006 total production was 196.1 million tonnes of oil equivalent, 9.0 per cent lower than in 2005. Within this, production of petroleum fell by 9.3 per cent, production of Natural Gas fell by 9.1 per cent and production of coal fell by 8.3 per cent.Latest three months
Total production of indigenous primary fuels in the three months to December 2006 stood at 48.0 million tonnes of oil equivalent, 11.7 per cent lower than the corresponding period a year ago.For the three months October to December 2006 compared to the same period a year earlier:
- production of petroleum fell by 6.2 per cent;
- production of natural gas fell by 13.5 per cent;
- production of coal and other solid fuels fell by 20.7 per cent;
- electricity produced from nuclear sources fell by 24.1 per cent;
- electricity produced from wind and natural flow hydro rose by 25.7 per cent.
Source: DTI Digest of UK Energy Statistics
Consumption data below the fold.
This is due to the extended closure of several power stations due to defects in boiler pipes and aggressive cracking of the graphite cores. The reactors are approaching end of life, these problems were anticipated to a certain degree and are resulting in reduced availability. These problems do make it increasingly unlikely that life time extensions will be granted.
- electricity produced from nuclear sources fell by 24.1 per cent;
Production is of course only half the story. To complete the picture we must also consider the consumption data also published today:
Main pointsThis brings us to the familiar picture with its rapidly growing gap representing an increasing balance of payments deficit:
In 2006 total consumption was 232.9 million tonnes of oil equivalent, 0.6 per cent lower than in 2005. Within this, consumption of oil had risen by 0.8 per cent, consumption of Coal and other Solids had risen by 9.6 per cent whereas consumption of natural gas had fallen by 5.0 per cent.Latest three months
Total inland consumption of primary fuels, which includes deliveries into consumption, was 62.2 million tonnes of oil equivalent during the three months to December 2006, 2.4 per cent lower than recorded for the same period a year ago.On a temperature corrected basis, total inland consumption of primary fuels was 0.6 per cent higher during the three months to December 2006 than that recorded for the same period a year ago.
For October to December 2006 annualised temperature corrected and seasonally adjusted figures, compared to the same period a year earlier show that:
- consumption of oil had risen by 7.8 per cent;
- consumption of coal and other solid fuels had fallen by 1.3 per cent;
- consumption of natural gas remained broadly unchanged.
Source: DTI Digest of UK Energy Statistics
Previously on The Oil Drum
Fuel duty and the effect of oil prices on the UK economyThe architecture of UK offshore oil production in relation to future production models
Lies, Damned Lies and Government Oil Production Forecasts?
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This is just damned scary. The critical point in my mind is that the government apparently doesn't care to admit to the problem and is still engaging in fantasy projections. Thanks for the post.
Hello Chris Vernon,
Thxs for the keypost--doesn't look like good news. Somehow, somewhere Peakoil Outreach needs to fully permeate your society to prevent the Zimbabwe Syndrome. Be very wary of any politician who promises good times ahead-- you need a modern day Churchill to rally the forces for Biosolar Powerup. I hope that Prince Charles, who doesn't have to worry about re-election, can help lead the charge to full societal awareness and change.
Has the UK govt identified a safe place and strategy for storing the dangerous waste from the future deconstruction of those nuclear plants?
On the other hand, if Zimbabwe's Dieoff occurs real fast, so as not to totally decimate the native ecology, some Brits could migrate there later and change the name back to South Rhodesia.
Wild Speculation: Does North Rhodesia appear to be proceeding nicely to British plans? According to the CIA Factbook life expectancy is about the same as Zimbabwe.
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=8096
Does this obviously speculative and hypothetical conjecture ever come up for discussion in the UK press? I could see where postPeak Biosolar Habitats could be very beneficial to a country that plans ahead.
