Don’t They Know We Will Still Need Oil & Gas?
By Paul Homewood
It is abundantly clear that all our major parties are now opposed to further development of North Sea oil and gas reserves.
Ed Miliband, for instance, had this to say about the proposed Cambo field last month:
“It makes no environmental sense and now Shell are accepting it doesn’t make economic sense,” he said.
“Ploughing on with business as usual on fossil fuels will kill off our chances of keeping 1.5 degrees alive and carries huge risks for investors as it is simply an unsustainable choice.
“Shell have woken up to the fact that Cambo is the wrong choice. It’s long past time for the Government to do so.”
Lib Dim leader, Ed Davey went one step further last year, effectively declaring war on Big Oil:
Under the plan outlined to the Guardian by the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, another immediate policy would be to stop new bonds being issued in London to finance oil, coal or gas exploration.
Fossil fuel firms already listed in the UK would then have two years to produce a coherent plan about how they would reach net zero emissions by 2045, or risk being struck off the LSE.
In the longer term, pension funds would have to disinvest from fossil fuels by 2035, with all companies with fossil fuel assets removed from the exchange by 2045.
Both parties have of course called for a windfall tax on North Sea oil, which would effectively kill the entire sector stone dead anyway.
Meanwhile regulators have killed off the massive new Jackdaw gas field on spurious environmental grounds, and new North Sea projects will only be approved if ministers judge them to be compatible with the drive to net zero.
Yet none of these politicians seem to appreciate that the UK will carry on needing gas and oil, and lots of it too, for decades to come.
Take natural gas, for example:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/digest-of-uk-energy-statistics-dukes-2020
Total gas consumption, net of energy industry use, was 810 TWh in 2019, more than double total electricity generation.
Gas used in the power sector was 297 TWh, which in turn generated 132 TWh of electricity.
According to the Committee on Climate Change’s Sixth Carbon Budget, we will still need 50 TWh of dispatchable generation by 2035, rising to 60 TWh in 2040:
https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/sixth-carbon-budget/
This will either have to come from gas with carbon storage, or hydrogen made from gas. (The CCC acknowledge that electrolysis will remain a tiny source of hydrogen for many years to come).
So we will therefore still need a lot of gas for power generation, one way or another. And because both CCS and hydrogen production are energy inefficient, even more gas.
A rough calculation would suggest we would require 180 TWh of gas to produce 60 TWh of electricity, via CCS or hydrogen. That is 60% of current consumption.
It is hard to see much of a decline in gas consumption in the other sectors. Even if new gas boilers are banned in 2035, as mooted, it is unlikely many householders will have already converted to heat pumps beforehand.
Equally industrial users of gas will be loathe to spend billions switching to electricity, and a hydrogen network simply won’t exist in any scale by then.
My guess is that natural gas consumption will still be around 700 TWh by 2035, only 14% lower than currently.
At the moment, we produce about half the gas we use, and import the rest.
North Sea Oil
Now let’s move on to oil.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/digest-of-uk-energy-statistics-dukes-2020
Surface transport accounts for most of the UK’s oil consumption, 37 Mtoe or 57%.
According to the CCC, the ban on new petrol/diesel cars from 2030 will reduce numbers of these on the road from the current 34 million to around 14 million in 2035. This is on the extremely optimistic assumption that there will already be 12 million EVs on the road in 2030, up from the current hundred thousand or so.
But taking the CCC’s projections at face value, we could estimate that oil consumption will decline from 37 million tonnes to approximately 17 Mtoe. This assumes that HGVs will still largely be dependent on diesel.
Oil used for aviation fuels may decline slightly, as biofuels start to play a bigger part, but given this is essentially an international issue, it would be risky to assume any significant drop in demand for oil.
As for the other sectors, it is difficult to see any substantial cuts in oil consumption.
If we add this lot up, oil consumption in 2035 will still probably be around two thirds of today’s.
