Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

[JM2K6]

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.


In other news, BBC confirms that there is no evidence that any Reform candidates were fake. A nice reminder that our sensible centrists are just as vulnerable to obvious hoaxes and online misinformation as the people they regularly describe as idiots

Reform literally used an AI image of someone for a candidate instead of a photo, that's not a hoax. It is very difficult to find any information on many of their candidates, that's not a hoax.

It's not exactly "London is under sharia law" or "vaccines will kill you".

[Biffer]

We could fund the nuclear/renewables roll out with the oil money!

My nephew the infrastructure lawyer tells me funding is not the impediment, it's the regulatory framework, the cost structures around who pays for what and everything is skewed in favour of fossil fuels.

EPCs are still based on electricity source assumptions 30 years ago, if they were updated to reflect current generation mix then there would be huge incentive to move away from gas in homes

Yeah, our electricity prices are substantially based on gas price, which generates less than half our electricity in the UK. Absolutely bonkers to base our prices on it nowadays.

And electricity suffers from the normal infrastructure build problems in the UK of several hundred thousand pages of docs plus tens of millions on consultants being necessary before you can even stick a spade in the ground.

[JM2K6]

politics with real consequences

Policies regarding fossil fuel usage and extraction are indeed "politics with real consequences":

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... emperature
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... us-extinct
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ve-warning
https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... mperatures
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-pantanal

Fossil fuel usage has to be minimised as soon as we flipping can, otherwise we are fucked. The new government has already signalled they take climate seriously, they also seem to have a commitment to improving existing housing and mandating better building regs to minimise energy consumption. The Tories did absolutely fuck all to control consumption, this is an existential crisis and yeah shit like this is meaningful politics.

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could claim that this is just showboating. There indeed will be a cost to not extracting more oil and gas. That is better for the future of our planet than continuing to expand oil and gas fields.

[Biffer]

politics with real consequences

Policies regarding fossil fuel usage and extraction are indeed "politics with real consequences":

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... emperature
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... us-extinct
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ve-warning
https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... mperatures
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-pantanal

Fossil fuel usage has to be minimised as soon as we flipping can, otherwise we are fucked. The new government has already signalled they take climate seriously, they also seem to have a commitment to improving existing housing and mandating better building regs to minimise energy consumption. The Tories did absolutely fuck all to control consumption, this is an existential crisis and yeah shit like this is meaningful politics.

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could claim that this is just showboating. There indeed will be a cost to not extracting more oil and gas. That is better for the future of our planet than continuing to expand oil and gas fields.

No doubt someone will be along in a minute with the 'wHaT AbOuT cHiNa/InDiA' etc shite.

Simple answer to that - aspiration. People in developing countries aspire to the lifestyles in the most developed countries in the world. Change that lifestyle to a low carbon, more developed one and you change the aspiration.

[Paddington Bear]

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.


In other news, BBC confirms that there is no evidence that any Reform candidates were fake. A nice reminder that our sensible centrists are just as vulnerable to obvious hoaxes and online misinformation as the people they regularly describe as idiots

Reform literally used an AI image of someone for a candidate instead of a photo, that's not a hoax. It is very difficult to find any information on many of their candidates, that's not a hoax.

It's not exactly "London is under sharia law" or "vaccines will kill you".

It took maybe one further click from ‘Reform candidate has AI picture’ to find out he was real. It was always blindingly obvious that they had a bunch of paper candidates rather than having made them up. If you fell into really believing that they were fake, it was a case of motivated reasoning.

[epwc]

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could claim that this is just showboating. There indeed will be a cost to not extracting more oil and gas. That is better for the future of our planet than continuing to expand oil and gas fields.

The planet doesn't give a fuck, but all the things living therein are directly affected, most notably people:

https://indianexpress.com/article/expla ... d-9360328/

India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are some of the most populous countries in the world, where do you think all those fuckers will go as climate breaks down?

[Paddington Bear]

politics with real consequences

Policies regarding fossil fuel usage and extraction are indeed "politics with real consequences":

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... emperature
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... us-extinct
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ve-warning
https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... mperatures
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-pantanal

Fossil fuel usage has to be minimised as soon as we flipping can, otherwise we are fucked. The new government has already signalled they take climate seriously, they also seem to have a commitment to improving existing housing and mandating better building regs to minimise energy consumption. The Tories did absolutely fuck all to control consumption, this is an existential crisis and yeah shit like this is meaningful politics.

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could claim that this is just showboating. There indeed will be a cost to not extracting more oil and gas. That is better for the future of our planet than continuing to expand oil and gas fields.

This announcement does nothing to alter our consumption of oil and gas, so it makes us reliant on others expanding their production. We all broadly agree on where we should end up, but all this does is make us poorer in the interim.

