An earlier attempt at privatization of Britain's nuclear power industry was made in 1990. However, that attempt failed largely as a result of the financial communities' concerns over the safety and liability of nuclear power plants. Further, since the flotation of shares, the market value has dropped even further. The privatization of the British natural gas industry is both coincident to and strongly related to the privatization of electricity in the United Kingdom. The recent convergence of Britain's electric and natural gas industries has drawn a significant amount of attention from abroad as a possible paradigm of what might result in other countries from totally privatized energy markets.
Natural gas plays an important and growing role in UK energy supply.
Consumption patterns of both fuels has largely paralleled demand. The closure of uneconomic coal mines in the United Kingdom is coinciding with the increasingly available natural gas supplies that have come onstream from fields in the North Sea. Environmental concerns have also promoted the switch to gas as coal burning has long been a major contributant to air pollution in the United Kingdom. Ironically, Britain's natural gas industry's beginnings stem from Britain's early abundance of coal resources from which town gas was manufactured. However, British Gas was not a major producer of natural gas until the late 1970's, when North Sea production came onstream.