Worse still, it is not only the UK, where oil and gas exploration is being actively discouraged. We see the same thing happening in the USA and across Europe. And all in the wishful thinking that we will be able to run our economies largely on renewable energy in a few years time.
Instead we will end up facing acute shortages of oil and gas, which will make the current energy crisis seem like a picnic in the park.
That would trigger another Great Depression.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
What a shock our energy Minister has a degree in Modern History, from Cambridge. Milliband a PPE degree from Oxford. Bereft of the commonsense god gave a horse.
A degree in History ? . . . He must have missed this . . .
Some say that thousands of old papers and corroborating evidence proving that Global Warming is Man-Made cannot be wrong. Even when new evidence shows otherwise . . . Is this the new Madness we are destined to live with every day? “Don’t try to confuse me with the facts, when I know what the truth is”. Is this the Mantra of our modern, supposedly Civilized Society under Environmentalist Pedagogy? I very much hope not!
We are just now, in the 21st Century, coming out of what was a 500-year cycle called the “Mini Ice Age”. Our Planet is only now returning to what I call, “The Norm of Warm”. History proves this to be a valid hypothesis if you believe there was a “Roman Warming Period” and or a “Medieval Warming Period”. Life in the world today could well be in the early stages of a new 500-year cycle of Warming, towards which, Humans are having almost no influence at all. Let’s remember that manmade CO2 is only 3% of total annual Global output of one of the Earth’s most important building blocks. Furthermore, CO2 is but a trace gas in the Earth’s atmosphere representing only 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere . . . Scientifically . . . virtually meaningless!
When we realise and accept that little more than 800 years ago, trees that took at least 100 years to grow were flourishing at the head of the fjords in South Western Greenland – our perspective on Man-Made Climate Change will be altered. Especially when the treeline in Alaska, the Rockies, the Urals of Russia, the Himalaya’s and the Andes all follow suit in demonstrating that the Medieval Warming Period was a Global event. When you come to know that Eric the Red and his fellow country folk, for 500 years, were living as well in Greenland as they had back in Norway for a period that was almost 100 years longer than Europeans have continuously occupied North America.
A vision of Real Global Warming appears from within the pages of History as fact. No matter how fancy and eloquent you write your words, the people who lived and died and prospered for 500 years in Greenland will not be denied their place in History. During the Medieval Warming Period from 950 to 1450, the whole World was much Warmer than it is today, so to, as it was, during the Roman Warming Period. Today, we are returning to “The Norm of Warm” in the 21st century. Let’s remember that 7,000 of the last 10,000 years have been Global Warming Periods. 70% of the last 10,000 years have been WARM !!
We need to go Back to the beginning and look . . . CO2 has neither led or lagged 18 periods of climate change in the last 10,000 years . . . Why . . . Suddenly is it the cause NOW ??
https://www.academia.edu/49421861/CO2_Cradle_of_Life_on_Planet_Earth
My thoughts . . .
I personally have appreciated the milder winters here in northern UK. I have even noticed an increase in moss around my property. This could possibly be a sign of an increase in flourishing plant life, which should be welcomed by all.
Agree: CO2 is not a pollutant and has by far much less greenhouse effect than water vapor, sort of the emperor of greenhouse effect….
Not bereft at all. Having foisted the Climate Change Act upon us his reward was a well-remunerated S*r*s-funded job in New York.
I think that was his brother, David. Ed, you remember, became the leader of the Labour Party, until he lost a General Election and was replaced by Jeremy Corbyn.
Sadly a lot of young metropolitan voters have been so brainwashed by the MSM that they are equally lacking in common sense and no doubt love these sorts of policies, believing that renewables are reliable and cheaper than fossil fuels.
Let’s see if they still believe the hype when their electric heating and car charging costs are soaring, assuming the power doesn’t get interrupted by the wrong sort of weather.
Matt, instigated at the earliest of years . . . Reduce, recycle, reuse . . . The environmentalists have 2 generations of indoctrinated bots to carry out their bidding . . . without question . . . dedicated followers . . .
