East Knapton
Encyclopedia
East Knapton is a village in the Ryedale
Ryedale
Ryedale is a non-metropolitan district of the shire county of North Yorkshire in England. Settlements include Helmsley, Kirkbymoorside, Malton, Norton-on-Derwent, Pickering, and Terrington.-Derivation of name:...

 district of North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Geography

It is just north of the A64
A64 road
The A64 is a road in North and West Yorkshire, England which links Leeds, York and Scarborough. The A64 starts as the A64 ring road motorway in Leeds and then is a dual carriageway for the rest of its route, except parts of the road from Malton to Scarborough.The road approximates a section of the...

 near the junction with the B1258. The Malton - Scarborough railway line is just north of the village and runs close to the power station. Until 1930, there was a railway station
Knapton railway station
Knapton railway station was a minor railway station serving the villages of East Knapton and West Knapton on the York to Scarborough Line and was opened on 5 July 1845 by the York and North Midland Railway...

. The village is in the Rillington
Rillington
Rillington is a village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England.-Transport:Rillington is on the A64 road, approximately 3 miles east of Malton and south-west of Scarborough....

 ward of Ryedale District Council which has a combined population of 1,734. On the other side of the A64 is Knapton Wood.

History

The village lies in the parish of West Heslerton
West Heslerton
West Heslerton is a small village in North Yorkshire, England, located 10 kilometres southeast of Pickering.The village is the site of one of Britain's largest archaeological excavations, that of a large settlement which seems to have been occupied for several centuries until about 800 AD...

 which has the All Saints church. This is part of the Rillington group of churches.

Knapton Generating Station

This power station was opened in 1995 by Amy Glover, 8 years old. It has a 42 MWe General Electric LM6000
General Electric LM6000
-External links:*...

 open cycle gas turbine
Gas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....

. In August 2006, Scottish Power
Scottish Power
ScottishPower Ltd. is a vertically integrated energy company with its headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but in 2006 it became a subsidiary of the Spanish utility Iberdrola...

 sold the power station to the RGS Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of UK Energy Systems Ltd (a holding company owned by US Energy Systems of Avon, Connecticut
Avon, Connecticut
Avon is a town in the Farmington Valley region of Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. , the town had a population of 18,098.Avon is a suburb of Hartford. Avon Old Farms School, a prestigious boarding school, is located there. In 2005, Avon was named the third-safest town in America by...

) for £15.5 million. The plant uses about 12,000 BTU
British thermal unit
The British thermal unit is a traditional unit of energy equal to about 1055 joules. It is approximately the amount of energy needed to heat of water, which is exactly one tenth of a UK gallon or about 0.1198 US gallons, from 39°F to 40°F...

 per kWh of electricity, which is inefficient to more modern CCGT
Combined cycle
In electric power generation a combined cycle is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem off the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy, which in turn usually drives electrical generators...

 plants which use about 6,500 BTU per kWh of electricity.

Natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

 was discovered in Ryedale in 1970. The gas for the power station does not come from the National Transmission System
National Transmission System
The National Transmission System is the network of large-diameter gas pipelines throughout the United Kingdom that supply gas to 40 power stations from natural gas terminals situated on the coast, and also gas distribution companies which lead indirectly to homes.-Similarity to the National...

 but local gas fields found in Permian
Permian
The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

 limestone and carboniferous sandstone
Calciferous sandstone
Calciferous sandstone is a geological term relating to strata at the base of the Carboniferous formation, below the entire sequence of coal measures...

 at 5,000-foot depth.

Ryedale gas fields

Gas is located in North Yorkshire as part of the Southern North Sea Gas Basin. The gas fields and power station were bought by UK Energy Systems Ltd for $70 million from Viking UK Gas Ltd (owned by Viking Petroleum of Houston) who owned the fields since December 2003 and this company is still based in East Knapton as part of the acquisition. The fields were previously (since 1999) owned 60% by Tullow Oil
Tullow Oil
Tullow Oil plc is a global oil and gas exploration company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has interests in over 85 licences across 23 countries and in 2010 produced 58,100 barrels of oil equivalent per day...

 (who sold their stake for $8.3 million in October 2003) and 40% by Edinburgh Oil & Gas plc (who sold their stake for £3.2 million).

At the start of the so-called North Yorkshire Power Project in the early 1990s, the gas fields were licensed by CeltPower who persuaded Scottish Power to build the power station as due to the gas being very local, no expensive compressors for gas pipelines would be needed. Scottish Power bought gas from the fields at a price in the power station contract that was much lower (almost half) than that which the price of gas
Natural gas prices
Natural gas prices, as with other commodity prices, are mainly driven by supply and demand fundamentals. However, natural gas prices may also be linked to the price of crude oil and/or petroleum products, especially in continental Europe.-U.S...

 subsequently became. Gas from each gas field is pumped to the power station at East Knapton via a six inch pipe.

Kirby Misperton

This is at Kirby Misperton
Kirby Misperton
Kirby Misperton is a small village and civil parish in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, England.-Geography:It is located about 4 miles south from Pickering by road and about 7½ miles north from Malton. It is just west of the A169 road....

 near the Flamingo Land Resort. The gas field was discovered in January 1985 and production started in March 1995.

Marishes

This is near High Marishes and Low Marishes near the River Derwent
River Derwent, Yorkshire
The Derwent is a river in Yorkshire in the north of England. It is used for water abstraction, leisure and sporting activities and effluent disposal as well as being of significant importance as the site of several nature reserves...

, just north of East Knapton. This field was discovered in November 1988. Production started in April 1995.

Pickering

This field was discovered in January 1992 with production starting in November 2001. Other gas fields around Pickering were initially developed by Home Oil of Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

in the 1970s.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK