Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Flippin Eck! RE hit 33% of generation last year, I was expecting 30%. And up from 6.9% in 2009, that's +26% in 9yrs.

Great article, loads of positive points, and of particular satisfaction for myself is that they used a ~10year graph to show how generation has changed. This is so, so important, as many articles use a 5yr graph and the nay-sayers claim that coal has been displaced by gas, something that looks semi-believable if the graph starts around 2012+. Far less believable if you add the coal and gas figures - 2009 ~71%, 2012 ~67%, 2014 ~60%, 2018 ~45%.

UK power stations' electricity output lowest since 1994

richard_harling

Good morning and happy new year

I hoping you can help me with some guidance and advice, I have been contacted by a company offering me the following service.

To supply and fit an air source heat pump to my domestic property free of charge I estimate to the value of 15k. There payment for this will be to receive the rhi payments in return, they are also offering to fit battery storage to my house which they claim will reduce my kWh price to 3-5 pence which I’m struggling to understand as I have no way of producing energy i.e. Pv panels.

For the above I have to pay 25 pounds per month for systems maintenance but also receive a reward 0f 200 pounds per year every December, my property is very expensive to run as I am all electric and this seem very attractive to me as it could save me a lot of money.

I am a energy surveyor and have been for 12 years now, I have never heard of such a scheme, I guess my question to you is Have you? I have to pay an upfront fee of 250 pounds for them to come and an initial survey.

This for me could save me a huge amount of money but I’m hoping for some guidance from you as to wether this is genuine or a scam.

Kindest regards Rich harling

pile-o-stone

richard_harling wrote: »

Good morning and happy new year

I hoping you can help me with some guidance and advice, I have been contacted by a company offering me the following service.

To supply and fit an air source heat pump to my domestic property free of charge I estimate to the value of 15k. There payment for this will be to receive the rhi payments in return, they are also offering to fit battery storage to my house which they claim will reduce my kWh price to 3-5 pence which I’m struggling to understand as I have no way of producing energy i.e. Pv panels.

For the above I have to pay 25 pounds per month for systems maintenance but also receive a reward 0f 200 pounds per year every December, my property is very expensive to run as I am all electric and this seem very attractive to me as it could save me a lot of money.

I am a energy surveyor and have been for 12 years now, I have never heard of such a scheme, I guess my question to you is Have you? I have to pay an upfront fee of 250 pounds for them to come and an initial survey.

This for me could save me a huge amount of money but I’m hoping for some guidance from you as to wether this is genuine or a scam.

Kindest regards Rich harling

Hi Rich,

You should create your own thread for this post. You'll receive more responses as this is a discussion thread on a different topic.

Martyn1981

Interesting - Greater Manchester and London will join N. Ireland, Scotland and Wales in effectively banning fracking.

For me personally, I don't see the point of wasting time on an industry that even in the US with far better economic and geological arguments for shale gas has still proven to be a financial disaster.

But, more importantly, we can't create new FF reserves, when the vast majority of known reserves can never be used/burnt as that would take us past the carbon budget for 1.5/2.0C rise. And if we allow fracking, then how do 'we' reduce/ban gas consumption in the future, when we would owe a responsibility to the new industry and its employees.

Greater Manchester tells fracking firms they are not welcome

The new policy will be announced on Monday as part of the Greater Manchester spatial framework, which sets out a strategic plan for the city region until 2037. Local leaders have agreed to include concerns about the impact of the exploitation of new sources of hydrocarbons. They believe that the government’s support of fracking means there is less of an imperative to invest in new zero-carbon technologies, slowing the speed at which these become financially viable and/or technically feasible.

Energy industry analysts have begun to question the economic feasibility of fracking in the UK. Since 2013, gas prices have fallen sharply and there is no shortage of supply in Europe or around the world. German import prices – the standard European benchmark – are half their 2013 level.

zeupater

Hi

However, from a national strategic viewpoint, the ability to develop & employ local reserves through an inevitable period of energy market price and availability instability as the transfer towards low carbon sources happens may be a really good position to adopt ... !

