European weather, Danish and Scottish power supplies

Denmark would like to get rid of the idea of using coal for its power stations and would like to have the five largest cities in the country “coal free.” Because Denmark still uses conventional, currently coal-fired, power stations for power this requires that they be converted to burning biomass instead.

Converting to biomass from coal is predicted to reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by between three and five percent. It has been estimated that the conversion to biomass will cost the state some 900 million kroner annually through the loss of levies on coal.

The process has begun at the Amager Power Station which now includes a unit that burns straw and wood pellets.

The renovation process has taken more than five years and cost DKK 1.9 billion. In return, we have reduced emissions by as much as 630,000 tons CO2 per year.

The straw comes from farmers in Zealand, where it is pelletized before being shipped to the plant, which will burn about 100,000 tons a year of straw and 300,000 tons of wood pellets that will be imported from neighboring countries. The power company that runs these power stations, Vattenfall, has the stated intention of being CO2 neutral by the year 2030.

One of the other suppliers, Dong Energy which supplies more than 50% of Danish energy, has been criticized in the past because it planned on building new coal-fired power plants at Griefswald in Germany and at Hunterston in Scotland.
The company dropped out of the German power station plan a year ago. And it now appears that it may have struck out in Scotland also. The Hunterston station was scheduled to burn a mixture of coal and wood pellets, and aimed to be a demonstration site for carbon capture.

The 1.6 gigawatt plant, proposed by Ayrshire Power, is seen as a test of the Scottish government’s energy policy, which is fiercely anti-nuclear and pro- renewables but which critics say ignores the realities of future demand for power.

If permission is granted, the site, at Hunterston, will be the first in the UK to have an experimental carbon capture and storage facility. The company claims that this will capture 90 per cent of carbon from the plant and reduce consumption by up to 25 per cent.

However, within the last month, it appears that this plan has also died with the issue of a new policy statement from the Government.

“There is no current need for an increase in overall thermal capacity,” the policy statement says. “A huge increase in the potential of renewable electricity has led to a downward revision in the estimated requirement for new-build thermal electricity generation plant.”

Environmental groups say this spells the end of the Hunterston project, as well as another hotly disputed power scheme – ScottishPower’s plan to convert an old coal plant at Cockenzie in East Lothian to gas. It also confirms there is no need for any new nuclear plants.

“This would seem to signal a death knell for new coal or gas power stations such as those proposed at Hunterston and at Cockenzie,” said Duncan McLaren, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. He pointed out that, according to the new policy, Scotland would need just 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of power from fossil fuel plants in 2030. This could easily be met by cleaned-up electricity from refurbished plants at Longannet in Fife (2.4GW) and at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire (up to 1.6GW), he argued.

As a basic point of reference,

Scotland produced in 2008 48.217 TWh of electricity (Scotland 2 2008), equivalent to 5.5 GW continuous power output. Of this:
27% was from nuclear power stations, 29% coal & combined cycle, 10% from hydro power, 27 % from gas/oil plants, and 7% wind onshore from approximately 800 MW capacity.

Scotland has already seen one station brought on line the 44 MW station at Lockerbie, that burns only wood.

The CO2 neutral plant is the UK's largest dedicated wood burning plant . . . . . It will burn 475,000t of sustainable wood fuel a year, including 95,000t of short rotation coppice. It will save up to 140,000t of greenhouse gas emissions annually. . . . . . . . Wood can have high moisture content, including Small Round Wood (SRW, 52–58%) sawmill co-products (54–62%), and Short Rotation Coppice willow (SRC, 35–55%). Besides freshly cut and old wood, Stevens Croft can burn different grades of willow.

The power plant can reach full output even with high-moisture fuels. It will burn a maximum of 20% recycled wood (limited by Planning and IPPC), and a maximum of 20% SRC (targeted by grant conditions for end 2011). Moisture content range for the plant is between 46% and 58%, with a design blend of 53%.

The majority of the fuel comes from sources within 60 miles of the plant.

