Good News: The UK uses <5% Russian gas. Bad News: the UK could lose 44% of its gas if Russia is disconnected

28 comments

1. The best thing in this scenario would to be a member of a regional union of fellow, like-minded countries where any shortfall in supply was equalised across all members

   Good thing Putin didn’t start this in Oct/Nov.

2. Fracking supporters are probably sat in their homes with big cheesy grins.

3. Nuclear. All the benefits of gas. None of the disadvantages of renewables. Only disadvantage being waste which is a doddle for the UK and decomissioning takes a bit of time. In terms of an urgent solution no renewable source is capable of replacing gas. Issue is they take a while to build and we massively lack expertise.

   In a crisis:

   Theoretically we could reoperate coal plants. We have 3 we could use with decent outputs. In an energy crisis it would be sensible. Decomissioned sites and gas plants could be used in such a place.

   We could also threaten to disconnect Ireland in the event of unilateral EU action. Its a point no one really wants to bring up. Doesnt really benefit anyone though.

4. 2017 was post-brexit & post Georgia, post Crimea & Donbas.

   The Tories aren’t just evil, they are also massively incompetent, a lot of people didn’t see Putin invading Ukraine actually coming, but having a large strategic reserve has been important since 2008, getting rid of it in 2017 is beyond madness.

5. Obviously refill the reserve as soon as possible at reasonable cost. But the consistent goal, as it should have been anyway, is to break dependence on it. If Russia has a revolution tomorrow and is ruled by benevolent angels who decide to give the UK gas for free as an apology…it will still run out within decades.

   Get homes properly insulated. New builds MUST be insulated to the 9s, and subsidies should be available for older properties. Stop installing new gas boilers and ovens, we should do everything to keep tapering down. We can use gas for a time while phasing the infrastracture out through the natural cycle of replacing old shit. The expense of all this is irrelevant, we should have war time measures of economic control if needed – how much damage if we already inflicted unnecessarily on the climate. how many dead slavs from letting Russia keep Europe over a barrel until now? It’s already war, and it’s bang fucking selfish to not take the hard pills of getting off fossil fuels ASAP.

   For energy generally, aside from the fact that much of that decentralised energy use requires it to be gas, we should look to renewables. Nuclear power has a limited, transitional role. In the long term it’s not worth the risk and the storage – that shit is radioactive for thousands of years, it WILL go wrong at some stage. It was in the news last week that storage costs had doubled to 53 billion – it isn’t the sci-fi fix people are wedded to. Greater flexibility for the grid can come with better energy storage in part, and smarter coordination of usage with the boom in information technology.

   The final, and most radical thing we should do for enery is use less. Much less. Make much less. Work much less. Consume much less. We need food, we need a limited amount of long-lasting (so not breaking by design in 2 years to sell you a new one for $$$) consumer goods, we need infrastructure. People would be much happier in a high-tech but limited consumption leisure economy, with much more time to spend with each other, able to share and enjoy public amenities maintained with heavy investment.

   The future is waiting. This crisis, awful at is, should be the kick up the arse to get started.

6. UPDATE: *”The European Commission on Tuesday presented a plan to* **cut Russian gas imports by two-thirds this year**, *steeply reducing — but not severing — energy ties to Moscow. The proposal, to be discussed by leaders at a summit in Paris this week, is a dramatic shift for a bloc that remains heavily reliant on relatively cheap and abundant Russian energy. But it falls short of the full-scale boycott that some have called for in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”* – so it looks like the EU will be taking its gas back, albeit slowly.

   Start preparing for winter 2022 now.

7. Ah, it’s fine. Will kill off some of those free loaders who leech off the state with their flat screen TVs! Look at the positives! /s

8. Australia has massive gas reserves and while I’m not in favour of using hydrocarbons rather than renewables, this should be an option.

9. As the US, and sooner and the EU cuts off Russian gas, they will seek out other suppliers, we use mostly Norwegian Gas supplies, and demand for theirs will heavily affect prices for us.

   Its already going to be bad enough.

   We need to be more energy independent, Climate will kill us, or stress will.

10. I mean we already use too much. Too many people drive everywhere. Maybe more people need to start walking and cycling instead.

11. Love how you’re blithely talking about “the UK’s natural gas” when most of that is produced in Scotland.

    It’s going to be interesting to see how Unionists try to sell power and heating cuts in Scotland. Seeing as if Scotland were independent right now we’d control more than enough for our own use with a surplus to sell abroad.

    “Better Together” for England – but not for Scotland.

12. People should play their part and use less gas. People are dying. If using less gas means there’s a good chance it’ll harm Russian funds, let’s use less gas and pay higher prices for it.

13. Sorry your number us incorrect, we use 2.3% from Russia. We get 54% from Norway.

14. On no expert + point 3.

    How does Ireland get its “contractual gas” if the U.K. is cut off? Ireland has no facilities for LNG and is 100% reliant on the U.K. to supply its needs.

    Getting advice from Twitter is probably the worst way to educate yourself.

15. It’s hard to get people off gas; the electric alternatives just aren’t a viable alternative in many hard to insulate homes.

16. It really annoys me that the UK, and other European countries, have have decades to achieve energy independence. It’s something numerous environmental groups have been calling for for years. Reducing or entirely eliminating our dependency upon fossil fuel imports would give us (Europe) far more leverage when dealing with Russia right now. (And not just Russia – our love of oil continues to prop up various dodgy regimes in the Middle East too.)

    The barrier hasn’t been money or technology, but political will.

    The title sequence of Have I Got News for You has poked fun at Russia cutting off Europe’s gas supply for years – this is an issue people have recognised could cause serious problems, and still, nothing was done.

17. All these ‘events’ hopefully make clear that ‘the welfare state’ is not only vital for every individual but also vital for UK business.

    In some ways today is a repeat of the post-ww2 period where people wanted better. The major difference is the lack of any electoral choices.

18. It doesn’t matter where we get our gas from. If one of the suppliers stops supplying it affects the whole supply (other countries will have to switch to our supplier raising prices). So its still bad news.

19. Cant we just buy it from other sources like the middle east or Venezuela?

20. The gas from Norway not the EU and is sourced in Norway not Russia.

21. Looks like those insulate Britain wankers were right all along

22. In short. Prepare to be fucked with a blunt instrument by your energy company.

23. Going fully nuclear/renewable has always been something thats 10/20/30 years down the line, but can we use this shitshow to ramp that process up? If we put our minds to something, we can get shit done. Look at what we did in wwII ramping up production of planes and tanks and the like, or what the Americans did with the New Deal. I don’t think its beyond the realms of possibility to wean ourselves off gas imports entirely within two or three years if we really pull our fingers out.

24. Yup, since Norway will have to prioritise EEA before the UK

25. [deleted]

26. Point 3 doesn’t really mean much when there’s nothing presented of the contract between Norway and the UK, nor anything practical regarding the actual infrastructure between Norway and the EU to send gas. Your title is incredibly sensationalist OP.

27. Hopefully this will be a moot point, unless we get a cold snap in March.

    The idea that we can decarbonise/install renewable tech by winter is a pipe dream (not least as we don’t have the workforce with the skills to do it).

    Hopefully Putin will be gone by then, and we get a warmish winter, otherwise poor people are going to suffer horribly, perhaps without precedent in recent decades.

28. Honestly worst comes to the worst il wear extra clothes buy some heaters and take showers, I’m not going to be held over a barrel by Putin.