BENEATH OUR FEET 

THE GAS NETWORK

80% of the UK’s 25 million homes are powered by gas. 43% of this comes from the North and East Irish seas, but this is reducing so that the 57% from other counties is increasing. At the moment 15% is imported as Liquified Natural Gas and comes mostly from Quatar, 44% is from European pipelines, of which 35% is Russian. We are obviously dependant upon a very interconnected world !

Today UK gas enters the system via seven terminals and feeds the eight distribution networks all managed as a national grid from Hinkley in Leicestershire. There are two types of gas pipelines, large diameter high-pressure main arteries with smaller diameter lower pressure pipelines that connect to users. Gas apparently travels through the system at about 25 mph.

HISTORY

The inventor and entrepreneur Fredrick Winsor created the first public piped gas supply incorporated 13 gas lamps along the length of Pall Mall, London in 1807. Digging up streets to lay pipes required legislation and this delayed the development of street lighting and gas for domestic use. Meanwhile, William Murdoch and his pupil Samuel Clegg were installing gas lighting in factories and work places, encountering no such problems.

The first commercial gas works was built by the London & Westminster Gas light & Coke Company in 1812 laying wooden pipes to illuminate Westminster Bridge on New Year's Eve in 1813. By the 1850s, every small to medium-sized town and city had a gas works to provide for street lighting with wealthier customers subscribing to have it piped to their houses.

The advent of incandescent gas lighting in factories, homes and in the streets, replaced oil lamps and candles with a steady clear light, almost matching daylight in its colour. It turned night into day for many—making night shift work possible in industries where light was all important—in spinning, weaving and making up garments for instance.

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