A short presentation for the Deluded:
Watch this – Life without Petroleum —
Good show. And what about the effect of a drastic reduction of CO2 emissions on our vegetation?….
Brilliant video George . . . Thanks for that . . . !!!
Well not only is the answer NO(!) and not only are they ignoring our shale gas riches but also our shale oil riches. The license plot just south of Cuadrilla in Lancashire was taken by a company called Phoenix Petroleum, just before the idiots in Westminster put a stop to exploration, Phoenix announced that they had struck “The motherlode”.
Dung: I assume that you will post a reference to this claim.
Looking for information from company house and elswhere: found a Phoenix Petroleum Services ltd , dissolved 2016 , a Phoenix Petroleum ltd , dissolved 2017 and a middle eastern gentleman . Ibraham Salih , on Linked- In who claims to be the owner of Phoenix Petroleum.
HOH Phoenix Petroleum Ltd is an active company but with a share capital of just £1 .
In the Philippines there is an active , large oil company Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc and several companies of similar name trading in oil and in gas stations in Canada and US .
So , like you Vernon , i would be interested in knowing which of these is exploring gas reserves in Lancashire?
Actually an unparalleled economic calamity. Haven’t these idiots noticed that CO2 is not going to decline and UK produces one per cent of global, give or take? So sad it hurts
Gee, it is good thing that it is so easy to get rid of oil because no one else has any or the capital to develop it. Delist from the London Stock Market. Good thing there is no where else in the world to world to list.
It is like the E.U. saying to Russia….we aren’t going to buy your fossil fuels unless you kowtow to us …….because everyone knows China (among others) isn’t interested in snapping up whatever fossil fuels Russia can send their way.
“Ploughing on with business as usual on fossil fuels will kill off our chances of keeping 1.5 degrees alive and carries huge risks for investors as it is simply an unsustainable choice.”
See, he really loves investors. He feels it is his duty to protect them. Government must decide, because investors make mistakes.
Why does he refer to Shell in the plural?
‘Shell are accepting’
‘Shell have’
And it’s not up to him to decide what people want to do with their money. Personally I can’t think of a better investment than the O&G sector. Fools like Milliband are simply ensuring the price of fossil fuels will soar.
Ya . . . But they look soo good in the press . . . Make the people Pay . . . bury the Big Oil Profiteers. . . . sinful capitalists . . .
Especially because we need to burn Soo much Fossil Fuel to build those ‘Big Green Machines’ that they love to brag are ‘Green’ . . . never stopping to look at how much fossil fuels are burned or how much real pollution goes into building ‘Green Energy’. AH, no worries . . . our buddies in the press will brush that under the rug . . . they always have . . .
https://www.academia.edu/52039545/All_Electricity_Poisons_Planet_Earth
Again . . . There are none so blind . . .
“Ploughing on with business as usual on fossil fuels will kill off our chances of keeping 1.5 degrees alive and carries huge risks for investors as it is simply an unsustainable choice.”
Lowering emissions to zero leaves us without any fuels for transportation of the people, food and all the materials needed to manufacture and distribute EV vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines… to anyone. And, it takes no CO2 from the atmosphere. So, without fossil fuels for transportation what is the other choice, Mr. Miliband?
“No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!”
Off topic but I see that the Guardian is attributing the blizzard in the US Northeast to guess what?
Yep man made climate change! Because there were never any blizzards in the US North East prior to CAGW.
“Yet none of these politicians seem to appreciate that the UK will carry on needing gas and oil, and lots of it too, for decades to come”. It has proved impossible to get the message through to these mentally-challenged numpties (and I’m being polite calling them that.)
I have read that the manufacture of many drugs, used by the NHS, requires feedstock derived from oil. I think it is the gunge, left after everything else, like petrol and diesel, have been sold off.
Without the revenue from the sales of the other products, this feedstock will be unavailable.
No overall plan: no success!
