No sign of fazing gas out

[nod]

With Fracking set to restart 

Fazing gas out of new builds looks like window dressing 

We will probably be told that the new gas will be for commercial use 

But in reality Fossil fuel will be generating the power for our so called greener heat pumps for years to come 

[Kelvin]

There’s re-starting fracking and there’s the reality of producing enough gas at scale to make it commercially viable even at these high gas prices. In any event it won’t solve our problem as the gas will be sold at the market rate so if it’s still high then it won’t make electricity cheaper. The answer is still more investment cheap solar and wind plus better built houses and investment in improving existing houses to reduce energy demands. 

[Radian]

Founder chris cornelius says fracking won't work in the UK It's all government fluff like with hydrogen.

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, Radian said:

Founder chris cornelius says fracking won't work in the UK It's all government fluff like with hydrogen.

Was on R4 saying the same thing this morning.

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, nod said:

With Fracking set to restart 

Fazing gas out of new builds looks like window dressing 

We will probably be told that the new gas will be for commercial use 

But in reality Fossil fuel will be generating the power for our so called greener heat pumps for years to come 

Quite possibly, but some people are reducing this reliance by installing a "so called greener heat pump" and using a lot of power form the PV, and are charging an EV from the PV where possible, hopefully reducing their Fossil Fuel Footprint.... not possible from a gas boiler.

 

Not that its all plain sailing: Only recently understood about needing the fluids in the compressor in our ASHP warmed up for 12 hours on a cold day before "firing-up" the heating / hot water. How that will work if the main power has been off on a freezing day I have no idea....

 

It never ends....

[SimonD]

2 hours ago, nod said:

With Fracking set to restart 

Fazing gas out of new builds looks like window dressing

 

I've heard figure saying that the theoretical available fracked gas in the UK would only supply the equivalent of 4 years worth of UK gas demand. Seems hardly worth the risk or cost to me.

 

2 hours ago, nod said:

But in reality Fossil fuel will be generating the power for our so called greener heat pumps for years to come 

 

Unfortunately it seems that may be the case - with their 'efficiency' at least the heat pumps make up for the inefficient production of electricity using gas, but it seems an expensive and inefficient way to do it.

 

33 minutes ago, Radian said:

Founder chris cornelius says fracking won't work in the UK It's all government fluff like with hydrogen.

 

I read that. Still remarkably supportive of the overall concept of fracking but to me it came across as more of a marketing piece for new ventures, so somewhat commercially biased. The use of brine was an interesting one, but questionable in terms of its proposal for heating greenhouses etc. for agriculture rather than making proposals re phasing out of gas for heating.

 

There still does seem to be a pretty obvious vacuum in terms of short-medium-long term energy policy with nothing sensible on the horizon.

[ProDave]

This country has dug itself into a hole (though less so than the rest of Europe).  To "solve" the climate change issue, we ditched coal for power generation (which we were self sufficient in for I believe another 300 years) in favour of gas as it burns with less pollution than coal (the dash for gas)  Very laudable intention, except we did not have enough of our own gas for that.  That's okay, we will buy it on the world market, those nice Eastern bloc countries have a lot they are happy to sell to us.......

 

Now we have a problem.  That plan assumed those foreign suppliers would all remain nice cuddly friendly people.  That did not go to plan did it?

 

I don't regret buying an ASHP, we have no mains gas here anyway so it was the best option for us.  But it is not carbon neutral, not until all the electricity comes from carbon neutral sources.

 

This is the same reason I am not in a rush to get an EV.  We don't yet have enough renewable energy, so to buy an EV now in reality means instead of burning petrol or diesel in a ICE, it demands we burn more gas in power stations.  Just imagine if all ICE car owners swapped to EV's over night?