[epwc]

Simple answer to that - aspiration. People in developing countries aspire to the lifestyles in the most developed countries in the world. Change that lifestyle to a low carbon, more developed one and you change the aspiration.

Exactly, if we say it's OK to sell V8 engined cars then how the fuck can we complain about emissions elsewhere? There is no logical case for a Porsche or a G Wagen in the UK but somehow we buy more of both than anywhere else bar the US

[Raggs]

If you're planning on starting massive infrastructure changes and clearing red tape to get there, you could do worse than to hire a solicitor general with an expertise in planning and local government law...

I'm definitely left wing more than right, but I have no particular party affiliation. I do however really appreciate the current, seemingly joined up thinking, that's coming from this new government.

[JM2K6]

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


In other news, BBC confirms that there is no evidence that any Reform candidates were fake. A nice reminder that our sensible centrists are just as vulnerable to obvious hoaxes and online misinformation as the people they regularly describe as idiots

Reform literally used an AI image of someone for a candidate instead of a photo, that's not a hoax. It is very difficult to find any information on many of their candidates, that's not a hoax.

It's not exactly "London is under sharia law" or "vaccines will kill you".

It took maybe one further click from ‘Reform candidate has AI picture’ to find out he was real. It was always blindingly obvious that they had a bunch of paper candidates rather than having made them up. If you fell into really believing that they were fake, it was a case of motivated reasoning.

Well that's patently not true, it took quite a while before anything could be proven past the use of AI. After all, he didn't show up to the count because he "had pneumonia", and the gap between people realising it was an AI image and his existence being proven was surprisingly long as a result. It is totally understandable, given the wider context of the lack of details on reform candidates and the number of no-shows, that people might come to the conclusion that they were fake.

Which is kind of what you should expect if you use a fake photo of yourself and then don't appear in person on the big day.

[epwc]

This announcement does nothing to alter our consumption of oil and gas, so it makes us reliant on others expanding their production. We all broadly agree on where we should end up, but all this does is make us poorer in the interim.

How quickly can new oil fields be found and brought to production? Forget nuclear, as we all know that is decades.

Reducing consumption is something that can be done straight away and benefits everyone (except the fossil fuel industry)

[JM2K6]

Policies regarding fossil fuel usage and extraction are indeed "politics with real consequences":

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... emperature
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... us-extinct
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ve-warning
https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... mperatures
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-pantanal

Fossil fuel usage has to be minimised as soon as we flipping can, otherwise we are fucked. The new government has already signalled they take climate seriously, they also seem to have a commitment to improving existing housing and mandating better building regs to minimise energy consumption. The Tories did absolutely fuck all to control consumption, this is an existential crisis and yeah shit like this is meaningful politics.

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could claim that this is just showboating. There indeed will be a cost to not extracting more oil and gas. That is better for the future of our planet than continuing to expand oil and gas fields.

This announcement does nothing to alter our consumption of oil and gas, so it makes us reliant on others expanding their production. We all broadly agree on where we should end up, but all this does is make us poorer in the interim.

What aren't you getting about this? "We need to stop using fossil fuels as a matter of emergency" does not mesh with "but we'll continue to expand extraction of fossil fuels". It's an absolutely necessary part of the journey.

[Hal Jordan]

China's renewable installation and resources are off the scale, so yeah, coal plants, but...

Also, as I understand it all the easy stuff has already been sucked out of the North Sea and what's left is devilish tricky and expensive to get.

As with everything, climate change suffers from too much perfect being the enemy of good. If it's incremental rather than an out of the box, day one upgrade, it's not any use.

[Biffer]

Simple answer to that - aspiration. People in developing countries aspire to the lifestyles in the most developed countries in the world. Change that lifestyle to a low carbon, more developed one and you change the aspiration.

Exactly, if we say it's OK to sell V8 engined cars then how the fuck can we complain about emissions elsewhere? There is no logical case for a Porsche or a G Wagen in the UK but somehow we buy more of both than anywhere else bar the US

And if you set the expectation instead that the cool high power sports car is a Porsche Taycan or Maserati Granturismo Folgore, then that's what people want. Not some outdated tech in an old style twentieth century V8 engine, how lame is that?

[epwc]

If you're planning on starting massive infrastructure changes and clearing red tape to get there, you could do worse than to hire a solicitor general with an expertise in planning and local government law...

I'm definitely left wing more than right, but I have no particular party affiliation. I do however really appreciate the current, seemingly joined up thinking, that's coming from this new government.

It does seem very joined up. I've managed to arrange a meeting between the Passivhaus Trust and Friends of the Earth with a view to jointly present to the government a way forward in building regs for new build and retro fit.

[Biffer]

China's renewable installation and resources are off the scale, so yeah, coal plants, but...

Also, as I understand it all the easy stuff has already been sacked out of the North Sea and what's left is devilish tricky and expensive to get.

