NPR

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:01 pmHeat pumps will improve as well as they become more common. But there's significant problems to rolling them out - not suitable for flats for example as they need to be on the ground.

Jockaline wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:58 pm Agree it's just gesture politics, it's the demand rather than supply that needs to change, if there is no demand then supply will sort itself out.

However, the idea that heap pumps are the answer to reduce gas consumption isn't realistic, unsuitable for many homes and unlikely to be that popular. Electricity needs to be made cheaper for consumers, which needs a radical change. Good news re: price of solar coming down, all new homes should have them at a minimum, maybe even domestic wind generators too.

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:06 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:59 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:54 pm How long would it take new sites to come online and start producing taxable revenue (since I'm sure all the development costs will be tax offset)?

If it doesn't fill tax holes now, how is it any different to other energy generation options?

Even if they offset tax now they are paying employment taxes, investing in machinery and well paid private sector jobs and their employees are part of the local multiplier effect. Aberdeen is not a noticeably wealthy part of the country because people like the weather!

And so would development of renewables, without the destruction of the environment thrown in.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:20 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:06 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:59 pm

Even if they offset tax now they are paying employment taxes, investing in machinery and well paid private sector jobs and their employees are part of the local multiplier effect. Aberdeen is not a noticeably wealthy part of the country because people like the weather!

And so would development of renewables, without the destruction of the environment thrown in.

I am all in favour of developing renewables. I would use the tax revenue from oil and gas production to finance it. A wealthier country can adapt to a changing world and be more environmentally friendly than a poorer one. All this policy does is shift our cash and investment overseas

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:20 pm I would use the HUGELY INCREASED CORPORATE tax revenue from oil and gas production to finance it.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:20 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:06 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:59 pm

Even if they offset tax now they are paying employment taxes, investing in machinery and well paid private sector jobs and their employees are part of the local multiplier effect. Aberdeen is not a noticeably wealthy part of the country because people like the weather!

And so would development of renewables, without the destruction of the environment thrown in.

I am all in favour of developing renewables. I would use the tax revenue from oil and gas production to finance it. A wealthier country can adapt to a changing world and be more environmentally friendly than a poorer one. All this policy does is shift our cash and investment overseas

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:23 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:20 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:06 pm

And so would development of renewables, without the destruction of the environment thrown in.

I am all in favour of developing renewables. I would use the tax revenue from oil and gas production to finance it. A wealthier country can adapt to a changing world and be more environmentally friendly than a poorer one. All this policy does is shift our cash and investment overseas

The longer we extract oil and gas, the longer we use oil and gas. They're directly connected. I don't understand how you're not seeing this.

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:25 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:20 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:06 pm

And so would development of renewables, without the destruction of the environment thrown in.

I am all in favour of developing renewables. I would use the tax revenue from oil and gas production to finance it. A wealthier country can adapt to a changing world and be more environmentally friendly than a poorer one. All this policy does is shift our cash and investment overseas

The tax revenues that we've just agreed won't actually be arriving for years, if not decades? Do we wait until then to start putting the renewables in place?

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:32 pm

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:23 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:20 pm

I am all in favour of developing renewables. I would use the tax revenue from oil and gas production to finance it. A wealthier country can adapt to a changing world and be more environmentally friendly than a poorer one. All this policy does is shift our cash and investment overseas

The longer we extract oil and gas, the longer we use oil and gas. They're directly connected. I don't understand how you're not seeing this.

We will be using oil and gas for the medium term. So we either extract our own or pay others for the privilege. If we extract our own we keep the jobs, the investment and the tax. We can use that to fund our energy transition. Nothing in this announcement has changed our trajectory away from fossil fuels. We can only do that through investment. Investment requires wealth. This policy makes us poorer and less able to transition. It isn’t so much a policy as a vibe

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:44 pmI want to take action which will bring it closer.

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:46 pm

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:44 pmI want to take action which will bring it closer.

Yep

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:53 pm

weegie01 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:45 pm Let's hope not.

Oil and gas production in the North Sea has been declining for a long time as has the number of jobs supported. Many majors have pulled out. New licenses are not an expansion, merely slowing down the decline a bit.

