Not many people disagree with my argument that all the time we need to burn or use gas as a feedstock it makes more sense to use gas from nearby from our own gasfields than to transport it miles across the oceans of the world in an LNG carrier or to draw on continental supplies that also depend on Russia.
I do get asked how realistic this is, given the way the North Sea is running down. It is true that recent years have not seen the same huge discoveries the drillers discovered in the earlier years of the development of this great resource. It would be wrong to say there is no new gas to find or to produce. Recent years have seen important discoveries made. The Jackdaw field is a substantial find which is ready to develop, with gas pipes running nearby and the Shearwater platform with available capacity to process the raw output.
There is a potential upgrade of Goddard in the southern North Sea, and development of Lancaster as an extension to Hurricane. There are the Glengorm and Glendronach finds west of Shetlands. In total the Oil and Gas Authority tells us over the last three years the industry found an additional 500m barrels of oil equivalent between oil, gas and gas liquids. That was with much reduced drilling.
On top of this is the more contentious issue of the Bowland shales in northern England. So little drilling has been allowed there that estimates of how much gas is available range from a very useful 2.7 trillion cm to a massive and game changing 37.6tcm.
The Conservative Manifesto promised “to introduce new measures to reduce (energy) bills”. Encouraging and permitting more exploration and development wells in the North Sea would be a way of helping do this, which would also create plenty of new well paid UK jobs and save all those LNG carbon generating miles of travel.
January 2, 2022
Indeed.
Worldwide the amount of total (human used) energy coming from wind and solar is only about 1%.
Every green job created (by market rigging and subsidies) in the UK must surely destroy or export at least three real jobs and condemn many poor people to freeze.
January 2, 2022
Ross Clark in the Sunday Telegraph today reminds us of the dope Chris Huhne – another totally deluded energy secretary (Oxford PPE yet again).
âIn June 2011, 18 months⊠the former energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne made a remarkable speech in which he asserted that the Governmentâs green policies, far from costing households, would actually save us money. âGreen growth,â he said, can protect the economy by âreducing our exposure to price shocksâ. Moreover, the cost of low-carbon policies up to 2020 would amount to âjust one per cent on the average household energy billâ.â
Ross Clark – âMyopic politicians are wilfully blind to the inconvenient truth about green energyâ
They sure are! But surely ignorant, deluded & moronic rather than merely myopic! Are they lying for what they foolishly see as a political advantage or are they really so thick and deluded as to actually believe the patent drivel they come out with?
January 2, 2022
Myopic? Takes one to know one.
January 2, 2022
Only you could dredge up a 2011 quote from a discredited politician to support one of your obsessions.
January 2, 2022
The ministers are still saying the same utter drivel even now.
January 2, 2022
Correct
Boris is inthrall to Carrie and the green blob
Lee Anderson my MP is correct when he says his constituents aren’t interested in COP only their energy bill.
January 2, 2022
Indeed and his constituents are quite right. The COP agenda is totally deluded and largely entirely bogus alarmist science. The solutions proposed do not even work (not even in CO2 terms) anyway. There is no climate emergency. The only emergency is the idiotic governmentâs over reaction to the grossly exaggerated, climate alarmist threats.
January 2, 2022
I see a group of MPs are asking g what co ti gency plans the government has as there maybe 25% of pu lic sector workers off isolating.
Funny how it affects the public sector disproportionately I bet there won’t be 25% of supermarket workers off.
Another crowd are demanding vat and green levies be removed from fuel bills.
No demands to become self sufficient in energy.
Clowns the lot of them.
January 2, 2022
Consider yourself lucky, my MP is only interested in protecting the rights of illegal immigrants, net zero everything and supporting the UN
January 2, 2022
Correct in all you say L/L. Sensible posts ftom you again.
January 2, 2022
They have closed minds, partly because Mr Huhne has earned a living in the renewables industry since being a Minister. This future career also awaits Ed Davey who, like Boris Johnson, becomes animated when discussing so called renewable energy. Perhaps Mr Johnson will eventually work in this industry too and be based in California, living in the same gated community as Nick Clegg.
January 2, 2022
We see this too in the so called âIndependentâ Committee for Climate Change. Though I am sure it is all properly declared. It is still surely vested interests – declared or not.
January 2, 2022
It might be thought development of gas fields etc. would be of very considerable assistance towards leveling up, should that still be desired and feasible. I wonder if anyone in government has noticed that?
January 2, 2022
Fully agreed. Charles Moore points out the parallels between the near-universal establishment support for net zero with all that it means for energy security and fuel poverty, and that for ERM membership 30 years ago. Once ERM collapsed you were hard pressed to find anyone who said they ever supported it. But virtually the whole political, business, union and media establishment did. Including most ‘experts’.
Perhaps it will be the same with net zero, as the public comes to see the fatuousness of gestures such as importing gas, or electricity generated elsewhere from fossil fuels, and describing that as being green since we aren’t producing it here. And the terrible consequences for standards of living, health etc of an unreliable and grossly over-priced energy supply.
January 2, 2022
+1
January 2, 2022
I see that you now have a term – not quite so obviously empty – to replace the universally mysterious “they” or “them”.
It is “the establishment”.
Who, exactly, do you claim that they are?
January 2, 2022
Oh come on, surely you’re not that naive?
You’re saying then that the top civil servants all enthusiastically supported the will of the people, with Brexit ably carried out by PM May and her advisors Robbins, backed by Labour’s Kier Starmer who always said “trust the democratic decision of the people”??. In the meantime Miliband E used his rational scientific judgement to reach realistic conclusions about energy supply and costs and Miliband D struck a chord with the nation by campaigning against further crowding the British Isles with immigrants? Meanwhile the will of the people to cut foreign aid and focus help at home was echoed by all the above?
GET REAL. These and their fellow establishment types are the real enemies of the people. They work against our democratic interests at every turn.
January 2, 2022
Well put, but, just like Andy, he’ll ask the same question again in a few weeks.
January 2, 2022
Sir JS – The REAL Establishment are very quiet, these are just their puppets.
January 2, 2022
Nah, that ain’t them.
January 2, 2022
The establishment? Your leftie chum Owen Jones wrote a whole book about them a few years ago, lad. Don’t you know it? To get you started, here’s a review:
https://www.ft.com/content/457116de-32aa-11e4-93c6-00144feabdc0
Corporate business and government, and their agents in the media and civil service all seem to be pushing the Green agenda. I could be wrong but I think that’s what Richard 1 had in mind.
January 2, 2022
No mystery about it at all, the parallel with the ERM is apposite. see my post above for details. the problem is that lethal combination of virtue signalling and groupthink.
January 2, 2022
Net Zero is estimated to cost ÂŁ3 trillion, probably a lot more. If achieved, the energy production costs to domestic users will be many times more expensive than it is currently.
This is the cost. What is the benefit?
Elimination of man made CO2 may cause global atmospheric CO2 levels to reduce, this might reduce increasing global temperatures.
Government and Councils have declared Climate Emergencies.
There was an example on New Years day of a Climate extreme.
