Gasworkers, Leeds, 1890

“Throughout 1889, there had been rumblings among the Gasworkers; it should not need stressing that these were critical to the economy and comfort of the city.  As winter approached, the Gas Committee conceded to a number of demands on hours and pay.  These were buoyant days for the newly powerful Trade Union movement and the concession was a notable victory. 

The Committee was not minded to accept its defeat, however, and prepared for a battle the following summer when gas demand was at its lowest.  After Easter, a number of provocative measures were introduced which resulted in a withdrawal of labour from July 1st.  This was in an atmosphere of very large public meetings and serious hostility between the Union (treating in very reasonable language) and the Liberal Council – it is important to note that the dispute was held with the party which, prior to the establishment of the Labour Party, had been “of the working man”. 

The Council brought in blackleg labour from London and Manchester, and it was this development that sparked spectacular riots in the neighbourhood of the Meadow Lane and New Wortley gasworks. 

_________________

In fact, events had been brewing for some time, based on significant social discontent surrounding housing and sanitary issues among the working classes.  Before the end of June, there had been blockades at the gasworks, and attempts to prevent the erection of marquees designed to house the blacklegs.  The authorities had sensed the mood and took the precaution on their arrival of housing most of the blacklegs in the Town Hall.  Other night-time arrivals were greeted violently by small numbers of pickets as they were escorted into the Meadow Lane works, resulting in several casualties as they were beaten off by police. 

The following day huge crowds gathered at Meadow Lane to “persuade” the blacklegs to depart, which many did.  By evening, a crowd of 10000-15000 was charging the works and conducting pitched battles with the police, resulting in a large and very bloody battle. 

The men billeted in the Town Hall were understandably nervous, and the authorities chose to escort them to New Wortley works, a decision which turned out to be a major misjudgement.  Police were drafted in from Bradford, York and Huddersfield, and large number of foot and mounted soldiers also deployed.  At around 8pm on Tuesday 1st July some 260 blacklegs, in company with the Mayor and other civic dignitaries set out, guarded by a force of some 500.  The scale of public excitement and hostility can be judged by the numbers outside the Town Hall, estimated at 30000.  The procession approached the railway bridges close to the works, which had been occupied by the gasworkers and their supporters, who started to direct a major bombardment on the police and soldiers below.  The pro-union crowd at this point was estimated at 15000 people.  The forces of law and order fought back, and the armed military indicated their desire to open fire; most of the blacklegs were hustled into the works. 

The events of this day represent the most spectacular labour-related battle seen in Leeds, and was not exceeded in scale in most of the country throughout the last two centuries.  Very large numbers had been given the opportunity to prepare ammunition and position themselves, while their primary targets (police and soldiers, not the blacklegs) were well trained and only too ready to fight back.  The local press described the scene is detail –  the Leeds Evening Express noted 

The bridges were crowded with men … and they massed piles of missiles. 

As they came within range, the fire was directed with simply terrific force on them.  The scene that ensued simply defies description, bricks, stones, clinkers, iron belts, sticks etc. were hurled into the air to fall … upon and amongst the blacklegs and their escort. 

The following day, a large crowd renewed its attack on the works and the Mayor read the Riot Act, and called out a party of Hussars from York.  Attacks meanwhile continued at Meadow Lane.  At the end of the Wednesday, the great majority of the blacklegs had, one way or another, left the city. 

The events of this summer week were important; they indicated the depth of (pro-worker) feeling within the city and resulted in ultimate defeat for the Council.  Not only were they shown to be unable to defend the men they brought in, but a shortage of gas quickly developed, producing pressure from business and industry to settle the dispute, since both were heavily dependent on an abundant supply of what was then very cheap and reliable fuel.  This union victory reversed some defeats in the industry in many other parts of the country (explaining the plentiful supply of blacklegs) and provided major encouragement to the movement.  It also allowed a demonstration by the broader population of its hostility to authority, based on the squalid conditions in which they were required to live. 