Now this isn’t where this post was supposed to end up. I had started writing it because of a report that Denmark was restarting mothballed coal-fired power plants to meet the demand for energy in this colder-than-normal winter. As the post evolved it showed that Denmark isn’t having much luck in finding other sources for power outside the country, but that Scotland is becoming more self-sufficient by, among other sources, increasing their use of wood, which is also in the Danish plan. However, at present, Denmark has had a remarkably stable supply of electricity from coal for the last decade, judging by their coal consumption. (Note that the plot below shows the BP data, there are other sources which report that Danish demand is higher (at 7.8 million tons in 2009) although the shape of the curve is the same.)

Coal use in Denmark (Export Energy Databrowser )

A review of the Nordic power balance earlier this year showed that Denmark should have been more than self-sufficient, even with a 1 in 10 severity winter. However, and this is the confirmation of the story that I began looking for, Dong Energy has had to recognize that this winter is more severe and has, in fact, had to reactivate coal-fired stations.

DONG Energy has today decided to temporarily bring back into service Unit 4 at 
Studstrup Power Station and Unit 5 at Asnæs Power Station with effect from 9 
December 2010 and 3 January 2011 respectively. At the same time, Unit 2 at 
Asnæs Power Station will be taken out of operation on 3 January 2011. It is 
DONG Energy's intention to take the two power station units out of operation 
again on 1 April 2011 and 1 May 2011 respectively and to recommence generation 
at Unit 2 at Asnæs Power Station on 1 May 2011. 



Cold weather, coupled with low water levels, in the reservoirs that supply the 
Norwegian hydroelectric plants has created great demand for generating capacity 
in the Nordic energy market. At the same time, the cold winter is putting 
pressure on supply of heat in Aarhus and the neighbouring municipalities. By 
bringing Unit 5 at Asnæs Power Station and Unit 4 at Studstrup Power Station 
back into service, DONG Energy will thus be contributing to securing the 
electricity supply and the heat supply.

Gas demand, miles travelled and salt for the roads

It has been a while since we looked at the TWIP and natural gas pages of the EIA, so (in order to maintain the historic record) a quick trip over there, and to the VMT page of the FHWA is in order. I will get to natural gas in another post, but the increase in natural gas prices in New York from $6 to $11 over the last week (it was as high as $14/kcf last Monday) is something eye catching. It is interesting to note that while domestic crude is about at the highest point it has been in quite a while (allowing for a little drop due to the weather and season), there is now also a slight uptick in imports as well, indicating that the domestic gains in production may no longer be enough to keep up.

Domestic crude production end of 2009 (EIA)

Crude oil imports end of 2009 (EIA)

Gasoline demand has been relatively stable , but if you go back to the seasonality of demand this is the time of year when gas prices have historically been lowest, as has demand. From now on the growth should be relatively slow but steady into June when it reaches the peak during the summer driving season. So how are we doing this year?

Gasoline demand at the end of 2009 (EIA)

The question becomes whether we will drop down in demand through February, as we did last year, or whether we will return to the more historic curve with the earlier minimum. We shall see. (Robert Rapier’s recent essay on the possible perils of making predictions is still in my mind).

So what is happening with the VMT? Well, bearing in mind that these reports run a little late (the latest is for last October, there was a y-o-y drop overall of 0.5% in miles driven, after having seen an uptick in driving for the past few months. Interstate driving has risen, but it is the traffic in the “other” urban that was hardest hit, with other rural also being down over 1% (arterial and interstates were less affected). And for the overall summary curve?

12 Month running total of travel on US Roads through October 2009 (FHWA)

Well it is flattening out a bit, and may well do so through the next couple of months, given the typical drop in driving in winter, which will be exacerbated this year by the colder weather and greater depths of snow that are curtailing driving at the moment.

One of the things that I pointed out in comments after yesterday’s post was a direction to the Youtube video of the Head of the British Met Office getting his head handed to him by the BBC, in an interview that connected three erroneous medium term forecasts (for last winter, last summer, and this winter) with a 25% performance based increase in his salary. There is a relevance to this that may not be quite immediately discernable – but basically when, in times that are financially tough, counties, cities etc look to their budgets for the year, they tend to take such predictions of future weather into account when then order grit and salt that can be used on the roads to improve driving in winters such as the current one.