There are plenty of levers that the government can play with to ensure that utilising non-imported gas to directly displace imports has little effect on the timeline for decarbonising the economy, so it's not really a point to consider with a shortsighted agenda ... money that stays in the UK can support the development & implementation of further low carbon energy sources as well as efficiency measures in the UK, whilst that spent on imports is simply lost to the UK economy along with all of the potential benefits!

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

However, from a national strategic viewpoint, the ability to develop & employ local reserves through an inevitable period of energy market price and availability instability as the transfer towards low carbon sources happens may be a really good position to adopt ... !

There are plenty of levers that the government can play with to ensure that utilising non-imported gas to directly displace imports has little effect on the timeline for decarbonising the economy, so it's not really a point to consider with a shortsighted agenda ... money that stays in the UK can support the development & implementation of further low carbon energy sources as well as efficiency measures in the UK, whilst that spent on imports is simply lost to the UK economy along with all of the potential benefits!

HTH
Z

Yes, as far as I can see, the only valid defence now for UK fracking is a balance of payments argument, but I'd suggest that reducing nat-gas demand at a faster rate through the development of insulation policies, house building standards/regs, bio-gas production and RE leccy + heat pump deployment is a better solution, than both importing frackgas, or starting up a UK frackgas industry.

The problem with any policies based on nat-gas is that whilst it's a positive move from coal, it's still too high in CO2 to meet long term targets, so we have to move away from nat-gas anyway - bite the bullet eventually.

[Edit - I should have pointed something out - conventional gas production, such as that we pipe in from Norway is lower in GHG emissions than frackgas. Approx numbers are:
conventional gas 210gCO2e/kWh. Shale gas will be a little over 250, and LNG (imported frackgas) around 280. So on a GHG based argument, we want to get rid of imported and national frackgas first, then reduce imports of conventional nat-gas. Currently LNG makes up about 10% of our gas supply. M.]

If we really wanted to keep UK money in the UK, then cancelling HPC would prevent the export of £45bn in subsidies to the French and Chinese governments, since they are the investors/owners.

zeupater

Hi

Yes, but the issue that needs to be addressed is more related to what happens to global supply & pricing as disruptive technologies start to impact the energy sector.

Not everyone in every energy consuming part of the world will be willing or able to transition to low carbon energy as quickly as ourselves and the demand for energy in developing countries will continue to increase leaving the extraction industry with a quandary ... invest heavily for sales to low margin markets -or- leverage existing known reserves and let supply/demand drive both pricing and margins higher throughout the transition period.

It doesn't take much imagination to predict that in a time of change there will be considerable attention paid to political economic influence, both from industry sectors and various country national interests, so the question revolves around having taken a decision to base the UK's backup electricity supply strategy on gas whilst the majority of heating also uses gas then should there also be a supporting strategy to ensure that supply can be guaranteed or just niavely assume that everything will be okay? ... with the potential economic impact combined with a real possibility of threat to life (vulnerable heating etc) then no government could look to not mitigate risk ... fracking simply becomes inevitable no matter how many myopic protest groups complain!

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

fracking simply becomes inevitable no matter how many myopic protest groups complain!

HTH
Z

Not if it's a higher GHG than alternative sources of nat-gas.
Not if the industry simply isn't viable (economically) in the UK.
Not if we can simply reduce nat-gas demand enough to eliminate the frackgas/LNG top up, especially as that costs more than 'cheap' Norwegian gas.
Not if we develop (or re-introduce) larger gas storage in the UK to meet fluctuations in demand, our storage is quite small.
Not if we develop H2/ammonia/bio-methane as a storage medium for excess RE generation that short term storage (batts, PHS etc) can't cope with, anyway.
Not if Ecotricity are correct and bio-methane from grass can be produced - zero CO2 (short term carbon cycle) gas will always be preferable to long term carbon cycle FF gas.
Not if fugitive methane leaks from fracking wells are even half as bad as is being noted (uncovered) in the US.
Not if the risk of pollution from poor quality (cheap) casings is taken seriously.

