Tag: natural gas

A Little Natural Gas Math For British Columbians

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Natural gas seems to be the target of the new Clean BC plan concocted by the NDP and Greens.

I wondered what would happen if BC got rid of natural gas for heating and industrial use.

I was inspired by a graph in this article.

BC consumes about .75 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (2017). Thats about 8% of Canada’s NG consumption.

750,000,000cf = 219.8GWh per day of electricity according to this site.

That is 80,227GWh per year.

Site C, a very “constroversial” hydro dam in BC, will produce 5,100GWh.

That means BC needs to build 15.73 (lets round to 16) Site C dams just to eliminate natural gas consumption. And that ignores the fact that peak consumption might be a lot more. And I don’t have peak consumption data. It would be alot higher.

As I said, a graph inspired me. It shows the same idea for the UK. And the red is heat demand for UK. I don’t think it includes industrial demand.

image

 

Heating with Natural Gas vs. Electricity in BC (Canada)

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Update/Correction: The author of the blog post noted in one list:

BASIC CHARGE ($0.4065/day) = 148.37

And didn’t carry it the list with the total.

And the delivery charge is 4.296 per GJ = 429.60 (100GJ for the year)

  1. DELIVERY CHARGE = $429.60
  2. BASIC CHARGE ($0.4065/day) = 148.37
  3. STORAGE AND TRANSPORT = $75.80
  4. COST OF THE GAS = $154.90
  5. MUNICIPAL OPERATING FEE = $20.40
  6. CARBON TAX = $173.82
  7. CLEAN ENERGY LEVY = $2.64
  8. GST = $42.73

GAS total corrected to: 1048.26

Not quite as dramatic a difference … but still huge.

  • End of Correction
  • Original post below

Great blog article comparing Heating with Natural Gas vs. Electricity in BC

The conclusion: Gas Wins at 1/4 of the price.

You pay more in GST for electricity than the actual cost of the gas.

 

A typical home in the southern interior will use 100 GJ (or 27,778kWh)  of energy to heat for a year. Smaller homes and more efficient furnaces can improve on this number, as can global warming because of warmer winters. Bigger homes or poorly insulated homes will use more.

Assuming that you require 100 GJ of heat for your home for the year, your gas costs will be:

  1. DELIVERY CHARGE = $42.96
  2. STORAGE AND TRANSPORT = $75.80
  3. COST OF THE GAS = $154.90
  4. MUNICIPAL OPERATING FEE = $20.40
  5. CARBON TAX = $173.82
  6. CLEAN ENERGY LEVY = $2.64
  7. GST = $42.73

TOTAL = $899.89

Using traditional baseboard heaters, the same amount of energy would cost you over $4,000/year with BC Hydro.

  1. 27,778 kWh at $0.13260/kWh = $3,683.34
  2. RATE RIDER = $184.17
  3. GST = 193.38

TOTAL = $4,060.88

 

Retraction Of Paper Claiming Gas/Oil Was Worse Than Coal

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Retraction.

“The article, Ren, X., et al. (2017), “Methane emissions from the Marcellus Shale in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia based on airborne measurements,” has been retracted by the authors because of an error in wind measurements used to calculate methane emissions in the southwestern Marcellus Shale region. The error was discovered by the authors in October 2017 upon their installation of an improved, differential GPS, wind measurement system onto the aircraft used in this study. The original wind measurements led to an overestimate of methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations. A reanalysis with corrected winds reduced the total estimated emissions by about a factor of 1.7, with a correspondingly larger reduction in emissions of methane attributed to oil and natural gas in the southwestern Marcellus Shale area. This is expected to reverse a conclusion of the paper, which had asserted that leakage from oil and natural gas extraction in this region results in a climate penalty compared to the use of coal. The authors are in the process of submitting a new manuscript based on an updated analysis that will describe the process to correct the erroneous wind measurements used in the original manuscript, provide a more accurate estimate of the methane emissions, and assess the implications of the fossil fuel production from the Marcellus Shale.”

 

Natural Gas For Cars: Harder to Steal

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Vladimir Putin said something funny and obvious about natural gas (or it should have been obvious if I lived in Russia)

“Russia should follow the lead of Gazprom and have more cars running on natural gas instead of traditional gasoline, according to President Vladimir Putin. It is cheaper and more eco-friendly, he said.

“Gas fuel is, of course, more environmentally friendly. And we have great competitive advantages in this because we have enough of this fuel. More oil and petroleum products can be sold on the foreign market, as it is more profitable than gas sales,” Putin said on Thursday, speaking at a meeting dedicated to the development of Russia’s regions.

Putin also pointed at Gazprom as an example of how gas fuel saves money. When the company switched to gas fuel, many of its drivers retired because they no longer had an opportunity to steal gasoline.

The president was referring to drivers working for state companies who commonly fill up using corporate credit cards, then siphoned and resold the petrol to other drivers.

“And what about the army? What is happening in the Ministry of Defense and in other departments? I think comments are needless,” said the Russian president, apparently hinting at the same practice.

“Natural gas fuel will have a huge positive economic effect and will create competitive advantages for the whole economy. Therefore, it is necessary to continue, of course, to support its development, both at the governmental level and at the regional,” Putin added.”