As with everything, climate change suffers from too much perfect being the enemy of good. If it's incremental rather than an out of the box, day one upgrade, it's not any use.

Yeah, people want a magic bullet, easy answer. We have to get to a position where the energy generation is far more related to the grade of energy you're using and how flexible your demand is, and whether it can be fitted to supply.

[Raggs]

If you're planning on starting massive infrastructure changes and clearing red tape to get there, you could do worse than to hire a solicitor general with an expertise in planning and local government law...

I'm definitely left wing more than right, but I have no particular party affiliation. I do however really appreciate the current, seemingly joined up thinking, that's coming from this new government.

It does seem very joined up. I've managed to arrange a meeting between the Passivhaus Trust and Friends of the Earth with a view to jointly present to the government a way forward in building regs for new build and retro fit.

With the big drop recently in solar panels and batteries, there's no reason why any valid new build couldn't have them included, on a massive scale it would add just a few thousand per house I suspect.

[weegie01]

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.

THE UK Government has denied reports Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on new drilling in the North Sea.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ed-miliband-o ... 41947.html

[epwc]

With the big drop recently in solar panels and batteries, there's no reason why any valid new build couldn't have them included, on a massive scale it would add just a few thousand per house I suspect.

For our current project we've had a quote of £15k for 24.6KW (58 panels), that is literally peanuts compared to anything we've installed before

[epwc]

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.

THE UK Government has denied reports Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on new drilling in the North Sea.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ed-miliband-o ... 41947.html

Lets hope it does become a ban

[Raggs]

With the big drop recently in solar panels and batteries, there's no reason why any valid new build couldn't have them included, on a massive scale it would add just a few thousand per house I suspect.

For our current project we've had a quote of £15k for 24.6KW (58 panels), that is literally peanuts compared to anything we've installed before

Yep, my mate who installed mine has said the prices are coming down fast. Solar on it's own now, is silly cheap, the panels are really low cost. Batteries are dropping fast too.

[Paddington Bear]

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could claim that this is just showboating. There indeed will be a cost to not extracting more oil and gas. That is better for the future of our planet than continuing to expand oil and gas fields.

This announcement does nothing to alter our consumption of oil and gas, so it makes us reliant on others expanding their production. We all broadly agree on where we should end up, but all this does is make us poorer in the interim.

What aren't you getting about this? "We need to stop using fossil fuels as a matter of emergency" does not mesh with "but we'll continue to expand extraction of fossil fuels". It's an absolutely necessary part of the journey.

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

[Biffer]

This announcement does nothing to alter our consumption of oil and gas, so it makes us reliant on others expanding their production. We all broadly agree on where we should end up, but all this does is make us poorer in the interim.

What aren't you getting about this? "We need to stop using fossil fuels as a matter of emergency" does not mesh with "but we'll continue to expand extraction of fossil fuels". It's an absolutely necessary part of the journey.

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

The economics of this class that as an incentive to move away from fossil fuels faster.

[Paddington Bear]

What aren't you getting about this? "We need to stop using fossil fuels as a matter of emergency" does not mesh with "but we'll continue to expand extraction of fossil fuels". It's an absolutely necessary part of the journey.

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

The economics of this class that as an incentive to move away from fossil fuels faster.

We should be using the revenue from exporting fossil fuels to help us do so domestically!

[epwc]

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

We've always imported (an exported) energy, we will (regardless how much new capacity comes on stream) be buying hydrocarbons from other nations for a long time. We have the potential to reduce that demand significantly, that should be our focus, we also have the potential to export our surplus wind power and this also should be a primary focus.

[Paddington Bear]

Reform literally used an AI image of someone for a candidate instead of a photo, that's not a hoax. It is very difficult to find any information on many of their candidates, that's not a hoax.

It's not exactly "London is under sharia law" or "vaccines will kill you".

It took maybe one further click from ‘Reform candidate has AI picture’ to find out he was real. It was always blindingly obvious that they had a bunch of paper candidates rather than having made them up. If you fell into really believing that they were fake, it was a case of motivated reasoning.

Well that's patently not true, it took quite a while before anything could be proven past the use of AI. After all, he didn't show up to the count because he "had pneumonia", and the gap between people realising it was an AI image and his existence being proven was surprisingly long as a result. It is totally understandable, given the wider context of the lack of details on reform candidates and the number of no-shows, that people might come to the conclusion that they were fake.

Which is kind of what you should expect if you use a fake photo of yourself and then don't appear in person on the big day.

You genuinely thought that it was more likely that Reform had faked a candidate, done so using an obviously AI created image, and committed a criminal offence, rather than convince a member to be a paper candidate and done a bit of a half arsed job of it?

And Private Eye had a piece confirming they had spoken to him the same day that the whole furore exploded, it was just a less fun story than the one people wanted to be true.

[Biffer]

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

The economics of this class that as an incentive to move away from fossil fuels faster.

