Ross McCracken

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Articles

The weaponisation of energy: UK exposure

1 month ago | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Erikka Askeland

For an island nation, subsea interconnections with other markets are both a strength and a vulnerability. In the Second World War, overcoming the threat of U-boats and winning the war of the Atlantic proved vital to the UK’s survival. Today, in the event of conflict, in addition to keeping shipping lanes open, the UK would have to defend multiple subsea energy links with Europe. Yet despite the ease with which subsea infrastructure can be targeted, the UK’s energy security is robust.
AI ambitions: Re-evaluating UK data centre power demand

1 month ago | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

AI is still new and will probably change the world in ways we cannot yet conceive, but it may save more energy than it consumes. Staying at the cutting edge of technology while maintaining a competitive economy requires energy-hungry AI. But decarbonising the power system and simultaneously increasing the load makes an already tough challenge even tougher. How big a concern is the rising power demand required by AI?
Metamorphosis: Value shifts in the UK’s emergent clean power system

2 months ago | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

In a fully decarbonised power system most electricity generation will be variable. Wind and solar generation expand, while gas-fired generation – and the associated import bill – diminish. Both the proportion of variable to dispatchable generation and the reserve margin required for secure system operation will increase markedly. On the one hand, there needs to be enough capacity and/or flexibility to meet peak demand when variable generation is low.
Going to the wire: the biggest grid upgrade in history

2 months ago | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

Billions of pounds are required to provide the UK’s grid with its largest upgrade in history, turning it into a beast fit for a more electrified economy, running on largely variable generation sources many of which will be offshore. Can it be done? An integrated national grid has been part of our lives since 1935.
'The limits of feasibility' – can the UK achieve clean power by 2030?

2 months ago | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

A decarbonised power system is certainly possible and certainly desirable, but it will be no easy task for a large economy historically dependent on fossil fuels. It will require radical changes in the way the UK generates power, the electrical system’s ability to deliver that power, and the way the entire system is operated. All this must happen simultaneously in a coordinated fashion.
Green hydrogen subsidies pose substantial political risk

Feb 3, 2025 | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and other meteorological organisations confirmed in January that 2024 was the first year in which the world experienced temperatures of more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Meanwhile, wildfires have raged across southern California and a climate sceptic has retaken the helm of the world’s largest economy. Time, perhaps, to double down on hydrogen production. In London, the government has done just that.
COPping out - parsimony wins the day in Baku

Nov 27, 2024 | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

COP29’s headline agreement, reached in extra time in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on November 24, was for developed countries to provide at least $300 billion in climate finance a year by 2035. This builds on an earlier deal, ending in 2025, to provide $100 billion/year by 2020, which wasn’t honoured until 2022. In this context, developed countries means Annex II parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
France: Europe’s largest LNG importer [Global Gas Perspectives]

Nov 26, 2024 | naturalgasworld.com | Ross McCracken

France has emerged as the fifth largest LNG market in the world, even if the country’s gas consumption has peaked. LNG demand is likely to decline, but may prove sticky as French imports provide flexibility both nationally and for Europe’s wider energy security. by: Ross McCracken In the last few years, France has emerged not only as Europe’s largest importer of LNG, but the fifth largest single country market in the world.
Nuclear fusion: neither imminent nor relevant to climate change

Nov 22, 2024 | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

As a child, my father, a senior experimental plasma physicist at the UK’s Culham Laboratory, would tell me that an electricity-generating fusion reactor was just 30 years away. His opinion had not changed by the time he retired, and I believe it would be the same now, if he were alive. But then, he always was an optimist.
Nuclear fusion: neither imminent nor relevant to climate change

Nov 22, 2024 | energyvoice.com | Ross McCracken |Mark Selby

As a child, my father, a senior experimental plasma physicist at the UK’s Culham Laboratory, would tell me that an electricity-generating fusion reactor was just 30 years away. His opinion had not changed by the time he retired, and I believe it would be the same now, if he were alive. But then, he always was an optimist.