Those taxed renewable biofuels that we are and will be using for transportation depend on the continuous growth and harvesting of corn and sugarcane to make the 10% ethanol that goes into those fuels that are immediately burned. CO2 right back where it was…start over. Con-game over??
‘Gunge’ is possibly not the best word. Most chemical feed-stock (for non-fuel use, i.e. pharmaceuticals, solvents, paints, lubricants etc) is just one part of the separated products that can be sold to meet demands for those products.
However, the demand for fuels results in a stockpile of the part that provides bitumen (for road building, roofing etc, and figuratively could be called ‘gunge’). The industry’s solution is to ‘crack’ this product, literally to break up the molecules. These smaller molecules add to the chemical feed-stock but more importantly provide the building blocks for plastics.
I’m fed up with all this talk of hydrogen as if it’s a replacement fuel. Leaving aside the carbon cost of generating it (note: generating it) where is the acknowledgement that hydrogen is a working fluid just as steam is a working fluid. Both have to be generated by burning fuels, but no-one is suggesting storing steam, so why hydrogen? it’s just another example of the madhouse all these politicians live in.
Problem is it is not only the UK where European politicians hate their own populations.
And given the infamous “Brexit”* why is the insanity and vindictiveness still continuing in the UK? And in what’s left of the EU, the attacks on petrol and diesel directly contradict the core principles of both free movement and free trade.
The government should start a pilot scheme to test net zero , Westminster should run on renewables only , heat , light , transport electric cars only charged by renewables, train travel when only powered by renewables no air travel at all , building out to all government buildings over say 5 years . Let the government rest the waters and find the problems of their preferred future .
Well said Mr. Diogenesio . . . Can’t be done . . . wake up call !!
We have just had whole world, real time experiment. 18 months of lockdown, atmospheric CO2 did not change at all!
Surely the Palace of Westminster has its own generators so it will be lit and warm when we are cold and in the dark?
Yes, the generators (that provide district heating as well as electricity) are run on natural gas, so they should be switched off for a start.
Cover the roof of the HoP and Parliament Square with solar panels, produced using only renewables, and have an air source heat pump installed, again produced using renewables.
And in case anyone suggests using the Thames as a water source of heat, consider the tides and allowance to be made for other people living alongside the Thames using it as a heat source. Who would have priority?
Maybe the river would reach the temperature at which it freezes over: time for restarting the 17th century ice fairs. /s
It has already been tried. A recent post on WUWT covers an island in the Azores that uses windmills and an old volcanic crater 2000ft up for pumped storage. Does it work? No. Barely makes 50% of the electricity for the 11,000 people with diesel covering the shortfall. You could say ‘they are gonna need a bigger lake’ – or just cull some of the population.
Even if they tried it, the exorbitant cost would be paid for by the taxpayer anyway. No skin.
Few appear to realise that all these Green machines, such as heat pumps, EVs, like cars, lorries, battery powered fire engines ambulances, bin lorries, tractors and combine harvesters and a larger capacity National Grids will require a much larger supply of metals that cannot be magiced into existence.
An increase in production of metals such as Copper, Zinc, Nickel, Lithium, Cobalt, will require new mines as there have been very few mines discovered in the last twenty years as prices dropped. Many very large mines will find it difficult to expand production economically and are likely to see it reduce as grades dwindle, with some coming to their end of life in the next thirty years. Once the ore body has been mined, that’s it! Sometimes additional ore bodies can be found nearby but that entails the usual permits and risks in developing a new resource.
Governments are implementing ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) policies that increase the time to production as well as costs which will be passed on to the eventual customers. They can also see opportunities for higher taxes! This is in addition to the higher Energy costs that are predicted.
With no overall plan and no evidence of investigating the political risks associated with the locations of the known sources of ores and their processing plants, the future looks uncertain.
Most of the mines will be opened in countries where permits and policies are not a concern.
In fact, the West is already fully or almost fully dependent on imports of many mineral resources.
