Natural gas will only have a stopgap role in moving Britain to low-carbon energy until 2020 and will then be limited without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, a UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) report said on Feb. 23.
Britain has set an ambitious target to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050, and gas has been seen as a bridging fuel until more clean energy comes online, since it emits less carbon dioxide than coal or oil, but more than nuclear or renewable energy.
The government said last year it would shut coal plants and replace them with cleaner gas plants by 2025, but experts warn these are not being built fast enough to compensate. It also scrapped plans to help commercialize CCS, which captures emissions and stores them underground.
"Gas can play only a modest role between now and 2020 and in the medium- to long-term has no role as a bridging fuel because the U.K. has exploited a large amount of the decarbonization potential in the power sector," the report said.
The UKERC said gas has already acted as a bridge, accounting for almost all of a 20% drop in emissions between 1970 and 2000 and would be more of a stopgap in the future.
Any new power plants which are built to replace coal will have to operate at very low load factors in the 2030s and beyond unless they are retrofitted with CCS technology, but investors are unwilling to build new capacity without strong incentives.
"The government hasn't [realized] that just having the capacity market isn't going to do the job...[it] is going to have to put more money on the table somehow or other to get those gas plants built," UKERC director Jim Watson said. Britain's capacity market is a support scheme to incentivize the construction of new plants but is still not lucrative enough.
The scope for gas use in 2050 is little more than 10% of 2010 levels, the report said.
"Without CCS, gas must be steadily phased out over the next 35 years and almost entirely removed by 2050," it added.
Since the 1970s, the use of coal in industry, households and services has been declining; in the power sector its use has been declining since the 1990s. Gas now accounts for 47% of U.K. primary energy consumption, while coal accounts for 16%.
Recommended Reading
US Gas Rig Count Falls to Lowest Since January 2022
2024-03-22 - The combined oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, fell by five to 624 in the week to March 22.
Chevron Hunts Upside for Oil Recovery, D&C Savings with Permian Pilots
2024-02-06 - New techniques and technologies being piloted by Chevron in the Permian Basin are improving drilling and completed cycle times. Executives at the California-based major hope to eventually improve overall resource recovery from its shale portfolio.
TPH: Lower 48 to Shed Rigs Through 3Q Before Gas Plays Rebound
2024-03-13 - TPH&Co. analysis shows the Permian Basin will lose rigs near term, but as activity in gassy plays ticks up later this year, the Permian may be headed towards muted activity into 2025.
US Drillers Cut Oil, Gas Rigs for Fourth Week in a Row-Baker Hughes
2024-04-12 - The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, fell by three to 617 in the week to April 12, the lowest since November.
US Drillers Cut Oil, Gas Rigs for Second Time in Three Weeks
2024-02-16 - Baker Hughes said U.S. oil rigs fell two to 497 this week, while gas rigs were unchanged at 121.