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UK Natural Gas Prices, Already at Historically High levels, Set To Rise
Doug Low, The Oil Drum
A recent article in the UK’s Sunday Times warns that, although UK natural gas prices are already at historically high levels, they are set to increase by 25% by next winter. Part of the problem is that the UK is increasingly dependent on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and this winter (2007/08) Japan has been paying twice as much for spot LNG cargoes as the UK has. The implications looking forward are that to secure spot LNG cargoes in future, residents of the UK should be prepared to pay much more for their gas. Meanwhile, in its latest weekly podcast, Platts explains why there are essentially three seperate markets for LNG supplies, and media reports suggest that Russia will be soon be hiking its gas prices for exports to Europe. In other words, barring economic meltdown, natural gas prices are set for double digit increases, annually.
On 09 March 2008, the Sunday Times published an excellent article explaining why the UK gas supplies are about to get much pricier, see Price war threat to UK gas supplies. The sub-title of the article sums up the situation pretty well:
Global demand is forcing LNG suppliers to divert tankers from Britain to countries happy to pay more, which will have knock-on effects on homeowners’ power costs
The article goes on to describe the preparations the UK is making to import lots of LNG, then quotes Frank Harris, from the energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie, as saying that most of the hoped-for LNG may not arrive: (18 March 2008)
Carbon capture is turning out to be just another great green scam
George Monbiot, The Guardian,
Cleaner technology is possible, but Labour plans to introduce it so slowly that any benefits will be lost in higher coal output
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‘Coal is so clean and fresh that the prime minister brushes his teeth with it, Downing Street said last night. Mr Brown said advances in coal technology meant it was now one of the cleanest substances on Earth, and an unrivalled remover of stains and scaling.” So says the satirical website the Daily Mash. The real claims are scarcely battier.
Ministers are about to decide whether to approve a new coal-burning power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. This would be the first such plant to be built in Britain since the monster at Drax was finished in 1986. As well as coal, it will burn up the government’s targets, policies and promises on climate change.
John Hutton, the secretary of state in charge of energy, has started justifying the decision he says he hasn’t made. “For critics,” he argued last week, “there’s a belief that coal-fired power stations undermine the UK’s leadership position on climate change. In fact, the opposite is true.” Quite so: if we don’t burn this stuff the Chinese might get their hands on it. Or could he be a true believer? Does he really think there’s such a thing as clean coal?
Clean coal’s definition changes according to whom the industry is lobbying. Sometimes it means more efficient power stations – which still produce almost twice as much carbon dioxide as gas plants. Sometimes it means removing sulphur dioxide from the smoke, which boosts the CO2. Sometimes it means carbon capture and storage: stripping the carbon out of the exhaust gases, piping it away and burying it in geological formations. None of these equate to clean coal, as you will see if you visit an opencast mine. But they create a marvellous amount of confusion in the public mind, which gives the government a chance to excuse the inexcusable.
(18 March 2008)
Brown shouldn’t deny the potency of climate change
Martin Kettle, The Guardian,
Rather than pursuing the agenda voters clearly want, the PM is waiting, Micawber-like, for something to rescue him
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My God, now even Tony Blair has got religion on climate change. You will have to take my word for it that, even before yesterday’s news, I was intending to start this column by stating that the further you get from the heart of Gordon Brown’s government, the more emphatic is the belief – even among many of the government’s natural supporters – that climate change is the overriding issue in politics. Then along comes the revelation that the restless ex-prime minister has placed himself at the head of a world campaign against carbon emissions, and all the rest of the considerable evidence for my claim is immediately overshadowed.
Let us try to leave Blair’s role on one side. Particularly on this fifth anniversary of his great act of folly, he is still just too much of a distraction for too many people in what I fully intend as a serious argument. So here, as Blair-free as I can make it, is my assertion once again. Among many of the millions who are instinctively well-disposed to a modern and progressive government in this country but who are nevertheless not tribally or uncritically committed to Brown’s Labour government, no issue has greater political potency than the challenge of climate change.
I say this not only because I believe it myself but also because it is an increasingly observable political reality that many others do too.
(15 March 2008)
Related in the Guardian:
Blair to lead campaign on climate change
Blair interview
Can Blair be our champion?
Standard criticised for ‘alarmist’ Heathrow story
Guardian
The Press Complaints Commission has condemned the London Evening Standard for running an “inaccurate” article that reported that climate change militants planned to bring Heathrow to a standstill.
In its ruling today the PCC said that the front-page Evening Standard article on August 13 last year headlined “Militants will hit Heathrow” – was “misleading” and a “matter of concern”.
The Standard today on its front page made reference to its apology, which it ran in full on page four.
The August 13 article reported comments made by an activist, at a climate change protestors’ camp outside Heathrow, that leaving packages at the airport would make people “sit up and take notice”. The sub-headline of the article said “Hoax bombs to cause alerts”.
“There was nothing in the headline to indicate to readers the insubstantial basis of the claims,” the PCC ruled today.
(19 March 2008)
