Gas alert as demand and prices rise

[Little John]

There will be loss in the conversion from wind to electricity as well

[johnhemming2]

The original comment compared electrical energy to source gas.

Strictly no energy is lost when a gwh of gas is burnt. It starts by turning all into heat and some electricity is extracted (best 55%) from the heated materials. it is possible to use the waste heat for heating in chp, but the original post is right in that a gwh of electricity from renewables saves burning more gwh of gas at a minimum just less than 2.

[mikepepler]

CSL has concluded that, as a reasonable and prudent operator, based upon the results of its well testing program, Rough cannot safely re-commence injection operations in the 2017/18 Storage Year.

http://188.114.118.106/sites/default/fi ... 120417.pdf

Well, that's a lot less gas available next winter!

[PS_RalphW]

There will be loss in the conversion from wind to electricity as well

That is certainly true, but the loss represents the heating effect of the turbines on the air as it passes over them. It will be quite small and not relevant to this discussion. Only a small percentage of the kinetic energy of the air is converted to electricity by the turbine, and the air flow will become turbulent to some extent downstream, but as this is an otherwise unexploited energy flow, inefficiency is an opportunity loss, not a financial or resource loss.

[johnhemming2]

There will be loss in the conversion from wind to electricity as well

That is certainly true, but the loss represents the heating effect of the turbines on the air as it passes over them. It will be quite small and not relevant to this discussion. Only a small percentage of the kinetic energy of the air is converted to electricity by the turbine, and the air flow will become turbulent to some extent downstream, but as this is an otherwise unexploited energy flow, inefficiency is an opportunity loss, not a financial or resource loss.

The original post that was criticised said:

Greater renewable electricity generation will help a bit. Every extra GWH of electricity from renewables is several GWH of natural gas not burnt and therefore remaining for later use.

This refers to "electricity from renewables" which is after any losses from the renewables which exist for all of them.

Hence Little John's misunderstanding of the original post does not make a relevant point. As it is not relevant it does not need clarification.

Adam2 makes the right point (viz that more energy does not need to be burnt) although I am not sure about "several"- sometimes several does apply, however. I am not sure that several can be a number less than 3.

[adam2]

The long range storage is now nearly empty, that is to be expected if it is to be taken out of use as seems likely.

I find it rather surprising though that the medium range storage is also emptying at a significant rate. With no long range storage I would have expected that the MRS would be filled at the maximum rate and then left full, not to be drawn on in except in an emergency.

The LNG store is also only about half full, again I would have expected a policy of keeping it nearly full.
LNG cant be filled up and left alone since gas HAS to be withdrawn at a certain rate as it boils. This is in effect a minimum withdrawal rate, but I would expect deliveries to be scheduled to make up for these unavoidable withdrawals and keep the store say 80% full.

[cubes]

You're assuming the people in charge of this have common sense (or lack the motivation to make as much £££s as possible).

[adam2]

The stock levels on the "prevailing view" website have not been displayed for nearly a week ! A cynic might think that they are trying to hide something.
A more devious cynic might think that the data is to be differently presented, in some way that is not actually dishonest, but that gives a more positive look.

EDIT TO ADD, prevailing view now working. Long range storage almost empty, medium range storage and LNG are at about the same level as before the website outage.

I remain concerned that LNG and MRS are not being filled urgently.

[adam2]

Has Rough been mended ?

Seems rather unlikely, but yesterdays figures on the prevailing view website seemed to show a modest increase in gas stored.
No change today.

I think that it is more likely that Rough has been found to contain a little more gas than was believed to be the case, and NOT that any physical gas has been actually added. Does anyone know for certain what the position is ?

LNG and MRS still look worrying low IMHO, but presumably TPTB know what they are doing.

[woodburner]

Has Rough been mended ?
................... but presumably TPTB know what they are doing.

[adam2]

Has Rough been mended ?
................... but presumably TPTB know what they are doing.

I have very little faith in elected politicians knowing what they are doing.

I have A BIT more faith in non elected engineers and technical managers in say Centrica knowing what they are doing. After all, technical people MAY have been promoted on merit.

Anyway, back to gas storage. It seems unlikely that Rough has been mended. The "one off" increase in indicated gas stocks would appear to have been a correction or re-examination of the figures rather than an actual physical increase.

Since then, gas stocks in Rough seem to be declining VERY slowly at the rate of one GWH every few days. Too slow to show on the graph.

MRS and LNG are belatedly increasing.

The middle east, is looking a bit unstable again due to the arguments between Qatar and several neighbouring nations.

[fuzzy]

That rate of decline suggests geological loss through porosity, faults, wellheads etc.

[adam2]

Yes.

[fuzzy]

Just when we thought it was looking bad, this happens:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-0 ... kade-qatar

[clv101]

Rough is dead: Britain's reliance on imported gas to jump as giant storage site axed

"With the closure of Rough, Britain loses about 70 percent of its storage capacity."