The market will drive the decline in what is a pretty expensive and difficult part of the world to extract oil. The ongoing decline is inevitable and needs to be managed as part of a planned transistion to renewables. A cliff edge banning of new licenses really does not achieve anything that will not happen anyway, but makes it happen in a disordered and incoherent way that loses jobs, and just gives the SNP a stick to beat Labour with. It seems more sensible to accept that production is ongoing but declining, and managing that decline with a strategy that plans transistion to renewables so that jobs are preserved by transfer. Some of that ongoing production will require new licences.

We import a lot of energy, but notwithstanding that, energy independence and security is important as far as it is possible. Oil and gas will remain part of our energy use for a long time and until we can be sure we no longer need it, then keeping our domestic supplies going rather than importing even more, some from volatile and dangerous places, makes sense to me.

And the more we cling to oil and gas, the slower we are to transition the O&G jobs in to new energy industries, and then get left behind again. The market will drive the decline, yes, but the market doesn't exist in isolation - this is the lie that economists have been promoting for years, and some politicians have been promoting this idea that the market is the end in itself. It's not, it's an economic tool and every market has a setting in which it operates. If you change the setting, you manipulate the market forces to accelerate change. Use the market the way it should be used, to accelerate the move away from oil and gas.

Dogbert wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:51 pm

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:46 pm

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:44 pmI want to take action which will bring it closer.

Yep

Do you have a ICE Car , travel by plane , or heat your home ?

weegie01 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:52 pm

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:53 pm

weegie01 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 1:45 pm Let's hope not.

Oil and gas production in the North Sea has been declining for a long time as has the number of jobs supported. Many majors have pulled out. New licenses are not an expansion, merely slowing down the decline a bit.

The market will drive the decline in what is a pretty expensive and difficult part of the world to extract oil. The ongoing decline is inevitable and needs to be managed as part of a planned transistion to renewables. A cliff edge banning of new licenses really does not achieve anything that will not happen anyway, but makes it happen in a disordered and incoherent way that loses jobs, and just gives the SNP a stick to beat Labour with. It seems more sensible to accept that production is ongoing but declining, and managing that decline with a strategy that plans transistion to renewables so that jobs are preserved by transfer. Some of that ongoing production will require new licences.

We import a lot of energy, but notwithstanding that, energy independence and security is important as far as it is possible. Oil and gas will remain part of our energy use for a long time and until we can be sure we no longer need it, then keeping our domestic supplies going rather than importing even more, some from volatile and dangerous places, makes sense to me.

And the more we cling to oil and gas, the slower we are to transition the O&G jobs in to new energy industries, and then get left behind again. The market will drive the decline, yes, but the market doesn't exist in isolation - this is the lie that economists have been promoting for years, and some politicians have been promoting this idea that the market is the end in itself. It's not, it's an economic tool and every market has a setting in which it operates. If you change the setting, you manipulate the market forces to accelerate change. Use the market the way it should be used, to accelerate the move away from oil and gas.

Managing the transistion from oil and gas to renewables so it happens in a coherent way is not 'clinging to oil and gas'. It is recognising the reality that there will be a transistion so let's make sure it happens in reasonably orderly way. As Jockaline suggests, the market can be manipulated in many ways to haste that transition. Just choking supply without a plan to fill the gap would tend to result in unexpected consequences.

A number of posters seem to me to be talking as if it is a case of one or the other. I see no reason why renewables can't be encouraged whilst the decline of oil and gas is managed so both sides of the transistion are covered and complement each other.

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:00 pm It's not choking the supply. This is drilling licenses, not existing supply. We already import most our oil and gas, and it wouldn't be the UKs oil anyway, it would be a foreign company, who'd have an agreement to sell us back some of it (along with some hefty tax incentives).

Yes, it will force us to sort ourselves out before we feel the pinch, but it doesn't make the pinch now.

weegie01 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:08 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:00 pm It's not choking the supply. This is drilling licenses, not existing supply. We already import most our oil and gas, and it wouldn't be the UKs oil anyway, it would be a foreign company, who'd have an agreement to sell us back some of it (along with some hefty tax incentives).

Yes, it will force us to sort ourselves out before we feel the pinch, but it doesn't make the pinch now.

We can argue semantics, but new licenses were factored into supply projections. Stopping those licenses will reduce the supply over what was anticipated.

