"Just stop oil"

[SDK^]

Long term - The best interest for the average person in the country is to shift the gas and oil bars in this graph onto Nuclear, wind and solar
Best interest = Reduced energy cost by removing the reliance on large fossil energy companies.

However, this does need a large shift in how people use energy in their homes and transport - large cost impact to change fossil based appliances to renewables; mostly heat pumps and electric/hydrogen vehicles. This should/needs to be support funded by Goverment.

Enabling this change not only reduces energy cost but removes a large amount of fossil energy use, so we can meet Net Zero targets.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

It’s also worth adding in that for every % reduction in oil/gas you make, it doesn’t add the equivalent in electric because thing like electric cars and heat pumps use a fraction of the energy for the same result.

 

[jpaul]

I guess just stop oil couldn't get to Downing Street, but Rishi's house was unprotected - who's next

[efficiency of use of that 36% oil is another thing - obviously ICE cars are inefficient - bring back lean burn ]

 

[SPG]

Just stop oil trying to stop oil as I quite like oil and all the nice things it has allowed me to do.

 

[Peter75]

I'm against the stopping of public going around their day to day business (blocking public roads, causing potential fatalities etc) and often when people like myself are asked what can these activists possibly do in lieu of this, its often cited that these people should target places of government etc. So the targeting of the PM's constituency home today is fine by me. After all, he is the man with his finger on the button. However, In the grand scheme of things considering his wealth and other properties he owns I doubt he cares.

Greenpeace protesters climb roof of Rishi Sunak's North Yorkshire home

The protest is against the decision to grant new North Sea oil and gas licences, Greenpeace says.

www.bbc.co.uk

And yes, I'm aware its Greenpeace and not JSO.

 

[SPG]

China approves more than 50GW of coal power in 2023 despite climate concerns

China has approved more than 50 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power in the first six months of 2023 despite commitments to reduce its carbon emissions, research from Greenpeace has shown.

eandt.theiet.org

Lets send them off to China to protest IMO........

 

[JonRGV250]

From the report above..

When asked about the incident, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said he thought the British people were "sick of these stupid stunts".

They've spelled "stunts" incorrectly.

 

[Freddie1980]

China approves more than 50GW of coal power in 2023 despite climate concerns

China has approved more than 50 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power in the first six months of 2023 despite commitments to reduce its carbon emissions, research from Greenpeace has shown.

eandt.theiet.org

Lets send them off to China to protest IMO........

No surprises, given the rapid adoption of electric vehicles in China they need to build out their electric grid to cope with the demand for electricity. The only real quick way of delivering that is old fashion fossil fuel plants. For a frame of reference 50GW is roughly the equivalent of 16 Hinkley Point C's running at full tilt which would take ages to build (although I'm sure the Chinese could build it faster then us).

 

[Maple Leaf]

Sunak's family firm signed a billion-dollar deal with BP before PM opened new North Sea licences

The CEO of one of Infosys' other major clients, Shell, also joined Rishi Sunak's new business council two weeks ago.

www.thelondoneconomic.com

And people wonder why sunak granted the licences.

Rishi Sunak generally voted against measures to prevent climate change:

2 votes FOR, 16 votes AGAINST, 9 absences, between 2016–2022. Voting record

What he says in public is not what he votes for when he imagines that the plebs are not paying attention.

 

[Maple Leaf]

oil license round was initiated before sunak was pm .

and the click-bate 100 licenses may just enable us to sustain output at current levels and avoid being slaves to opec as they further just reduce supply, to maintain prices,
and finance their own renewables (about 8 of the licenses, earlier link, were unlocking fields worth about 1/3rd of just a years UK total demand)

can become acrimonious in the future with europe too, and reduced access to their energy as they develop storage, so need some autonomy in the sunny uplands,
media items yesterday suggested EU will impose the battery import tax in 2024, which will seriously screw Nissan.

There is no way that expanding North Sea oil/gas operations will improve the UK's peacetime energy security. To say otherwise, as Sunak has claimed, is misleading. The reason is two-fold: firstly, oil and gas are traded on international markets at the prices decided by them and, secondly, the oil and gas reserves ARE NOT OURS anyway once the license has been bought and paid for. The reserves then belong to the company concerned.

