And that’s before you consider the vast majority of the profits go straight into the pockets of the private companies we’ve effectively handed the reserves to. Meanwhile a single major oil price shock costs the UK economy more than the entire transition to net zero by 2050 would. The whole situation is just beyond farce at this point.
The argument that we should be exploiting North Sea oil further is a silly one at best.
There isn’t much left, it’s now much more difficult to extract than previously (making it more expensive to extract – therefore NOT reducing cost for consumers) and it locks in a dependency that means we would require a larger dependancy on global oil supplies just as such supplies become more unsustainable.
It’s such a poorly considered argument to say “drill, baby, drill” when now is economically the time to be investing in alternatives.
Hylax1 on
Honestly, I am almost pro-anything when it comes to making our energy resources more secure and less dependent on third parties – especially now with what is going on in the world, but even then this seems like a bit too wasteful
Sytafluer on
Problem is you get the equipment setup and the people trained. You decide it is too expensive so you moth ball the equipment and lay off the highly trained personnel. Then a few years later you decide hey you know what we actually do need it, so you spend money to get the equipment back up to good running condition. You then try find all those experienced people you fired a few years back, who have all found work in other more stable industries. The only way to entice them back is with bigger salaries..etc
It’s called the Yo-Yo effect.
Every-Ad-3488 on
It would definitely have been far better to import that 36 days worth of gas from Russia or the USA
5 commenti
And that’s before you consider the vast majority of the profits go straight into the pockets of the private companies we’ve effectively handed the reserves to. Meanwhile a single major oil price shock costs the UK economy more than the entire transition to net zero by 2050 would. The whole situation is just beyond farce at this point.
https://www.theccc.org.uk/2026/03/11/cost-of-net-zero-by-2050-less-than-a-single-fossil-fuel-price-shock-ccc/
The argument that we should be exploiting North Sea oil further is a silly one at best.
There isn’t much left, it’s now much more difficult to extract than previously (making it more expensive to extract – therefore NOT reducing cost for consumers) and it locks in a dependency that means we would require a larger dependancy on global oil supplies just as such supplies become more unsustainable.
It’s such a poorly considered argument to say “drill, baby, drill” when now is economically the time to be investing in alternatives.
Honestly, I am almost pro-anything when it comes to making our energy resources more secure and less dependent on third parties – especially now with what is going on in the world, but even then this seems like a bit too wasteful
Problem is you get the equipment setup and the people trained. You decide it is too expensive so you moth ball the equipment and lay off the highly trained personnel. Then a few years later you decide hey you know what we actually do need it, so you spend money to get the equipment back up to good running condition. You then try find all those experienced people you fired a few years back, who have all found work in other more stable industries. The only way to entice them back is with bigger salaries..etc
It’s called the Yo-Yo effect.
It would definitely have been far better to import that 36 days worth of gas from Russia or the USA