Obviously Chris--this is not directed at you personally--just food for thought if the UK is looking for an outlet for their Overshoot.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob,
I disagree that the UK is manifestly in population overshoot. Bear in mind that it has a temperate climate, and huge areas of fertile farmland that have been exploited largely sustainably for hundreds/thousands of years. Obviously the future is not energy-rich, probably not economically rich, but probably one of the better places on earth to survive in.
... Unless the icecaps melt of course!
Peak oil is not scary; global warming is, especially given the prospects for another Atlantis. All these decreases in energy production yet another good reason to get radical about cutting energy consumption.
Cough, splutter...
Prince Charles is one of the most prolifigate, wasteful and hypocritical subjects of Queen Elizabeth II. He has a household staff of around 80 - just to keep him comfortable. I mean, not even Lee F. Raymond, ExxonMobil's fabulously wealthy ex-CEO can match that.
Yes, I know that one of his houses, sorry palaces, is heated by wood-chips. However, there are few forests left in England and he happens to have one.
Please do not use Prince Charles, or Anthony Blair, as examples of what we should be striving for.
Perhaps the only coherent arguement for the British pound joining the Euro is that as the balance of payments goes into freefall as a result of the changes you highlight the currency will come under immense downward pressure (requiring raised interest rates to defend it). At least as part of the Euroblock the UK economies dire balanceof payments future would be shielded
Be very careful with comments like this.
Recently there was a programme on BBC2 detailing facts about the UK economy.
The total cost of ALL energy (including elec, gas, nuclear, and all oil extraction) only came to a grand total of less than 2% of GDP.
Yup, thats right, as a nation we spend more on widgets from china than ALL forms of power.
To suggest that we couldn't send between 2 - 5% of GDP overseas indefinitely would be quite naive.
Even if we had no North sea oil and gas, and the raw cost of energy doubled, we'd still be fine.
Incidentally, our BIG earner, is the finance industry. Primarily based in the city of London. Who'd have thought it. The City of London more valuable than the North sea oil & gas industry.
Andy
It doesn't matter if energy is 2%, 5%, 10% or 20% of GDP. Without energy you got no economy.
The finance industry, don't make me laugh. The UK once had a real economy, these days it got an imaginary economy based on people selling houses to each other and rich russians. One day not so far into the future the music will stop and you will be all out of chairs.
And it is you who are naive if you imagine those of us on continental Europe in the future will share our food and energy with you in return for paper with numbers printed on it.
Got gold? No that's right you don't. You sold it for half of what you could have gotten for it today.
And how viable do you think the earnings of the City of London will be in the new economy of post-Peak Oil? A huge proportion of the City's earnings come via the trade in derivatives and currencies. In a post peak world these are 2 'commodities' I don't think I fancy greatly. In the coming years which countries will be better placed, those who produce substantial amounts of their own hydrocarbons or those who's manufacturing base has collapsed below 20% and who's primary means of raising cash involves pushing near fictional amounts of money between various trading desks in the City of London?
Incidentally a very good point from Hurin regarding Brown's sale of a substantial amount of the UKs gold at almost the bottom of the gold cycle, and one that is not commented upon enough. Clueless, but then Prudence has mortgaged UK plc - just look at the Public spending deficit.
Well, AndyT, you'd better hope the UK can make it on its own.
I agree with AndyH that the UK would be well-advised to join the eurozone. But with Brown, no chance of that (best hope, a Conservative government?) I predict that by the time the UK government gets around to begging to join the Euro, they will be turned down flat. They don't have a strong case for EC solidarity, given that ever since they joined, all governments have systematically worked to weaken and undermine European efforts at integration and solidarity.
Here comes the BNP.
Banque National de Paris?
... Oh I suppose you mean British National Party. But I don't grasp your point?
Are you saying that no government will join the Euro because of thick-headed reactionary nationalism? Exactly, which is why I think they won't try till it's too late?.
I think what cynus means is that they are waiting for the alternative political parties to be thoroughly discredited so that power falls into their laps - a bit like the Weimar Republic and Hitler.
Thanks for the update Chris.
Just to add that UK’s trade deficit in 2006 went over 110 bn €. That’s the worst record for any state of the union last year and about four times that of France or Greece.
