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149 comments on Why UK Natural Gas Prices Will Move North of 100p/Therm This Winter
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149 comments on Why UK Natural Gas Prices Will Move North of 100p/Therm This Winter
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
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Many thanks for this Rune. You hit the nail on the head with this: As you say there are many economies functioning fine on large amounts of imported energy, it's the speed of the transition which will knock us out. Whilst North Sea oil and gas production are clearly falling away quickly, our nuclear generation is demonstrating a very similar depletion pattern:
UK nuclear output, forecast based on decommission schedule and 69% load factor. Taken from Nuclear Britain.
At least with nuclear there exists the possibility of building new nuclear infrastructure (though likely not before 2020), in contrast to highly unlikely discovery of large new indigenous hydrocarbon resources.
Thanks for the kind words Chris.
The downslope of the nuclear output in the diagram you have attached is astonishing. Good thing that nuclear only is just above 6 % of UK primary energy consumption.:(
Being aware that it takes +10 years time to have new nuclear plants in operation and bearing in mind the natural gas supply situation and that natural gas also is used for power generation, the future for UK electricity looks worrisome. I learned somewhere that UK now imports electricity from France.
Rune
Like the ancient Roman-era pottery works of the South of France, the UK is becoming increasingly specialised in the arena of 'Financial Services'. Unfortunatley when the Roman empire collapsed there was no longer any mechanism to allow the transaction of pottery and we may find that in future there is no longer any need for our specialised financial services... This is the definition of the saying 'double whammy'...
Lessons from Roman Pottery:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/04/specialization-trap.html
Nick.
There is currently a 2GW connector to France, I believe.
I have no information on their contractual obligations, as even France may not be keen to export electricity on a cold winter's day - has anyone better information?
On a brighter note, these prices for gas should make nuclear costs unchallengibly competitive, in spite of rising construction costs.
Of course, the British government has done everything possible to make it difficult to get started on a nuclear revival, as they have turned down a bid for the nuclear sites from EDF, who could undoubtedly have done the job, and now propose to have different consortium;s building at different locations, with all the waste and delay inherent in that approach.
The record time for a build is around 4 years, in the far East - it looks like our establishment intend to add a nought to that.
Chris Vernon's post downthread gives information on 'The French Connection', which shows that it is indeed 2GW, and further shows its availability during a cold winters day - for much of the time is it not available, although it does kick in again at the top peak.
In practise it may be easier to get France to build some more capacity for export near to the channel whilst we await action from our Third-World class government to order and build capacity, not to mention their ability to run them properly.
Four modern Areva twin reactor set-ups would provide around 12GW of power to the grid, and they could be built in perhaps 6 or 7 years - that would, incidentally, be more than the average hourly power projected to come from the off-shore wind build, at a fraction of the cost and a lot faster.