Rising fear of energy crisis in UK

wisconsin_cur · Moderator Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2974

KevO · Expert Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 2358

Peak Fear.

When will that be?

I think mine was 1998. Oct 21st in fact
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EndOfGrowth

Is there a risk of power shortages amongst domestic consumers this time?
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KevO · Expert Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 2358

IslandCrow

I am glad that the landlord my parents are renting from put in double glazing (and did other insulation work) this autumn. It won't help them much with the power cuts, but it should help them reduce their gas consumption in the face of large increases in gas prices.
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We should teach our children the 4-Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rejoice.

Eli

The UK needs to just ask Russia for some gas.

Vlad is a real nice guy he would be glad to sell you guys some. Just make sure you pay up on time, Good luck.

Seriously though this not a good situation.

Sys1 · Intermediate Crude Joined: Feb 25, 2005 Posts: 653

KevO: I never thought Santa Claus could be the perfect scapegoat for our energy crisis. Let's bomb him to save our civilization!

strider3700

KevO · Expert Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 2358

stu

We've been here before I think. Smile

I remember the same headlines circulating last year and we did come close to a crisis which got to the stage that they were cutting supplies to industry. I know in the event of a crisis industry gets cut first. After that gas fired power stations are hit next and there are rolling brownouts done on a postcode basis. If it get's worse than that when domestic heating is affected. Obviously the main priority is to keep the heating on in peoples homes.

I'm not going to say everything is ok but the politicians were right last time and the headline writers were wrong. What we need is some number crunching. Demand and supply figures for the next few months would give us a clearer picture. I think that's something I may work on in the next few weeks.

Also lets not forget the situation with nuclear power stations being shut down for maintenance.
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"The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"

PWALPOCO · Last edited by PWALPOCO on Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

*Double*
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stu · Last edited by stu on Thu Nov 08, 2007 8:32 am; edited 3 times in total

Ok.

First of all the demand side.

Below is a link to the BP statistical review for gas consumption globally.

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9017914&contentId=7033437

(Link changed)

Demand for 2006 in the UK was 8.8 bcf per day or 90.8 bcm for the year Link.Obviously higher prices have killed demand to the lowest levels since 1999.
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"The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"

stu

Have managed to find information on consumption up to the 2nd quarter in 2007.

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file41460.pdf

(page 15/60)

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 2971 Location: UK

There is a scramble to build gas turbine power plants in the UK right now, so natural gas demand will be ramping up for years to come. Our reliance on it for power generation is expected to increase significantly, from around 45% now to 60% by 2020. Obviously if at any point there is a shortfall that exceeds the ability of heavy industry to mitigate, the country has a problem.

Starvid

Swedish Energy (organisation of large energy consuming companies) are warning that we will have rolling blackouts if we'll get a "ten year winter", that is, the kind of cold we get on average every ten years.

That is, of course, unacceptable.

The reason we are in this mess is increasing Russian demand, which means no Russian power exports to Finland, which means no power exports to Sweden. At least this is what they are saying. The real reason is that we have allowed demand to get separated from supply.

Clearly, we need a few more nuclear reactors. Big ones.

The same goes for Britain.
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Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.