Back to the future

I have just read that renewable energy sources within the EU during 2009 made up over 60% of the total new electricity generation capacity. Apparently the report called Renewable Energy Snapshots and published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre also showed that the total electricity consumption across the 27 member states was 3042TWh of which almost 20% came from renewables.


While this is encouraging we have to realise that the biggest share was hydropower at 11.6%. Unfortunately the capital investment for large hydropower projects is huge and the environmental impact can be considerable. So is the future for large hydropower schemes likely to be using wave energy and strong currents rather than the huge complex schemes that have been put forward in the past like the Severn Estuary Barrage? Well there are some quite promising if challenging projects at the moment in the UK; I think the best example of an innovative and low environmental impact solution is the marine current generator by SeaGen. This is currently the only commercially viable and operating marine current generator in the world and produces 10MWh per tide in to the UK national grid. SeaGen have another project planned for constructing marine current turbines off Anglesey in an area called the Skerries; that will produce 10.5MWh per tide. Incidentally before we leave the subject of the Severn Barrier you might be interested in the ideas put forward by Evans Engineering for an alternative construction which would be a lower “reef” barrier with more turbines which would operate at lower speeds that in the shorter barrage proposal. A number of non government agencies commissioned engineering consultants to comment on these projects and it seems that this was more acceptable than the barrage scheme. Why is it not going ahead, I guess it is lack of funding?

What about the other and somewhat controversial wind power generators? Well of a new capacity in the EU of 17GW no less than 37.1% was from wind, and surprisingly perhaps, 21% from photovoltaics. In the UK licenses have been granted this year for nine “round three” offshore zones. These new structures will be massive engineering constructions, and from their foundations to the top of the nacelle will be 250m, that is five times the height of Nelson’s column! The existing, smaller offshore wind generators use a single column, but these new monsters will have to cope with much greater weight and thrust as well as operating in deeper water. A number of designs have been put forward, and some of these are based on technology developed for offshore oil rigs. One of the designs can cater with depths of up to 60m as it is a floating construction with a fairly unusual design for its anchorage system.

Of particular interest to me is the fact that of the remaining increased capacity of 24% was provided by gas-fired power stations. When you consider the life of a power station is generally measured in several decades is this a short term fix? I don’t think so. Until quite recently people were talking about natural gas as being a “bridge fuel” until we got our alternative and sustainable energy act together. The recent technological breakthroughs in efficient extraction of natural gas from oil shale and increasing capacity in natural gas liquefaction plants have demonstrated that this is no longer the case. The fact is that world energy supplies can change quite dramatically in a relatively short period of time. Apparently a sound indicator of economic recovery is the rate at which mergers and acquisitions (M&A) take place; we are beginning to see an increase in this in the oil and gas sector after the relative “doldrums” of the last two years. In the USA the gas from oil shale phenomenon is changing the position of gas supplies dramatically and is sure to drive up the rate of M&A. The huge reserves of gas in shale in the USA is going to keep gas prices relatively static there and this technology is now encouraging investment in the exploitation of oil shale reserves in Europe too. I wonder if we will see our own Jurassic Coastline in Dorset, which has oil shale reserves, being developed?

Finally I didn’t think I should leave this “whistle stop tour” of the energy situation today without mentioning coal bed methane. You will remember that in the past that “fire damp” or methane gas was responsible for some horrific accidents in British mines; well in Queensland, Australia there are some very substantial coal bed gas reserves. The issue there will not be just the extraction of the gas, but also getting the product to the customer; it will probably have to be shipped after liquefaction. Is this of interest to us here in the UK? Well yes it is, because already during the last 18 months one company has drilled and taken core samples from 10 wells in a geographical area stretching from Kincardine in Scotland, northern and central England and over to Swansea in Wales. The United Kingdom Coal Bed Methane (UKCBM) estimates that 8,000 to 16,000 long term jobs could be created from new industry using this technology. We already have one commercial gas production plant at Doe Green in Cheshire, which is used to produce electricity on site. This would seem to be a very encouraging point to finish on this blog!

Information sources:

SPE Review N0 240 May 2010
LNG Industry Spring 2010.
JPT August 2010
JPT April 2010
E&T issue 12 2010

I hope you have enjoyed this Blog and found it interesting. Look forward to receiving your comments.