Best Of

FPT

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Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

The massive gas storage facility which Conservative governments decided wasn't worth the cost of subsidising would have probably been the most cost effective mitigation.

As a I understand it the North Sea would make an excellent gas storage facility, if we hadn't drilled it so extensively. That's why Rough is unusual for being a decent UK option, neglected until 2022 and the Ukraine invasion.

Richard_Tyndall is online however so he can put me straight.

The problem is not how much we have drilled. Indeed drilling/producing a field is a pre-requisite to reduce the existing volumes/pressures in the formation so you can then use it to store gas. And the cement we use to abandon wells is, by necessity, stronger than the surrounding formations. This is my job these days, abandoning hundreds of wells across the North Sea and Denmark. As long as it is done properly then it has no impact on the storage capabilities.

The problem with the gas storage is that continualy pumping gas into and out of the formation weakens it over time. Rough has no where near the capacity it had at the start of its storage life because of this. And suprisingly the number of fields suitable for such storage are vanishingly small. I am not aware currently of any other serious contenders for gas storage in the UK sector - although some of those being looked at for CCS might be suitable. Germany generally uses salt as the storage formation for its gas reserves which is much more stable but in the North Sea the Zechstein Salts are much deeper which causes a lot of additional problems as the pressures are higher and salt under pressure acts like a fluid and flows.

I am sure there are suitable targets but successive governments over the last 40 years have not really invested in looking for or apppraising them.

The other thing is the Netherlands has oodles of gas storage capacity suitable for the purpose, so we don't need old North Sea fields, unless we start getting worried about the Dutch

Its not so much being worried about the Dutch. More that if things get really tight then there is no gaurantee that gas will head our way. For a start they have their own domestic needs (they currently have just enough stored for their needs) and after that we are simply another customer along with the whole of the rest of Europe. Bear in mind the Norwegians were planning on cutting back supplies to the UK last year as well.

The only way to have any form of security is to have our own storage capacity.

We do have other storage in the form of LNG landing tanks. The risk we would protect against with extremely expensive redundant storage is that the Dutch could break contract on - steal essentially - gas storage that we're not bothering to fill anyway. Not saying No, but we do have a lot of other necessary investments this would compete with.

I would suggest that keeping the lights on and our homes warm is pretty high on the list of priorities for any Government. Though I accept that with Miliband in charge this is by no means a certainty.

Well yes, but if they aren't using capacity they do have available in the Netherlands, incurring a very substantial capital cost for other storage again for the off chance the Dutch steal the gas they are not storing makes the investment case rather harder when it would displace other investments addressing more pressing concerns.

As RCS has intimated, that isn't the way the market works. Moreover total Dutch storage capacity, whilst far greater than the UKs, is only just sufficient to meet Dutch domestic needs. Theysimply don't have the capacity to provide anywhere near the amount of gas required by the UK in addition to their own demands and the rest of Europe. Dutch storage capacity is about 14bcm. Their own demand is about 30bcm/year and they use about 11bcm of their own storage each winter.

Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

I am in favour of stocking, but not using, coal in dual fuel gas powered electricity station

We should continue to extract from the North Sea although it's marginal given the exhaustion of supply. In principle the difference is the thin red line on this chart, although it may be more than that

https://bsky.app/profile/drsimevans.carbonbrief.org/post/3kdj4ec4lai2h

Why would we buy and stock it if never going to use it.

Strategic reserve to be used only in times of stress. I don't want coal as a regular fuel.

Having looked into this a bit more, I'm not sure this does make sense and we might be better investing in more redundant renewables and energy storage. Often there just aren't any quick and cheap fixes.

FPT

.

Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

The massive gas storage facility which Conservative governments decided wasn't worth the cost of subsidising would have probably been the most cost effective mitigation.

As a I understand it the North Sea would make an excellent gas storage facility, if we hadn't drilled it so extensively. That's why Rough is unusual for being a decent UK option, neglected until 2022 and the Ukraine invasion.

Richard_Tyndall is online however so he can put me straight.

