Dave ([info]mooism) wrote,
@ 2009-01-06 12:38:00
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Insecurity of gas supply

Russia has cut gas supplies to certain countries (Telegraph, Guardian). Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, Greece, and the Czech Republic are affected, Bulgaria especially as it has no other source of gas.

I haven’t found a good map of European gas pipelines.

There was a good post on the Oil Drum about this the other day. It claims

  • the conflict started in 1992, not in 2006
  • Russia cannot win a gas war against Ukraine and knows it
  • the real underlying stakes are not about Russia or Ukraine (actually corruption)

The UK is not on the pipeline that’s been shut down, so we’re ok. And we do not import all our gas from Russia or via Ukraine anyway. But we do not have that much gas storage (a legacy of being able to take all we needed from the North Sea, no longer possible), which counts against us.


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[info]emperor
2009-01-06 01:36 pm UTC (link)
The beeb have this graphic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/europe_enl_1136301170/img/1.jpg


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[info]mooism
2009-01-06 02:43 pm UTC (link)
Ta.

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[info]fluffymark
2009-01-06 02:02 pm UTC (link)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Russia/Maps.html shows some gas pipelines.

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[info]mooism
2009-01-06 02:43 pm UTC (link)
Thank you.

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[info]feanelwa
2009-01-06 02:03 pm UTC (link)
The Russians said European supplies wouldn't be affected! Grr. But if I was Ukraininan and cold and there was all this gas going through my country, I can't say I wouldn't be tempted.

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[info]mooism
2009-01-06 02:49 pm UTC (link)
The Ukrainians say they are adding gas to the pipelines from their reserves. Of course, they could be lying too.

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[info]argyraspid
2009-01-06 03:42 pm UTC (link)
Yes, I was pretty horrified to see how little storage capacity the UK has for gas. If I were the government (via power companies if necessary), I'd get building. Not least because it gives the country more facility to buy gas when cheap, store it, and try to buy less if prices go up.

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[info]mooism
2009-01-06 04:33 pm UTC (link)
Afaik there are companies wanting to build gas storage facilities, but having trouble getting permission. (Whether it's purely a matter of local planning permission or they are having to head off public inquiries I don't know.)

The government behaves as if merely having a pipeline in place means we can buy gas when we need it. Shocking.

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[info]argyraspid
2009-01-06 04:54 pm UTC (link)
You could well be right. In the former case, I've noticed several problems in energy sourcing. The country as a whole needs new energy supplies, but an awful lot of local people don't want them in their locality, whether they be tidal power, wind turbines or nuclear power plants.

There was an article about the Severn Bore tidal project in the Guardian today. Apparently it could supply a whopping 7% of our national electricity needs, but it's run headlong into the usual environmental moans. I have no idea who's accurate about what, as I find it hard to trust pressure groups with overriding motives and companies with money to make.

From other stuff I've read, the UK's energy policy is allegedly a pile of badly compiled and inadequate junk anyway.

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[info]mooism
2009-01-06 09:40 pm UTC (link)
This article? There is also a he-said-she-said Wikipedia page about it.

If the schemes were evenly matched on cost and power generation, I would expect the government to go for their current preferred scheme just because they could easily add a road/rail bridge to it.

To be fair, the UK does at least have an energy policy now, which is an improvement. But still.

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