Unfortunately for the second winter in a row the Met Office has that prediction wrong, and the problem that it has caused is that there is now not enough salt and grit to go around. Villages in Britain have been cut off for weeks without the county doing anything to help, and this is unlikely to change soon.

But County Councillor Keith Young, who has a responsibility for highways, gave residents little comfort, asking them to 'bear with us'.

He said: ‘At the moment we have a very extreme set of circumstances and the priority is to keep the main roads clear.

‘As soon as we can we will treat the other roads we will do but we will not jeopardise our grit stocks.

‘My message to the residents in Cow Ark is that we are not doing this deliberately and I am sure their community spirit will see them through.’

I am sure that is a great consolation.

The role that highways play in providing access and communication, whether of bread, fodder for sheep or tankers for milk is often underplayed in the needs of those that live in more rural parts, but it is equally critical to the overall national picture since the costs to those living in the city may become more evident as milk becomes less available in consequence.

Salt for highways is often produced from underground mines, it should be kept dry until used, and for best effect should be spread on snow at a density of around 20 – 40 gm/sq. m.. There were some lessons that could be learned from the harsh winter in the UK last year (pdf) unfortunately (as is now becoming evident) those lessons were not well learned and there is now a national shortage of salt to treat the highways, even as the cold is anticipated to continue for another couple of weeks or more. In the UK there is only one major supplier of salt, a mine at Winsford in Cheshire, and while they can increase production to a degree with demand, beyond a certain point that becomes impractical due to a lack of machines, operators and suitable transport to deliver it to the customer. Thus the criticality of counties knowing in advance how much they will need, and the results of the failure of the Met Office to perform as they should, given their claim to be the best in this business in the world. (Not perhaps something they should have been stressing against their current record).

In the USA salt comes from regional mines, but there is the same basic need for information, and the same reliance on forecasts to assess how much salt and grit to stock. It might not have been politically correct, just before the Copenhagen meeting, to admit that the Northern Hemisphere was going to have a severe winter against AGW predictions, but it should have been the correct step, had folk been concerned about doing what they are paid (and apparently very well) to do.

Gasoline demand, August driving and winter weather

Wednesdays are when the TWIP (This Week in Petroleum) is issued by the EIA. Today’s cover note deals with the relatively changing prices of distillates (which includes diesel) relative to gasoline. In the past year the United States has become a net exporter of distillate, and even though the market has fallen, continues to be one, averaging about 350 kbd.

Looking at the gasoline demand, as we move further into a winter heating season, with less driving, there has been a fall-off in demand, though it is still higher than a year ago.

U.S. gasoline demand (TWIP )

When one contrasts this with the changes in driving patterns, now available from the FHWA for August, overall travel is up some 0.7% over August of 2008. Looking at the curve above the greatest impact of the recession on gasoline demand did not occur until September last year, and so this shows a further increase in the recovery. That is best shown by the running 12-month of vehicle miles driven.

12 month running total of vehicle miles driven in the USA. (FHWA)

The upturn in the curve is now clearly defined. The gains are not, however, this month distributed around the USA. Both the North East and the North Central parts of the country are showing a decline in driving, and it is in the South and West that there have been the gains, with Texas and the South Gulf showing the largest increase of some 1.7% over last year. Both urban and rural driving are still showing gains over last year, though now falling away from parity with 2007 (which rural driving almost matched for a short time in July).

We are left to await the coming winter, with the debate as to how hot it will be, relative to normal, given the El Nino condition. Going to the NOAA Winter Outlook prediction site, the winter is largely predicted to be warmer than usual across the country, and as a general rule perhaps a little drier in some parts, though wetter along the coasts. That may help (?) encourage driving over burning winter fuel – we’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

Winter outlook for temperatures.

Winter outlook for rain and snow.

These predictions are relatively-short term and it will be interesting to come back to this page in the Spring, and see how accurate the predictions were. (Likely better than mine from 30-years ago, to which I hope to return, perhaps tomorrow).