Things really don’t look good for Britain.
We need new nuclear power stations.
And we needed them 10 years ago.
I have an interesting chart from 2003 that shows total electricity provision from all sources and one of the most interesting things is that nuclear provide(ed) about 23% of all consumption despite not even being close to 23% installed capacity.
Nuclear is by far and away the best technology for base load provision.
If wind turbines can benefit from ROC's then a similar system could easily be put in place to encourage baseload power purchasing from nuclear utilities by the electricity distributing companies.
I'm also unconvinced with the govenments "hands off" no subsidies approach.
The job of govenment is to provide stategic guidance, and if necessary, funding to enable projects that are in the public interest but not necessarily the private sectors interest.
Requiring that nuclear power competes with cheap gas is all very well right up to the point that gas is no longer cheap.
Then we need something to bridge the gap between gas and new nuclear.
Some fiscal pain is required now to get new build underway so that we (like the french) will be in a much better position in 20 years time.
Andy
Nuclear is unsustainable and so is a bad option (since it merely increases dependence on unsustainable fuels), unless nuclear is used only as a stepping stone to sustainable energy production.
Tony
By your definition of sustainable, even solar power isn't sustainable cos one day the sun will implode and kill us all.
Only it will occur in a very very long time.
Likewise, nuclear power has hundreds of years worth of extractable reserves of uranium and beyond that Molten Salt thorium breeder reactors have thousands of years worth of fuel in the ground.
Thats good enough for me.
Anyone that truely believes that there is only 80 years worth of Uranium reserves left is guilt of some fairly wooly thinking (that and unquestioning belief in the report that claimed this)
Andy
Would you like to give verifiable calculations on extraction rates of uranium, over the next 80 years? Or should we build up nuclear on an assumption?
You're right that the timescales are important, in the definition of sustainable, but I think we need to be very clear that the timescales projected are real, before plunging into a course of action. I don't think any fuel with a lifetime of less than 150 years warrants consideration, considering how we've used another wonder fuel over the last 150 years.
I haven't heard of molten salt thorium breeder reactors before; how many are operating, at present?
No I wouldn't. Don't be lazy go, and look the extraction rates up for yourself.
What nonsense is this? Look around you. The entire world has been built on cheap oil. Are you suggesting that we should never have bothered with oil because it was "only" going to last 150-200 years.
And in case you hadn't noticed nuclear power stations are only good for approx 50 years of operation anyway. So if the fuel will last longer than the projected life of the power station then it would be entirely sensible to construct it.
Sheesh, I sometimes wonder why I bother commenting here.
As someone once said. "sounds like this bloke started with a conclusion and studiously avoided any facts that might have contradicted his position"
Andy
If, as Chris indicates, the current reactors are on their last legs, then a crash program to build new nuclear capacity is needed.
Probably makes more sense than massively importing electricity from France, which is the only obvious alternative. But since the new plants are likely to be owned and operated by EDF, the profits will be going back to France anyway...
Click to enlarge
Source: Nuclear Britain
However, given the problems experienced in 2006 I think this is now optimistic. For sure availability will be less than is has been and it is in my opinion likely that decommission dates for some reactors will be brought forward.
There is another alternative that is overlooked. Importing renewable power from Iceland via a HV DC line. Replace most NG fired power for the warmer half of the year and smaller amounts in the colder half.
Icelandic domestic demand is largely base load (aluminum smelting) with "other demand" winter peaking. OTOH, there are numerous summer only hydroelectric sites in Iceland (no one has done a proper survey since they are not needed) plus several GW of geothermal power. The untapped wind resource of Iceland is immense.
Landsvirkjun asked a decade ago and there was no interest in the UK for such a link. I have contacts in Iceland, any suggestions on the Scot/Brit end ?
