Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: thedoc on 16/09/2013 13:49:28
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Fracking has led to lower energy prices in the US, so could the UK see a similar trend?
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No, if anything it will drive them up as companies will protest that the cost of extracting and processing it remains high, and the fact that NIMBYism will end up making every single site cost 2-3 times as much as it should.
The completion of a cheaper way to get LNG into the country (south hook) had no impact, why would digging it out of our own ground?
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Why should anyone reduce retail prices? The retail suppliers are marketers only - they have no interest in exploration, production or transmission, so they all pay pretty much the same unit price for the stuff they resell since all the producers supply all the resellers through a single grid. Whatever comes out of the ground will be subject to a ridiculous "renewables levy" so that wind farmers can make a profit even when they are not generating electricity, and the retailers are all multinationals with no interest in local competition anyway.
And to justify their greed, they will quote our dear Chancellor who just today explained how important it is to mend the roof while the sun shines - in other words, stack up as much profit as you can whilst the stuff lasts.
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Presumably the increased availability of natural gas due to fracking has reduced natural gas prices in parts of the USA. Since I don't buy natural gas, I don't see it.
If gas prices are cheaper, more people will connect to natural gas, and people will use more. It may also set the industry up for a crash once the easily accessible gas reserves are exhausted. Of course, the next thing will be offshore clathrate/methyl hydrate natural gas production, so the supply may last for a good long time.
How much of a price shift will you see? That is hard to say. Some will depend on the government response too. What I will say is that the last decade has had a significant increase in gasoline fuel costs, at least in the USA. I am blaming a portion of it on Hurricane Katrina, August 2005, however, looking at price charts, it is clear there was price pressure even before the hurricane. The damage from the hurricane should have been mostly recovered long ago. What seems obvious though, is that the gas companies have no interest in keeping prices down, and in the last few years they have had record profits.
Part of what is also happening is a much greater global demand for automobiles and oil.
Natural gas may have a more local distribution system, and may not have as much global demand, unless one region such as the UK supplies a much greater area such as all of Northern Europe. Anyway, if the production increases, and the supply is kept in the UK, then prices will likely drop. If it is exported, then prices may not be greatly affected. Who knows, the British may have to find building pipes to France at an increased cost of the resources.
There is, of course, also more completion as Eastern European and Asian gas is also being brought into Europe. Are new pipelines already under construction?
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The situation viz-a-viz fracking in the US and fracking in the UK are totally different. The US has vast areas of sparsely populated land to use the UK by contrast has very little land all of it pretty densely populated and although right now plenty of fresh water may be available that might not always be the case. Billions of tons of fresh water are needed for fracking, the only thing is that by the time it goes into the ground it is no longer fresh water, chemicals have to be mixed into it both to reduce its frictional co-efficient ( yes I am not kidding) and all kinds of biocides (germicides too)that will kill of any kind of plant or or growth that may block up the fissures that fracking creates. If you think that won’t affect the water tables, dream on friend. Fracking is a horror story and I am truly surprised and dismayed that we have come to the point of even discussing its deployment in the UK.