‘Britain will need gas to avoid blackouts for decades’
By Paul Homewood
Thank heaven there’s a grown up in the room!
The man running Britain’s gas network has said the country will need fossil fuels to prevent blackouts for decades to come despite calls for the Government to begin shutting off the pipes.
Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas, said a growing reliance on intermittent power sources such as wind and solar meant Britain would be increasingly reliant on gas to make up for shortfalls when renewable energy sources are not generating power.
Mr Butterworth said: “In 2022, the wind didn’t blow enough or at all for 262 days. And in those 262 days, we would have had rolling blackouts, or a full blackout across the UK if it wasn’t for gas.”
He believes Britain will still need gas to keep the lights on as far out as 2040.
“I actually think we’ll be moving more gas but we’ll be moving gas to power stations to make electricity rather than to homes.”
His conviction comes despite calls for the Government to begin shutting down the gas network as part of the shift to net zero.
Even his target date of 2040 assumes that there is a full blown hydrogen network by then, as well as Carbon Capture, both extremely optimistic.
It is worth pointing out that Jon Butterworth is an energy industry veteran, so he knows much more about energy production than the bunch of eco-cranks who run our energy policy from their ivory towers:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbutterworthng/?originalSubdomain=uk
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
We need a lot more grown-ups in the room. Can anyone see it happening before it is too late?
Yes like the fiasco in 1947, when people panic bought electric fires due to rumours of a coal shortage and a energy secretary obsessed with ideology (digging up poor quality coal from under manner houses) and wishful thinking (hope for mild winter) instead of having a truthful discussion with an emergency consultation with real experts i.e. (electrical) engineers with real world experience – Not academics.
We have insufficient generating capacity for all the heat pumps installed since just 2017 the last time it really got cold in Southern England and our series of mild winters has to come to an end at some point and we are overdue a 1947 or 1963 style winter.
When this happens heat pumps will go out of fashion and (the British & Irish) governments can start an accelerated program of a tested nuclear reactor design – as we don’t have the heavy forging capacity to do this with a PWR I think are best bet is to build a fleet of CANDU reactors and look to combine this with district heating (As mass insulation is not a realistic idea, will likerly be botched and at least a ⅓ of the building stock would be better off demolished and rebuilt) . As well as increase natural gas storage capacity to at least 3 months (assist the Irish gov in turning Kinsale into a storage site and getting a LNG terminal) as well as having a emergency royal commission into what can be done to increase self sufficiency in both food, energy and essential products in case of an emergency. As well as a plan to reshoring manufacturing when energy cost have reduced & supply has gone up by requiring imports to meet the same standards as if they were made in the UK – health and safety, real environmental and working conditions (i.e. no forced labour or children working in mines).
Then the green movement will be seen as at best ideological hypocrites &/or unhinged as you can’t claim to be rational thinker:
a) Who follow science (I would also includes maths when you want to increase electricity demand but don’t see the need to increase generating capacity) when you want to impose untested technologies on the public when the hazards of not properly testing a new technologies are reasonably foreseeable & then we have basing your plans on technology that that does not yet commercially exist (e.g TH/W scale electricity storage) I would argue it would be common law negligence see Donoghue v Stevenson and also breach the duties in section 3a electricity act 1989 if it goes wrong.
b) By demanding things & terrorise the public (using violence false imprisonment & criminal damage to achieve a political goal) like the Just stop oil (JSO) types who if they got their way with oil or fossil fuels would cause the greatest famine in human history – these people need to be forced to confront they either acted based on ignorance or they are followers of malthusian theory – if it causes food shortages for a large number of black and brown people in less economically developed countries that is just the way it has to be and I’m sure many of them will feel smug helping to organise a token famine relief like they have done in the past.
c) Justify the $1 trillions spend over the last 20 years (including tax credits & subsides like the poor pay rich feed in tariff) on renewable, heat pump, biomass burning & electric vehicle was spend on a mass produceable nuclear reactor (which could produce heat, electricity, desalination, synthetic fuels and even distill Co2 from the air should you wish), natural gas heat pumps and mass produceable passivhous design buildings. As it looks like a corporate socialist racket.
I would agree about the impending cold winter.
