Yep, apparently there are ‘Big’ reserves waiting to be tapped.

According to figures from the Department of Trade and Industry, there are 13 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane gas in South Wales, not all of which is economical to extract.

Gerwyn Williams, chairman of UK Onshore Gas Group, which has a licence to explore more than 200 sq km of South Wales for methane, said there are “very substantial” amounts of gas in South Wales.

Sounds great doesn’t it.
OK, lets do some maths…

  • 13 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane
  • Natural gas calorific value 10.992kWh/m3 (used to approximate Coal-bed Methane value)
  • 1 cubic metre equivalent to 35.31 cubic feet.
  • There are 1,000,000 kWh in a GWh.
  • UK Electricity Consumption in 2006 stated as 1,046,348GWh

So:
[ ( 13,000,000,000,000 / 35.31) * 10.992kWh ] / 1,000,000 = 4,046,899GWh
4,046,899GWh / 1,046,348GWh/year = 3.9 years.

Yep, 4 years only. Kinda makes Mr Williams following comments seem rather stupid…

Mr Williams claimed the impact of the new reserves could have an effect on the price of people’s gas bills in Wales, as well as improving security of supply.

OK, lets play devils advocate here. Lets assume Wales keeps all this gas to itself (f**k off England, Scotland and N.Ireland!)… then I reckon we’d have about 70 years worth of Gas there. (Population of Wales being 3 Million, compared to 60 Million for the whole UK).