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:13 pm

weegie01 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:08 pm

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:00 pm It's not choking the supply. This is drilling licenses, not existing supply. We already import most our oil and gas, and it wouldn't be the UKs oil anyway, it would be a foreign company, who'd have an agreement to sell us back some of it (along with some hefty tax incentives).

Yes, it will force us to sort ourselves out before we feel the pinch, but it doesn't make the pinch now.

We can argue semantics, but new licenses were factored into supply projections. Stopping those licenses will reduce the supply over what was anticipated.

Yes, but it will not reduce supply in the short term. Yes, mechanisms will need to be put in place to offset that reduction in supply in the future, those mechanisms are all positive. Nothing about this labour party so far suggests that they're pulling this stuff out of their behinds.

Dogbert wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:51 pm Do you have a ICE Car , travel by plane , or heat your home ?

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:39 pm

Dogbert wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:51 pm Do you have a ICE Car , travel by plane , or heat your home ?

I don't have an ICE car

I do travel by plane when I have to

I live in a passivhaus with solar thermal and PV, I also build passivhaus homes

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:52 pmIf we're actually going to tackle climate change, we need policy action at national and international level. passivhaus homes are fantastic, but they're not going to be the standard without regulatory action.

EVs aren't going to become the dominant personal vehicle without government action. The market can drive things but again, as I said earlier, it has to be put into the correct regulatory framework to get the results you want.

This idea that it's all down to personal action and choice to drive carbon reduction is a fallacy based on a broken economic model of markets being the end rather than a means.

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:44 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:32 pm

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:23 pm

The longer we extract oil and gas, the longer we use oil and gas. They're directly connected. I don't understand how you're not seeing this.

We will be using oil and gas for the medium term. So we either extract our own or pay others for the privilege. If we extract our own we keep the jobs, the investment and the tax. We can use that to fund our energy transition. Nothing in this announcement has changed our trajectory away from fossil fuels. We can only do that through investment. Investment requires wealth. This policy makes us poorer and less able to transition. It isn’t so much a policy as a vibe

Medium term is hugely vague. We can either shorten it or lengthen it. It's not a fixed date when we stop, it depends on our actions and policies. You want to take action which will make it further away, I want to take action which will bring it closer.

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:52 pm

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:39 pm

Dogbert wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:51 pm Do you have a ICE Car , travel by plane , or heat your home ?

I don't have an ICE car

I do travel by plane when I have to

I live in a passivhaus with solar thermal and PV, I also build passivhaus homes

Also, Dogbert is eliding micro actions with macro policy - which is what business and right wing politicians have tried to sell us as the solution for the last 20-30 years. If we're actually going to tackle climate change, we need policy action at national and international level. passivhaus homes are fantastic, but they're not going to be the standard without regulatory action. EVs aren't going to become the dominant personal vehicle without government action. The market can drive things but again, as I said earlier, it has to be put into the correct regulatory framework to get the results you want.

This idea that it's all down to personal action and choice to drive carbon reduction is a fallacy based on a broken economic model of markets being the end rather than a means.

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 3:39 pm I live in a passivhaus with solar thermal and PV, I also build passivhaus homes

Raggs wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2024 9:02 pm There's something reassuring about having qualified people in roles that they're qualified for. It should be blatantly obvious, and yet...

I know there was a huge clusterfuck around covid, but if I recall correctly, the guy in charge of getting vaccines in place, was also an ex-pharmecutical CEO or some such, which is almost certainly why we ended up getting vaccines locked up early, it was just about the only bit of our covid response that went genuinely well.

Jockaline wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:15 pmThe infrastructure isn't there for all of us to use ICE cars

vball wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:32 pmI think I am in a 100% opposite. My house leaks heat and the wind blows right through it. If I hold a candle it flutters very hard and then goes out as the wind just sails through. The double glazing does not seem to work that well. The walls are stone built and probably 12-18 inches thick. No roof insulation as the there is no space. The floors are cold. I believe the only way to insulate is to build false internal walls and stuff those with insulated material. They really did not think about this when my croft was built over 200 years ago.