In casual conversations with Arni Benediktsson, Head of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, I have mentioned links to the Faroe Islands, Scotland & Ireland with favorable response. A series of different size transmission lines could be built over time.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Great idea in theory. However in practice there is already a problem in utilising the available wind capacity in Scotland. There is already insufficent transmission north-south capacity which is inhibiting wind developments.
What would make sense is a HV cable running down the west coast of the UK / east coast of Ireland. Wind and tidal potential probably exceeds 70 GW down that line. The UK does not lack in renewable power potential and could in theory be a net exporter. It does lack a framework to allow for the rapid development of this potential. The Government talks but does not act, subsidies are poorly structured and targeted, red tape makes planning and permitting hugely time-consuming and significantly erodes returns for the financiers. Lastly, tidal will probably never happen because the UK seems to be incapable of delivering large scale construction and engineering projects anywhere close to projected timelines and budgets and private finance is not going to take that risk on a multi-billion project. The Channel Tunnel is the best example, and the 2015 (!) Olympics will be another.
Government needs to mandate and fund tidal development, but it won't.
That encapsulates pretty nicely the fundamental reasons the UK is in such a severe energy fix. Ideological mindset. The market knows best... Works fine in times of plenty. Hurts when times are tough, because the market forgot to plan for tough times...
True, the UK is geographically in a good position for renewables. Poor in hydro and solar, but rich in wind and wave.
Is Brown the man with a plan?
Iceland could play the hydro/Norway role with Scotland playing the wind/Danish role. In the future, power could flow north during high winds and Iceland conserves water and geosteam.
I see tidal as being a very small player in UK energy. It generates on a an almost 25 hour cycle which makes it hard to match up with load and the economics are site specific & questionable (at best).
Best Hopes,
Alan
I disagree on tidal. Around the UK there is potential for between 10 and 15 GW of installed capacity, which would generate (approximately ) twice per day on the ebb tide - there are two tides per day. Each generation cycle would last approximately 6 hours, so 12 hours per day.
Sites range from North West (Morecambe Bay, Mersey Estuary, North Wales coast (which would have to be a dike-based barrage), the Severn Estuary in the west, Guernsey/Jersey archipelago in the south, and the Thames Estuary in the south east. High tides strike at different times from west to east which would spread the generation over a slightly longer period than 6 hours.
Tide times are predictable for decades in advance and it would therefore be simple to pre-plan for load-matching. If the UK does not build new nuclear, it will need a significant baseload replacement, tidal can go part of the way to filling that gap. Icelanddic hydro could be scheduled to fill in the missing parts of the cycle under your plan.
Economics are questionable if one considers only barrage-style schemes with (maximum) 20 year private finance. However, if one considers public funding, 50 year life-span and the huge incremental value of flood risk mitigation for a number of cities (London, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff) the economics begin to stack up. I can imagine insurancve companies would be very keen investors when viewed in that light.
What is the bill to-date for damage in NOLA from hurricane Katrina? Consider the bill for London being flooded and then compare that to the cost of installing all of the above schemes for a total cost in the region of £20 billion - to me that is entering "no-brainer" territory.
Anyhow, it's moot, because no politician in the UK has the balls or the vision to centrally-mandate such development.
Tidal may produce SOME power for 12 hours/24 hour 50 minute cycle (NOT day).
The Louisiana Hydroelectric Power Plant is the closest analogy to the proposed tidal basin projects. It harnesses 1/3rd of the of the Mississippi River as it is spillied into the Atchafalaya Basin. Heads vary from (memory) 2.5 m to .9 m and the eight 9+ m Kvaerner bulb turbines generate 192 MW at max head and 60 MW at minimum. The "shoulder" hours of those 12 hours will generate 1/3rd or so of peak. Geographic diversity will help some (with adequate transmission), but value will be in energy (turning off NG turbines on a predictable schedule) and not in capacity (in part due to the ~25 hour cycle). Coupled with large pumped storage projects and the economic value of these projects will increase significantly.
Beat Hopes,
Alan
Some more colour on transmissions issues in Scotland - http://www.hbp.org.uk/bn6.htm
Sorry about late posting. Did some back of the envelope calculations regarding Alan's scheme for HVDC link between Iceland and Britain.
