Whats this crap about us not having enough energy generation?

Indy500

Indy500

Indy500

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http://www.energy.eu/stats/energy-natural-gas-export.html

According to these figures for natural gas, the UK is 16th in the export list, at nearly 10 billion cubic metres. Granted, I don't have any data for 2007, but did our production magically drop in one year to create all the price gouging? I don't think so.

A look at the CIA world factbook shows primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP and the natural gas production alone is 100+ billion cubic metres yearly, greater than the demand domestically.

Since most of our electricity generation is by natural gas plants (and to some extent coal and of course nuclear), I have to question just how the shortage myth became so popular. The CEOs of the energy companies are no doubt enjoying their winter revenue this year...
 
Having fuel for the short term, and having long term, sustainable, affordable base load energy is a totally different thing. Natural gas is one of the most expensive fuels for generating electricity, which is why it's only used for peak time, rather than base load generation.

Switching to natural gas full time would send electricity prices skyrocketing.
 
Is the reason we're exporting because we don't have enough storage facilities - hence it gets piped over to France and pals who store it, then sell it back to us at an inflated rate come the winter?
 
Solari said:
Is the reason we're exporting because we don't have enough storage facilities - hence it gets piped over to France and pals who store it, then sell it back to us at an inflated rate come the winter?
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That is part of the problem, yes. But it seems production has fallen drastically in the last couple of years, partly due to aging infrastructure and less than 5 years of provable reserves remaining.

According to a recent report by Centrica issued in October:

http://www.centrica.com/files/pdf/20080730_energypricesincreasing.pdf

-Gas imports increased from 15 to 27% in 2007 due to declining production and lack of storage facilities exacerbated the shortfall

-2008 will see a 40% natural gas import rate

-Prices have increased significantly since 2003 due to oil-indexed gas contracts.

-75% of the average customer's bill is due to wholesale and not production costs.

-EU markets cause both an import problem (geography causes the UK to be a less desirable market) and price flooring of exports (Norway is a significantly larger exporter than Britain and has greater leverage, while Asian countries outbid on LNG contracts).

-Coal price doubled this year and has a knock on effect due to being 34% of the total electricity generation.
 
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I think the issue here isnt the fuel, but rather the plants to burn the fuel. If the existing plants are already generating close to maximum capacity, if the demand rises, then it will be no point having fuel if you have nowhere to burn it.
 
We do export a lot simply because we don't have enough storage facilities for the natural gas. So in times of low demand, instead of storing it up we send it over to the continent (who buy it at cheap prices). This means that when we have a sustained period of high demand (perhaps a long winter) we need to export from the continent, which because it's high demand time for them too, we get charged a lot for. It's not a great situation at the moment to be honest.
 
Strife212 said:
Morons who campaign non-stop against Nuclear Power are to blame.
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Well the current totals stand at:

Gas 40%
Coal 32%
Nuclear 23%
Others 5%

The government wants 15% to be renewable energy by 2015, which is causing funding to be diverted to wind farms rather than hydrocarbon-based plants or renewing the nuclear generation base.
 
Mr.Orb said:
Its expensive and it leaves dangerous waste which can last thousands of years.
We are not morons, we are a bunch of hippies who care about our planet :p
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With modern reactor design (much of which was not researched in this country or in the USA thanks to stupid hippies) you can reuse the fuel to the point where you end up with 99% of fuel used and the amount of high level waste is absolutely tiny.

Of course, the luddites ignore such things because they refuse to even bother to research them.
 
Well National Grid is expecting a national total demand of 56GW and a margin of only 4.5GW during the first week of January. This constitutes the availability of nearly all of the UK's reliable generation. So we only have 7.5% spare capacity which is a little on the low side. We haven't built enough power stations in the last 15 years, we have waited far too late to renew our nuclear fleet, we have allowed the EU to vacillate over the Large Combustion Plant Directive for too long which has introduced market uncertainty which has delayed new fossil plant investment. Basically weak strategic leadership and a willingness to wish problems away or delay difficult decisions has left us in a dodgy position with regard to energy security.

The age of the UK's thermal powerstation fleet means we are encountering new and previously unseen failure mechanisims in old material. When a new mechanism was found in coal stations in 2006 3GW of plant had to be regimed of at various times to inspect and repair problems. Now if that happend to our AGR fleet this winter get used to living in the dark.
 
sr4470 said:
Since most of our electricity generation is by natural gas plants (and to some extent coal and of course nuclear), I have to question just how the shortage myth became so popular.
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Are you referring to oil and gas, or gas specifically?
 
Oil burning counts for an extremely low proportion of the UK's generated electricity, the fuel is just too expensive. It is however used a reserve generation for peak periods because oil fired powerstations are typically extremely flexible.
 
Mr.Orb said:
Its expensive and it leaves dangerous waste which can last thousands of years.
We are not morons, we are a bunch of hippies who care about our planet :p
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But coal and gas powered stations are the ones killing the planet, nuclear is clean! That's why I said that. :p
 
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Mr.Orb said:
Its expensive and it leaves dangerous waste which can last thousands of years.
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So? Dump it in Siberia somewhere or in some desert nobody ever goes to deep underground, if needed post a small amount of protection, done ?

I mean they exploded nukes @ Novaya Zemlya, it's a region full of fallout anyway, can't they somehow dump the waste there anyway since it's already a wasteland/proving ground ?
 
Nuclear is as safe as it can ever be, like 99.99995% safe.

It will be the way forward once they can figure out where the hell to put it with no one complaining.
 
thepeganator said:
Nuclear is as safe as it can ever be, like 99.99995% safe.

It will be the way forward once they can figure out where the hell to put it with no one complaining.
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It's already been sorted from a technical perspective, breed it and reuse it in the reactor again, rinse and repeat. The final amount of waste from that process is, comparitively, tiny.

Unfortunately, the politics, due to lots of whingers shouting very loudly while failing to understand anything about it, and blocking as much research as possible, is far behind where the technology is now.
 
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