Having the oil fired (no gas in the area) central heating on keeps the chill off but you still need to wear very warmer jumpers. As for night time, well about 12c internally if we are lucky. Living room is good though. Nice stove and just chuck lots of coal on it. Really toasty once it gets going.

But during the summer (like now) we do think about wasting energy, We sit with blankets on over our knees and a good down jacket on when watching the TV at night. Sitting here as I typed at 17:31 my hands are cold. Time for a cuppa to warm them up.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:05 pm

Biffer wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:44 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 2:32 pm
We will be using oil and gas for the medium term. So we either extract our own or pay others for the privilege. If we extract our own we keep the jobs, the investment and the tax. We can use that to fund our energy transition. Nothing in this announcement has changed our trajectory away from fossil fuels. We can only do that through investment. Investment requires wealth. This policy makes us poorer and less able to transition. It isn’t so much a policy as a vibe

Medium term is hugely vague. We can either shorten it or lengthen it. It's not a fixed date when we stop, it depends on our actions and policies. You want to take action which will make it further away, I want to take action which will bring it closer.

My proposed course of action would hasten the building of a renewable grid whilst making us wealthier and boosting tax receipts! Your course of action makes us feel smug and makes the Qataris wealthier

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:43 pm

Jockaline wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:15 pmThe infrastructure isn't there for all of us to use ICE cars

Why not? Do you drive an EV? What are you basing that assumption on? There are use cases where an EV still doesn't make sense but I'd guess for 90+ % of new car purchasers there is absolutely no reason they can't buy EV today.

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:43 pm

Jockaline wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 4:15 pmThe infrastructure isn't there for all of us to use ICE cars

Why not? Do you drive an EV? What are you basing that assumption on? There are use cases where an EV still doesn't make sense but I'd guess for 90+ % of new car purchasers there is absolutely no reason they can't buy EV today.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 5:27 pmEVs were simply unaffordable. I’m sure that will start to change, but whilst I was interested it was a non-starter

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 5:12 pm Anecdotally we're swamped with bloodsucking migrants and vaccinations kill you.

I've had an EV for a few years now, my brother for 8 years.

We both have home charging but have not had issues with public charging when necessary. Charging infrastructure is improving all the time and you do need to think a bit about where you're going to charge on a long journey but there are plenty of apps that make it work sensibly

Jockaline wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 6:13 pmIt was a program I watched where someone test various charging points around the country in more rural areas, and many didn't work, lack of signal to get the app to work, help phone number note responding...

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 12:05 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 11:59 am

Raggs wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 11:25 am Milliband has blocked new oil and gas licenses in the north sea... That's a huge step, and surely can only be seen as hugely committed? It's not going to be popular with many, but this is a long way from just trying to put a plaster on the worst bits and hope it holds together until the next election.

Doesn’t change our oil and gas usage. Does make us more dependent on foreign supplies and makes us poorer.

It does change our oil and gas usage, it will accelerate the move away from oil and gas. How much of our oil supply is "British" even the new Rosebank field that was approved last year is Norwegian, and there is absolutely no undertaking for the UK to be the preferential customer or even to have preferential rates.

Dogbert wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2024 8:25 am

epwc wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 12:05 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2024 11:59 am

Doesn’t change our oil and gas usage. Does make us more dependent on foreign supplies and makes us poorer.

It does change our oil and gas usage, it will accelerate the move away from oil and gas. How much of our oil supply is "British" even the new Rosebank field that was approved last year is Norwegian, and there is absolutely no undertaking for the UK to be the preferential customer or even to have preferential rates.

I don't see how that is true, we still need to heat homes - still 78% of Homes in UK use gas central heating - where do you think that gas will come from ? How quickly do you think that we can move away from Gas Central heating - and who pays for that move - 46% of people in the UK have less than £1000 in savings 25% have less than £200.

People still need transportation , and the transportation of goods - where does the fuel come for the Cars / Vans / HGVs , Aircraft and ships - yes we have 1,145,000 fully electric vehicles ( and yes one of them is mine ) and the charging infrastructure just about supports that level of vehicles - but that only accounts for 3% of cars on the UK roads - if you want to increase that number substantially - you also will need to increase the charging infrastructure accordingly- again where's the plan for such an increase and who is paying for it.

As for Aviation & Marine fuels - what are your alternatives