I had the radio on in the car the other day and some ex Tory now working for the Adam Smith Institute was lamenting that the UK had more nuclear generating power in the 60s than Europe combined.
Pretty startling to think how much better things could have gone for the country had we done that in the 60s.
CND sentiment?
Didn’t bother the French
Chauvinist culture back when it mattered?
Douglas Adams on a £42 note please.
£42tn note. Has to be able to buy life, the universe and everything.
The motor's running on that one.
This is worth 15 mins of anyone’s time who’s interested in gas, oil and the environment
Finally people are coming round to the logic of what’s the point in importing supplementary LNG to replace what’s (possibly) available in the North Sea when it’s actually dirtier/worse for environment and more expensive.
This isn’t an anti environmental post by the way, if we could operate purely on renewables*, happy days, but we can’t for the foreseeable future. More logic, less ideology might help
* at a personal level im pretty sure I pay more for octopus to supply me with 100% renewable energy
Couldn’t be done overnight
Need bug beautiful coal
We could pull as much gas out of the North Sea as you like and it would change nothing, it’s all sold on the open market. Unless we renationalise North Sea oil and take control over distribution of course, for which the argument is getting stronger.
What Germany did was just ridiculous, and in fact a little sinister when considering Angela Merkel (who drove the policy) and her ties to Russia.
I wasn’t talking about cost, I was talking about security.I wasn’t saying it would make a big difference to cost although I still can’t quite get my head around why if we’re producing more gas cheaper locally rather than importing more expensive LNG from Qatar, US etc it wouldn’t make a difference (even appreciating it’s global pricing). Nor the unfairness of us paying additional green taxes etc yet not then getting the benefit of this cheaper renewable energy as it’s charged at marginal pricing ie gas price
The main points Conway was making though was that imported LNG is more expensive and is a fair bit worse for the environment. Throw in energy security when gas plants are being bombed elsewhere in the world and the policies of successive governments aren’t looking great.
Again, this isn’t an anti renewables post, I wish we could produce all our energy this way but there’s a realisation that an element of gas will be required in our energy mix for a long time yet and it’s how we plug that gap
Fact is we import the majority of the oil and gas we use while exporting the majority of oil and gas we produce. This is down to the free market. I suspect that the only thing that will change under the current arrangement is more will be exported if we pump more out. It’s our dependency on fossil fuels that’s costing us. The UK is uniquely placed in Europe with with the longest coastline in Europe and dependable wind because of the Gulf Stream. We were late to the renewable energy revolution, something that could have given us real energy independence as a country.
You’re contradicting yourself a bit Steve . You started off saying that we import LNG when we could be using our own and now you’re saying we don’t have the right gas. Which is it?