The temperature at St James Park in London reached 16.3, a record for that day for the UK.
I did not hear of the Climate Emergency Contingency plan being activated. Were there field hospitals set up to deal with the population suffering from heatstroke?
The winter temperature in England (the central England temperature record) has been increasing at a rate of 1 deg per century for the last 300 years. (the Summer temperature not so much and the June temperature not at all)
The net Zero solution is immeasurably worse than the problem.
January 2, 2022
Too right Richard
January 2, 2022
Good morning.
May I ask our kind host how are we to ‘decarbonize’ and meet the Net Zero targets that Parliament has imposed whilst at the same time we are drilling for both oil and gas ? To me it does not make sense !
Until you (Parliament) resolve this conflict we will not get anywhere.
Reply Importing gas instead of home production does not decarbonise. You cannot decarbonise our gas use all the time most people need gas for home heating.
January 2, 2022
They clearly should also repeal the climate change act, abolish the idiotic Climate Change Committee and abandon all the net zero commitments. But alas the MPs are (all but a handful) totally entranced by this mad, deluded new climate religion.
January 2, 2022
Correct. Only a handful of MPs voted against Ed Miliband’s ridiculous Climate Change Act and I don’t hear a clamour from the CON back benchers to repeal or even amend it.
The EU is apparently declaring that natural gas and nuclear are “green energies” so they can tick the appropriate boxes. For once (and I never thought I’d say this) they are showing remarkable sense …… unlike the Jolly Green Giant in Downing Street and most MPs.
January 2, 2022
+1 – is it perhaps the Jolly Green Giantâs wife that is the driver behind Borisâs conversion to climate alarmism and the wind/solar/heat pumps/EVs non solutions?
January 2, 2022
Donna, ‘Jolly Green Giant’. I like that.
January 2, 2022
L L
You, we the 50 odd politicians who can see it for what really is can bang our gums together until hell freezes over and what we have left for politicians, civil servants and bankers will walk on water before the Climate Change Act is repealed so ingrained in their DNA that they are saving the world.
The reality is as often quoted on this site ” follow the money”
January 2, 2022
Indeed. Most sensible people could see in advance that the ERM and the Euro would be disasters too.
January 2, 2022
REPLY TO REPLY
I think I understand the point MARK B makes. Parliament makes laws to de-carbonise and then finds it impossible to implement. They will not use our own resources, that is breaking the daft laws that they have made, so that leaves a far worse option. Buy it all in!
January 2, 2022
YES !!! Thank you BOF !
They have created this mess and show no signs, or even understanding, that the solution is far simpler. Just repeal the stupid laws they created.
January 2, 2022
Pure madness, this government is too busy virtue signalling then protecting its own peopleâŠ.we rely upon two countries, one for energy and the other for manufactured goods â and we point nuclear weapons at them, weâre hypocrites
January 2, 2022
+1
January 2, 2022
But you have legislated for it ! Eg The Climate Change Act. You cannot on the one hand seek to ban something, thern go on to either import or extract something. I reiterate. Parliament has decided to go for Net-Zero and decarbonize. And until the law is changed there is no point in drilling for new resources of gas and oil.
Reply I did not vote for the CCA
January 2, 2022
Matk B :
I think the commitment was to decarbonise by 2050 not tomorrow.
January 2, 2022
We are using it so someone somewhere is drilling ir. We need it so may as well produce our own and the jobs that go with it.
January 2, 2022
Well argued John. Along with Dominic Lawson in today’s Sunday Times ; Charles Moore in yesterday’s Telegraph
This has the benefits of security and continuity of supply along with the added pluses of creating well paid jobs; adding to GDP. Reducing the enormous import bill for energy supplies and a consequentially enormous boost to our balance of Trade
January 2, 2022
DP +1
January 2, 2022
+1
January 2, 2022
Are there enough Conservative back-benchers to force a government U-turn on this matter of crucial national importance? Or does Johnson only listen to footballers? Perhaps a mass of letters from constituents complaining about fuel bills will cause the government to see sense.
January 2, 2022
@S_W; Unfortunately not, the govt will simply rely on opposition votes unless the PM makes it a mater of confidence, in such a situation how many Conservative MP’s will vote to given themselves their P45s four weeks hence?! Yes a general election would be quite possible during a pandemic.
You make a fair point about constituents complaining about fuel bills, but most will be hollow words, who else is they to realistically vote for, are people really going to waste their vote by supporting say Reform UK just to allow Labour and/or the Libdems into govt – neither are going to be any better with regards all the green nonsense that is at the heart of the problem, nor is any UK mainstream party leader suggesting state-subsidies/re-nationalization as a tool to reduce energy bills, quite the opposite…
January 2, 2022
Dear Warrior–I never quite ‘got’ why we gave up on perfecting scrubbing the effluent from old school coal power stations. Trivially simple process: acid plus base gives salt plus water and all that. Of course it would be expensive (What isn’t?) but to my mind it would have to be very very expensive indeed times ten to be more expensive, and just plain silly, than the lunacies of what we are doing now. Apart from mere money, which we seem to have shiploads (with a p) of when it suits these days we would have our own independent energy supply lasting literally centuries. Trying to plan for 30 years ahead is pure bonkers when we don’t have enough energy now because of our ridiculous latest plans, if they can be called plans. Biomass beggars belief but our lovely Government supports it. Get the current position sorted out with an injection of sanity headed by the modular reactors which are old hat from nuclear submarines, and fracking, and after say 10 years if makes a bit more sense then and only then take steps to decarbonise.
January 2, 2022
@Leslie Singleton: “I never quite âgotâ why we gave up on perfecting scrubbing the effluent from old school coal power stations.”
But the UK gave up on UK sourced coal, that was a political decision made in the 1980s, thus your totally sensible question is moot, yes we should have kept and perfected clean coal technology, and perhaps even perfected a batter method of making coal gas, but what difference would it make today given the expense of importing fuel from abroad, having lost -easy- access to UK coal reserves?
January 2, 2022
Dear Jerry–It is not within the wretched Govt’s purview, or ironically even its capabilities, to give up on UK sourced coal, because the coal is stil in the ground and there is not much they can do about that. We just have to hope for a new Govt. Dunno the Labour Party’s position on this but amazingy I find I could consider voting Lavbour if they were to become my idea of patriotic on this subject.. The Conservative’s position is insane and ridiculous and half way between treason and traitorous not that I know the difference any more if I ever did.
January 2, 2022
@Leslie Singleton; Our govts could have supported either the NCB as was or the privatized coal industry that followed, they chose not to, that is why I said the UK gave up on coal. Just because the coal in still in the ground it doesn’t mean it is necessarily accessible, old workings flood or collapse if not maintained, or would now need vast open-cast workings, and not an option for our deep reserves.
January 2, 2022
Leslie Singleton
Well said
Very wise words indeed.
January 2, 2022
Great post.
January 2, 2022
If he they (PM?MPs) cant see the obvious whats the point of leaving them in power?
January 2, 2022
Only when the lights go out and old people start dying of hypothermia will this Government change course but by then it will be too late.