The numbers quoted in your link point to fixed costs of around £200k/MW plus £500/(MW*km) for HVDC sea cables. Now, as far as I can determine, the distance between Iceland and Britain is about 800 km for shortest path Iceland-Scotland and 1200 km for Iceland-England. (Icelandair gives distance of 1500 km for Glasgow-Reykjavik so perhaps I should have tried harder to find good maps).
For a 1000MW link we have thus a cost-estimate of £600m for Iceland-Scotland, £800m for Iceland-England and £950m for a 1500 km cable.
If we assume obtainable interest rates of 7% and amortization period of 25 years, wikipedia's Amortization calculator yields annual payments of: £51.5m for Iceland-Scotland, £68.65m for Iceland-England and £81.6m for 1500 km cable.
Since I have no idea what the operating costs for such a cable might be, lets just assume they are negligible and move on to the income side of the equation...
For the NorNed cable project (700MW HVDC link between Norway and the Netherlands) the technical uptime is expected to be 97.4%, with planned downtime expected to be 0.9%. For the same cable, transmission loss is 4%.
For this project lets assume a loss of 5%. This means that maximum transmission capacity is reduced from 1000MW to 950MW. A capacity factor of 90% for the cable, means annually transmitted energy is about 7.5TWh. A capacity factor of 50% means 4.16TWh/a. You also have to pay for the power you lose, which means added costs (assuming avg. purchase power price: £21/MWh) of £8.28m for 90% capacity factor and £4.6m for 50% capacity factor.
We have thus:
*For 90% capacity factor:
Iceland-Scotland: Power transmitted; 7.5TWh/a, Costs: £59.78m/a, Unit cost: £7.97/MWh.
Iceland-England: Power transmitted; 7.5TWh/a, Costs: £76.93m/a, Unit cost: £10.26/MWh.
1500 km cable: Power transmitted; 7.5TWh/a, Costs: £89.88m/a, Unit cost: £12.0/MWh.
*For 50% capacity factor:
Iceland-Scotland: Power transmitted; 4.16TWh/a, Costs: £56.1m/a, Unit cost: £13.49/MWh.
Iceland-England: Power transmitted; 4.16TWh/a, Costs: £73,25m/a, Unit cost: £17.61/MWh.
1500 km cable: Power transmitted; 4.16TWh/a, Costs: £86.2m/a, Unit cost: £20.72/MWh.
Conclusion:
The transmission costs for power between Iceland and Britain lie between: £8-12/MWh for a high (90%) utilization link, £13.5-21/MWh for a link that has only 50% utilization.
So the transmission costs alone are some 50-100% of the current price of electricity. Either Icelandic electricity generation costs would have to be 0-50% the cost of UK indigenous or the price of indigenous electricity would have to rise to make it viable. I suspect the price will rise in the UK and I also suspect the cost of generation in Iceland is considerably cheaper than the UK. I wonder how far from financial viability we are and how the economics compares to something like the Severn tidal barrage/lagoons?
In the average summer, Landsvirkjun spills (lets water through the dam without bothering to generate power) 150 MW. Generating cost for this lost power is very close to zero. The industrial price of electricity is linked to the price of aluminum (this is guaranteed 24/7 power 365 days/year), but 2 pence/kWh is a reasonable price equilavent. Summer only power would be cheaper.
Karahnjukar was originally looked at for 2 GW of peak power to Scotland, but no interest in the UK. It is being built for a steady 550-570 MW to run an Alcoa smelter instead .
I can recheck distance from East Iceland to Scottish coast (on land transmission is much cheaper if one can get the clearances). I have floated the idea of several links of different sizes, supplying the Faoroe Islands and continuing onward to Ireland from Scotland, not to England. (Use existing weak HV AC links to northern England).