If indeed EVs are to become a major thing (although I doubt it will go as far as electric ambulances and tractors), expect a lot more mining development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
There are some interesting articles on the Climate Change scam in the Spectator Australia. This is from a recent article about the Tonga volcano by Professor Ian Plimer “We know there are at least 3.5 million sea floor basalt volcanoes and at least 28,000 km of mid ocean ridges that add carbon dioxide and heat to the oceans.” If CO2 is the fount of all evil and climate change, why isn’t the CCC and the Government banning these sea floor basalt volcanoes? Or jest possibly it’s got nothing to do with CO2, man made or naturally occurring.
3.5 million Volcanoes . . . We fly to Mars . . . we have No idea what is going on below the Oceans right here on Earth. Over 90% of the Oceans have NOT been studied below 200′. We do not even have a ‘Scale’ by which to ‘Rate’ Volcanoes erupting below the Oceans. The Mid-Ocean ridge has been described as 60,000 km long Volcano, always erupting Somewhere along it’s length . . . You may find this of interest . . .
https://www.academia.edu/49442870/The_Axial_Seamount_Nature_s_Response_To_500_Years_of_Cooling
We know so little . . . yet we talk, in political circles about the Environment like we know So Much . . . We Know Butcus . . .
My thoughts . . .
10-4. They claim Man is causing Sea Level Rise. Yet, we have no way to measure the basin. I’d say 60,000 km of volcanoes has more to do with it than Man.
And that’s just the mid-ocean ridge. There’s like a hundred under the West Antarctica ice sheet.
Even More . . .
Lake Vostok, is the largest of Antarctica’s almost 400 known subglacial lakes. Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at 3,488 m (11,444 ft) above mean sea level. The surface of this fresh water lake is approximately 4,000 m (13,100 ft) under the surface of the ice, which places it at approximately 500 m (1,600 ft) below sea level.
Measuring 250 km (160 mi) long by 50 km (30 mi) wide at its widest point, it covers an area of 12,500 km2 (4,830 sq mi) making it the 16th largest lake by surface area. With an average depth of 432 m (1,417 ft), it has an estimated volume of 5,400 km3 (1,300 cu mi), making it the 6th largest lake by volume.
What keeps this lake from freezing 1,300′ below the surface of ICE in Antarctica . . . Volcanoes . . . ?? The internal Heat of Planet Earth . . . ??
Again . . . Humans know NOTHING . . . Nature rules this Little Blue Planet . . . !!!
More . . .
A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in France has recorded the details and characteristics of an undersea volcano that was born in 2018. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the group describes the volcano as the largest undersea eruption ever recorded.
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-birth-undersea-volcano-east-coast.html
How mush lava was released ? How much Heat was added to the Climate ?
AH, no worries man . . . Climate Change Belongs to Nature . . . Humans are but a pimple on the Elephant’s Ass . . .
Agreed, jim.
As a coworker said 50 years ago, “Most environmentalism is the deification of Man.”
There is at least one EU govt that still gets the importance of fossil fuels:
https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/a4757-policy-statement-on-security-of-electricity-supply/
But, to destroy something you don’t actually have to do it, just the threat of a more “progressive” future govt is enough to destroy investment. So support or lack thereof from govts may be largely irrelevant.
Well I am sitting pretty as far as electricity bills are concerned. The cost of renewables is falling they tell me – even that nice Bozo Johnson said so. My energy supplier E-ON tells me that 100% of my “leccy” comes from renewables – so the gas price means little to me and I am expecting my bills to fall. Oh wait a minute.
When will the ASA take these companies to court?
Can’t we just all start using these?
https://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2022/01/sunday-video-6_01661052839.html?m=1#comment-form
These politicians are going to literally blow up our society and leave us with far more carnage from civil disorder that the alleged climate change impacts will look like a walk in the park.
Mr. Lewis . . . Truth . . . Well said . . . There are None so blind . . . as those who Choose . . . NOT to see . . .
It’s easy for these entitled, sanctimonious, po-faced prigs to preach in favour of policies that will increase energy costs (with negligible effects on the climate) because THEY CAN AFFORD THEM.
