Whoops we`re running out of gas

[einsteinsdog]

Another piece of beautiful long term govt planning

When I was a kid we were told repeatedly that our country was lucky enough to have 300 years reserves of coal .So what happened , in their wisdom the powers that are decided to shut all the coal mines and go for gas power stations to fill in peak demand. Now we are slowly running out of gas . The glorious `race for gas ` is over and we`re faced with power cuts this winter .Industry cant afford the sky high gas price What has happened and why did few people forsee it coming?

[brachiopod]

I live in London - the original Smoke Free zone (though I am not a Londoner).

I can burn coal if I choose to - but it must be a 'smokeless' variety. This can either be a low-grade coal that has been processed so as to be smokeless, or I can burn pure, natural Welsh anthracite, which is naturally smokeless, and permissable to burn in Smoke-Free zones (eg major cities).

It was Thatcher, in her wisdom, who manged to shut down every deep, anthracite producing mine in Wales.

Finally, ZebUK, how is natural gas not a fossil fuel then?

[brionon]

Yes ,sometimes I relax into thinking that our masters actually know what they are doing. And then ??

They didn't know that one year we'd have a hard winter. Bl--dy hell.

[cherrybomb]

When we moved into our house, there was a card meter for the gas suply. We intended but never got around to changing to a billed one. We still used to get a statement sent with all our meter credits and estimated meter readings. I used gas for central heating and cooking.

The statements stopped months ago. I don't even know who supplies our gas or who is responsible for the meter. I now cook with electric so only heat the house and water with gas but compared to last winter I am getting alot less for my credits. I also noticed that my emergency credit has magically increased from �2 to �5

Now I don't like being too warm, it makes me tired and lethargic. I can adjust my timer and thermostat if I want to save money and gas but it is going to be even worse this year for the pensioners.

As I am typing this the snow is settling, so it looks like we can't rely on a mild winter to help.

[grahamfreer]

The reason we are running out of gas is because it is being used as a fuel in a lot of power stations because it burns so clean & was relatively cheap. The only other solutions are coal (dirty) nuclear (risky) wave power (technologically inept) solar (where is the sun in uk) wind (too many nimby's) or hydro electric (environmentalists) so what choice

[BillyBB]

We're burning gas because we signed up to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions. The idea being we install flue gas desulphurisation on power stations using best of British technology. Then we had the miners strike and privatised the power industry so no investment was made to provide for the future. Meantime our specialist firms that built power stations and pioneered FGD have no customers.