Only our government is dumb enough to follow this Green religion which is just a money-making scam. What have they been promised to sell our country down the river?
January 2, 2022
I don’t know for whose benefit this government is working, but it isn’t the UK. I’d go so far as to say any country but the UK! Likewise with immigration. Every illegal immigrant gets better treatment than those already here. Boris and his yes-men have to go!
January 2, 2022
One assumes their hotel rooms come heated and this is paid for by taxpayers, many of whom cannot afford to heat their own homes.
January 2, 2022
@LL; As does everyone in receipt of Universal Credit, the tax payer is in effect paying their energy bills too, and lets not forget the annual pensioner heating allowance… Do you never talk with your “DHSS” tenants? :eeek:
January 2, 2022
Shirley M; “illegal immigrant gets better treatment than those already here”
If your life is worse than those held in immigration centres, or under the thumb of immigration laws, then why are you supporting the Tory party, you sound as if the Socialist party (Militant) would be your natural political hang-out!
January 2, 2022
I am quite comfortable thank you, but I fear for my country and fellow countrymen. You assume far too much about me and my voting intentions. Do you normally make incorrect assumptions about everything?
January 2, 2022
@Shirley M; “Do you normally make incorrect assumptions about everything?”
Unlike you, no! đź
Most of your “fellow countrymen” did not vote for the anti-migrant policies/beliefs you appear to support and espouse, thus you speak only for yourself and perhaps a small minority others; and a rather ignorant, easily lead, minority at that in my opinion, people willing to accept any number of scapegoats or simplistic solutions, rather than face up to the real problems, many of which they voted for in the first place. But then did Quasimodo ever look in the mirror?…
Getting back on topic, migrants are not to blame for our energy crisis, nor was there anything like the level of fuel poverty here in the UK back in the 1970s, even though (adjusted) imported fuels, especially oil based products, were fluctuating just as wildly in price and availability, it was both these problems that made many North Sea oil fields viable.
January 2, 2022
Wrong Jerry.
As poll after poll shows voters want less annual immigration and especially for the government to take action against illegal immigration.
January 2, 2022
@Peter2; Oh dear, here we go again, I suspect, you still seem unable to read what I actually post…
Opinion polls are selective and are of a limited sample, election results are neither. As I said said to Shirley, most people did not vote for the types of anti-migrant policies/beliefs she puts forward, fact, go check out the actual popular vote for the 2019 GE.
January 2, 2022
I can read quite well thanks Jerry
I repeat
Polls show….
January 2, 2022
P2; Well if we are going play silly games, can I cite the 2019 Opinion Poll that showed ‘most people’ thought Mr Corbyn would make the better PM and he had the best policies. Of course the actual election results proved otherwise, as most electors do not read the Socialist Parties (formally known as Militant) own newspaper!
I repeat
Actual election result figures show…
January 3, 2022
You are now off on a red herring Jerry so let’s get back to the start.
You said most did not vote for anti migrant policies.
That’s what you said.
That’s wrong.
If there has been one consistent set of polls over many years it is those where the voters want less migration and a reduction in illegal immigration.
January 3, 2022
@Peter2; No more of a red herring than the opinion poll you introduced…
If I am wrong, please cite from the 2019 Labour, LibDem, PC and SNP manifestos (page numbers will do) those parts/policies that agree with the views expressed by Shirley M.
Are you truly incapable of understanding the difference between selective opinion polls and the non-selective ballot box, never mind simple majorities and the popular vote..
January 3, 2022
You were talking about immigration.
You said people did not vote for anti migration policies.
And I said polling over decades show a majority want lower levels of migration and more controls over illegal immigration.
It’s a simple thing Jerry
Don’t get overcomplicated.
January 2, 2022
Yes Jerry does.
Often telling people what they think or labelling people as hard right or whatever other label he feels suits.
January 11, 2022
As if P2 is not used to call lefties, socialists, marxists or communists anybody not agreeing with his views. âDo as P2 says not as he doesâ is the mantra here.
January 2, 2022
@Jerry.
Illegal immigrants housed in hotels can live from day to day knowing that all their immediate needs are being met. They will soon be able to use the extensive immigrant black market network to earn monies cash in hand and live as they have been promised.
Those who live (survive) here have to to earn their crust, plan (worry) for the future while seeing their incomes deteriorate through inflation, taxation and cost of living increases directly influenced by government energy and immigration policy.
I would not swap with an illegal but neither do I have any sympathy for them. Once a criminal always a criminal.
January 2, 2022
@NS; “They will soon be able to use the extensive immigrant black market network to earn monies cash in hand and live as they have been promised.”
Whose fault is that! If they were allowed, after initial processing [1], to find work on the open job market, or even be allocated paying jobs that the UK workshy seem to be refusing to do, there would be little or no black market network, these migrants would be subject to income tax etc. & pay rent for their accommodation, or take jobs that provide accommodation. How many migrants are criminals by nature, although some no doubt, even if they have entered both the EU and UK illegally, there often being no legal pathway. How many simply fall into the hands of criminals, or take to crime to survive, but then so do some UK citizens, including benefit fraud -working for undeclared cash in hand?
If you think our current immigration policies work perhaps you please tell us the total number of illegal immigrants currently here in the UK, and I wonder how many over the years have got stuck here, not being able to move back to mainland Europe due to our distrust of the EU and the Schengen Agreement?
[1] also, as their lot would be somewhat better than the current policies offer I suspect far fewer would try to pass themselves off as ‘children’, in an attempt to obtain better conditions
January 2, 2022
Don’t deflect Jerry – whose fault it is doesn’t stop them being criminals. (And it is both their fault and their responsibility, if they had not made the journey they would not be available for work).
The original poster said they had an easy life once arrived, nothing you have said has convinced me otherwise.
January 2, 2022
Gosh what a ranting essay Jerry
Demeaning all UK people who cannot compete with newcomers.
Would you work for minimum wage Jerry?
You used to argue about the race to the bottom.
Demanding decent wages and conditions for UK people.
I used to agree.
When did you decide to go all cheap global.
January 2, 2022
@NS; If migrants had not made the journey in the past they would not have been available for work and the UK economy would grind to a halt, unless you are suggesting the govt should be directing school leavers, the unemployed, returnees to the job market, into what work they will do, USSR style! In any case I was not commenting on inward illegal migration per se [1], just how to deal with those who have turned up on our shores, causing the problem you raised, doing so within international law.
[1] my comment about the Schengen Agreement was about illegals who want to leave the UK
January 2, 2022
@Peter2; Again you jump in without having actually read my comment(s)… I made no mention of pay rates, just that illegal migrants could be allowed to do paid work, to support themselves whilst their immigration status is settled, perhaps work that many UK nationals seem unwilling or unable to do. As for your silly rant, as a sole trader yes I have worked (effectively) for less than the NMW in force, as many sole traders have, nor do we complain. in my experience.
January 2, 2022
Gosh Jerry..how do you know I never read your exciting post?
What a magician you are.
Silly rant apparently…
Hilarious.
January 2, 2022
And as usual, no answer to my question Jerry
Would you compete with newcomers and work for minimum wage?
