As the Guardian notes this morning:
A multibillion-dollar pipeline of projects aiming to ship gas around the world on giant tankers could be in jeopardy because of a collapse in the global gas market, according to a report.
A study by Global Energy Monitor has found that spending on new gas terminals needed to ship super-chilled liquified natural gas (LNG) on seaborne tankers has more than doubled in the past year, from $82.8bn (£66.3bn) to $196.1bn.
However, many of these projects risk being abandoned because of a glut of fossil fuel supply, which could cause the “gas bubble” to burst.
At one level it's simply possible to say that natural gas now joins the solid assets that Shell and BP have been forced to write down and the shale assets being written off in the USA. The total write-down comes to hundreds of billions in any currency you like (pounds, euro or dollars).
At another level this is evidence that those talking of stranded assets a decade ago - and the Green New Deal Group did - should really have been listened to. We needed investment in green energy at that time, and we got stranded assets instead.
But there's also a third level to this. That is Rishi Sunak's pathetically small response to the coming climate crisis by offering £3bn of green funding in the statement to be made tomorrow, which is utterly disproportionate to the amounts wasted in now stranded fossil fuel assets.
If only people had listened.
If only they would now.
And one day it may just be too late.
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I suppose it might be possible to adapt some of those ships to carry hydrogen. There are arguments for using Hydrogen as a fuel in some situations. It can be made from water using surplus electricity. The energy derived from hydrogen, as I recall, is very near what it takes to split it from the water, but the convenience of a gas for many purposes, makes it worthwhile.
Yes, there is a lot to be said for the potential of hydrogen, produced from electrolysis of water using renewable electricity (or fusion, if we ever get that to work) but without the need to transport the electricity through the grid (which will be challenging, if everyone switched to electric alternatives and away from gas central heating and petrol cars). Not least that in principle you could adapt the existing infrastructure used for the distribution of natural gas for domestic consumption or for vehicles, although that is not as easy as it sounds.
It is rumoured that tomorrow the European Commission will announce an industrial strategy centred on hydrogen. I imagine that the main emphasis will be on employing electrolysers to utilise renewable energy surpluses within Europe, though, rather than on shipping in from overseas.
I suspect that this will not be matched by Sunak’s announcement, also due tomorrow – despite obvious competitive advantages for the UK in offshore wind capacity and electrolyser manufacture.
It is likely that the shale “assets” in the UK will have to be written off. Over the past decade or more, we have been constantly assured that that there are immense reserves of natural gas underground over much of the country. Drilling has proceded in the Blackpool/Fylde area, North Yorkshire and Teeside, and the Weald in the South East of England, and always has been the target of protests by alliances of environmentalists and what the drilling companies might describe as local nimby groups. Many of us who have a background in geology were doubtful from the start of the economic viability of the so called shale gas resources underlying the UK. The American shale gas boom was concentrated in the Marcellus series where the rock strata are close to horizontal and little disturbed by folding andf faulting. This makes for a low cost drilling environment, with high value energy returns from comparatively low capital investment. Furthermore, the area of exploitation to the east of the Appallachisns has a low population density and large areas of unsettled land. Here in the UK, the shale deposits are locked up in beds probably much more distorted and ruptured by folding and faulting. Furthermore, the UK is far more densely populated than rural Pennsylvania, offering potential complex planning issues, narrow crowded road systems, a complex of local authorities with planning powers, and a complex property mosaic landscape. All these factors make for high investment costs. Many of us were confident that the return on investment in drilling technology from the energy potentially to be produced by exploitation of the underground gas resources would never be sufficient to justify the initial investment required. It is likely, now that the price of hydrocarbons has fallen so drastically, and seems unlikely to recover to its pre covid 19 levels, that we shall not see the continuation of exploratory fracking in this new era of hopefully green energy production.
Horrified to hear Radio 4 describe Sunak’s £3bn as ‘The Green New Deal’
Though as a small point you could prioritise the replacement of fossil fuels, so:
First to be eliminated – Brown coal (lignite) which is still widely used in Germany and Poland. By far the worst polluter.
Second to be eliminated – Coal.
Third to be eliminated – Oil except for plastics (which can be recycled thereafter), kerosene for air travel (which I don’t currently see any easy way to replace due to the energy density issue), some specialist applications such as lubricants.
Last to be eliminated – Gas.
