The Anonymous Widower

Cold Snap Leaves Britain With Less Than A Week’s Worth Of Gas

The title of this post, are the same as that of this article on The Times.

This is the sub-heading.

The closure of Russian pipelines through Ukraine and recent weather conditions have left gas stores ‘concerningly low’

These are the first two paragraphs.

Britain has less than a week of gas supplies in storage, the country’s largest supplier has warned after plunging temperatures and high demand.

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, said the UK’s gas storage was “concerningly low” after coming under pressure this winter.

The two largest gas storage facilities in this country are both in the Humberside area.

• Aldbrough is in salt caverns North of Hull and is owned by SSE.
• Rough is under the North Sea and is owned by Centrica

Both are being converted to store hydrogen.

Some might thing that is a bit stupid if we’re short of storage, but we need the hydrogen storage for four reasons.

1. To store hydrogen created by electrolysers on Humberside, which will enable heavy gas users in the area to decarbonise.
2. The hydrogen will also be burnt in a 1 GW hydrogen-fired power station at Keadby to back up the wind turbines, with zero-carbon electricity.
3. The hydrogen will also be sold to the Germans to replace Putin’s blood-stained gas. It will be sent to Germany in a pipeline called AquaVentus, which will also deliver Scottish hydrogen across the North Sea. Hopefully, the Germans will pay a good price for the hydrogen.
4. The hydrogen will be used for transport.

The mistake the Government is making is not to develop smaller gas fields, so that domestic gas users can continue to use natural gas, until the technology to replace it with zero-carbon sources is fully developed.

January 10, 2025 - Posted by AnonW | Energy, Energy Storage, Hydrogen | Aldbrough Gas Storage, AquaVentus, Centrica, Decarbonisation, Gas Storage, Germany, Humberside, Hydrogen Storage, Keadby Hydrogen Power Station, Natural Gas, SSE