You want everyone else to.
January 3, 2022
@Peter2; “Would you compete with newcomers and work for minimum wage”
Tell us, what exactly did you not understand when I said “perhaps work that many UK nationals seem unwilling or unable to do”, and as I said in a previous reply to you, I made no mention of pay rates, you brought up the red herring of the NMW, I would expect employers to pay the going rate who ever they employ, after all my argument (now way above…) is to allow migrants to support themselves, not be a net cost to the HO/HMT that so enrages those who write the usual ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ comments.
So if the going rate for the job is the NMW, then it makes no difference if we are talking about someone who was born in the UK 20, 30 40, 50, 60 years ago or someone who turned up on a beach 20, 30 40, 50, 60 days ago.
January 3, 2022
It was a simple question to you, which follows from what you originally said.
Demeaning UK workers who struggle to compete with new arrivals willingness to work min wage jobs.
I surprised you don’t see the connection.
January 2, 2022
what about the yes-women?
January 2, 2022
The utter contempt for sensible solutions to our energy woes is surely the biggest most obvious clue as to how useless this government is. I feel nothing but sheer desperation at the way this country is being run into the ground. We gave fools at the helm and a Guy Fawkes moment is needed without violent tactics. We have no future all the time buffoons are in charge. The people should decide what’s needed because sure as hell those in charge right now have no bloody idea.
January 2, 2022
The Guy Fawkes moment will have to come later. In the meantime the electorate must make it clear that current policies and the inaction of their MP will, not might, result in them losing the seat.
Clawing back the lost policy ground and setting the nation back on track for all the good things promised in manifestos will take more than one new Parliament. Mortally wounded? perhaps not, but pretty seriously disabled!
January 2, 2022
Unfortunately, there is a long line of buffoons waiting to become PM and continue the decline of our country. At least Boris is good a making U-turns so maybe one day he will turn in the right direction.
January 2, 2022
FUS – Nothing can stop what is coming, Nothing.
January 2, 2022
Paul. I fear you are right.
January 2, 2022
ps. All essential services in foreign ownership should be brought back into UK ownership. We pay through the nose to subsidise foreign countries which are often hostile and threatening to the UK. It is mind blowing what our politicians have allowed to happen!
January 2, 2022
Dear Shirley–Beware–Soon you will be telling us you don’t agree with foreign aid
January 2, 2022
That depends on if it’s going to despots.
January 2, 2022
Shirley M
+1 well said
January 2, 2022
Essential services being sold off to foreign companies helps the foreign exchange balance. It’s all part of the “sell off Britain” policy.
reply Itâs what happens all the time we rely on too many imports. We either have to sell our assets to foreigners or borrow from them to pay for the excess imports. Thatâs another reason on want us to make, grow and drill for more of our own needs.
January 2, 2022
What a pathetic attempt by Peter Hitchens in todays DM in his attempt to equate “Communism” with the green renewable energy industry. And of course the habitual – but mythical – claim that the lights will shortly go out because the wind is variable.
My my, the fossil fuel lobby really does pulll out all the stops when it smells more subsidy to develop the otherwise unprofitable gas and oil fields that you are so desperately want
An un-honourable mention goes to Mr Craig Mackinlay for demanding that we scrap the “greencap energy bill levy” to reduce domestic energy bills. This individual would do better to listen to his consituent’s concerns about raw sewage dumping and leakages from sewage pumping stations in S Thanet.
January 2, 2022
Hitchens is quite right to draw the comparison. Also we have already had serious power cuts due to reliance on wind destabilising the grid. Lack of reliable on demand power will also cause even more raw sewage as it is needed for the treatment plants.
January 2, 2022
Agree L/L. When I lived in Southern Scotland there were often power surges that would interrupt supplies and damage equipment. It made life very difficult for people and all down to wind energy.
January 2, 2022
Dear Sahara–What have you got against raw sewage? Look at it as rewilding and you might like it better
January 2, 2022
S G. The lights go out in California, and the lights go out in South Australia, because the wind is variable and because the sun don’t shine at night!
January 2, 2022
So you oppose subsidies to develop reliable sources of energy …… but favour them for unreliable, intermittent ones (which require back-up from the reliable sources of energy you oppose).
I guess you must be one of those people who enjoys withdrawing their money from the bank and then burning it.
January 2, 2022
@Donna
How many times to I have to point out that there have been NO subsidies for offshore windfarms for the last 8 years. The developers fund the build and cover the maintenance. The CfD regime under which renewables operate guarantees a minimum “strike price” for the electricity produced. If the “spot” price is above this level, they contribute to the Treasury. The 2019 CfD auction set a strike price of ÂŁ39/MWh. Last week the spot was ÂŁ140/MWh. Can you do arithmetic? Go figure
January 2, 2022
It is a rigged market as you yourself above illustrate- effectively a very large subsidy and the energy they produce is worth far less as it is intermittent, needs expensively connecting up to the grid and expensive fossil fuel backup or worse very expensive indeed and energy wasteful storage.
January 2, 2022
You can’t. The government is requiring consumers to pay for 125 million ROCs in the year to April. With the failure of wind production these are already worth over ÂŁ55 each, amounting to a ÂŁ6.8bn subsidy to renewables. Moreover, CFDs in payment average over ÂŁ140/MWh. It seems that any amounts paid to EMR settlements cannot even be disbursed by them, except back to CFD holders when prices fall. This is something that should be questioned by MPs. Their website shows a projected fund surplus of a little over ÂŁ200m by next June, after they had been paying out until prices rose relatively recently. All of this ignores all the hidden subsidies in extra costs for transmission, backup, grid stabilisation etc. that are not charged to renewables, and the subsidy that arises from market prices being forced up by carbon taxes, which is worth around ÂŁ8bn a year on its own now.
January 2, 2022
âwithdrawing their money from the bank and then burning itâ is just paying voluntary taxes to the government. It just lets them print even more.
January 2, 2022
Sakara Gold :
Mr. Hitchens is absolutely correct. The unilateral dash for decarbonisation using 8th century windmills is being promoted by the same Communists who argued for unilateral nuclear disarmament (CND) in the last century.
CNDâs aim was to destroy our military security, unlilateral decarbonisation is to destroy our economic security.
January 2, 2022
Sakara Gold :
As you already know, intermittent and unreliable wind energy can only exist at all because fossil fuel generators are employed to stabilise the grid and for long-term back up and we await your news on the cost and energy efficiency of your proposed non-fossil fuel solution.
BTW, taking the price paid by the Australians recently for a Tesla battery for short term grid stability (Hornsdale Power Reserve) I calculate that to use Li-ion batteries for 1 dayâs back-up of our current electricity supplies when the wind isnât blowing would cost ÂŁ247bn for each day.
January 2, 2022
Plus it would waste about 25% of the electricity in charge and discharge and the batteries would deteriorate and devalue (perhaps at rather more than the value of the electricity stored each day anyway). Plus vast amounts of fossil fuels are needed to mine and manufacture the rather short lived batteries.
