Like many in the energy industry, I have always thought of gas as a clean, abundant, cheap and relatively low carbon fuel which at the very least would be part of an interim stage on the way to a decarbonised UK. I also expect gas to play a key role in supporting renewables which on their own (at least until we crack energy storage) are too unpredictable to meet electricity demand. In their annual World Energy Outlook to 2035, BP project strong growth in the use of natural gas, mostly driven by emerging economies in Asia. That’s a pretty common view and suggests that there will be plenty of affordable gas around for the foreseeable future.
But the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) published a report on Tuesday which concludes that if the UK is going to meet its 80% carbon reduction targets by the year 2050, then we either need to come up with a cost effective Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) technology soon, or there is very little room for gas in the energy mix. When I say very little I’m not exaggerating; the report’s authors estimate that by 2050 we need to be using only about 10% of the gas we used in 2010. Never mind power stations, that’s a lot of domestic boilers, combined heat and power systems and industrial processes that will need to be either converted or repalced.
The UK Government recently dropped funding for a CCS pilot project and at almost the same time they gave notice that electricity generation from coal fired stations will end in 2025, to be replaced by gas, coal with CCS, renewables and new nuclear. For the most part subsidies for renewables are going down and progress on CCS and new nuclear are both painfully slow.