Where are the spot prices for UK gas published?

Cardew

mech wrote: »

Gas was and is cheaper than imported coal, never mind UK coal. That's why Thatcher closed the coal pits. They were uneconomical.

/quote]

I agree with most of your posts, but I would take issue with the above statement.

The miners brought down the government of Ted Heath(Maggie's predecessor) and with the railworkers and dockers held the country to ransom.

It was a calculated political decision to emasculate the miners by destroying the UK coal industry and our dependance on imported coal.

Whist gas was obviously cheaper; it was a finite reserve and it made no long term economic sense to not have coal in a portfolio of energy sources.

The rest of the world hasn't made the same mistake and world coal production has doubled over the last 25 years. Even countries with vast oil/gas reserves(including the USA) still have coal as an important energy source.

reactor_3

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:hSy2Do63yaIJ:www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmberr/1069/1069.pdf+ofgem+Initial+Findings+Report.pdf&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3


"Clearly something is wrong with the GB wholesale gas market if INEOS
ChlorVinyls, one of the UK’s biggest industrial energy consumers, would rather ship gas from abroad under a European contract, than engage directly with the domestic market."

Says it all really.

Mazio_2

mech
When I said the gas never got cheaper I meant immediately I don’t know over subsequent years so OK it might have but defiantly not straight away.


The reason coal gas was dearer was the process of extracting the gas not the actual cost of coal from UK or cheaper imported coal and natural gas is nearly already to be used, and as Cardew stated the unions were to strong.



If the government started to reinstate the coalmines again and consumers had a choice I wonder what that would do to the markets? As I have read somewhere we have 200 years worth of reserves, It would also reduce dependency on states that hate us and would have a workforce of thousands in the UK.

mech_2

Cardew wrote: »

mech wrote: »

Gas was and is cheaper than imported coal, never mind UK coal. That's why Thatcher closed the coal pits. They were uneconomical.

I agree with most of your posts, but I would take issue with the above statement.

The miners brought down the government of Ted Heath(Maggie's predecessor) and with the railworkers and dockers held the country to ransom.

It was a calculated political decision to emasculate the miners by destroying the UK coal industry and our dependance on imported coal.

They closed the most uneconomical pits first. This was an economic decision. Whatever the political situation, once the unions had been defeated, if they had been able to compete with imported coal there should have been a resurgence in the coal industry. Yet even 20 years later, with the privatised coal industry mining UK coal more efficiently than ever before, they still were loss-making, surviving on handouts. The coal gas industry had already been dismantled before Thatcher's government even came to power.

Whist gas was obviously cheaper; it was a finite reserve and it made no long term economic sense to not have coal in a portfolio of energy sources.

But we do have coal production, even now. And (a samll capacity of) new pits are being opened. But they're open-cast mines. Easily accessible coal. It's the deep mines of the type that the Thatcher government closed which are the most uneconomical. None of them will be reopened in the forseeable future because the up-front capital costs are too great.

The rest of the world hasn't made the same mistake and world coal production has doubled over the last 25 years. Even countries with vast oil/gas reserves(including the USA) still have coal as an important energy source.

Yes. But I suspect gas will displace some of that. Coal generation is quicker to build when a country is expanding rapidly (China and India), but gas is cleaner and more efficient. The efficiency of CCGTs makes gas more economical for power generation even when it's not cheaper per thermal kWh.

As for coal gas: no country uses it any more. Everywhere converted to natural gas, not just us.

Cardew

This isn't really the thread to discuss the coal industry I suppose.

However you simply cannot state "uneconomic pits" in isolation - uneconomic against what criteria?

For instance against oil at its price in the 1980s? or its current price? or its future price?

Against Gas at its price in the 1980s? ditto todays price and future price.

If you use the uneconomic argument, should Nuclear power stations have been built? Should they be built in the future?

All of the 'green' generating capacity - wind, solar, hydro was/is also uneconomic.

I specifically stated "it made no long term economic sense to not have coal in a portfolio of energy sources." as other developed countries.

The fact that we are possibly/probably now going to build new 'clean coal' generating capacity, shows the folly of Maggie Thatcher's decision to decimate the coal industry.

Whilst the 'economic' argument was put forward as the excuse, surely now 25 years later it is not in dispute that it was a politically motivated decision to smash the NUM.

P.S. I have never mentioned coal gas!