News

You only have to switch on the TV or open a newspaper to read about the energy situation in this country, which fast seems to be approaching a crisis.  It recently slipped out that in March of this year, the UK was only six hours from running out of its supply of stored gas altogether.  Much of our domestic and business energy usage is now heavily reliant on foreign imports.  Here in Britain we have failed to renew our older, inefficient power stations, while renewables such as wind power can still be extremely inefficient. As we work towards long term domestic and business energy solutions, we desperately need to build new infrastructure capacity and, in the meantime, the search is on for new sources of potential energy, such as fracking.  Well, one solution might lie at the door of the Geordies.  Once they joked of people taking coals to Newcastle, in the days when the north-east was fundamental in the coal industry, the boys from the black stuff.  However, this new innovation is much more ingenious and takes place not under the ground of Northumberland, but rather off its coast - a 250 square mile area of prime North Sea.  Of course, thoughts immediately turn to North Sea oil and the natural reserves that have been so important to the UK.  However, this is not North Sea oil.  It's North Sea… gas.

Deep gas winning

The idea is the brainchild of Professor Harry Bradbury of Newcastle University, an institution which has incubated his own company, Five-Quarter, who have now gained rights to that area of the North Sea.  We know about the oil, and we have long known there are seams of coal beneath the sea, just as we always presumed there could be no use for it, as it lies deep, deep, beneath.  However, Professor Bradbury has devised an innovative method of horizontal drilling and extraction, which he has termed deep gas winning, a clever combination of engineering and mining. Here’s how it works.  Two drills are driven into the coal.  Then, oxygen is pumped down to burn the coal, which in turn releases not the coal itself, but the latent “syngas”, comprised of various other gases. The method has been used before, around the world, but this demonstration project, starting in the summer of 2013, will be a first for the UK, and the first to try the process under the sea.  There are many other benefits to Professor Bradbury’s work.  By creating these coalfields in the North Sea, it may actually renew interest in the North Sea area itself, and his process is also able to utilise the pre-existing oil drilling platforms, which means we can tap this fabulous resource not once, but twice – first for oil, and now for gas.  Using the same infrastructure means it opens up much more cost-effective business energy solutions. Professor Bradbury claims just his 250 square mile area could yield more gas than the whole of the North Sea so far.  And the good news for business energy consumers is that the gas can be used both in industry and the domestic market, and might be available as early as two years time, all of which may help to increase supply, and therefore drive down prices.