War On Coal -- Great Britain

Looking for love in all the wrong places.

When I think "coal exports," I think Asia. See earlier post.

But this is very, very fascinating. Read the wiki entry for Energy in the United Kingdom.

Based on earlier MDW stories, I knew that the UK is in an energy crunch. It's a huge story; the UK has got to be very, very concerned. Worse, by law, they are committed to worsening their own situation. My hunch is that Great Britain will dial back on some of their goals, but even so, the UK is an interesting case study to consider.

Right or wrong, this is my worldview: Great Britain is already in a huge energy crunch. It is banking on new off-shore shale fields, but it will take a bit of time to get them developed -- let's say two to three years, about the time the Panama Canal widening project will be complete (if I remember, I will connect those dots later).

Oil is not used for generating electricity, and alternate sources are grossly inadequate to make a dent in the British energy crunch. Nuclear power? LOL.

Okay. So, the first question: after the Iron Lady killed the coal industry in Great Britain, does that country even use coal any more? According to the linked wiki article above, yes. To the tune of about one-third of British energy needs.

A third is not trivial; I don't see further eroding of coal use in the British Isles in their current energy crunch.

How bad is the energy crunch?

Energy in the United Kingdom
	Capita	Prim. energy	Production	Import	Electricity	CO2-emission
	million	TWh	TWh	TWh	TWh	Mt
2004	59.8	2,718	2,619	135	371	537
2007	60.8	2,458	2,050	522	373	523
2008	61.4	2,424	1,939	672	372	511
2009	61.8	2,288	1,848	641	352	466
2010	62.2	2,355	1,730	705	357	484
Change 2004-10	3.9%	-13.3 %	-33.9 %	420%	-3.9  %	-10.0  %

Assuming I am reading the table correctly, look at the third and fourth columns.

• In 2004, Great Britain imported 135 "units" of their energy.
• In 2010, Great Britain imported 705 "units" of their energy.

• In 2004, Great Britain produced 2,620 "units" in-country.
• In 2010, Great Britain produced 1,730 "units" in-country.

Astounding.

And then look at how well conservation of energy is working in that country where natural gas is much more expensive than it is in the United States, and gasoline is two to three times more costly. One would think that the Brits would improve conservation of energy. But just the opposite (again, assuming I am reading the table correctly).

• In 2004, per capita usage: 60 units
• In 2010, per capita usage: 62 units

The increase is inconsequential except for the fact a) the push for conservation has been huge; and, b) the Brits are in a huge energy crunch.

Another graph from wiki: 


 
Again, oil is not used (hopefully) to generate electricity. Natural gas use dropped off a cliff in 2011, dropping back to levels not seen since 1995. One can argue that the drop in oil use is due more to the "recession" than availability. I'm not going to look for the links now, but it was widely reported that Great Britain came without hours (repeat: hours) of running out of natural gas this past winter.

Oh, connecting those dots. The UK is banking on off-shore shale deposits of natural gas but it will take a couple of years to get those fields under development. In a couple of years, the Panama Canal widening project will be completed. The connecting dot? Coal exporters can ship coal to Great Britain while anticipating the use of larger coal ships once the canal project is completed, in 2015, to ship coal to Asia. Asia and Europe should snap up American coal at fire-sale prices with the war on coal here in the US. If the Germans are clear-cutting forests in North Carolina for the wood to produce electricity, one would think they would be thrilled to get cheap coal.

By the way, if per capita energy use is going up, but overall energy is going down, it is interesting to look at the population numbers for Great Britain. There is a great interactive graph at wiki (again).

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A Note To The Granddaughters

In an earlier post, I mentioned how excited I was to be reading The Log of The Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck. More than once, he has talked about Sally Lightfoots. Finally, curiosity got the better of me, so I went to wiki to find out more about these creatures.

Incredible.

Wiki actually quotes at length from Steinbeck's log of the Sea of Cortez. 

Many people have spoken at length of the Sally Lightfoots. In fact, everyone who has seen them has been delighted with them. The very name they are called by reflects the delight of the name. These little crabs, with brilliant cloisonné carapaces, walk on their tiptoes, They have remarkable eyes and an extremely fast reaction time. In spite of the fact that they swarm on the rocks at the Cape [San Lucas], and to a less degree inside the Gulf [of California], they are exceedingly hard to catch. They seem to be able to run in any of four directions; but more than this, perhaps because of their rapid reaction time, they appear to read the mind of their hunter. They escape the long-handled net, anticipating from what direction it is coming. If you walk slowly, they move slowly ahead of you in droves. If you hurry, they hurry. When you plunge at them, they seem to disappear in a puff of blue smoke—at any rate, they disappear. It is impossible to creep up on them. They are very beautiful, with clear brilliant colors, red and blues and warm browns.

And much more.