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Author Topic: An interesting domestic fuel forecast  (Read 12965 times)

boatmadman

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An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« on: July 24, 2008, 06:25:03 am »

I work for a large British utilities company that provides domestic gas and electricity.

At a presentation yesterday, we were told that in the next 5 to 6 years the company expects to stop piping gas to domestic properties!!!!

Work out the implications and who they are for yourselves.

This is no scare story, it is a genuine prediction direct from the mouth of the head of power generation, it took all of us by surprise, and we work in the industry!

Ian
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toesupwa

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2008, 07:34:30 am »

They are going to pipe it directly to the consumer FROM Parlament then?  ::)
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tigertiger

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2008, 07:46:29 am »

They are going to pipe it directly to the consumer FROM Parlament then?  ::)

Cannot boil a kettle on hot air alone.  ::)

I wonder if the change is becuase of a wholesale mover over to nuclear energy.

Boatmadman.
Does this mean that no NEW gas mains will be laid, as opposed to loss of service.
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funtimefrankie

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2008, 08:05:44 am »

Does this mean your firm is giving up selling gas or gas will no longer be available by pipe in UK?????
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RickF

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2008, 09:14:25 am »

Doesn't bother me - I use oil for heating!





Err........ DOH!!!


Rick
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Martin (Admin)

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2008, 09:23:48 am »

Are we allowed to drill for oil / gas in our own back gardens?
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FullLeatherJacket

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2008, 09:31:41 am »

Are we allowed to drill for oil / gas in our own back gardens?


Yes - but you won't be allowed to use it (for undisclosed H&S reasons) - and you won't be able to sell it to the oil/gas company either............. HOW long have you been around, klutz??!! Anyway, why would you want another nodding donkey when there's already 640 of 'em at Westminster?
FLJ
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DickyD

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2008, 10:11:34 am »

We don't have gas in our kneck of the woods, how good is that ? :-\
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boatmadman

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2008, 11:32:16 am »

you may own your house and land, but you can bet your bottom dollar you dont own the mineral rights! So, no, you cannot extract from under your garden!

Frankie, they didnt go to that detail, but my guess is that they may stop providing for domestic use and reserve it for industrial use.

Tiger, I guess the change will mainly be due to dwindling gas reserves and a change in business priorities to reduce exposure to a predominantly gas supply business putting more emphasis on power generation. They have gone from no generation capacity to owning 7 power stations in 6 years, with a possible further expansion program, including nuclear.

Ian
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Ghost in the shell

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2008, 12:30:14 pm »

nice thing with Westminster, all the MPs spew out tons of bovine excrement  every day, and as well all know bovine excrement gives off methane! FUEL! energy crisis sorted.

as regards Nuclear power, it is the way to go. 



Edit - We're not approving of fake swearing any more.
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GaryM

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2008, 01:03:04 pm »

You do own the mineral rights to your garden - I saw a program once, the guy found oil and it made him a multi millionaire. I think his name was Ted or Tom Clampitt from Beverley Hills. ;D

Gary :)
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BobF

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2008, 01:27:44 pm »

Think it was Jed
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Shipmate60

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2008, 02:10:04 pm »

But Ellie May was certainly VERY cute to an adolescent male, yep, me!!!!

Bob
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tigertiger

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2008, 04:07:11 pm »

The mineral rights issue in the UK is different to that of Mr Clampit and family.

Unless you are from the Forest of Dean, everything under your house is owned by somebody else. Even the water. My brother in law wanted to sink a bore hole for his business, as he uses a lot of water. The water company would still charge hiim for the water he extracted, as it is the water company's water, although they would give him a discount.

Another guy planned to put a water wheel in his stream to generate electricity. The water company wanted money for that as well.

On the other matter. Politically the UK now has to play catch up with Europe on its reduction in carbon emissions (and other environmental metrics) or face heavy penalties. This may also be a major driver away from the use of fossil fuels.
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Reade Models

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #14 on: July 24, 2008, 05:30:56 pm »



And it'll be another ten years - probably a lot longer before any new nuclear stations come on line. (Even if they started building them tomorrow).