They put them on expenses and let the taxpayer carry the can.
Who do you think pays the heat and power bills for Downing St? Chequers?
Us suckers.
To Paul: I really found this (excellent) article very depressing. You, of all people, seem to be accepting that there is an inevitability about this insanity. Are the populace so brainwashed that they will let the politicos lead them (us) to Armageddon?
Just ask any voting member of the General Public how electric supply is created and how the connection to their house is achieved, and from the blank looks on their faces you will perceive that none of them know.
It is inevitable because all the Power Stations have been demolished, the ageing Gas infrastructure now receives no forward investment, it is being placed on the back burner.
I have a feeling the populace will have their own, strong, opinions to share with their idiot MPs after they receive their first post April communication from their energy provider. I just received this from Octopus :-
“However, when the cap is updated, it’s likely a typical bill will rise over 75% compared to the same time last year.”
As they say “Money Talks, Bullsh1t Walks”
Idiots to a man, the lot of them.
Ed Davey: “Fossil fuel firms already listed in the UK would then have two years ….or risk being struck off the LSE…. pension funds would have to disinvest from fossil fuels..”
Back in the real world. Private Equity walks where Ordinary Shareholders fear to tread:
“These secretive investment companies have pumped billions of dollars into fossil fuel projects, buying up offshore platforms, building new pipelines and extending lifelines to coal power plants.”
“As the oil and gas industry faces upheaval amid global price gyrations and catastrophic climate change, private equity firms — a class of investors with a hyper focus on maximizing profits — have stepped into the fray.”
What does Mr Davey plan to do to control Private Equity?
OT/ Straw bale power station Hemswell Cliff store fire is still burning
Visible from 15 miles away lighting up the sky
for the FOURTH night
First day was 30,000 megabales
Saturday’s winds spread it to 3 other stacks so about 90,000 in total gone
That’s NOT “Clean Green Energy”,
that’s lots of *carbon particulate matter* going into the atmosphere,
unstopped by filters, that a coal power station would have
#AirPollution #GreenBlob #FakeGreens
We know Davey has been compromised by the CCP and effectively their agent. DO we have anything on Milliband other than his father was a red?
OT/ Countryfile the usual city people’s green fantasy’s
Oh isn’t the new ELMS subsidies a great plan !
Farmers will get money for leaving 4m field borders, planting clover and rewilding.
Probably equivalent to the old EU crop subsidies of £2.3bn)year
They did mention that means taking more land out of production
and the topic of needing more food imports.
Farmer and Agricultural minister George Eustace said he thought that since some farms already achieve massive yields from land that is the way to go.
What was not mentioned it EXTRA future food-land loss
due to
#1 Monbiot’s big rewilding dreams
#2 More land for bio crops like straw for power and corncobs for biogas
#3 More solar & wind industrial parks
#4 Homes for the 5million immigrants per decade
Is it a supreme irony that while reading this site I am watching the back garden archaeology series on All4 that is looking for prehistoric remains in Staffordshire? They have featured a replica roundhouse where people sit around the open fire in the centre and carrying tasks before they sleep. History or a look into our NetZero future?
Has anyone calculated how much lithium and associated elements would be required to get 12 million EV vehicles on the road in the UK, let alone internationally
Depends on chemistry but easiest answer is alot and more than the annual production but if the price is right im sure miners will scale up production
Lithium Nickel Cobalt Manganese
NCA 0.10 0.67 0.13 0.00
NMC 111 0.15 0.40 0.40 0.37
NMC 622 0.13 0.61 0.19 0.20
NMC 811 0.11 0.75 0.09 0.09
quantities / kg / kwh – 50-60kwh seems avg batt size for uk EV models
I presume Milliband and Davey will be giving up using anything made of plastic.
What a couple of twats.
A commenter on that Lib Dem Voice blog has claimed that Ed Davey has “gravitas”. Haha!
What alternative universe do the Lib Dems live in?