Developing Engineers

Gordon Kneale Brooke (CC Attribution-ShareAlike)

In addition to the impact on the nuclear industry, the Fukushima incident is showing how inter-connected the world’s energy systems have become.

The gas price has jumped over 10% since the earthquake, as Japan buys up Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) cargoes to enable their gas power stations to meet a greater proportion of the country’s electricity demand.  On top of the rises already seen off the back of the events in the Middle East it’s an interesting demonstration of how vulnerable our supplies are to outside influences; natural or political.

Closer to home the German Government has shut down the country’s seven oldest nuclear reactors to carry out ‘stress tests’ to increase confidence in their ability to continue operating safely.  That lost generation is being replaced by carbon-intensive coal and gas plants, in turn increasing demand for CO₂ allowances under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme.  As a result the CO₂ price has rallied to just shy of £15/t – the highest in two years.

In the UK the gas price has had the greatest impact, leading to even the least efficient of the coal stations running before our combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) – bucking the trend of recent months and years.  At the time of writing the breakdown of generation by fuel type was 40% coal, 36% gas, 20% nuclear and 1.5% wind, with the remainder being covered by the interconnector to France and hydro plants¹.

Over the next two to four years a lot of that fuel flexibility will be lost as 8.4 GW of coal plants close under the Large Combustion Plant Directive².  In the same period 6.4 GW of nuclear stations will also come to the end of their lives³.

Wikipedia user Pline (CC Attribution-ShareAlike)

That gap, equivalent to just under 20% of our entire installed capacity, is currently being replaced with new CCGT stations, the result of which will be increased dependence on one fuel source – imported natural gas.

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