Anger at forth coming COL crisis

[MyCheekyEagle]

Of course I understand that the ME war is going to have an impact on oil prices & that will get passed onto the already struggling families; but when things stabilise again & maybe oil prices reset the greedy corporatez never pass this saving back to customers fo they. They just think as we've got used to these new higher prices we'll just keep them there. This thought has given me the rage most of today!
Just needed to vent somewhere, thanks if you listened..

Firstly, North Sea oil & gas isn’t uneconomical to extract, if it was there wouldn’t be anyone shouting about the EPL. It’s a lot more challenging economically when you tax companies on 78% of their profits, and lots of projects are made uneconomic when you do, which is the situation now. Unfortunately it’s also the sort of industry when things take time to come to fruition so drill baby drill today won’t result in more oil tomorrow, or
next month, more like next year earliest.

Secondly, continuing to produce your own reserves whilst investing in renewable energy is meant to be what the plan is. You don’t just make a new energy transmission system overnight. Electrifying will take time (and a lot of money), from the transmission systems to heavy industry to individuals. Our whole energy system is based on oil and gas and we need to sustain that whilst the new systems are installed. And living somewhere where the countryside is planned to be completely violated by the transmission upgrades, it’s not going to happen quickly with the public outcry to these plans.

Thirdly, the UKs current obsession with wind and solar is highly flawed. Neither of these are ‘constantly on’. So on the days when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow we are still burning to generate electricity and there isn’t a clear pathway to how we are going to manage this (there are lots of options)

Trump is a madman - did he really need to start bombing the shit out of Iran? We’re now being dragged into a war i’m not sure anyone wanted. I have been thinking about the irony of everyone using paper straws to save the environment while ten tons of missiles are being exploded in the sky.

I’m seriously considering solar panels.

I mean the government investing properly in the infrastructure so we aren't in this situation where we are now: where there is an inability of substations to cope when green energy is producing more in a local area and reusing it elsewhere. If the buy in tariff hadn't been reduced hence scuppering so many private and community energy schemes. If better tax breaks had been given on retrofitting. If long term comprehensive green grants had been available for business and households.
If research had been focused on creating better, energy production. If they used legislation to incorporate green energy into all construction schemes.
Countries like Norway and Iceland have achieved this and have much lower energy costs for consummers than we do and better economic growth.

BeAvidHiker, I agree, plus India, buying wood pellets from the US for Drax, and liquid gas..Milliband is nuts, and apparently he has a gas boiler in his fancy home.

This is incorrect. The North Sea oil is the wrong type for us to be able to use. We don’t have the infrastructure for it. Plus (I believe) Thatcher sold the rights to it anyway. The best way forward is green energy and probably a bit of nuclear energy too. That makes us self sufficient.
No point in blaming Rachel Reeves for any of this either.
The government are putting a big focus on making us less reliant on oil and this is very good for us as a country (as proven by recent events).

There's already legislation that stipulates all new builds have to have solar (or other low carbon power where solar isn't viable). It's being integrated into building regs and will kick in this year.

Food prices rises have been insane. I feel like I am the only one who is always moaning about it.

Same. And to add insult to injury I'm having to find an extra £200 a month to take my laptop into an office 3 days a week to do less work than I've done perfectly well from home for the last 6 years.

If you actually bother to read the study, you’d see that the ‘not looking for work’ crowd includes students, carers, retirees and stay at home mums, no mention of benefit claimants. That’s a nasty article whereby the reader is persuaded that these people are taking from society and not giving. - when in fact it is likely to be the opposite.

Tax on heating is low, 5%.

But even if VAT were applied to the actual cost of petrol, instead of being applied to the price including the fuel duty, it would be morally more palatable.

Same here! And those of us using oil never get any help. Look at the attached

I'm really worried about the working poor & pensioners next winter. What an absolute mess this country is in. We really are going to go back to the days of people out collecting fire wood, vitamin deficiencies, timely medical treatment only for those who can pay, hungry children & people worked to death.

I was thinking that anyone who could, would look to buy an EV now.

Yes, electricity is also increasing, but not as erratically as petrol as there is some renewable and nuclear power in the mix. Our dependency on oil is problematic in light of oil cartels and geopolitics. And greedy energy firms of course. British Petroleum and Shell alone made £75 billion between 2022 and 2024, at the expense of struggling households.

I always say this too! Inflation is in no way representstive of the cost of living. Council tax alone has risen to almost 5% in my area.

Maybe Starmer should be negotiating import tariffs? As other PM’s are wont to do.

Petrol stations work on the model of what it is going to cost them to refill THEIR tank with fuel, not what it cost them for the stock currently in their tank.

The cost of petrol today reflects how much that new future price is.

Put simply - when their tank runs out next week and then need to refill it, they too are going to be paying the new, much higher price.

If they haven’t taken enough money this week to cover that new price, then they can’t afford to refill their tank and you will have no petrol to put in your car.

This.

It’s a literal ideological choice. It is capitalism functioning without adequate checks and balances from government.

This in buckets.

I think food prices in the UK has historiacally been very low, now they are more on par with the rest of Europe, the problem is more that the wages (except the minimum wage) haven't gone up at the same rate as food prices plus that utilities are expensive in the UK.

Basically about to be the in the same situation as you. Years of hard work to be independent and now facing having to sell everything I own and move back into the box room indefinitely.

Fuel predicted to rise substantially by the weekend, which will whack up the cost of everything. 🙄

www.lancs.live/news/cost-of-living/drivers-wise-fill-up-petrol-33500955

Unfortunately, I don't think you're wrong. I'm one of the "working poor ". I've cut my cloth to the point there's no cloth left. On the plus side, as I can barely afford to eat, I've lost a lot of weight. Fuck this Government.

What are the things you think are deliberately included to make the cost of living look lower? And when were they included?

Hmmm.
You can't get away from the fact that electricity is very difficult to store.

Norway uses Hydropower to produce 96% of it's electricity so they are not comparable with UK.
Neither is Iceland where they can harness Geopower as well as HEP.

The problem though is that the margins are tiny. It's the volumes that create the profit. Domestic energy costs account for a small proportion of energy companies overall profits.