The problem is not how much we have drilled. Indeed drilling/producing a field is a pre-requisite to reduce the existing volumes/pressures in the formation so you can then use it to store gas. And the cement we use to abandon wells is, by necessity, stronger than the surrounding formations. This is my job these days, abandoning hundreds of wells across the North Sea and Denmark. As long as it is done properly then it has no impact on the storage capabilities.

The problem with the gas storage is that continualy pumping gas into and out of the formation weakens it over time. Rough has no where near the capacity it had at the start of its storage life because of this. And suprisingly the number of fields suitable for such storage are vanishingly small. I am not aware currently of any other serious contenders for gas storage in the UK sector - although some of those being looked at for CCS might be suitable. Germany generally uses salt as the storage formation for its gas reserves which is much more stable but in the North Sea the Zechstein Salts are much deeper which causes a lot of additional problems as the pressures are higher and salt under pressure acts like a fluid and flows.

I am sure there are suitable targets but successive governments over the last 40 years have not really invested in looking for or apppraising them.

The other thing is the Netherlands has oodles of gas storage capacity suitable for the purpose, so we don't need old North Sea fields, unless we start getting worried about the Dutch

Its not so much being worried about the Dutch. More that if things get really tight then there is no gaurantee that gas will head our way. For a start they have their own domestic needs (they currently have just enough stored for their needs) and after that we are simply another customer along with the whole of the rest of Europe. Bear in mind the Norwegians were planning on cutting back supplies to the UK last year as well.

The only way to have any form of security is to have our own storage capacity.

We do have other storage in the form of LNG landing tanks. The risk we would protect against with extremely expensive redundant storage is that the Dutch could break contract on - steal essentially - gas storage that we're not bothering to fill anyway. Not saying No, but we do have a lot of other necessary investments this would compete with.

I would suggest that keeping the lights on and our homes warm is pretty high on the list of priorities for any Government. Though I accept that with Miliband in charge this is by no means a certainty.

Well yes, but if they aren't using capacity they do have available in the Netherlands, incurring a very substantial capital cost for other storage again for the off chance the Dutch steal the gas they are not storing makes the investment case rather harder when it would displace other investments addressing more pressing concerns.

There are two good solutions and storage is only one of them.

If we were generating sufficient throughput to cover our needs, and were a net exporter, then we would not need storage.

The problem is we deliberately are not doing either.

FPT

.

Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

The massive gas storage facility which Conservative governments decided wasn't worth the cost of subsidising would have probably been the most cost effective mitigation.

As a I understand it the North Sea would make an excellent gas storage facility, if we hadn't drilled it so extensively. That's why Rough is unusual for being a decent UK option, neglected until 2022 and the Ukraine invasion.

Richard_Tyndall is online however so he can put me straight.

The problem is not how much we have drilled. Indeed drilling/producing a field is a pre-requisite to reduce the existing volumes/pressures in the formation so you can then use it to store gas. And the cement we use to abandon wells is, by necessity, stronger than the surrounding formations. This is my job these days, abandoning hundreds of wells across the North Sea and Denmark. As long as it is done properly then it has no impact on the storage capabilities.

The problem with the gas storage is that continualy pumping gas into and out of the formation weakens it over time. Rough has no where near the capacity it had at the start of its storage life because of this. And suprisingly the number of fields suitable for such storage are vanishingly small. I am not aware currently of any other serious contenders for gas storage in the UK sector - although some of those being looked at for CCS might be suitable. Germany generally uses salt as the storage formation for its gas reserves which is much more stable but in the North Sea the Zechstein Salts are much deeper which causes a lot of additional problems as the pressures are higher and salt under pressure acts like a fluid and flows.

I am sure there are suitable targets but successive governments over the last 40 years have not really invested in looking for or apppraising them.

The other thing is the Netherlands has oodles of gas storage capacity suitable for the purpose, so we don't need old North Sea fields, unless we start getting worried about the Dutch

Its not so much being worried about the Dutch. More that if things get really tight then there is no gaurantee that gas will head our way. For a start they have their own domestic needs (they currently have just enough stored for their needs) and after that we are simply another customer along with the whole of the rest of Europe. Bear in mind the Norwegians were planning on cutting back supplies to the UK last year as well.

The only way to have any form of security is to have our own storage capacity.

This is particularly true because the UK power generators tend to rely on spot LNG cargoes.