First Update of March 2019 – An overview of last weeks Energy news

(Click a bullet point to open the relevant article)

I thought the below chart was well worth including (kindly permitted for inclusion by its owner, Dr Grant Wilson from Birmingham University Energy Institute). It captures 4 years of UK energy in the same unit (GWh) showing gas, electricity and transport demand.

Tuesday – 26th February

• Study based on activity in Germany and US activities suggests cost of generating hydrogen from hydrolysis using renewable energy is falling compared with generation from methane.

Wednesday – 27th February

• Ineos investing a billion pounds in North Sea pipelines and refineries including an ‘energy plant’ at Grangemouth in central Scotland.

Thursday – 28th February

• ExxonMobil announces discovery of 5 to 8 trillion cubic feet of gas in Mediterranean.

• A concise release from BEIS showing UK energy numbers for 2018. Oil and gas continue to dominate production at 73% combined. Nuclear dropped due to outages. Coal is vanishing from production and consumption. Wind rose significantly. Report shows 5 graphs covering 2008 to 2018.

• The same day, a local row is going on near Newcastle where permission to open surface mining of coal is being considered. Opponents argue based on local environmental and climate change concerns. Company quotes increase in imports from Russia of 730,000 tons in 1 year and jobs.

• February 2019: Russia was biggest supplier of LNG to Europe for the first time.

Friday – 1st March

• UK Government Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee is seeking input to a report into future investment to fill emerging energy gap in the wake of cancellation of new nuclear power stations.