I’m of an age that remembers 1947 and 1963 and 1979 and 1997 and 2010. Some will argue with some of these dates because there is always enough variation to be able to say “well, 1979 was OK where we were but 1981 ……”. But they recur on roughly 15/16 year cycles and though La Niña and Hunga-Tonga may combine to delay the next be sure that before 2030 at the latest there will be a winter which will call for everything we’ve got to keep the lights on and the radiators warm (and the traffic moving).
Only ostriches think otherwise!
“…but they recur on roughly 15/16 year cycles…” Not so. Our climate is characterised by random fluctuations, not by cycles. Planning against regular recurrences of similar weather patterns would be as mistaken as the current planning to cope with the bugaboo of ever increasing extreme event magnitudes and ever reducing intervals between them.
Great response to the idiocy, platformzed. A pity that the idiots formulating our energy policies do not consult people with know-how. Spreadsheets have a lot to answer for when put in the wrong hands: National grid have the same disease and think fancy plots ar solutions to problems like grid expansion.
Both hydrogen and CCS are developing but not developed: so need a massive safety factor. Battery storage is limited to the wealthy as grid back-up. We will soon see a lot of big houses with stand-by generators or battery packs, like in the developing world.
To Max Beran, you may feel there are no cycles but as Mike points out there has been quite an observed 15/16 year cycle for a long time now in the UK over the last century. Coincidence?
There are dozens of weather and atmospheric variables to choose from – temperature, pressure, precipitation, humidity, soil moisture, cloud cover, solar radiation etc and over different altitudes, durations, spatial extents, viewed singly or in combination. How solid are your putative cycles? How were the ones you’re referring to sampled and their statistical significance tested? Did the test allow for how the hypothesis was set up – was it contrived post hoc or was it pre-announced a priori to test a physical process acting over that cycle length? Was the effective sample size adjusted to allow for these sampling shortcomings? Were the effects of errors and uncertainties in measurement allowed for in the test. Of course not; apart from the obvious diel and seasonal ones none pass muster so you can forget any notion that weather patterns repeat themselves with anything close to a level of reliability that would permit planning any weather-sensitive activity.
It is very clear , although the Greens refuse to admit it .Wind and solar cannot supply the country .
Solar does not work at all for over half the year , [ it gets dark at night ] , and studies show that wind produces less than20% of its rated output for over half the year , and less than 10% for over 9 weeks of the year .
The whole idea of renewables is a huge scam to take massive amounts of money from everyone .
Just look at the generation stats on gridwatch – this data doesn’t lie, unlike the nut zero peddlers
Currently, wind 4%.
Post corrupted. Wind 4%. Try again!
Attempt 3. Wind under 12%, coal over 4%
And transfer these massive amounts money to the individuals and companies involved in the scam
But Millibot is going to see that it happens with all his GB energy windmills and panels
Correct – only gas and coal can take us to a safe, reliable, secure, affordable nuclear future
Renewables are the most expensive, inefficient power source in use, with dire capacity factors dependent upon the weather
Without the subsidies, levies, CfDs etc, that add 25% to everyone’s bills, there is zero business case for them – they are simply cash cows for developers, owners, landowners and shareholders being gifted billions of taxpayer cash for being engineeringly incompetent
Affordable, reliable Energy is a matter of national security and prosperity that should benefit every citizen, not the few
We would still need gas or coal generation to go alongside nuclear as they would provide the short notice increase in supply. Nuclear can provide a steady base load unless the proposed SMRs are more flexible.
Even France has nuclear backedup by Hydro (10% today), pumped and gas
Modern nukes can load-follow pretty well, if required; the French have done a lot of development work over the years.
The biggest issue with nuclear construction in the UK in 2023 is construction cost and timescales
Construction costs are inflated by a whole host of unnecessary regulations. Timescale is down to incompetence and the choice of power plant. There was already evidence from Finland and Normandy that the EDF design was problematic. There were other more proven designs around that would have been cheaper and quicker.
Shutting down the gas network to allow us to get NZC is analogous to banning jet air-travel because Electric aircraft are going to be developed.
They think energy-intensive ‘carbon’ capture at gas power stations is the way to go. More unnecessary costs, before even mentioning hydrogen.
Why can’t they just go with nuclear fission as I can’t see how anyone who opposes nuclear on safety or waste grounds can think carbon’ capture is a good idea and there will inevitable be leaks and Co2 is heavier then air so sinks to the ground
– CO2 asphyxiation
See Lake Monoun & Lake Nyos disaster (this reach at least 25 KMs from the lake) for how dangerous this would be in a more densely populated urban area or just offshore in much of the coast in Western Europe.