BNFL, who owned Westinghouse who had the rights package nuclear station designs sold the business to the Japanese (Toshiba I think?) around three years ago.  You have to wonder... :-X :-X

Malc


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polaris

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #15 on: July 24, 2008, 07:24:18 pm »


Dear All,

Mineral Rights are what they say, viz., any minerals that lie under your land do indeed belong to someone else, unless that is the mineral rights belong to your property - deeds will quickly confirm this. Any coal or oil/gas belongs to the State (loads of bureaucracy), with any gold requiring a Crown License (7% of the recovered worth with the latter so not bad really).

There is nothing to stop you drilling a borehole to get water, or collecting underground water in any way (viz., land drains feeding into a tank), but, with an urban residential prop., the water utility people will want to charge since what you use will still be going down their drains. Large volume extraction will attract the water utility people if they are extracting in the same way in that area or nearby.

Taking water (even if it's only a short or slight diversion), for driving a water wheel, pelton wheel, or any form of water turbine does require an extraction license.

Regards, Bernard
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malcolmfrary

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #16 on: July 24, 2008, 11:16:05 pm »

Keep an eye out for developments in heat pump technology.  A very economical way of converting electricity into warm air, but the hardware is way too expensive at the moment.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #17 on: July 24, 2008, 11:19:22 pm »

If gas supplies were to be stopped to domestic premises then millions of gas fired heating systems would need to be converted to electricity, not to mention gas cookers. Over a five year time span that is simply not going to happen.
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bigfella

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #18 on: July 24, 2008, 11:35:54 pm »

Here in the wonderfull land of Oz our new PM has said no to Nuclear Power and ran a scare campaign leading up to last years general election. Which seams a bit ridiculous as Australia has vast reserves of Uranium. The government are in the stages of setting an Emissions Trading Scheme which will see almost every thing go up in price mainly because everything has to travel by road and such long distances that the trucking firms will pass on the extra cost to the supermarkets retailers etc and eventually the consumer. The big thing is that almost all of our power comes from coal and without giving us an alternative we will be shafted with this "Carbon Tax". Thats all well and good for a nice feel good society however unless the same restrictions are implemented to those that emit the most carbons in the world what type of level playing field do we have. Australian Industries will relocate to those countries like China that don't have such carbon restrictions which equals loss of jobs. I really cant see the governments hurry to be first in with a carbon trading system (by 2010) until we see what the rest of the big emitters are going to do, it is economic suicide. >>:-( >>:-( >>:-(

Had my say, now back in my box.

Regards David
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Ghost in the shell

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #19 on: July 24, 2008, 11:42:13 pm »

and now, british Energy, who run the UK nuclear power stations has been brought by a french consortium, part of which is EDF, so the nuclear route IS promising. 

Blair you may have started something good (for once!) ,

RBMK or Magnox, hmmm :D
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GaryM

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #20 on: July 24, 2008, 11:42:57 pm »

Hi David
If your PM's said no to Nuclear power, what would be the alternative? (I'm not asking you directly, hypothetical if you know what I mean :))
Fossil fuel will run out, but when?  50, 100, 1000 years?

regards
   Gary :)
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bigfella

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #21 on: July 24, 2008, 11:55:22 pm »

Hi David
If your PM's said no to Nuclear power, what would be the alternative? (I'm not asking you directly, hypothetical if you know what I mean :))
Fossil fuel will run out, but when?  50, 100, 1000 years?

Gary

Yes I question that as well. His great scheme is either "Clean Coal Technology" which to me is an oxymoron or the good old renewable energy con such as wind farms, solar and geothermal.  He has a spin machine that goes into overdrive and makes the general population believe anything. These renewable energy sources are OK for a complementary source of power but to rely on them as your major source of power generation is a bit of a stretch.