January 2, 2022
Sakara Gold : âThis individual would do better to listen to his consituentâs concerns about raw sewage dumping and leakages from sewage pumping stations in S Thanet.â
This is not Mr. MacKinlayâs fault.
It is the fault of the Marxist Britphobes in Parliament, the civil service (BEIS) and the PM (who doesnât know the difference between pollution (âacrid smokeâ) and plant food (CO2) and who have prioritised saving the planet by decarbonising our 1% contribution to anthropological CO2 emissions over massive sewage dumping causing a serious health hazard to the nationâs citizens.
January 2, 2022
+1
January 2, 2022
Our Government pursues the most CO2 producing policies they could possibly find. Drilling for our own oil and gas, and coal, is green but there is no understanding of this. There must be a complete inability to think so we buy it all in and let other countries produce the CO2 while at the same time profiting from our Govt. stupidity at our expense. No change there, then.
January 2, 2022
This morning wind is producing 12.53GW or 52% of demand. Carbon neutral total is 19.5GW – 81% of demand! CCGT is less than 2.5GW. We are producing so much renewable energy today that we are exporting 3.15GW to Europe through the interconnectors. No to mention the positive contribution to the Treasury?
Why don’t you celebrate this great British export story in renewable energy rather than the continual scaremongering?
January 2, 2022
Sakara, agree right now wind power looks a great solution. Unfortunately current demand is around 60% of typical levels as 1) it is early morning, 2) industry has closed down over Xmas. Green energy in the UK will never give us 100% of our required electricity – it just is not reliable enough. Over 2021 as a whole it generated under 25% of demand. Take a look at grid.iamkate.com for summary data.
This data also shows we are a net importer of electricity over time, not an exporter. Negative contribution to our economy.
That said, I agree we can celebrate our technology and green energy manufacturing skills.
January 2, 2022
Let us just properly leave the EU etc , so we can SELF SUPPLY.
a) burn coal & gas at existing plants until no longer needed.(Subsidise UK winter capacity if needed.)
b) Increase the supply of energy by expanding renewables and associated storage as technology allows.
Export the excess energy via connectors or related products which can utilise the excess power when nature provides.
Balance is needed at country and individual levels. We do not want to be dependent or for others to lose liberty or independence.
Perhaps Ministers should align policy more closely with realised outputs or reliable forecasts.
January 2, 2022
Votes for the Tories or for brexit are nearly all the results of fear.
The more the better for them.
January 2, 2022
Fear of or a dislike of the EU and fear of or dislike of the socialists in the Labour party NHL is a quite sensible conclusion to come to.
As many did in 2019 and 2016.
Trust the people eh?
January 2, 2022
Your ignorance knows no bounds. We have a big problem unfolding due to your sacred but useless renewables. None of your arguments make sense. I suspect people like you are our problem in government. We would all like eutopia dear but this is the real world.
January 2, 2022
S G. Why then are our bills set to rise by up to 70% this year?
January 2, 2022
@BOF
Because the fossil fuel industry has unilaterally banged up the price by 400%, duh. There is no energy crisis in this country, just scaremongering from the fossil fuel lobby
January 2, 2022
How ridiculous SG
Do you not understand supply and demand and how it affects price?
January 2, 2022
Prices are not set by the fossil fuel industry, but rather by electricity suppliers seeking to cover for low wind output, and by those industrial electricity customers who are unwilling to pay even higher prices but prefer to shut production. Further distortions are introduced by edicts that prevent full competition from coal and even oil.
January 2, 2022
52% of a (rather low) electrical demand currently. Also electricity is only about 1/5th of total energy needs anyway.
January 2, 2022
Demand is only 60% of normal.
Co.e back next week when demand is 45gw and renewable are giving 5%.
January 2, 2022
Great British export story indeed! Exporting at negative prices, while the subsidy bills for the full value of CFDs get charged to British consumers along with the ROCs and REGOs which are now creeping up in price (ÂŁ6.20/MWh at the latest auction which I hope is being charged to those on green tariffs only) because suppliers don’t have enough for their pseudo green guarantees due to the failure of wind over 2021. Here’s a snapshot of the prices and interconnector flows from BMReports over the New Year from which you can see we were exporting up to 3.7GW to Norway, Netherlands, Belgium and France at down to minus ÂŁ77/MWh. Exports to France would have been higher but for a still unexplained failure of the IFA2 interconnector on 3oth December, likely to prove to be subsea cable damage that will take months to repair.
https://149366104.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/1-jan-interconnect-price-1641068127.5377.png
Meanwhile we were actually also heavily curtailing wind production as well – an average over the day to 7 p.m. last night of 3GW, for which consumers will be doling out constraint payments. The wind dominated output also proved difficult to manage, with three low frequency and three high frequency excursions from the normal operating range in the same period.
January 2, 2022
Mark,
Many thanks for this information.
January 2, 2022
Gone with the wind 2- 021
We now have all the figures for electricity generation in 2021 (source: Gridwatch) and the preliminary calculations show that wind power met 19% of demand and solar 4%.
These figures do not reflect variability which is obviously a major factor for both wind and solar.
Draw your own conclusions……..
January 2, 2022
Only one problem Sir JR. the oxymoron. Manifesto promise.
January 2, 2022
Your excellent suggestions are much too sensible for the misguided Johnson government to adopt.
January 2, 2022
We have the solution. According to the Beeb today, the EU has decided gas power stations can be ‘green’. Now clearly we are no longer a part of the EU however our actions over the last year suggest we want to copy them and continue with EU strategies.
Our power solution: New gas power stations and new gas fields and it’s all a mucky colour of EU green.
January 2, 2022
Some sense from the EU for once.
January 2, 2022
The religion of the Church for Saving the World has so many converts in every manner or high placed positions in government’s, civil and public services in the total foundation of our very existance, is the reason we are where we are.
When all this started all those years ago renewable energy became a source of political power and politicians from all backgrounds decreed that, with out any consideration of cause and effect have thrown billions in the way of subsidies at the perceived problem. Fear factor programmes became the norm and our children and their future were conscripted as pawns.
We are where we are today because the basic principles of energy supply, manufacture, distribution have not been met. Like our sewer systems all working on overload as the number of population and houses increase but the infrastructure to deal with the extra demand has been ignored.
You are correct Sir John this country has got to go back to common basics and if we have energy sources we have to use them to buy the time to get an infrastructure to accommodate all these demands that politicians are proposing to make on it. In reality energy is just the start other key areas need the same logic applied to them.
January 2, 2022
And in other news, an interesting review in the Guardian on an authoritative book on education. I do not have enough knowledge to critique it but one fact stood out.
The average time in post for an Education Secretary is two years and I guess that goes for most/all the other Ministers of State. How any business can operate with a new MD (plus wet behind the ears Special Advisers) often of questionable talent and certainly little knowledge of the subject, every two years is beyond me and is why we get the foulups we do and almost meaningless political claptrap to any question posed.
No wonder, despite what Sir JR says it is the civil service that runs the country providing the continuity, Politics canât.
Ironic that this Government is trying blame civil servants and stop them flitter from job to job to better themselves when they do exactly the same thing and are the real problem.