 

We are heading in the right direction, building more wind farms etc, but as the famous phrase goes "if I wanted to get to there, I would not choose to start from HERE"

[joe90]

I agree wholeheartedly with @ProDave above. I just had an “out of the box” thought, if we have enough coal for 300 years can we not use it cleanly? 🤷‍♂️, I believe solar and wind is a must fir the future but fir the dark windless times we need a backup (and I am not a fan of nuclear), just found this , clean coal??.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/clean-coal-technologies.aspx

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I just had an “out of the box” thought, if we have enough coal for 300 years can we not use it cleanly

Or not

 

https://ieefa.org/resources/carbon-capture-has-long-history-failure

[SteamyTea]

33 minutes ago, ProDave said:

but as the famous phrase goes

Q: When is the best time to build a wind turbine?

A: 20 years ago

Q:When is the second best time to build a wind turbine?

A: Today

 

 

[Kelvin]

Everyone isn’t going to swap to EVs over night so it’s a strawman argument. Even with the ban on ICE sales by 2030 (that will be pushed back I expect) it will still take many years before the majority of cars on the road are EVs. 
 

The oil and gas industry is still heavily subsidised. The renewables industry still massively under invested. Plus our building standards aren’t anywhere where they need to be. 

[RobLe]

I'm sure we've all seen this graph, but it's so good I have to stick it in  🙂

Data: grid electricity data from the Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES); projections from BEIS (2018); mains gas from BRE (2018)

[joe90]

26 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Or not

Well my thought was if cleaning coal was not affordable maybe now with rising oil/gas prices it may be! 

 

10 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

The oil and gas industry is still heavily subsidised. The renewables industry still massively under invested.

If that is true then gov needs to turn the tables.

[ProDave]

The trouble with coal, is we shut all our deep mines and allowed them to flood, I believe they are not recoverable now, so reverting to coal would have to be imported.  Australia and China have plenty, I would prefer Australia though the sea miles are greater.

 

As long as nobody comes up with another hair brained idea like DRAX.

[Kelvin]

According to the IMF global oil and gas subsidies amount to 5.9 trillion USD. The argument is that without them the cost of  oil and gas would be much higher which would drive up global inflation and disproportionately impact emerging nations. The UK Government argues it doesn’t give direct subsidies but it does give the sector tax breaks worth about £13 billion per year. 
 

None of this is easy and every decision has consequences. But there needs to be more effort put into energy use reduction per capita. Arguably high prices is a means to achieve that of course. 

[SimonD]

24 minutes ago, RobLe said:

I'm sure we've all seen this graph, but it's so good I have to stick it in  🙂

Data: grid electricity data from the Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES); projections from BEIS (2018); mains gas from BRE (2018)

 

There is definitely positive movement, yet as the late Hans Rosling, the famed Swedish physician and statistician always used to say - you've got to look beyond the numbers. If you do this, the graph you show isn't as rosy as it might seem. In 2021 solid biomass acounted for over 1/3 of all 'renewable' energy, 70% of which is used for electricity generation. This process is highly inefficient (probably dirtier than coal) and in 2018 required us to import just under 8 million tons mainly from the US and Canada. Now according to the bean counters, this is classed as a renewable source. According to more up to date research and knowledge, it isn't. In fact it's now causing an increase in carbon emissions but this part of it has been off shored, like much of our other emissions.  It also masks that we've done the easy bit in phasing out coal, for example. They've picked all the low hanging fruit. Now comes the harder work to continue the downward trajectory. This will be both more challenging and expensive.

[Carrerahill]

5 hours ago, nod said:

With Fracking set to restart 

Fazing gas out of new builds looks like window dressing 

We will probably be told that the new gas will be for commercial use 

But in reality Fossil fuel will be generating the power for our so called greener heat pumps for years to come 

Gas is really going no where any time soon and it is not actually being taken out of new builds, you can still have gas in them for cooking or a CHP for example. Basically they are making the SAP targets so strict so that it will be difficult to make a gas boiler work, however, if you loaded up on enough PV (or other renewable) you could still have a gas boiler. Things may be different in Scotland though as the inept lot that are the Scottish government make brash moves without proper consideration and consultation. 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Carrerahill