100% Renewable (COUGH COUGH)

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“The city of Las Vegas is now drawing 100 percent of its power from renewable energy sources“

“The effort moved closer to reality about a year ago when the city expanded its partnership with NVEnergy“

“NVEnergy’s GreenEnergy program allows large customers to contract for an added cost with the company to power their facilities. Customers that opt to receive all of their energy from renewable sources pay a slight premium for that.”

“Coal currently accounts for 8 percent of NVEnergy’s generating resources, compared with 74 percent natural gas and 18 percent renewable resources.”

 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/las-vegas/city-las-vegas-reaches-clean-energy-goal

UK Electricity Grid – No Gas For You

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The morons in charge of the UK electricity supply have screwed things up so much no one wants to build new gas power plants even while old power plants are being closed.

As a result of Britain’s energy policies, building new gas-fired power plants is no longer economic. Now, the Government has to subsidise gas investors to keep the lights on.

Four years ago this week, the Government unveiled plans for a bold new dash for gas.

New gas-fired power stations, then-energy secretary Ed Davey said, would be required to “provide crucial capacity to keep the lights on”.

A new Gas Generation Strategy backed “significant investment” in up to 26 gigawatts (GW) of new plants by 2030.

Since then, energy ministers have come and gone, support for solar and onshore wind has been scrapped and the drive for new nuclear has faced security and cost worries. But support for gas had been unwavering.

Relatively cheap and quick to build, much cleaner than coal, and able to generate even when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine, gas plants tick all the Government’s boxes.

“In the next 10 years, it’s imperative that we get new gas-fired power stations built,” Amber Rudd, Davey’s successor, declared last year.

There’s just one problem: pretty much no one’s building them.

The huge problems is all the other plants closing down.

23GW of conventional thermal power plant capacity has been closed or mothballed since 2010. “That’s more than a third of peak demand,” says Howard.

“And a further 24GW of coal and nuclear is expected to close between now and 2025.

They held auctions … and nobody built any big gas power plants.

Instead, the big winners both times were existing coal, gas and nuclear plants – as well as an unexpected boom in new small diesel and gas engines.

All that shale gas coming and nowhere to burn it.

The UK is screwed.

 

 

UK Faces Winter Gas Crunch

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Oh oh! Its going to be a cold winter in the UK!

The UK faces a looming winter gas supply crunch after Centrica said it has been forced to shut down a key gas storage facility until next spring.

Centrica’s Rough site accounts for more than 70pc of the UK’s total gas storage capacity, and can provide about 10pc of peak winter gas demand. The facility, which was converted from a partially depleted gas field off the Yorkshire coast in the 1980s, has suffered ongoing issues and outages in recent months and will now close entirely for further tests.

A spokesman said Centrica is working to see whether it will be possible to return around a third of the capacity to operation by November, in time for colder months when gas demand by energy companies climbs.

Cecile Langevin, a senior analyst with Thomson Reuters, said that even if companies are able to draw from the storage site before next March or April, Rough will only be 34pc full because the injections of gas usually made during the summer will not be possible .

Wholesale gas prices for this winter rocketed over 10pc on the UK market following the news, reaching 47½p a therm, as traders reacted to the announcement. The price closed at 46.65p a therm, the highest winter price in a year.

h/t NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat

 

China’s Cheap Coal Slows Switch To Natural Gas

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Fracking has really dropped the price of natural gas in the USA leading to major switch from coal to natural gas in power plants.

But China is resisting this change because of costs.

China’s effort to promote natural gas over coal to cut pollution is facing resistance from buyers who prefer cheaper to cleaner. The world’s largest energy consumer seeks to raise the share of less-polluting natural gas to 10 percent of its energy mix by 2020 from 6 percent last year. Yet even with the government cutting the cost of gas, it remains almost three times more expensive than coal when used to generate electricity. That’s putting a damper on the switch from a fuel that now accounts for more than 60 percent of demand.

Electricity generated from gas costs almost three times that from coal — about 0.6 yuan a kilowatt-hour in eastern China, while coal-fired output costs 0.22 yuan.

The Shanghai city-gate price — a wholesale cost of gas delivered to distributors — was cut in November to 2.18 yuan a cubic meter. That’s about $9 per million British thermal units, compared with $2.039 for U.S. benchmark prices and $4.24 in the U.K. as of Thursday. 

USA: CO2 Down 21% Since 2005 – Thanks Fracked Natural Gas!

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Fracking is amazing.

A new report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) found hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has pushed CO2-Cutscarbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation to the lowest levels since 1993.

Fracking created immense amounts of natural gas, lowering the price and causing the amount of electricity generated from natural gas to pass the amount of electricity generated from coal for seven of the months in 2015, according to the new EIA report. The report specifies that natural gas power plants produce about 40 percent of the CO2 emitted from a coal plant creating the same amount of electricity. This caused U.S. CO2 from the electricity sector to fall by 21 percent since their high in 2005.

“[T]he drop in natural gas prices, coupled with highly efficient natural gas-fired combined-cycle technology, made natural gas an attractive choice to serve baseload demand previously met by coal-fired generation,” read the report. “Coal-fired generation has decreased because of both the economics driven by cost per kilowatthour compared to that of natural gas and because of the effects of increased regulation on air emissions.”