Yes, nobody has explained how they can orevent a Lake Nyos incident.
Imagine a North Sea oil well full of high pressure CO2, violently outgassing, with light easterly winds pushing the CO2 up against our east-coast….
R
That’s a lot like the argument used by the climate zealots – we can’t rule it out therefore we must plan against it. There are plenty good reasons not to go down the CCS road without invoking black swan events.
Max Beran
How is it anything like the argument used by so called “climate zealots?
Which tend to be:
1) emotive argument with perplexingly out of touch anthropomorphism (e.g. trying to bond with a black person by comparing eating meat to slavery & coal trains to people being taken to concentration camp in WW2),
2) an over focus on there being a linear relationship between Co2 which is wishful thinking at best there is no evidence it changes the original reason for the supposed concern regarding climate change humanity is unnecessarily vulnerable to extreme weather/climatic events compared to our engineering capabilities.
3) No concern to the technical feasibility, safety of technologies they want to impose or even basic physics I have literally being told I should have faith that solar insolation in the UK will increase due to Morse law.
“we can’t rule it out therefore we must plan against it”
Not quite we must plan for it not against it that is the whole point of health and safety legislation and fire safety regulations.
There is also a costs to benefit review analysts on all the available technically feasible alternatives – are there other way to doing the same task i.e. produce electricity or heat without having to pipe & store an heavier then air gas in urban/ coastal area where a leak could be a mass casualty event.
There are plenty good reasons not to go down the CCS road without invoking black swan events.”
I don’t see how the Black swan ness of an event is relevant in this context due to how dangerous CCS could be and it is identifiable at the paper feasibility review stage.
Your final sentence precisely repeats the line of reasoning I was objecting to – something bad once happened so let’s not do anything that even remotely resembles it no matter how rare that something was. Anyway, we both agree that CCS is a bad idea for many reasons the most fundamental being there’s no reason to do it in the first place.
Max Beran
I didn’t say we should do it because something bad happened once and the Lake Monoun & Lake Nyos incidents were both natural disasters anyway and I’m not aware of a comparable industrial CO2 asphyxiation accident from a CO2 pipeline or a CCS storage site, it is more of a case of what could foreseeably happen and what could reasonably be done to minimise the risk (i.e. common law negligence see Donoghue v Stevenson)
My point is we need an energy policy which compares the advantages/benefits to the disadvantage/costs and actually tries to reflect on what we are trying to actually achieve. I can’t see the point of CCS
I support using nuclear fission for example but reactors can go spectacularly wrong so we clearly need some well though though standards but we have got to the point of designs which are over engineered messes like the EPR.
Max Beran
OOPS I meant –
I didn’t say we should NOT do it because something bad happened once
Thank goodness for that “oops”. Anyway, I can’t see much difference between our aims, where we appear to part company is on giving weight to the precautionary principle. Zero in my case; standard engineering safety factors are quite adequate and all that should be called for when framing an energy (or any) policy. .
@Max Beran
Yes I think we have the same aims and see the problem in giving weight to the precautionary principle as I think one of the biggest fiasco (there is so many) we’ve had in the post ww2 period science wise is the linear no threshold model and how it became a bureaucrat’s dream but due to my time at the Green party you realise the importance of acknowledging that men and women view risk differently (for biological reasons as humans give birth to helpless young and we were hunter gatherer (more males dying of misadventure or in hunting accidents isn’t too much of a problem on the scheme of things vs the benefits compared to women – this can also observed in other primates)
This is important because middle class women tend to be the ones with the free time to campaign but they historically aren’t engineers so I believe a modified version of the precautionary principle would be the best way to change the net zero narrative by highlighting how much it sounds like the snake oil salesman’s solutions see carbon taxes & renewables as we don’t know what the weather will be like in the future with any reasonable certainty but we do know humanity is more vulnerable to extreme weather/climate events than what we can reasonably mitigate with our engineering capability as there is no evidence changing Co2 levels at this point will reduce the risk of extreme weather and we are actually make ourself more vulnerable if we take the climate scientist prediction in good faith & they prove to be correct on a warming planet this would also mean less wind so investing so heavily in wind power makes no sense considering the alternatives like nuclear fission are better way to produce energy from just a logistical view point just like with addressing droughts more advanced water recycling from waste water (see Singapore) and the ability to use desalination, the use on an island nation of salt water for toilets (see hong kong) as well as increased water storage make sense.