In the future there can be a link between Scottish & Irish windpower on one end and Icelandic hydro, geothermal and windpower on the other.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan, thanks for your response. What I feel about all of this is that a HVDC link that is used to balance wind with hydropower would not be economic. The reason is that the capacity factor for the cable would just be to low.
I think my calculation above shows that high capacity factor is essential to achieving good economy in the project.
IMO the only way to achieve high capacity factor is to use the cable to exchange baseload. If you think about using the cable for windbalancing, then you realize that quite often the wind will be blowing moderately. If the wind is blowing moderately, the cable will be "idling", ready to deliver hydropower should wind decrease or receive windpower if the wind should increase.
If you're exchanging baseload on the other hand, you only have to change direction two times a day (or not at all). (For the NorNed cable there is a ramping limit of 30MW/minute, don't know if this applies to all such cables).
The problem with baseload is that Britain probably has little to spare, and with their cheap hydroelectric power, it remains uncertain if Iceland is interested in coal power. In such a situation, the power would flow southwards only, and the Icelanders would have to ask themselves whether they want to export the power itself or try to add value to it by refining it to aluminum. (As far as I can determine, the investment cost for a 1000MW aluminum plant is 2-3 times the cheapest cost estimate of my cable. So it's not necessarily a better idea)
You also mention the possibility of laying the link via the Faroe Islands. These islands rely heavily on oil and diesel for power generation, but they don't use that much power. I tried out my understanding of the Faroese language at the website of their power company and derived these figures:
Energy:
thermic (oil/diesel): 147,029 MWh/a
hydro: 94,387 MWh/a
wind: 7,509 MWh/a
total: 248,926 MWh/a
capacity:
thermic (oil/diesel): 68.5584 MW
hydro: 31.6 MW
wind: 2.13 MW
total: 98.92 MW
In other words less than 100 MW is required...
Best hopes for sustainable project economics,
Mriswith in Trondheim, Norway
Is the Olduvai Theory plausible? Sure looks like it.
IT'S COMING RIGHT AT US!
Chris thanks for this update.
There are two aspects to this balooning energy defecit that need to be considered:
1. Where will our energy come from? (gas from Norway, U from Canada, coal from Australia, oil from Azerbaijan?)
2. Impact of balooning energy imports on trade balance.
I see reading Luis' and Andytk's comments that there may be some different perspectives on the economic impact, so I'll refrain from commenting, but worth posting this chart that points to a $25 billion defecit per year from oil alone by 2012. Your second chart looks worrying to me and my feeling is that we (i.e. you) should do some sums on the economic impact of this trend - I'm not sure I trust the spin doctors in HM Treasury.
The $ value of UK oil exports had declined to near zero in 2005. Future oil imports will weigh on the UK trade balance. Click to enlarge.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/17/135527/399
Prudence: UK Chacelor Gordon Brown has increased taxation on UK oil producers even when faced with plumetting North Sea oil production
Michael Meacher, Labour left winger with an outspoken record on environmental and energy matters, is set to challenge Gordon Brown for the top job in the UK
http://www.epolitix.com/EN/MPWebsites/Michael+Meacher/a8268361-ba48-4cb5...
Michael Meacher announced yesterday that he would challenge Gordon Brown for the Leaders job when Tony Blair stands down, most likely in May. It may be of interest to overseas readers that in the UK system, whoever wins the contest to lead the Labour Party will automatically become Prime Minister - taking over from Tony Blair.
Just for those who don't know, Mr Meacher is peak oil literate, on record. (Google him)I can't do links. I imagine that while he is in the news there may be some discussion of peak leak into the MSM. As of now, he's extremely unlikely to win.
Here is a piece by him in the Guardian. He mentions that oil 'wont last long'.
He is that rare thing, a politition who talks some sense. Unfortunately,
he is old, ugly, and has been in politics long enough to have a few skeletons
in the closet. His chance of election is zero, as evidenced by the feedback.
He is seen variously has a hypicritical capitalist, a crank, an old Labour
socialist or a complete non-entity. Shame, really.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_meacher/2007/02/why_i_want_t...