IN THE frigid opening days of 2009, Britain’s electricity demand peaked at 59 gigawatts (GW). Just over 45% of that came from power plants fuelled by gas from the North Sea. A further 35% or so came from coal, less than 15% from nuclear power and the rest from a hotch-potch of other sources. By 2015, assuming that modest economic growth resumes, a reasonable guess is that Britain will need around 64GW to cope with similar conditions. Where will that come from?If the answer is natural gas, and it seems that it must, then the UK is locking in a carbon-intensive future. Better hope that CCS works out.
North Sea gas has served Britain well, but supply peaked in 1999. Since then the flow has fallen by half; by 2015 it will have dropped by two-thirds. By 2015 four of Britain’s ten nuclear stations will have shut and no new ones could be ready for years after that. As for coal, it is fiendishly dirty: Britain will be breaking just about every green promise it has ever made if it is using anything like as much as it does today. Renewable energy sources will help, but even if the wind and waves can be harnessed (and Britain has plenty of both), these on-off forces cannot easily replace more predictable gas, nuclear and coal power. There will be a shortfall—perhaps of as much as 20GW—which, if nothing radical is done, will have to be met from imported gas. A large chunk of it may come from Vladimir Putin’s deeply unreliable and corrupt Russia.
Many of Britain’s neighbours may find this rather amusing. Britain, the only big west European country that could have joined the oil producers’ club OPEC, the country that used to lecture the world about energy liberalisation, is heading towards South African-style power cuts, with homes and factories plunged intermittently into third-world darkness.In terms of energy policy, this is almost criminal—as bad as any other planning failure in New Labour’s 12-year reign (though the opposition Tories are hardly brimming with ideas). British politicians, after all, have had 30 years to prepare for the day when the hydrocarbons beneath the North Sea run out; it is hardly a national secret that the country’s nuclear plants are old and its coal-power stations filthy. Recession has only delayed the looming energy crunch (see article). How did Britain end up in this mess?
09 August 2009
UK Energy Shortage
The emerging energy shortage in the UK should come as a surprise to no one, as it has been discussed for years. This week's Economist provides an update:
2 comments:
Dr Pielke,
IF the answer for the UK is only natural gas AND the North Sea reserves are depleting;
then surely....
dependence upon Vladimir Putin's goodwill and/or various undomocratic North African natural gas exporters
places the UK's future in the 'utterly unpredictable and hostage to the fates of unreliable sources' category of ever-increasing pain and misery ?
In this scenario of generation choices, your worst case outcome looks like my best case scenario for the Formerlly-Great Britain.
"If the answer is natural gas, and it seems that it must, then the UK is locking in a carbon-intensive future."
Roger, is natural gas as "carbon-intensive" as coal?
The rest of the Economist`s "blame the free market" for power crunches that haven`t happened yet approach is rather surprising. I do agree with the final paragraph, which you left out:
"Second, carbon must be taxed if firms are to invest in long-term, expensive, technology-heavy projects such as nuclear plants, cleaning up coal and taming renewable sources of power. Carbon is already assigned a price through the European cap-and-trade mechanism, but the system is focused on the short term, vulnerable to gaming and plagued by hugely fluctuating prices. A tax on carbon is hardly going to stop the lights going out in a few years, but it would provide a floor price for power, giving investors a clearer sense of likely profits."
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