January 2, 2022
Also why are nearly all these short lived government ministers (for nearly all the departments) almost totally ignorant on science, engineering, energy, real economics⊠often innumerate too.
January 2, 2022
As Sir John knows very well, Manifesto commitments are just used to attract votes; they are not legally binding and the minute the crosses are on the ballot paper they can, and will be, ditched in favour of what the Government decides it would rather do.
And that is what happened in 2019. A sensible, practical statement about energy policy, which would be in the interests of ordinary British people, was ditched in favour of Eco Lunacy so Johnson could appease the Globalists, British Establishment and keep Eco Warriors, like the current Mrs Johnson, happy.
People are not going to vote for a CON Government which is promising to make them colder, poorer and less mobile. According to GB News this morning, a poll now has the CON Party 16 points behind Labour, not that that will make any difference since the Lib Lab Green CONsensus means the policy won’t change. But it might make the back-benchers do what is necessary and get rid of the Jolly Green Giant before he “does a Major” and consigns the few of them who survive the cull to Opposition for a decade or more.
Reply 16 % behind in Red Wall seats I think
January 2, 2022
I stand corrected. GB News didn’t make that clear and I didn’t search out the poll. Still, 16% behind in the seats which gave Johnson his majority is significant ….. not least because the CONs won’t be given a boost by Nigel Farage by withdrawing candidates in seats they already hold.
January 2, 2022
+1
Good points, Donna
January 2, 2022
Really? Who are they going to vote for then? That is the beauty of their system, as far as the Tory Party is concerned. They will do whatever they like because they know YOU will vote for them to keep Labour out.
But, now, you vote Tory and get Labour! Higher taxes, huge state, loads of QUANGOS, green twaddle, removal of freedoms etc.
Why vote for pseudo Labour? Bit Labour and get the real thing.
January 2, 2022
As hinted above, get Marcus Rashford on the case. He has all the right credentials to change policy here.
January 2, 2022
The arguement is less about how much potential energy we are sitting on, but more about the precipitate green political route we have been led down with absolutely no mandate from the electorate to do so.
Boris needs to slam on the green brakes and drop into reverse. He can of course persist and get thrown out.
The irritating aspect to it is that there are viable green alternatives to the current direction. On electrical energy there is every chance that Rolls Royce SMRs could supply all our needs in the near future. The steel industries need for coal can be answered from sources in Cumbria. Gas needs can come largely from UK sources until such time as volume hydrogen production is a reality. The windmills can short term supply the energy to produce hydrogen.Transport, personal and commercial should be left to the market place and industry to solve. By 2050 we might just have fusion energy.
Ths above is something of an outline plan. Government to date offers us a coastline and countryside full of unreliable windmills. Very expensive home heating via heat pumps. Personal transport at double the capital cost, crazy refueling times, short ranges in real driving conditions. Think night, air con and radio pulling a caravan. Plus of course the offshore cost to those who mine rare earths. Finally there is the strategic cost of not being in control of resourses, witness the EU and Russian gas.
Are you surprised that Boris and you with him are 16 points behind Labour who the people of ths UK want like a hole in the head. Required immediate action. Remove green levies from all fuel bills. Remove VAT from domestic fuel bills. All this week. Next week reactivate UK gas and coal to supply our own needs. Then allow science and engineering to achieve the rest. All they need is policy stability.
January 2, 2022
Whether we import foreign gas or rely on our own resources, these are still finite and regardless of the green agenda will have to come to an end one day.
I would like to see more development in geothermal power sources. These are green, and though the wind may not blow or the sun doesn’t shine, the magma is always hot. By my calculation, the earth is leaking around 10TW of geothermal power all the time, so we don’t need to worry about squandering it.
I am sceptical about fusion power being any kind of solution ever.
January 2, 2022
I too am excited by the prospect for geothermal energy in the UK: it is available domestically and 24/7. See here: https://www.edengeothermal.com/about/geothermal-energy/uk-and-cornwall-potential/ The UK could produce over 20% of its electricity from geothermal power, with the best locations being Cornwall, Weardale and the Lake District. There is also large potential in Scotland (near Aberdeen) but this has not been quantified.
I’m pleased to see that some work is already underway. The company Geothermal Engineering will be rolling out four new deep geothermal power plants in Cornwall, each delivering 5MW of power (enough to power 45,000 homes). Each plant will each take around 18 months to complete, with all four sites anticipated to be up and running by 2026. These could be built much more quickly if they were drilled concurrently, but they would need more drills, which are highly specialised and (presumably) expensive. If the government is really committed to green energy then they should be investing more in this. Perhaps if MPs like Sir John argued for an acceleration of this work they would be pushing against a more easily opened door …?
See here for more details: https://www.powerengineeringint.com/renewables/four-deep-geothermal-plants-announced-for-uk/
January 2, 2022
The locations where geothermal energy can be economically captured are relatively limited, and often associated with active volcano systems. In places like Iceland they do provide cheap power. The UK really only has a small area in the SW that can support a limited amount of production.
January 2, 2022
So sensible as always Sir John and basic, necessary and beneficial but we are brainwashed to beat ourselves up as the great unwashed down the pecking order.
January 2, 2022
Bear in mind that there won’t be any warm pubs to congregate in like people did before the advent of central heating.
This will be a bleak place by the next general election.
January 2, 2022
and when the lights go out, and your CH fails – wouldn’t you like to decamp to the nearest pub, lit with candles, roaring log fire – nurse a pint or two ….and hope lights will return.
January 2, 2022
Meanwhile the Government keeps on with its strategy to stuff as many people into the country as they can , the most recent example is their intention to relax visa restrictions with India . If nothing else shows up the fraudulent nature of their Greenery it is this , the disconnect between the two policies is a chasm , for if there was an atom of truth to their global warming policy then the first policy to go would be their over population policy by mass immigration, but as we see they would have us set aside reality and believe there is some intellectual cohesiveness in these two contradictory policies.
January 2, 2022
Off topic please.
Are masks going to be forever now ?
Looks like it.
If so then may we at least have a directive – as in Germany – that they must be FFP3s as these are the only ones worth bothering with.
“Must wear a *face covering*” sounds very much like masks are about politics and not about prevention to me. So too are the jabs for young people and children and the isolation rules.
*Face covering* us the big give away – you are compliant even wearing something totally useless and this is just a sop to bossy booted leftists.
January 2, 2022
Time is fast running out for this Government to pull some of its many promises out of the fire. The Government may have forgotten but that voters have not.
January 2, 2022
From Peter Hitchensâ article in The Daily Mail
âEvery few months for some years I have marked the wanton destruction of efficient, useful, modern coal-fired power stations â not cautiously mothballed in case they are needed again, but swiftly blown up with high explosives, relying on a certainty about the future which no sane person should claim to possess.â
The title of the article isâŠ.
âJust like the Reds, the Greens think they’re too good and noble to possibly be wrong but this country will begin to get colder and darker – just like the Soviet Unionâ
January 2, 2022
Iâm afraid that sanity has lost the day.
