European Energy Crisis 4

[SSCon]

The energy crisis looks like it's going to develop into a full-blown catastrophe, yet there is very little media attention. For those not aware, natural gas & electricity prices are at record levels and we're only one week into the "heating season".

UK gas prices reached £4/Therm, equivalent to $54/MMBtu (no I didn't misconvert that, but I'll understand if you feel the need to double check).

Electricity prices are at astonishing levels right across Europe.

Ireland seems likely to be the first to fail as they're at the end of the gas supply chain and currently have the highest electricity prices.

This winter Europe will be at the mercy of the weather, mild & windy and it may be ok. But if it's cold, the level of disaster coming is hard to conceive.

 

[RedSnake]

Well media is talking about it here too.

High electricity prices could be even higher this autumn

Electricity prices are now historically high in southern Sweden.
So high that oil power plants have become profitable.
Prices may rise even more this autumn when the British electricity grid is connected to the Nordic grid.

"Fossil and too expensive" is a common description of the oil power plant in Karlshamn, which is usually used as a backup solution for the electricity supply. But now the power plant has been up and running already in late summer. Still fossil - but profitable to drive for owner Uniper.

- It has to do with the fact that we have a shortage situation in southern Sweden.
When the Karlshamnsverket is bid on the Nordic electricity market, it is usually the last plant.
It is an indication of the shortage situation we have, says Torbjörn Larsson, press manager at Uniper Sweden.

- Prices are historically very high, especially in southern Sweden.
Among other things, we have high continental prices.
Since then, we have also shut down planable power such as nuclear power and heating plants, which means that southern Sweden has become more dependent on imports, says Pontus de Maré, who is operations manager at Svenska Kraftnät.

Half the price in northern Sweden
If you compare the electricity prices in southern Sweden with the north in September, it was half the price in the north.
The interconnected international power lines are noticeable in the south.
There, the difference from Denmark and Germany is only four percent.

But this autumn, a new - really expensive foreign electricity market will be connected in our power lines
- the British, with almost double the price of electricity.

- It will then have an impact here in the Nordics as well, prices will then rise in Sweden and Norway, says Pontus de Maré.

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[Pud]

My energy bill has gone up 40% compared to previous supplier who has gone bust!


Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.

 

[1503-44]

My opinion is, unfortunately, they are about exactly what they should be. The prices have been depressed since 2008 due to two reasons, #1 oversupply from fracking and shale sources now starting to deplete and #2 lack of serious demand since the financial crisis and lately C19. If it wasn't for the C19 pandemia, we would have seen this last year. Alternative energy source development has also been inhibited by low fossil fuel prices, as has exploration for ever more scarce fossil reserves. Welcome to the level playing field.

This baby has been growing up in the wood pile for the last 13 years. He's tired of being ignored.

 

[davefitz]

It would seem that the instant crisis might be temporarily addressed in local towns by community heating of perhaps 10% of residences. Instead of everyone heating their houses with non existent natural gas they may elect to heat just 10% of the houses until spring or until the crisis is over. Maybe the house that has a wood stove or peat stove might be elected. And while everyone is smelling their neighbors, they can also discuss throwing out the politicians that are responsible for the mess. As undesirable as it sounds, it beats freezing to death.

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick

 

[1503-44]

The only politicians that are responsible for this (in the USA) are those that voted to allow basically unhindered export of natural gas in the form of LNG. You can see that the need for prior approval of gas export contracts was eliminated several years ago by TEXAS SENATORS Ted Cruze and John Cornyn leading the effort. You have been set up. You can easily see that US gas prices started rising with the amount of LNG exported, also coinciding with the startup of major LNG export terminals. But of course not exporting LNG would only delay the same, if not worse price increases in the domestic market by a few years at best..

 

[dik]

It will likely get worse...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

It's a lot trickier than that...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[1503-44]

Exactly. It is not a political thing by anything more than accelerating the price rise in the US by a few years. The real problem is that demand is breaching supply and supply cannot be miraculously increased any more as it has in the past. This is the pinch point date. Oct 2021. Write it down.

We seem to forget that these are the same prices we saw just before the advent of fracking and shale gas production.

 

[TugboatEng]

How is it not political when a certain political party keeps banning practices that increase production and banning permit issuance?

 

[miningman]

Sure looks like the chickens are coming home to roost...........and not just in the UK either

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/gas-prices-rise-15-no-095300595.html

 

[1503-44]

Increasing production only accelerates this problem. You'll fly ever faster into the bridge abutment. Looking for needles in haystacks is not profitable for oil companies either. Reserves have not been getting replaced for years. The only oil companies still in business are looking for "means of transition". Those mythical cities of black gold do not exist. But I know where you might find 50 KBOD on the other side of Africa. All you have to do to use it is live there. It's not yet profitable to export it. Maybe in 5yrs it will be.

If you want to talk politics, see who it was that lifted restrictions on flaring.

Chickens. More like both the gorilla and elephant are now taking their ringside seats. This is why we've been working on batteries and electric cars for awhile now. It wasn't really because everyone wanted one. Do you think.

 

[TugboatEng]

Europe could have spent the last few decades converting their conventional power over to combined cycle which is much more efficient and better suited for natural gas. But they decided to chase the climate change boogeyman instead, and here we are now.

 

[1503-44]

Is it not natural gas price increases that we are talking about???
You can't go on and on building combined cycle power plants without fuel to feed them.

When you have supply limits, the alternative is only to reduce demand, or face higher and higher prices for what you can get. End of story.

 

[TugboatEng]

Yes, combined cycle power burns substantially less natural gas to make the same amount of energy. If a region eliminates all of its conventional power plants in favor of combined cycle they could easily reduce their gas requirements by 25% or more.

We very much have the technology to cut our greenhouse gases today, but we choose not to. Instead we chase unicorns with this renewable nonsense.

 

[SSCon]

There's no crisis in the US, just a spike in prices which is not that big a deal (if prices stay at current levels for long the shale industry will be making so much profit they won't be able to resist investing/ increasing production).

In Europe, there is a very real prospect of factories being shutdown along with rolling blackouts (even worse if the grid operators don't manage it very well, Texas was minutes from disaster earlier this year).

The cause of this is the energy policies of European governments, shutting down coal/ nuclear and preferring a combinatoin of RE/ Gas.

As an example just 10 years ago over 60% of UK electricity came from reliable coal/ nuclear, now it's just 20%. A dramatic reduction in resiliance. The US is in a much more robust situation but politicians there are pursueing the same disasterous policies as Europe...

 

[1503-44]

Sure. You are right. That's why I couldn't breath in London. Bring on more coal.

As I said, this problem will visit the US. It will be delayed for a couple of years while gas companies line their pockets by increasing prices in both the export and domestic markets in the meantime.

 

[SSCon]

Due to wind/ solar there's little point building CCGTs in parts of Europe now.

CCGTs in Ireland are operating at about 33% efficiency due to performing load-following duties, little better than open cycle turbines.

Regardless, majority of baseload should be reliable plants with capability of months of storage on site. Like it used to be. Gas is only reliable in comparison to renewables.

 

[1503-44]

Well said and entirely true. When your base load is covered by gas, you don't need more. You just need to keep the fuel cheap and your potential supplies secure.

If you can't do that, more RE works just as well, if not better. With this news, there's nothing I want more than another pumped storage wind-electric power plant. And maybe an electric car.

 

[Pud]

Hope you can see this. UK energy usage and source in almost real time. Not much open cycle GT.

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.