Only in an explicitly declared national emergency (like a World War) could the British government commandeer all oil/gas reserves on British territory for its own usage (with appropriate retroactive compensation for the affected parties). Apart from the tax receipts (which are currently NEGATIVE because of ongoing tax breaks and subsidies) the UK has no preferential claim on the fuels extracted, so they cannot be casually reserved to improve the UK's energy security during normal periods. (We all know that the government won't declare a national emergency because of climate change as that would be a massive admission of failure on their part.)

Also, most of the remaining UK oil in the North Sea is not suitable for refining into petrol and so it will not even be used in the UK and will instead be exported. It is estimated that ~80% of the new oil from there will be exported.

 

[dowie]

There is no way that expanding North Sea oil/gas operations will improve the UK's peacetime energy security. To say otherwise, as Sunak has claimed, is misleading. The reason is two-fold: firstly, oil and gas are traded on international markets at the prices decided by them and...

This is naive, Russian oil and gas was traded freely on international markets until... oh, an invasion happened and the West needed to scramble to try and reduce reliance on Russia and make up for that gap.

Guess what having more domestic production allows for...

 

[Angilion]

Personally I like what they're doing, I wouldn't do it myself but I strongly believe in environmental causes. Over time as global warming worsens and people look back at times like these it could be similar to looking back on attitudes on race and sex from 50 years ago. I wouldn't boo these people on camera, but that's just my 2 pence.

I think there's a big difference between "what they're doing" and "environmental causes". They're not the same thing at all.

What JSO is doing is causing as much hassle as possible to as many people as possible. It's a cult and a power trip. At best, it has no effect on environmental causes at all. At worst, it's counter-productive for environmental causes by associating them with cultists who are at best annoying and at worst harmful. Their stated goal makes no sense anyway because importing oil from elsewhere is more harmful than extracting it locally.

The real work is being done by scientists, engineers and to a lesser extent by reasonable activists. But cultists like JSO will happily steal any credit due to those people. And they'll get away with it, as you show by your willingness to attach the whole subject of "environmental causes" to them. The same thing has happened with "race" and with sex. Most notably in this country with the suffragettes, who were murderous thugs, terrorists, liars and nutjob bigots who probably delayed the 4th major reform act and were only stopped by WW1. But due to politics and PR they get credit for the work done by other people.

 

[JonRGV250]

Yeah it’s not JSO, but amusing none the less..

https://twitter.com/x/status/1687201272951115776

 

[jpaul]

Rishi Sunak generally voted against measures to prevent climate change:

looks like he mainly followed party(whip?Boris?) guidelines and especially in post-br/covid/ukr landscape probably pragmatic.

The 100licenses issue remains subjective without data on the additional/if-any capacity it will enable - that debate is meaningless without the info -
and a poor reflection of stupid Keir's(Milliband too) intelligence not to discuss it, or JSO - although spare oil will potentially be a good trading opportunity with europe too.

(the debate on the ULEZ expansion benefits, too, is lacking cross-party discussion on the scientific data - politics trumps science)

 

[Jimbeam3678]

Yeah it’s not JSO, but amusing none the less..

https://twitter.com/x/status/1687201272951115776

That guy has a face made for a punch bag.

 

[Maple Leaf]

This is naive, Russian oil and gas was traded freely on international markets until... oh, an invasion happened and the West needed to scramble to try and reduce reliance on Russia and make up for that gap.

Guess what having more domestic production allows for...

Sunak and Shapps have explicitly presented this policy as increasing the UK's energy security not that of the "West" as a whole. Given that extraction of these relatively modest* quantities of new fossil fuels is still many years away they won't help us with fuel shortages any time soon. In the meantime, increasing our energy usage efficiency and accelerating our renewable/low-carbon energy generation programs would negate the need for them.

*According to the Climate Change Committee, even if we extract all proven UK gas reserves and resources from new North Sea fields that would only meet about 1% of European gas demand each year up to 2050. New oilfields would supply at most around five years of demand (if none was exported - currently 80% are exported), according to analysis of government data (from Freedom of Information requests) by the campaign group "Uplift". It also found that together, new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would only be enough for an additional three weeks of energy a year.

Furthermore:

'...The government says increasing UK oil and gas extraction would help reduce our reliance on countries like Russia. But there are several problems with this argument. Most importantly, that even if companies extracted more oil and gas from UK land and waters, they’d be under no obligation to sell it to UK energy companies, nevermind at any lower price. The price UK consumers pay for energy depends on what’s happening in global commodities markets - not what’s happening in UK oil and gas fields.' Article

To add to that, historically OPEC has controlled the global oil price by pumping less oil when the oil price is low and more oil when it's particularly high (if it is politically expedient for them). Therefore, if new North Sea oil was being extracted and sold in sufficient volumes to significantly lower the global oil price then OPEC would simply pump less oil to increase the price again.

