Harrabin Misleads Over Fossil Fuels

By Paul Homewood

 

A blatantly one sided piece even by Harrabin standards:

 

 

The best way to ease consumers’ pain from high energy prices is to stop using fossil fuels rather than drill for more of them, the government’s climate advisers say.

Some Tory MPs want the government to expand production of shale and North Sea gas, saying it would lower bills.

But advisers said UK-produced gas would be sold internationally and barely reduce the consumer price.

They said wind and solar power, as well as home insulation, is a better route.

The report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) comes at a time when household energy bills are rising quickly. There is also international uncertainty over gas supplies due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

The committee warned that new fossil fuel projects in the North Sea would, in some cases, not deliver gas until 2050.

That’s the date when climate laws stipulate that the UK must be almost completely weaned off gas.

The committee said it favours tighter restrictions on drilling in the North Sea, and it favours a "presumption against exploration".

But it won’t go so far as recommending these actions to ministers because it said there are finely-balanced arguments for and against drilling.

British-produced gas, for instance, is extracted causing less damage to the climate than imports, although it’s impossible to say whether other exporters will reduce their own emissions in future.

What’s more, a so-called windfall tax might be imposed on the rising profits of oil firms – and the cash given back to consumers.

These uncertainties mean that decisions on whether to drill more in the North Sea must be left to ministers, the committee says.

The oil and gas industry feels it has a strong case because of its lower-than-average emissions.

Environmentalists are angry that the committee hasn’t followed the recommendation of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and ruled out further fossil fuel exploration because enough has been discovered already.

“We think the UK – with its diversified economy and its large historic emissions – should be the ones leading the way on recommending no further oil and gas exploration,” