Think it's Time to Start Drilling

[MissAustenMadeAQuilt]

Oil price rising fast which means energy, food, petrol costs, everything will rocket fast and jobs will be lost.

We have our own oil in our own back yard, which would give us protection.

AIBU to think we should grant oil licences and get drilling.

If not we're going to reach Net Zero a lot faster than planned and it ain't going to be pretty.

No, any extra drilling just gets sold abroad, more profit for the few.

renewables is the only answer.

break the link between home energy and oil and gas

A few shadow fleet vessels have been intercepted lately. The most recent one by the Belgians. Why would the shadow fleet be going through Hormuz? They usually go from the Baltic ports to various Russian-friendly countries like India. Europe's reliance on Russian gas has plummeted and the pipeline serving Hungary and Slovakia has been cut off.

If the Saudis weren't making so much money from oil then they wouldn't be able to afford the same extravagant lifestyles.

Those figures are misleading

The gas figure (£30-50/MWh) is the most problematic claim. This appears to be the short-run marginal cost of running an already-built gas plant (essentially just fuel costs), not the full cost of building and running new gas capacity. Government estimates put the levelised cost of new gas CCGT plants at around £114/MWh for 2025 — more than double the post’s figure. So the author is comparing the total system cost of wind (including storage) against the running cost only of gas, which is an apples-to-oranges comparison.
You’re right that renewables are currently cheaper. Wind power reduced wholesale electricity prices by around 25% in 2024 — without it, average day-ahead prices of £73-76/MWh could have been as high as £96-101/MWh.

I believe there are shadow fleets with Iranian oil going to China and has been for many years.

Decisions are taken at the margin though.

Should you buy a new coat if you have a perfectly good one already?

Your method would say: well, is the new coat cheaper than what I paid for my current one? If yes, I should buy a new one.

That’s not a sensible way to make the decision.

A better objection would be: the existing coat isn’t a “good” one. (It’s highly polluting).

My point is that the coat can be made good (the pollution can be far more than offset) with significantly less money that we have instead spent on a new coat.

If we care about removing carbon we should prioritise the most cost effective projects to do so. If we care about cost of living and economic growth we should choose the cheapest good energy source.

By combining these issues we are doing neither well.

The energy source that comes closest to doing both is nuclear, which is what we should prioritise.

sorry i don't understand the analogy - if we drill more it will not bring down our electricity prices, or petrol prices, it gets sold on the international markets goiving oil and gas companies more profit.

the quickest eaiest way to remove ourselves from being a slave to oil prices is renewables.our energy prices are cheapoer because of them already and could be even more with simple govt action.

Unfortunately we would need 25 Hinkley Point C power stations to replace the UKs current gas demand per year.

You might get away with less, because a lot of gas is used for heating and heat pumps use about 1/3 as much power as gas equivalent. So say 1/3 of that, or 8x Hinkley Point C.

Sounds do-able. Until you realise that that is just the gas. Add in oil and there is a similar amount, without the efficiency reduction. So another 25x Hinkley Point C.

So something of the order of 32 Hinkley Point C's to replace all our current gas and oil (fossil fuel) usage that is mainly in a non electricity generating capacity.

One of them is taking 10 years to build, and costing £50 billion. And we haven't even got to the stage where we might be finding out stuff that is wrong with the build yet (see Finland).

We haven't even figured out where to put and process the old waste from the old nuclear stations we have shut down. Trying to find a geological depository has gone on for years. Let alone 32 new monster power stations.

If we care about removing carbon we should prioritise the most cost effective projects to do so. If we care about cost of living and economic growth we should choose the cheapest good energy source.

this makes no sense

no i'll change my position, the words good and cost effective are doing so much heavy lifting it is just a pointless statement

Appreciate the insight in these posts

What I’d like to persuade you of is this:

1. carbon reduction matters, a lot. We are on an unsustainable path becuase of tipping-point effects. Therefore, when setting carbon policies we should try to maximise the amount of carbon reduction, within the constraints of the budget that our political system allows us.

