This is not entirely related to the article: Rising temperatures should reduce demand for fossil fuels as a heating source (I think). Does anyone know if this is already factored into global warming predictions?
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Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
151–160 of 197 posts
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might think it's impossible to beat a modern 98% efficient gas furnace, but electric heat pumps can have effective efficiencies greater than 100%. (sometimes 200% or 300%!) They can do this because they "steal" heat energy from outside (yes, even in the cold winter air)
Yes, but if the electricity is made from gas, then 300% efficiency of heat pump is better than 98% efficient heat furnace only if generation efficiency is at least 33%. Heat pumps are pretty great, but as of today, they are by no means necessarily more efficient than burning gas directly for heat, at least when it comes to GHG emissions. In fact, in very cold climates where air temperature is below freezing most of t…
> only if generation efficiency is at least 33%.
the efficiency of a combined cycle gas generator is usually 50-60%.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#153They need to perfect the capture and storage technology and force all the Bakken oil field flares to use it. Billion of cubic feet every DAY just burnt off into the atmosphere because the oil makes them more money. Over $100 Million per MONTH Our country/world is insane with waste while people freeze and starve.
Why can't things just be free? Free stuff for everyone everywhere! Yeah! I'd vote for anybody offering me free stuff, even if it came with strings that I wasn't aware of until it was too late. If only Hugo Chavez were alive today. He'd know what to do. Sadly, the only playbook all our leaders have to go on are his books.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#154Normally you run storage facilities neither all the way full nor all the way empty: you want to be able to smooth out fluctuations in supply and demand. Because of the war Europe is running gas storage near its upper limit, which means we should expect less flexibility and more price volatility: they won't want to draw them way down if we get a serious cold snap, and they have nowhere to put extra gas if it's warmer…
Some important caveats
- the storage squeeze is only in Spain
- storage facilities are pre-booked, meaning the if you want to buy some gas you should've booked the some storage beforehand. Storage supply is a non-elastic on the shore.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
That you cannot conjure a gas tanker ship -and the required infrastructure- out of thin air.
They arrived full of gas with nowhere to offload. Those ships are what I'm suggesting wait until offloading is possible.
Gas is also transported by other means. I imagine those ships are not selling their load at negative spot price. What is “wrong” with waiting is that you’re losing money instead of being making money.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#156Completely unrelated, but I'm truly impressed that CNN offers a light version of their articles without any layout. This is really refreshing and a pleasure to read. I would like to see more websites do this and focus on the content.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The standard "smooth out the fluctuations" approach gives an extremely low probability of running out of fuel during the winter at a reasonable cost, but only assuming sufficient fuel imports. Because of the loss of Russian gas and not having sufficient LNG infrastructure to make up it, Europe will burn gas faster than replacement when it's sufficiently cold, and if the cold weather lasts long enough they could run o…
Given the disrupted gas supply, what alternatives are there to the "expensive and wasteful strategy" ?
The strategy in question is, more generally, moving volatility in the shoulders of the distribution to the central region. It knowingly subjects us to worse-than-normal price movements in the stable regime so that price movements aren't as crazy when we go out to more extreme regimes.
The alternative would be to, well, not do that. Or any other of a number of volatility-controlling strategies. I don't think any of them are better, but there's always an alternative.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost. If you had long term storage you would be following the market yourself. There is a good chance that you are the one who paid for this gas months ago when it left port, expecting to sell the gas you currently have in storage and refill it with shipments arriving today. So odds are you lost money today. Note that the above was a good and reasonable bet to make. You should have already known the risk that this…
Okay, that makes sense. Do people in these situations try to come up with on-demand storage at all, or is that not reasonable given the difficulty of storing natural gas? Like, could you try and load up your idle fleet of containers (truck, ship) on the cheap or are we past that now, hence the negative price?
Any reasonably-sized storage has already been contracted out in advance, and improvising additional storage capacity isn't really viable given the amounts of gas we're talking about and the environmental laws storage has to comply with.
However, what has happened in the past for oil is tanker ships anchoring with a full load just offshore until they can sell the load for a good price. I don't know whether that's also feasible for LNG though, given the boiloff concerns.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#159This is a better situation than the reverse. It’s fortunate the winter has been mild so far. Will be interesting if the LNG industry can keep pace and replace Russia for good.
4 seasons in 12 months = 3 months per season. March is not winter, it's the start of spring. March, April, May = Spring June, July, August = Summer September, October, November = Autumn/Fall December, January, February = Winter No Winter has started this year yet, we have one more month of Autumn/Fall.
> March is not winter, it's the start of spring.
That depends on which definition you're using. The astronomical winter runs until 21 March (and doesn't start until 22 December). Seasons in general are just a somewhat ill-defined concept, as weather doesn't particularly care about human constructs.
Re: Europe now has so much natural gas that prices just dipped below zero
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
That you cannot conjure a gas tanker ship -and the required infrastructure- out of thin air.
They arrived full of gas with nowhere to offload. Those ships are what I'm suggesting wait until offloading is possible.
Those ships most likely sold their load of gas before they even set sail.