Salting away our spare gas
Sodium chloride for chemical and food uses is obtained by solution mining. Huge caverns left behind in the rock salt make convenient out-of-sight gas holders
In Short
- Gas can be stored in empty salt caverns and used to meet fluctuations in demand
- Rock salt caverns make ideal storage facilities as they are gas-tight
Redundant rock salt caverns around the world have been used for over 50 years to store various hydrocarbon gases. The first such UK facility for natural gas, at Hornsea (Yorkshire), has operated since 1979. By 2006, salt cavern storage was also operating at two Cheshire brinefields and on Teesside. Currently, similar schemes are underway, or planned, at several other locations around the UK (fig 1).
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