So the most logical response is to call in the engineers –
think how simple putting underground storage tanks in places where flash fooding is a predictable hazard is.
More like jumping out of an aircraft hoping that someone invents a parachute before you hit the ground.
And since the likelihood of electric aircraft ever being developed in the absence of a mini-mini-nuke on board as the fuel supply ……
Mike, you know that scenario when the plane takes off and has to return to base because at some problem – and in order to land has to fly over the sea and dump tons of fuel so as to make the landing weight safe. Now, I guess that E-planes won’t be able to dump all their heavy batteries , so we are left with the problem that the landing weight of an E-plane is the same as its take-off weight. I really can’t see large passenger/cargo aircraft being electric.
Yes, this is one of many problems with electric aircraft. The structure weight of the aircraft will have to be increased by 15% to accommodate landing with batteries still attached.
R
I remember at the time it was learned that we had our own major gas fields in the North Sea the story was that, as a premium fuel (ie energy directly available to the end user), that’s how it should be used, not to generate electricity incurring a conversion loss. Of course beggars can’t be choosers and there is more to fuel utility than just thermodynamic efficiency.
You mean we might possibly get to keep our gas central heating boilers?! Oh thank you very much, how kind of you.
MB and OS… it is mildly vexing that we are now closer to accepting that some gas will be required for electric generation. And yet still being required to add load to the demand side via heat pumps, when, as noted, we already have direct gas combustion in place. Why are we being forced to rid ourselves of the direct gas uses? Have folks not heard of electrical transmission losses?
Truth is that gas has a myriad uses and power generation in the face of coal and nuclear is not one of them.
While not a CO2 nut, i am a “finite” resource nut and would rather save gas for fertilizer and petrochemical usage. Not relevant today, but rather than being an issue 6 or so generations from now, we could extend to 10+ generations from now. Ie. Just in time for fusion to made commercial. Jus’ sayin’
I made this point about gas being a premium fuel way back up this thread but tempered it with the point that thermodynamic efficiency is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to fuel choice. We need to get out of an electrical energy shortage hole and oven-readiness of potential solutions counts for a lot. The technology for using gas for power generation is available and can fill the hole pro-tem. This, I believe, trumps any consideration that it is not the best fuel for the job.
Yes, saw that after my response. Not sure i 100% agree with you. Provided we use latest generation coal, i think that would be best. But point entirely taken.
Where’s he been all this time though? the greying beard tells us his age, but did he have to go out and grow a PAIR ? Or has he ( R We allowed to use these pronouns still?) GOT a PAIR ? …
BTW. as per an interview over the weekend, we seem to have a Hydra in our presence: the GreenBlob one. Maybe we should watch closely as to tactics “elsewhere” and adapt to remove all the heads here. Why does no one take that approach- McCarthyism ?
As for still needing Gas – whatever happened in the Free market use of LPG powered Cars / hybrids? Even that died a death for various reasons, Dinnit ?
Only recently become CEO so perhaps he now believes he can speak out. The simple fact is, any scepticism will mean you will not get tge job.
Isn’t it just that, …. Scepticism, … a form of MERIT – moral.
With that in mind, Applying for Contracts, applying even for a JOB, based on Merit + Ethics ( of living with our neighbours, near & far), is nigh IMPOSSIBLE. I know that If I were so young ( again) I would have a serious problem with the teachers, classmates and going in to Further Education before even looking for a job as an employee. I’d like to think that I’m reasonably broadminded, but getting so many non-issues in MY Life thrust into my face bothers us at home.
So if we are being super pragmatic, we take on a job at all costs, regardless ….. eh? Anyone who suggests otherwise is being disrespectful
“I actually think we’ll be moving more gas but we’ll be moving gas to power stations to make electricity rather than to homes.”
Even this statement is only on the right side of bad.
As we already have a gas delivery structure to domestic properties, it would be financially and CO2 more efficient to use that, especially for domestic heating, instead of burning the Gas at a power station, and then distributing the Electricity produced.
Just think of the Energy losses at the power station and in the transmission.
Would GCSE Physics provide sufficient information to understand this?
My view has always been that it is a waste of gas to use it to generate electricity when coal is available. Gas is much better suited to domestic and industrial use than coal. Having said that, the other evening somebody around me was burning coal as there was that lovely smell in the air.
But coal was blamed for acid rain, which turned out to be fictional but which is still taught as fact pretty much everywhere.
Modern coal fired plants like China is building and the UK hasn’t are very clean, not to mention efficient.
Sulfur is a necessary trace element for plant growth.
From the web: Sulfur is a structural component of protein disulfide bonds, amino acids, vitamins, and cofactors. Most of the sulfur in soil is present in organic matter and hence not accessible to the plants. Anionic form of sulfur (SO42-) is the primary source of sulfur for plants that are generally present in minimal amounts in the soil.
Getting rid of acid rain didn’t/won’t help plants
Gas-fired generation can be useful for “peak lopping” electrical demand, although modern coal-fired can peak lop.
True, Robert. But Butterworth is only involved with delivery. He ASSUMES facilities that can use it will still exist.
Aye, right enough, as we say: Ethics doesn’t come into it…. MOney money money … to Hull with everybody else.
saighdear – Money and Ethics are important, but Butterworth cannot control either at the level required. He took on the job that had a specification, and he’s doing it. If he said we need to keep domestic gas supply, he would be accused of bias, at a minimum, working for an ‘evil’ fossil fuel company (ignoring the uncertainty that Methane is totally derived from fossils). He’s done well to say what he said. It supplies a talking point.
It’s how the West has developed, with the politicians getting more remote from their constituents and from not having productive career beforehand so they could then formulate policy that reflects what is needed. Their incompetence is known by the international corporations, ‘guidance’ giving Global NGOs and foreign powers (the EU), so we end up with Stupidity!
A good, local, example is Ed Davey, who helped write the fraccing legislation: he made it so complicated that the industry never got off the ground in the UK. Just think how useful it would be now. And we have had Alok Sharma, a past minister of Energy, blowing up a coal-fired power station.
In other news
the pope is a catholic (and definitely not a climate scientist)
bears are still using the woods as a toilet (woods are thriving because of CO2)
sale of caves set to outpace CO2 and global temperature rates.
And STILL our likely future energy secretary, Ed Milliband, says he will make Britain “fossil fuel free” by 2030.
What an utter fool he is, and a dangerous one at that.
Fool? an utter PLONKER .. ONE of the heads of the Hydra.
Now Ed., after me : renewables cannot not exist without being able to rely on gas . Renewables bring nothing to the country except transient virtue and avoidable and ongoing expense.
From the article
“In 2022, the wind didn’t blow enough or at all for 262 days. And in those 262 days, we would have had rolling blackouts, or a full blackout across the UK if it wasn’t for gas.”
In a sane world, it would be difficult to justify continued expenditure on renewables after reading and understanding the above statement.
Nah, Mick. Their solution is to add more windmills!
He clearly hasn’t read
“Hitting the ground running: How Labour can prepare the grid for decarbonisation by 2030”
Click to access ruk_pf_green_grid_2030_report_final.pdf
Oh dear where on earth do these people come up with these ideas this one is utterly ludicrous but probably wont stop daft Ed adopting it.
Daft Ed can only understand daft ideas
notify comments
Anyone see any overly optimistic assumptions in this “Electricity means Efficiency “ blog?
https://open.substack.com/pub/hannahritchie/p/electrification-energy-efficiency?r=8qay0&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
David Turver’s analysis is worth a read:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgzGwHVHXWfNjNkMCsqwWDQpZxVKr
So much for carbon capture, eh?
“Occidental Petroleum is leading the global charge to vastly expand the use of technologies that suck up carbon dioxide. The failure of company’s biggest-ever bet shows the challenges ahead.”
This guy is talking nonsense, saying that there is no alternative to gas. The latter is an ever diminishing resource and we should protect it for domestic heating and NOT use it to generate electricity. The Ireland Alternative Fuel Obligation provides the solution and should be adopted for the UK and extended beyond emergency use. Distillate fuels are plentiful and reliable – they are ideal for gas turbine fuel. .
Vernon; This is a good point which you have made before.
It would be interesting to see some flesh on the bones in terms of what modifications and additional equipment would be required.
I know very little about gas turbines: can they be converted to dual-fuel operation or would it be a permanent choice between gas and distillate firing? I’ve read that refining capacity in the UK has diminished greatly in recent years. Would enough fuel be available locally?