From British Blog No Hot Air

(c) F. Bruce Abel

This from the British blog No Hot Air. Replacing coal-fired with natural gas plants for baseload is seemingly inevitable, with all the shale gas now coming available. The rest is a quote from No Hot Air today:


Gazprom goes green
Interesting Bloomberg report on Gazprom wanting to push up gas supplies
- OAO Gazprom, the world’s largestnatural gas supplier, joined BP Plc’s call to replace some coal-fired power plants with natural-gas utilities to battle globalwarming. Replacing about half of Europe’s existing coal-basedgeneration with modern gas-fired combined-cycle power stationswill cut carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount as usingwind power, while costing one third of the price, Gazprom ChiefExecutive Officer Alexei Miller said, according to an e-mailedtranscript of his speech at the World Gas Conference in BuenosAires yesterday.
Fossil fuels will provide most of world’s energy needs inthe “foreseeable future,” said Miller, the head of the world’sbiggest producer of the natural gas. Gas consumption willincrease for power generation and as a transport fuel, he said. “So far, the main goal pushed forward by some politiciansamounts to nothing more than just a decrease in hydrocarbonconsumption,” according to Miller.
No comment!
Posted at 08:56 AM in LNG, Next Big Things, Shale Gas Permalink Comments (0) TrackBack (0)
No Kingsnorth coal, but more gas for Eon
News this morning that the Kingsnorth Coal generator is to be postponed to 2016. So much for the lights out in 2016 theory then.
Apart from the game changer of shale gas, we also see the paradigm shift of falling electricity demand. The drop in demand is fundamental and although accelerated by the economy, the downward trend in energy consumption operates outside of it. An economic revival won't reverse the permanent long term efficiency savings caused by the big power of lots of small things using significantly less energy than we used to.
But if the economy is so bad that we don't need the Kingsnorth power, what to make of the news that Eon is building a big new gas plant?
E.ON UK is planning to revamp the decommmsioned High Marnham coal plant in Notttinghamshire, England as a 1600 MW combined-cycle gas fired plant.
A 945 MW coal fired facility at the same site closed in 2003. To produce power in a cleaner way, says E.ON, the new gas-fired power station will use latest combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technology.
So what is it? The economy sinking Kingsnorth? An unhealthy environment for energy investment that will make Eon go elsewhere? Or Eon facing up to reality? Kingsnorth's coal capacity was 1600 MW. That isn't needed by the market but 1600MW of new gas to replace coal is? Someone isn't saying something!
Posted at 08:11 AM in Current Affairs, Prices and Politics Permalink Comments (0) TrackBack (0)
Oct 07, 2009