Sane ministers have been too polite, indulgent and obliging.
Soon the pink unicorns and kindness brigade will wake to what they have signed up to.
And they are going to need a lot of blankets!
I have been stockpiling from eBay (âWitneyâ where possible) for a few years.
Along with the candles!đł
January 2, 2022
Very sensible comments.
As a politically motivated project, if Net-Zero is followed through to the desired ends#, there will be no shale, no natural gas, no energy for industry and the lights will certainly go out.
THE question the government needs to answer is; “what is more important, a thriving UK, with adequate energy and potential, or a UK dying on its feet, open to exploitation by nations that do not cherish the chimerical Climate Change, and far worse?”
“Are we truly following the science, or socialist *dogma?”
# I refer you to the Net-Zero Direction paper commissioned and accepted by government as an official document describing what needs to be done to achieve the goal. Which is said to be achievable only with technology that is not yet available, and they omit to mention the cost to Humanity.
It includes the closing of all airports and reducing drastically the overheads associated with imports by boat! So much for our reliance on energy imports!
http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/absolute-zero
{* DOGMA: ‘prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group’}
January 2, 2022
Why do MPs never condemn tyrannical actions taken in the name of covid in places like Australia, Austria, Canada, Greece, Germany…? Why do MPs never comment or express concern about the number of deaths and severe after effects from the vaccines?
We need a new government and Parliament which truly represent the best interests of the people they are meant to serve, not the commands of their global puppet masters. Those responsible for crimes against humanity must be held to account.
January 2, 2022
I do not think Geothermal is the answer to our EVER GROWING needs. We need to understand what is driving such growth.
January 2, 2022
âThe Conservative Manifesto promised âto introduce new measures to reduce (energy) billsââ.
On P143 of the Net Zero Strategy is written the following concerning the conversion from gas boilers to heat pumps :
âCurrently, on average heating a home with a heat pump costs more than with a gas boiler. This is, in part, due to policy and social costs charged on electricity bills. However, by addressing existing distortions between electricity and gas prices, we will ensure heat pumps will be no more expensive to run than gas boilers.â
So, in other words the Strategy intends to double or even treble the cost of gas.
Weâre heading for another ERM type event.
John Major expended billions of pounds worth of foreign exchange reserves in an ultimately futile attempt to prevent Black Wednesday.
This time, Mr. Johnson will spend billions of pounds in a futile attempt to prevent the lights going out by subsidising unscientific and technologically impossible wind energy schemes and his government will be brought down by rocketing inflation, rolling blackouts, fuel and food shortages.
January 2, 2022
Having just finished today’s Sunday Times I am appalled that it seems that Johnson won’t be removed from office until after he has cost hundreds of Conservative councillors their seats.
P.S. And some interesting news about the next scandal (Lunchgate?) to engulf this government.
January 2, 2022
Good point S_W. Most people would try and prevent a disaster but this lot seem to want it to happen and then take action
January 2, 2022
I see you noted
The idea that we need a windfall tax on U.K. oil and gas is dangerous. We are short of energy so we need to allow and encourage the production of more UK gas to increase supply. Taxing UK sources means more dependency on Mr Putinâs gas and sky high european prices.
Absolutely right. I would add that in 2020 when oil demand collapsed, so did oil and gas prices, and electricity prices also fell back in consequence. There were no subsidies for oil and gas producers to tide them over the hard times, while renewables continued to benefit from ROC subsidies and guaranteed CFD prices. Oil prices are in fact only close to the average of the past 20 years now that they have rebounded. Two thirds of UK gas production is associated gas, produced along with oil, so only a few fields have benefited fully from the much higher gas prices recently. Electricity prices have soared, averaging around ÂŁ300/MWh before the holiday break and giving a huge bonus to renewables on ROCs, yet they are only taxed at the normal 19% CT rate, while most North Sea production is taxed at 62% on a ring fenced basis, which is by most standards already a windfall tax.
The government has been trying to dissuade banks from lending to oil and gas companies, forcing them to rely on their own cashflow to fund new investment, which comes from either after tax income or the sale of assets most likely to foreign investors with the Chinese at the top of the list. This has to be one of the stupidest policies ever devised.
January 2, 2022
Every company extracting oil and gas in the US has lost money and caused immense ecological damage. They only continue with the help of a finacial ponzi scheme. In effect it costs more energy to get the stuff out than you get from it which makes the economy poorer not richer.
If the Bowland shales are like the US shale gas deposits then they are uneconomic to extract.
Any use of Bowland deposits should have the most rigorous costings done prior to any action.
January 2, 2022
Companies were and are willing to do invest and do the work.
Only government is stopping them.
January 2, 2022
Which companies? Can you please provide the exploitation plans for IGas, Cuadrilla, Egdon Resources, SWEnergy, UK Oil & Gas, ⊠Are there any more companies âwilling to invest and do the workâ?
As far as I can see the three British companies (LSE:UKOG, :EDR, :IGAS) have seen their shares fall by factors between six and twelve these last three years. I would not bet any of my hard-earned cash on them.
The US South Western Energy and Australian Cuadrilla are in a much better shape.
January 2, 2022
You demand answers heffy
The companies that originally wanted to develop these fields but were refused by the government.
Try fracking as a business in the UK heffy and see what backing you get from the State.
Your share value would reduce once individual investors realise what a disaster government policy is.
January 3, 2022
Why should I expect âbacking from the Stateâ? Do you not believe in the âfree marketâ? Should I expect subsidies? Would you willing to have your taxes increased to pay me such subsidies?
Are you not a bit inconsistent?
January 3, 2022
The state helps many energy companies with grants, subsidies and tax breaks.
So why not those who want to go fracking or those wanting to deliver gas from around our coasts.
Instead they are not helped in fact they are hindered.
If the energy market was fair then all sectors would be helped equally.
January 2, 2022
Why? If private companies risk investor capital, that is surely a matter for investors. Very different from the compulsory subsidy contributions inflicted on consumers to support renewables.
January 2, 2022
John accepts the wider progressive status quo as does the entire Parliamentary Tory party. That means one thing, the descent into madness will continue and our normal world and our freedoms will continue to be eroded.
Something has changed forever. Nothing will ever be the same again. Those now in control won’t give up their new found grip over us
The Socialistic minded forces have broke the back of the Tory party. It’s game over for those who have always believed that the State must be servile and accountable to the civil world. Now the State’s attack on our existence will accelerate.
There is nothing to celebrate. Those that have taken control aren’t going to relinquish their new found powers. I fear for the future of all that we have known
January 2, 2022
Yes, Sir John, we certainly should be unleashing our own natural resources, both to cut prices and to increase self-sufficiency. But Kwarteng will NOT do this. I know this, you know this and even my cat knows this. You have been banging this drum – rightly – for ages but with absolutely NO effect. Repeatedly doing the same thing but hoping for a different outcome is not the road to success. So when will you publicly declare that you have NO CONFIDENCE in Kwarteng?
January 2, 2022
Such sense, practicality and in certain aspects urgency as covered will not be recognised or implimented by the present ‘Conservative’ party and government under its leadership.
