Skip to main content

2011 UK Energy Figures – Oil and Gas Production Plummet but Low Carbon Generation Grows

Provisional 2011 UK energy figures have been released today by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Conventional energy gives little cause for cheer with the news that the production decline in North Sea oil and gas has accelerated. On the positive side low carbon electricity generation has climbed, whilst total energy consumption had continued on its declining trend.

The energy consumption figures probably give most hope for environmentalists. UK energy demand has been falling now for over 5 years, although the economic downturn has done much to drive this trend. DECC’s figures show 2011 total energy demand was down a whopping 7% from 2010, however much of this was thought to be due to the mild weather and on a temperature adjusted basis the figure was a more modest (but still significant) 2%.

Low carbon generation also provided some good news. Wind’s share of generation by major power producers has grown from 2.4% to 4.0% since 2010 due to greater capacity and windier weather. Hydro is also up from 0.8% to 1.5%, largely due to more rainfall in Scotland where the majority of UK hydro is installed. These figures are dwarfed though by the low carbon king - nuclear generation - which accounts for 20% of UK electricity generation.

Conventional energy gave little cause for cheer though. Petroleum production was down by 17%, whilst gas production was down by an even greater 20%. Maintenance shutdowns, as well as general production decline, was behind these worrying figures. As a result the UK is becoming more and more reliant on energy imports, with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) shipped in from Qatar now at similar levels to pipeline gas from Norway.

Recent announcements that huge quantities of unconventional gas are lying under the UK will be welcome news then to the Government. But developing these resources via ‘fracking’ technology has a number of technical, regulatory, and (not least) public relations hurdles to jump, and it will be several years at least before significant quantities of gas begin to flow. In the mean time the UK looks set to be increasingly reliant on imported energy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Green Deal - is it any good?

The Green Deal launched this week in a blaze of publicity, unfortunately much of it negative. The scheme has been the Conservative’s flagship home energy efficiency policy since before they even came to power, so the big question is: is it any good? The short answer is that it’s good for some, but not for others. At its heart the Green Deal is a loan scheme for energy efficiency and renewable energy measures, but rather than homeowners paying back the loan directly to the bank the repayments are made via a charge on their electricity bill. The two key innovations of the Green Deal are that the repayments should not exceed the anticipated savings on your energy bill (i.e. your bills will be lower afterwards, even with the loan repayments) and that the loan stays with the property rather than you (if you move the new owner takes over the repayments). The Green Deal is an attempt to address one of the big problems with some energy efficiency and renewable energy measures. Upg

MPs Blast Government Over Air Pollution Failures

Parliamentary Select Committees are rarely kind to Governments. With a remit to scrutinise the Government's record they normally pick policy areas where heals are being dragged rather than shining examples of success. But even against this background accusing the Government of 'putting the health of the nation at risk' is quite strong stuff. This statement is contained in a new report from the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), 'Air Quality: A Follow Up Report'. The document is a successor to the EAC's 2010 ' Air Quality ' report, a wide ranging examination of the previous Government's record on air quality. The new report is shorter and more focused, examining what's changed since the previous report was published and making suggestions for key policy changes. As with any select committee report the Committee invited submissions of evidence from organisations and individuals, in his case attracting 26 written submissions. They also heard in p

Electric Cars Spark Into Life, But Can We Really Swap Pump for Plug by 2040?

Did you hear about the man who ran over his neighbour with an electric car? He was convicted of assault with battery. Expect to hear more terrible jokes like this, as the UK Government yesterday pledged to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040. The UK joins the French Government, who have the same deadline to bring an end to cars powered by the venerable suck-squeeze-bang-blow . This pledge is nothing new: it just builds on a similar plan outlined in 2011 , with the language firmed up from an ‘ambition to end the sale’ to ‘will end the sale’. The big question has to be whether this policy is realistic. Luckily for us 2017 has seen quite a few opinions on this subject. In the furthest reaches of blue corner sits Stanford University economist Tony Seba , who thinks that all cars sold by 2025 will be self-driving electric Uber pods. On similar (but less extreme) lines sits the car manufacture Volvo, who say that all of their cars will be electric by 2019 (although this inc