We should be using the revenue from exporting fossil fuels to help us do so domestically!

But we keep getting told there isn't any.

[Paddington Bear]

The economics of this class that as an incentive to move away from fossil fuels faster.

We should be using the revenue from exporting fossil fuels to help us do so domestically!

But we keep getting told there isn't any.

If there isn’t any that would be a different story. I tend to think that private companies are motivated by little by their own self interest, and that they wouldn’t want a licence to extract something that isn’t there and can’t turn them a profit. All we’ve done here is take away well paid jobs and export revenue, we’ll leak Sterling to a country willing to extract fossil fuels, and burn as much carbon as we would have done anyway.

[sockwithaticket]

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

The economics of this class that as an incentive to move away from fossil fuels faster.

We should be using the revenue from exporting fossil fuels to help us do so domestically!

Well, if we'd done a Norway and not sold off our fossil fuels that might be possible.

Half the furore around Sunak approving new licenses was they kept boasting about the economic and fuel security benefits to the UK when what actually happens is a private company extracts, sells on the global market and laughs all the way to the bank as they continue to make eye-watering profits and contributing very little in tax to the exchequer.

[epwc]

Half the furore around Sunak approving new licenses was they kept boasting about the economic and fuel security benefits to the UK when what actually happens is a private company extracts, sells on the global market and laughs all the way to the bank as they continue to make eye-watering profits and contributing very little in tax to the exchequer.

100%

[JM2K6]

It took maybe one further click from ‘Reform candidate has AI picture’ to find out he was real. It was always blindingly obvious that they had a bunch of paper candidates rather than having made them up. If you fell into really believing that they were fake, it was a case of motivated reasoning.

Well that's patently not true, it took quite a while before anything could be proven past the use of AI. After all, he didn't show up to the count because he "had pneumonia", and the gap between people realising it was an AI image and his existence being proven was surprisingly long as a result. It is totally understandable, given the wider context of the lack of details on reform candidates and the number of no-shows, that people might come to the conclusion that they were fake.

Which is kind of what you should expect if you use a fake photo of yourself and then don't appear in person on the big day.

You genuinely thought that it was more likely that Reform had faked a candidate, done so using an obviously AI created image, and committed a criminal offence, rather than convince a member to be a paper candidate and done a bit of a half arsed job of it?

And Private Eye had a piece confirming they had spoken to him the same day that the whole furore exploded, it was just a less fun story than the one people wanted to be true.

I did not think that, no. I thought the whole thing was fucking weird, though, particularly because he tried to brazen it out before admitting the use of AI, and it's actually pretty reasonable for people to have believed the worst given the available evidence.

More than 24 hours passed between the "furore" leaking off reddit / getting big on twitter, and Private Eye announcing online they'd spoken to him, BTW.

[Paddington Bear]

The economics of this class that as an incentive to move away from fossil fuels faster.

We should be using the revenue from exporting fossil fuels to help us do so domestically!

Well, if we'd done a Norway and not sold off our fossil fuels that might be possible.

Half the furore around Sunak approving new licenses was they kept boasting about the economic and fuel security benefits to the UK when what actually happens is a private company extracts, sells on the global market and laughs all the way to the bank as they continue to make eye-watering profits and contributing very little in tax to the exchequer.

Total tax revenue from UK oil and gas production was £9bn in fy22-23

[weegie01]

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.

THE UK Government has denied reports Ed Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on new drilling in the North Sea.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ed-miliband-o ... 41947.html

Lets hope it does become a ban

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.

[JM2K6]

This announcement does nothing to alter our consumption of oil and gas, so it makes us reliant on others expanding their production. We all broadly agree on where we should end up, but all this does is make us poorer in the interim.

What aren't you getting about this? "We need to stop using fossil fuels as a matter of emergency" does not mesh with "but we'll continue to expand extraction of fossil fuels". It's an absolutely necessary part of the journey.

I get that we will use fossil fuels today, tomorrow and at least into the medium term. So until we reach a point where we have actually transitioned away from them we will be buying fossil fuels. So given we are not expanding our capacity to procure them we will need to buy them from abroad. Which takes our money and puts it into the pockets of say the Qataris. What do you not get about this?

The fact that that very same negative is part of the pressure that will push us away from fossil fuels?

Expanding our fields simply sends a message to every single corporation that are or should be involved in moving away from fossil fuels, and that message is "feel free to keep expanding your business based on fossil fuels as nothing meaningful is going to change".

They're not closing down the existing fields. They're just calling time on expanding production because it is directly contrary to the urgent action required to prevent a climate catastrophe.

[Biffer]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ed-miliband-o ... 41947.html

Lets hope it does become a ban

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.

[Raggs]

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?

[Jockaline]

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.

[Paddington Bear]

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!

[Biffer]

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.

Heat 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.

[Raggs]

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.