A Union adviser, Edward Aveling, wrote in the People’s Press during the following week 

… there can be little doubt that in other conflicts between masters and men, both masters and men will not forget this Leeds business … 

The Gasworkers incidents were not the mostly costly in terms of life, but as a spectacle were the jewel in the crown of Leeds riots.”

originally from http://fordmaguire.org/res_docs_riots.shtml as MS Word Doc.

Future of the Gas grid

For me it has gone beyond if going for some form of Hydrogen Strategy vs decommission the Gas Grid in entirety, and onto the debates within the various aspects of Hydrogen Strategy around some of challenges within those. For example hopes to use deblending Hydrogen from (with over 20% vol) blended mix with Natural Gas at offtakes from National Transmission have not been thought through enough and are a distraction, given the energy losses of deblending and the need then required for storage at offtakes given the cycling of demand downstream, unless deblending will load follow and need to be sized for peak. Instead it better to commit to building a (parallel) Hydrogen Transmission System, and once all conversion complete the existing National Gas Transmission can be fully converted to 100% Hydrogen providing additional Linepack (Diurnal daily) Storage (Salt caverns used for seasonal storage).

The key challenge around 100% hydrogen conversion is switching customers over with being off gas for a period (so can only carried out during the in summer), this period will be massively reduced for those that allready have a Hydrogen Ready boiler, which hopefully will be mandated soon. Hopefully with long lead up along with that Mandate mean many boilers will already be Hydrogen Ready, reducing the amount of work required in people homes. Of course conversion was done before with switch from Towns Gas to Natural Gas but utilization and end user expectations are much higher nowadays. But it is the amount of work in people homes required with associated customer issues that will slow effective scaled up of any electric based alternatives also.
Any advance of one will help the other though, if Hydrogen in homes is not going to be ruled out all together. I think the chance for alternative of very high levels of insulation with Heat Pumps to undermine case for Hydrogen conversion has passed with Zero Carbon new build Homes 2016 being canceled. If Heat Pumps are not being used in new builds at scale now, than we need to crack on with preparing for 100% gas grid conversion.

I was at one point was convinced by books such as Without the Hot Air by the late David Mackay  that Heat Pumps were way to go. But it has not quite gone way expected. There is a lot of inertia tied up with the companies, workforce structures, tenants and home owners around home heating, as well as failure of policy.

I myself tend to see bio-methane injection in gas grid as short term distraction too, given they won’t scale up to be the full solution required. It does provide benefits of a Greenhouse Gas reduction in short term, in same way as up to 20% vol hydrogen blending (preferably generated from off peak surplus Renewables). But at the moment bio-methane suffer poor value at small scale with overheads of injection into Gas Network (monitoring, adding smell, and for now adding Propane to keep energy density (Cv) & associcated Wobbe Index within limits etc), and limited capacity for injection away from peak. Although some of these limitation can be overcome to a certain degree. There have been moves afoot in Germany to have an additional pipeline network to gather Green Gases together from separate generation sites to have economy of scale of injection into higher pressure tiers of Gas Network.

Although I am happy to debate many aspects of energy supply with those interested, I have up till now wished to avoid myself out there to be a full on public advocate of pushing forward with investment in switching to using Hydrogen as energy carrier, and don’t wish promote use of hydrogen taking away from investment being increased for retrofitting homes, especially as I see as all supporting each other and all paying for themselves over time.

In the back and forth argument there are too many strawmen attacked from each side. The Hydrogen advocates often point to winter energy peak in gas being six times electric, and so would require unrealistic expansion of electric grid and storage. The switch to electric based on the use of heat pumps needs to be based on  reducing heating requirements massively by full retrofit with high level of insulation but this comes with it own problems, if to be achieved 100% by 2050 or before. Even more limited upgrading of homes under Warmfront, various social housing upgrades to various Standards and recently ECO did not produce results expected, and are lessons being learnt? Often they don’t deliver what originally hoped. I have several personal experiences that inform this view, but that is maybe for another blog post.
Electric advocates point to lower energy density of hydrogen but as far as distribution by pipeline goes the lower viscosity goes a long way to make up for this and reinforcement of network will be small part of switch.
I am convinced at moment that aiming to convert the existing valuable Gas Networks that to 100% Hydrogen is worth pursuing over decommisioning all of them. And will continue to support doing this in most environmental beneficial and cost effective way.