Regards David

Added: We have a vast coal reserve in Australia and believe it or not the state of Victoria has just commissioned new coal power stations that will be fired by Brown Coal. Now I thought that was one of the major contributers of carbon.
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Ghost in the shell

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #22 on: July 24, 2008, 11:58:39 pm »

gary, in Australia, they'd probably go for solar farms in the outback.

as for UK, here are our options:

fossil fuel conventional power stations
Tidal Hydro
Valley Dam Hydro
Wind
Solar
AGT
Nuclear.

here's how they stack up:  
Fossil fuel: massive carbon footprint over 20 to 30 year lifespan, sulphur emmissions

Tidal Hydro:  dams across the Wash and Morcame bay, may affect tourism to those areas, could affect tidal activity on the coast, BUT its livable

Valley dam Gydro:  Take a river in a valley and block it, flood a few villages, displace wildlife, some endangered, hardly a vote winner as the constituants from the villages that are going to be flooded wont vote for you, clean but political suicide.

Wind: only works best out to sea, and on high peaks such as snowdonia, and sorry but the turbines are ugly and noisy, yes they're clean but they take up a lot of area to generate a small amount of power, and no wind = no power, also spinning blades have a nast habit of knocking birds out of the sky.  if winds go to high blades shut down as well to protect turbine.

Solar: when did it get sunny enough to generate megawatts in the uk?  

AGT, well we dont live anywhere near an active volcano so deep, (REALLY DEEP) boreholes are needed down to where the rocks are heated.  this could actually work.

This leaves Nuclear as the last option.  whether we build RBMK reactors or Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors, they can be put inside a mountain, so they dont spoil the local scenery, and besides, they keep their stuff inside, with little in the way of pollutants, even the RBMK has a good safety record, with the only accident being caused by miss handling of the reactor at chernobyl, not a through a  flaw in the reactor design, technicians allowed the reactor to boil dry causing it to overheat.  CO2 emmissions are very low during the running of the plant, only major problem is the nuclear waste after, and that can be reprocessed.  once its gone too far to be reprocessed, it still retains thermal energy in the waste fuel rods, so surely that can be used as well?  
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Ghost in the shell

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #23 on: July 24, 2008, 11:59:58 pm »

Geo thermal is a viable option if you live near a geological hot spot, (ideal in new zealand and iceland)
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tigertiger

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Re: An interesting domestic fuel forecast
« Reply #24 on: July 25, 2008, 02:48:46 am »

Some thoughts to throw into the melting pot.

On the subject of lignite (brown coal). Very cheap but very high in sulphur which leads to acid rain.
Orimulsion is another 'dirty' fuel. Basically an oily sludge from a bog that has been emulsified with water to mitigate some of the sulpur oxides production. They wanted to burn this in the UK in the early 90s (at Pembroke Dock and other places). I think the use was not permited.

On the subject of clean coal technology.
The main technology was FGD (flue gas de-sulphurisation). This removes sulphur from the smoke stack, but does not remove carbon emmisions. The process requires large abounts of limestone wich needs to come from quarries. So tracts of land are lost to holes in the ground (but on the upside we have somewhere for landfil), and the additional heavy lorry traffic ths will generate between the quary and the power station.
The byproduct of FGD is gypsum, but the output would be far greater than the building industry could ever consume, so we now have an added waste problem.

On the subject of Carbon Trading.
This is already a huge money industry. And it also has secondary environmental benefits.
How one effective form of carbon trading is working - A manufacturing country has carbon emmission targets, the total carbon emmited can be offset by planting trees (for example) that will soak/lock up carbon. Some countries will trade the abilily to grow trees. So for example Australia pays other countries to grow the trees for them. This is especially good if the country has a need for re-forestation, desertification, or erosion; but does not have the money for a forrestry programme.

On the subject of wind farms.
Personally I thing the turbines are graceful, beautiful and soothing to watch. Much nicer than the pylons that we don't notice day to day. Also much quieter than a section of Motorway.
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