Not, if we are serious about meeting long term CO2 reductions, which simply doesn't allow for us to find any ways (temporary or otherwise) to carry on carrying on with nat-gas.

But before we even need to consider any of this, we still face the problem/likelihood that fracking in the UK is simply not viable. I'm all in favour of investing in new ideas and technologies if there's a chance of success. But at the very best 'success' here is really just a failure to bite the bullet, and a way to lengthen our dependence on nat-gas.

michaels

I have to side with Zeup on this one.

UK nat gas production is never going to be big enough to impact on world (and therefore UK) natural gas prices so the same price signal will be sent whether the UK produces natural gas via fracking or not. Given that UK produced NG is good for the economy and the exchequer which provides more funds to support decarbonisation through initiatives such as govt grants to improve insulation.

I guess the only counter argument is that if an employment providing sector starts to decline as economics changes there is often a political incentive for subsidies to be used to cushion the declining industry rather than to support the employees to move to new sectors - this didn't happen with UK coal but is happening for example in Poland.

This is more about poor policy than the GW impact of UK fracking.

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Not if it's a higher GHG than alternative sources of nat-gas.
Not if the industry simply isn't viable (economically) in the UK.
Not if we can simply reduce nat-gas demand enough to eliminate the frackgas/LNG top up, especially as that costs more than 'cheap' Norwegian gas.
Not if we develop (or re-introduce) larger gas storage in the UK to meet fluctuations in demand, our storage is quite small.
Not if we develop H2/ammonia/bio-methane as a storage medium for excess RE generation that short term storage (batts, PHS etc) can't cope with, anyway.
Not if Ecotricity are correct and bio-methane from grass can be produced - zero CO2 (short term carbon cycle) gas will always be preferable to long term carbon cycle FF gas.
Not if fugitive methane leaks from fracking wells are even half as bad as is being noted (uncovered) in the US.
Not if the risk of pollution from poor quality (cheap) casings is taken seriously.

Not, if we are serious about meeting long term CO2 reductions, which simply doesn't allow for us to find any ways (temporary or otherwise) to carry on carrying on with nat-gas.

But before we even need to consider any of this, we still face the problem/likelihood that fracking in the UK is simply not viable. I'm all in favour of investing in new ideas and technologies if there's a chance of success. But at the very best 'success' here is really just a failure to bite the bullet, and a way to lengthen our dependence on nat-gas.

Hi

In Utopia I'd certainly agree, however, if the full scale delivery of the above is impossible within something close to the next 10 years then things will start to become a little sticky, especially so when other developed economies turn to gas as a backup source of generation for their own renewables, in which case there would be a period of considerable competition to source supplies ... just think of the effect of displacing coal generation in central/eastern Europe with renewables & gas and the impact this would have on Norway's ability to maintain supply to the UK at anywhere near current levels/costs in open market conditions.

In order to ensure that the UK is able to successfully transition to a low carbon economy at the same time that so many other countries are doing the same it would be extremely foolish, bordering on criminally irresponsible, to not ensure that the country has a transition plan which provides a level of assurance that it will work without massively disruptive consequences. The only reasonable form of mitigation that can form a sound contingency plan is to explore and develop UK reserves to bridge the transition period before all of the technologies you raise can be developed & fully implemented ...

Taking a gamble that there'll be no energy supply issues and therefore no requirement to explore the possibility of utilising UK gas reserves only to find that it was a mistake at sometime down the line would create a situation which would be far more disruptive to the country's decarbonisation timeline and ultimately far more costly in terms of monetary & environmental impact than having a deliverable plan.

Regarding the relative GHG of various gas sources ... I find this interesting ... <link> ... however, unless someone is allowed to explore the quality of the shale gas reserves that exist, nobody would be able to assess what the relative average properties would be - at the moment it's little more than guesswork!

HTH
Z