Also see my previous post on this blog at:
https://j12.org/blog/2020/07/18/decarbonise-heat-at-scale/

with links like Gas Goes Green

also listen to Podcast from SGN:

https://sgn.co.uk/news/weve-launched-our-first-podcast-series-exploring-future-uks-energy-system

Decarbonise Heat at Scale

Policy is critical. But it is probably more important to push policy forward with clarity, momentum and critical mass than some of the technology choices within that policy. In fact it makes sense to diversity of approaches to learn as efforts scaled up and shift based on feedback of what works best. If you don’t have overarching cross sector transfers such as Carbon Tax then measures to decarbonise within sectors by customer cost base such as Gas separate from Electric supply helps pushes decarbonisation across sectors by pushing up costs evenly. i.e. a move to hydrogen in gas transortation and supply with additional cost pushing up price of gas from what would be otherwise makes decarbonising electric as well as energy efficiency measures more competitive and visa versa. Banning new connections to Natural Gas Network in 2025 in UK will spur both switch to Heat Pumps as well as make case for conversion of Gas supply to 100% Hydrogen. It is frustrating that the Modelling that investments, renewals & maintenance in Gas Transportation Networks is based on can not be switched to based on Hydrogen until a clear UK wide Hydrogen Strategy. So when assets replaced sized and specified for Hydrogen, and made ready to support conversion area by area later. For example makes sense to add in Valves when a it is on Gas Main replaced that will be used for area isolation as part of conversion than has to dig up road again at great cost to isolate later. Even bigger is need to grow supply chain of Hydrogen ready boilers.

Investment will pay for itself over time and costs saved later pay for investment now.

And ever my posts are going to mostly links of interest:

Future Energy Scenarios (National Grid ESO) as summerised in article on Carbon Brief website.

DNV.GL Energy Scenarios.

Hydrogen Strategy Now!

Hydrogen Task Force.

NW Hydrogen Alliance

Gas goes Green.

100% Hydrogen conversion to help delivering Net Zero.

HyNet as reported on by The Chemical Engineer.

Delivering Net Zero with Heat Pumps.

All Hands to the Pump from IPPR (reported by Business Green).

SUREinsulation.

How we got here? Where we are going?

Again just some links of timely interest:

More maths videos with rate of change of new cases & deaths from 3Blue1Brown on Simulating an epidemic; and minutephysics on How Soon Will COVID-19 Peak? (And How To Tell).

Numberphile have published a video on dome of the maths relating up modelling COVID19 transmission.

An app has launched from researchers at Kings College to help slow the spread of #COVID19 and identify at risk cases sooner by self-reporting your symptoms daily, even if you feel well 🙏🏼. Download the app.

Share the app and share your “well/ill” status and let’s get some data for the policy makers to work with.

Damming article in Lancet.

& more…

Practise Distancing Now! Isolation for those that need it! And support them! Prepare for where this is going with UK numbers two weeks behind Italy!

We need to prepare ourselves for psychologically if we can for what is already certain to come to our communities in turn over next two weeks.

Here are some harrowing but vital links to get over the urgency of situation.

Critical Situation at Intensive Care in Italy ; Graph(s) at the FT (or find on Twitter etc., ask me for a copy) ; …

Listen to The Burner daily podcast using Telegram or Soundcloud from Novara Media

BBC Newsround

Business / Science Insider

Catching up on Coronavirus.

There is so much out there on Coronavirus (COVID19) including much harrowing content from Italy and Iran.

But here is back at delayed response only just now catching up with where need to be to stop the spread in the UK:
Scientists have been sounding the alarm on coronavirus for months. Why did Britain fail to act?

I am at home where I have been working from this week, along with my family, with both kids off from school from now on. We will see if internet holds up next week, to deliver the video content the kids love, and from Monday 23rd Disney’s new streaming service, along side learning from likes of the Khan Academy as well as our favourites like 3Blue1Brown & Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell which on their channel makes good use of our advert free You Tube Premium which I have as much for Google / YouTube music for me to work to on my phone.

Confront the death cult that is the UK government!