2. that prosperity matters, a lot. Caring about cost-of-living is not some grubby selfish thing. Reducing costs for people allows them to live better lives, and reducing costs for business helps our economy create jobs, which for most people is a core part of what they value and how they make their living. Therefore we should try to maximise prosperity, within the limits that the sustainability of our planet sets.

If I can persuade you of both of the above, then the question just becomes a data one: which policies achieves these best.

Are you with me so far?

France generates 2/3rd of its total electricity with 18 nuclear power plants. It’s doable. And their total electricity use is 30% more than ours because they are more electrified.

Most O&G usage in the UK isn’t for electricity (as you say). We will continue to electrify, but not overnight. We should have started with nuclear decades ago (or not stopped), but the second-best time to start is now.

Nuclear has the lowest carbon footprint of any known energy source.

3% of nuclear waste is of the lasts-for-centuries variety, the volume is small, and there is scientific consensus on the solution (very deep burial). There are suitable UK sites (Cumbria). It’s a local planning system problem, essentially.

Nuclear isn’t problem-free, obviously, but the alternatives are significantly worse. At least if you think the priority should be cheap, low-carbon energy.

Are you replying to the right person? Not sure anything I’ve said disagrees with any of that.

with any tax and spend policy decision however there are always winners and losers. I am comfortable that the oil companies are the losers (and yes that includes investors and pension funds)

@LoftyPlumLion
Yes, replying to you becuase you said it “made no sense” to try to do the best we can towards these two goals, separately if needed. Then you changed to say it was a “pointless statement”.

But if we agree on those goals then I think I have a chance of persuading you that it’s not pointless at all to think about these two things separately. And that doing so gets us better results on both.

That’s because the UK is a very expensive place to decarbonise (becuase we are an expensive country and are already quite carbon efficient).

If we spent the money we currently spend on UK wind+storage transition on the most efficient decarbonisation projects we can find, wherever they are globally, we would remove far more carbon.

Why wouldn’t that be preferable?

O&G in the UK is taxed hugely both at production and at sale. That is carried by consumers. But because energy is such an important input into virtually all economic activity, those high costs do a huge amount of damage, eg via CoL.

Split these two problems out and both can be solved better.

We already do pretty well with renewables, if you weren’t aware

We have the most expensive industrial energy in the OECD.

If that’s doing pretty well, what would doing badly look like?

i wonder if those saying “just drill” are actually too young to remember thatcher.
its the only thing I can think of, as the reason to they don’t know that she sold it off.

Not nearly enough. The entire infrastructure of the grid needs to change, and we already pay the highest energy bills. Remember Spains blackout last year and the instability of the German grid.

We need serious investment into solar panels for all buildings that are suitable. Air pumps for others suitable. So homes are not reliant on oil and gas providers. Electric cars should be cheaper too.

The commercial demand is there. The reason there is no new drilling is becuase this government isn’t issuing new licences.

We sold our fields off. It’s not ours anymore

It also takes years to get one on the go. And millions.
there’s also different types of oil. So ours isn’t suitable for some stuff

True.

New gas takes about 4-7 years. New offshore wind about 10-15 years.

Even if you wanted 100% wind (I don’t), there’s a time lag where we will be reliant on gas because of those long lead times. Why prefer foreign gas over domestic in that period?

This isn’t how it works. The govt grants licences, it doesn’t sell fields. The mineral rights belong to the crown.

New unexplored gas fields haven’t been licenced to anyone, because this govt isn’t issuing new-gas licences.

If you think it’s important to reduce foreign involvement in our gas production, they could be licenced to UK firms.

Ahhh another one suckered in by the media line!

There definitely is drilling on the go. What the govt has said is no new licence blocks rounds. Licence block rounds were for the exploration and potential development (not a given it actually would be developed). Anything which was included in previous licence rounds or already a operator licence is fair game though and can be applied to be developed if seismic data shows its viable. That is not the same as no new drilling at all.