‘Boris’ is interested only in the personal international and global glory he has tried to attract to himself with his total committment to extreme ‘green’ policies.
How can he decide to open up a gas, coal or oil field after saying what he said about it? He will thus also support no doubt the the buying up of very large acreages of farmland in Wales to plant trees and gain nice profits from the carbon business. It will happen elsewhere. Food production will of course fall.
We must continue on the authoritarian ‘green’ road he is determined to to force through while he is the leader. Anyone who supports him is supporting his extreme direction.
And finally I wrote to my MP (Wantage) a while back asking whether he thought Shell’s decision to withdraw from the Cambo oil project was in our national interest. I can’t remember exactly when but it is not a question requiring much research to answer. I am not surprised I have heard nothing.
January 2, 2022
Off topic, but this is just madness: apparently we have two British companies that make lateral flow tests, which are perfectly good enough to be sold and used in the EU, but the UK government refuses to use them, meaning we not only have a shortage but have to import test kits from China (the country which gave us covid and is now making money from it!). The story is here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10362195/British-lateral-flow-tests-BANNED-UK-despite-cleared-use-EU.html
The government’s stupidity and treason gets worse by the day.
January 2, 2022
No, should be investing in New Coal Fire Power Station technology, the fuel that used by poorer countries, to bring there standards up along with combustion engine technology which will still be used by billions of people all over the world who may disagree with 100 million people in the west of the world on batteries for transport. Combustion engine technology was coming on in leaps with trillions spent on the technology over the years and a few people coming along look at it and say, no good and throw the tech into the waste paper bin while billion of people around the world will still relying on combustion engines for all their needs for years to come, now with no more improvements because nobody working and spending on the engine technology any more while billions of people need it.
January 2, 2022
What we need is British owned and controlled nuclear plants using British owned and controlled technology
January 2, 2022
We could have these if the government would stop delaying the building of Rolls-Royce’s Small Modular Reactors. If the government accelerated their approval they could be up and running in 3-4 years. But no – at the current rate of government decision making these will not be built until some time in the 2030s!! We are governed by cretins and traitors.
January 2, 2022
I reckon Natural Gas (NG) has to be the transition fuel to 2050, when the last cubic meter would be used. It at least has 25% Hydrogen in it, five times more than coal. The world should pace itself to that time scale and stop demanding that we decarbonise the planet in a heated rush by next Christmas.
500m barrels of oil equivalent translates into about 80 billion cubic meters of NG; if it was all gas, which it won’t be. About enough to fully supply UK demand for just over a year. The Jackdaw field in its first production year is estimated to deliver about 4.8 million cubic meters per day. What it produces in its second year will decide how much that field is worth long term. Bowland shale fracking won’t win many votes up north. It also suffers from the “Red Queen Effect” in US parlance.
That is ” … an oil and gas company drills fifty wells during their first year in a new shale play. They contract with a pipeline company who will transmit that gas to market. One year after these wells are drilled, their production rate has fallen by 60 to 80%. So, to meet the amount of gas promised to the pipeline, the oil and gas company must drill at least 30 to 40 new wells to make up for the drop in production. At the end of the second year, the company has first-year production drops on all of its new wells and second-year production drops on all of the wells drilled in the first year. This forces the oil and gas company to drill, drill, drill to keep up with its promise to the pipeline.” (Geology.com)
January 2, 2022
That’s what the oil and gas industry does and has done for decades acorn
And it has continued to develop lots of new reserves and provide plenty of fuels.
Despite greens continuing to bleat about peak oil.
Why do you suddenly think the system wont work despite current high fossil fuel prices?
January 2, 2022
BTW. The price of gas has dropped like a stone today. NGC is showing a system price of 1.52 pence/ kWh about the same as its average price over the last decade or so. It hit 8.6 pence per kWh back in September. Crazy but unbelievably profitable if you own a gas well; a gas pipeline or an LNG Tanker.
January 2, 2022
I note that the Christophe de Margerie with a cargo of Russian LNG has been awaiting a berth at Milford Haven while a vessel from Sabine Point USA discharges, although LNG tankage us only about half full. Meanwhile the mild weather has allowed both topping up of cavern storage in the UK and further exports to the Netherlands and Belgium via Bacton. With demand from power stations temporarily reduced by strong wind generation as well we have a short term surplus due to lack of storage flexibility. I hope we haven’t been giving away the exports too cheaply, as with electricity. Of course at those prices, CCGT would undercut all the wind generators’ subsidies if it were allowed to run.
January 2, 2022
Thus showing how the market works as demand develops supply.
January 2, 2022
Well that’s good then acorn.
January 2, 2022
OFF TOPIC.
bbc website.
A giant European Union flag displayed at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to mark France taking on the bloc’s presidency has been removed after it was criticised by right-wing politicians. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said “replacing” the French flag at the monument was an attack on the country’s identity.
So much for pride in the EU flag.
January 2, 2022
I note that criticism also came from presidential candidates Eric Zemmour and Valerie PĂ©cresse, who is only far right in the mind of the BBC. It will be interesting to watch the BBC squirm should she win the presidency, which is now looking increasingly likely. She is neck and neck with Macron in head to head polling, and leading the pack of candidates to challenge him in the first round.
January 2, 2022
The French flag is displayed at the Arc de Triomphe only on special occasions.
Other French news agencies report that the EU flag had originally only been scheduled for the January 1st, and had been replaced today (02/01) by the French flag.
It is a shame that Pecresse had followed Le Pen and Zemmour in what was some empty gestures.
(liberation.fr)
January 2, 2022
I would have made the same criticism.
There was no “outrage” or “fury” as reported here, however.
As PĂ©cresse simply said, it is customary always to display the national flag alongside that of the European Union.
And it is – in proper countries – so this failure to do so was a departure which would send confusing messages.
In any case the flying was only intended to last a few days along, with projections on other monuments to mark France’s assumption of the presidency.
It’s gone and forgotten now – except by fruitcakes here, it seems.
January 2, 2022
There are some people in the BBC and our government crying tonight
January 2, 2022
Of course you are right about using our own oil and gas supplies. Also about fracking for more.
Why on earth can’t your imbecile leader see common sense?
You are also right in a previous post, about how the Chancellor and the rest of the government have broken manifesto promises and taken entirely the wrong course in trying to get the deficit down.
I’ve also read an article from the Bruge Group about how the Prime Minister’s wrong energy policies are the biggest threat to his ‘popularity’, his government and even his Party.
Personally I still believe there is room for increasing our use of nuclear energy as well.
Actually, the whole ‘Climate Change due to Carbon Dioxide’ idea, is a complete nonsense.
There is no climate warming and carbon dioxide due to man’s activities would not cause it, if there was.
We should continue to burn our own fossil fuels for as long as it suits us and only worry about when/if they might run out. Or become too expensive.
Why does Boris Johnson prefer to strut around at United Nations conferences, instead of looking after his country’s interests?
January 2, 2022
I don’t want a world leader I want a country leader
January 3, 2022
You want to be led?
Would you not rather have your own vision and autonomy as to where you want to go?