I was all riled up yesterday the write this post but feeling so drained to today, so as usual instead, I am just linking to another person’s article which sums up better some of what I wished to share: Government Strategy Tipping Britain Towards Huge Death Toll.

I was all riled up yesterday the write this post but feeling so drained to today, so as usual instead, I am just linking to another person’s article which sums up better some of what I wished to share:
Government Strategy Tipping Britain Towards Huge Death Toll.

Work From Home - Save Lives.
Take Decisive Community Corona – Action. Now!

Vote Labour

I am voting for the Labour party in the upcoming UK election on Thursday, December the 12th. Please check out the issues that concern you in their Manifesto, using online page where you can select your priorities.

I am voting for the Labour party in the upcoming UK election on Thursday, December the 12th. Please check out the issues that concern you in their Manifesto, using online page where you can select your priorities.

Embedded Greenhouse Gas emissions

Supplying process heat with low carbon emissions to industry is required to avert climate change. One of most credible viable pathways to this is converting Natural Gas into Hydrogen for transport to industry through pipes but also ability to store in salt caverns. Carbon Dioxide that is a by product but rather than releasing Carbon … Continue reading “Embedded Greenhouse Gas emissions”

Supplying process heat with low carbon emissions to industry is required to avert climate change. One of most credible viable pathways to this is converting Natural Gas into Hydrogen for transport to industry through pipes but also ability to store in salt caverns. Carbon Dioxide that is a by product but rather than releasing Carbon Dioxide to atmosphere capturing the Carbon Dioxide and storing it underground.
This change would increase accounted for costs of energy of industry along the line as would any decarbonisation strategy, but it is quite reasonable for the transition costs to be seen as investment, that is paid back with reduced social costs. It is vital that costs of climate change are (relatively) incorporated into energy use and thus embedded in goods, with any green house emissions. If there is a mis-match between how countries treat these costs it would be reasonable strategy to subsidise these costs to ensure exports still competitive in short term. And a complimentary option is to apply a Carbon Sales Tax where carbon costs not passed through energy costs which would act like tariffs on imports for the embedded emissions within the imported goods, and even services, from countries that did not have equivilant investment in low carbon emission energy. The revenue needs to be recycled to support those affected by costs in form of universal income and/or services, as well as measures supporting translation such as investment in energy saving / decarbonisation. But in medium term if UK had first mover advantage with low carbon emission hydrogen supplied to industry then exports from that industry such as steel and glass and those made with from these such as cars could command a low embedded emission premium, as treaties evolve to take embedded carbon emissions, allowing costs to recovered.

An advantage of moving first to capture carbon dioxide from converting methane to hydrogen is you can do this at a steady state all year round with being able to store large amounts of hydrogen in salt caverns for then supplying the winter heating peak demand as well as industry. With a relatively steady supply of Carbon Dioxide to store this means more efficient sizing of carbon capture and storage, over the sizing just for electric production which would have to be sized for the peak electric and then not used to full outside of that peak time, with vast range of fluctuation. It is critical that we start scaling up rapidly the development of carbon capture and storage. A commitment to convert the gas networks to hydrogen is the best driver for this, underwriting the investment.

Over time you would add in other hydrogen sources than just from Nature Gas (Methane) such as electrolysis using off peak electric surpluses with mass role out of intermittent renewable electric sources such as wind turbines. But at first the best way to scale up is by converting natural gas which leverages the already large amount of valuable assets for supplying natural gas.

For more about converting the existing Gas Distribution Networks to Hydrogen see: https://h21.green/

Also see:

FT on investment costs for decarbonising steel.

Past Times

For rest and relaxation I often listen to Podcasts. One that I really enjoying is Pirate History, along with reading Treasure Island just now. I also listen to (or have listened to in past or in tend to listen to in future): Revolutions Podcast The History of Rome Work Class History Podcast Novara Media Podcasts … Continue reading “Past Times”

For rest and relaxation I often listen to Podcasts.

One that I really enjoying is Pirate History, along with reading Treasure Island just now.

I also listen to (or have listened to in past or in tend to listen to in future):

And btw a recent conversation led me to revisit the GapMinder website. Well worth checking out if you have not already.