General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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Simon Clark does a good video that reinforces this point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3AnLL2vR9I
Anybody who's suggesting this either doesn't know any better (public being misled) or they are trying to war profiteer (politicians / industry lobbyists).
Decarbonize
Upgrade the grid. Subsidise mass insulation programmes across the country. Build more renewable and nuclear power sources. Get fucked old school oil and gas.
You're right and the government agrees with you! They're doing all that but there are real limits to how quickly it can be done.
Tories want the drilling because it attracts donors
So? I don't understand the argument?
We currently need oil and gas, and will for the foreseeable future, we may as well get it ourselves instead of paying foreign despots for it.
We, the UK, wouldn't own it. The oil and gas companies would, and they would sell on the open market to get the best price they could. So even if the government gave the license, the British people would only benefit through a small amount of tax collected.
There's not enough gas to meet our demands and what gas is left is more expensive to extract. The money would be better spent on transitioning away from fossil fuels faster.
Drilling in the North Sea is the equivalent of trying to pay off your mortgage by digging through the couch cushions. All the oil and gas out there is essentially gone and what little you can extract will be incredibly expensive and environmentally damaging.
what little you can extract will be incredibly expensive
Why do companies want to fund it's extraction then?
it's more of a political thing
reform need to be questioned on how much of these oil and gas profits are going to be handed back to the british people will it be a norway model (national fund saving for the future) or a thatcher model (resources simply handed to a private company to profit from and sold back to the british people at global rates)
You've hit the nail on the head, there. The gas companies are betting that demand for gas won't go away any time soon. If they're right and they have the licences to extract it, they'll still profit, even if the profits are smaller.
They want the government to lower its taxes/fees on extraction so that more becomes just barely profitable.
Without that change, there’s only a few small places they’d be willing to drill. But if the government waives its cut suddenly they can drill somewhat more, still nothing particularly impressive though.
Of course, that means the uk gets basically no benefit, and if it’s only profitable with government generosity then it’s sure as hell not going to be profitable with a limited market (ie if we forced them to sell to the uk and actually help with the uk problems)
Tldr: they are hoping the uk are rubes they can scam.