To create a direct link between UK oil/gas extraction and UK usage, the government would need to introduce trade tariffs or other measures to make it more attractive to the license-holders to sell oil/gas extracted here into the UK energy market. However, the government has never said this is a part of its plan, which is odd given that they say this is about maintaining energy security for the UK. It looks like the "we need to do this to maintain energy security in the face of Russian aggression" narrative is just a convenient excuse to justify doing what Sunak and his followers have wanted to do for many years but just couldn't get away with.

 

[jpaul]

according to analysis of government data (from Freedom of Information requests) by the campaign group "Uplift". It also found that together, new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would only be enough for an additional three weeks of energy a year.

can't see their workings ? can you ?
although as I posted I am dubious of the available energy - why would they enable licenses if the resource yield was so low ? the investment doesn't make sense.
[

probably not on zoopla looks like one area https://datanstauthority.blob.core....STA_33rd_Round_GT_WEST_SOLE_AREA_CLUSTER2.pdf
has ~500bcf of gas reserve, if you can get it all out which is 90mmboe
and we import annuallly 150mmboe of LNG currently , 500mmboe total use

]

To create a direct link between UK oil/gas extraction and UK usage, the government would need to introduce trade tariffs or other measures to make it more attractive to the license-holders to sell oil/gas extracted here into the UK energy market.

the windfall taxes do this we gain currency/trade benefit in the oil that is sold abroad - yes - we need to make sure we don't undervalue it.

need to remember too that with eu and uk carbon border taxes, products (even our own) that have used a lot of carbon resources will become prohibitively expensive,
so a chinese widget built using aluminium/steel with carbon will be off the menu - that's the worldwide leveller,
maybe the chinese/russian/indians can go off on their own and burn them, but they won't have (or be able to afford) any silicon chip technology

 

[Maple Leaf]

can't see their workings ? can you ?
although as I posted I am dubious of the available energy - why would they enable licenses if the resource yield was so low ? the investment doesn't make sense.

No. We cannot discuss the merit of the investment without access to all the raw data. But it's politically expedient for them to keep the industry going as long as possible.

the windfall taxes do this we gain currency/trade benefit in the oil that is sold abroad - yes - we need to make sure we don't undervalue it.

I'm talking about a mechanism to ensure that the maximum amount of oil/gas from the new North Sea wells is consumed in the UK rather than being exported. The Energy Profits Levy is an extra tax on all profits (no matter where the fuel was sold).

 

[jpaul]

I'm talking about a mechanism to ensure that the maximum amount of oil/gas from the new North Sea wells is consumed in the UK rather than being exported. The Energy Profits Levy is an extra tax on all profits (no matter where the fuel was sold).

afaik we have to export our oil abroad because the refineries producing diesel/petrol are predominately abroad, but I guess we could sign contracts to get it all back,
even just for making widgets out of oil, you'd have to make their export difficult, or tax them.
.. so ensuring we have exclusive use is difficult

 

[dowie]

Sunak and Shapps have explicitly presented this policy as increasing the UK's energy security not that of the "West" as a whole.

Why is that a problem? It literally does do that, ultimately the UK doesn't cut itself off from its own supplies and if necessary then they're there!

Given that extraction of these relatively modest* quantities of new fossil fuels is still many years away they won't help us with fuel shortages any time soon.
In the meantime, increasing our energy usage efficiency and accelerating our renewable/low-carbon energy generation programs would negate the need for them.

None of this stops us from increasing our usage of renewables though that doesn't negate the need for oil and gas any time soon.

New oilfields would supply at most around five years of demand (if none was exported - currently 80% are exported), according to analysis of government data (from Freedom of Information requests) by the campaign group "Uplift". It also found that together, new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would only be enough for an additional three weeks of energy a year.

But you're also advocating for reducing our demand for oil and gas so... if that were the case then you can extend that figure surely.

Either way, it's additional domestic supply rather than supply that needs to be imported which is surely a good thing. The fact is we will still be using oil and gas, whether we import it or extract it domestically doesn't prevent us from increasing the usage of nuclear power and renewables, the only difference is the greater security that domestic production gives.

Ergo, why oppose it? Opposing domestic extraction doesn't equate to reducing the usage of oil and gas it just means we import more and have a supply that's less secure.