Natural gas is by far the lowest carbon emitter out of all the fossil fuels, so you could get a quick short term carbon reduction by e.g. replacing all current brown coal power stations with gas. It would be very retrograde to stop using gas and use coal or oil instead.
Re lignite: not just Germany and Poland, but also China, Russia, the US, Australia, Turkey, Greece, Indonesia, etc.
But Germany is rapidly moving to renewables – now approaching half their electricity, and increasing year on year in leaps and bounds.
Hydrogen is actually a very poor medium for energy storage. Odourless, invisible and highly explosive so that’s a safety issue at the start. A hydrogen flame is pretty much invisible in daylight which is also a problem. However, it is the energy density and storage difficulties which are the bigger problem. If used for energy storage, it needs to be either compressed or liquified which wastes a lot of energy. Special containers are required to store compressed or liquified hydrogen as it can cause embrittlement of metals generally used in storage of gases.
It’s no surprise that hydrogen has been promoted as a green fuel by the oil companies as the vast majority of hydrogen produced to this day is generated by steam reformation of natural gas.
If you’ve got a vast surplus of energy (as would be possible with widespread use of nuclear power), then the cost of storage and inefficiency issues might not be such a problem, but we don’t have such a surplus now. There are better means of storage of excess renewable energy in my view. Battery technology is now almost at the level at which it becomes a no brainer for personal transportation. For shipping, they are now testing ships fuelled by ammonia (NH3) which can be used in ICEs or fuel cells. Probably a bit too toxic for personal transportation, however.
I’m an advocate of nuclear power (and have had disagreements with Richard about this in the past), but if renewables are going to be the source of much of our energy, we need to use the electricity produced by them more efficiently and not waste so much converting it into hydrogen. Where hydroelectric storage isn’t possible, my guess would be that pumped heat storage will be the answer as this can theoretically be built anywhere, relatively cheaply and without taking up too much space. A number of designs are in prototypes so hopefully we’ll see proof of concept rolled out before too long.
As I happens, I think nuclear has to be part of the mix too, and I am quite happy to defer to the experts on storage and distribution, but I think we are going to struggle to move everything with electric vehicles, and heat all our homes using only electricity.
Only hydrogen that is produced by the electrolysis of water, using renewable energy, is truly green. Use of green hydrogen at scale will certainly need renewable energy at scale, but we need renewable energy at scale anyway.
Battery technology is great for balancing the intermittency of renewable energy in the short term, but only hydrogen could provide the long term storage that is needed to allow, for example, surplus solar energy produced in the summer to be available to meet winter demand. It’s difficult to see, too, any alternatives to green hydrogen as a fuel for making low-carbon steel. And if, as seems likely, an integrated green hydrogen strategy as proposed by the EU results in significant cost reduction, green hydrogen would become a realistic low carbon option for ships, trains, and trucks, as well as for domestic heating.
Chris Goodall’s book, What we need to do now for a zero carbon future, is good on all this.
Ceres power is an alternative energy provider using natural gas as a power source.
Gas shouldn’t be written off but stored.
Its cheap now because of fracking but that was always a short term source.
Better building standards is the best long term answer but the building industry would prefer cheap and cheerful.
Oddly, I have spoken to a builder today (who has to be nameless: sorry) who clearly does not agree
Gas ‘pipelines’ – should really be actual pipelines.
Not giant floating ‘bombs’ with highly explosive, pressurised energy- which if one went off at say Milford Haven – would be as damaging as a atomic bomb across that marvellous Pembroke peninsular.
That aside – real pipelines are the answer and hence the geopolitical wars by the major western energy conglomerates in trying to stop them being built- Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine etc, including the agitation in Northern Europe (Trying to stop Nordstream2).
A grid of gas pipelines is the most secure method of delivering the domestic needs of people’s where they need it.
The fact that natural gas, wasted usually in oil extraction, is cheaper and nowhere as near environmentally harmful as fracking has become anathema to the old seven sisters robber barons.
Environmentalists should have been placing it at the top of their agenda for decades – but then again they also are mainly ‘western’ institutions.
For these who talk nonsense about Hydrogen – I suggest they read up on it and realise that it would not be as deadly as their basic school kid chemistry experience- there are a multitude of ways of storing and transporting it at least as safely as petrol is. And fuel cells are the future along with domestic battery technology – which would alleviate the need for the lossy electric grid and massive power stations.
Though I still prefer cooking with a gas flame for its close control. Oven baking with electric is better though.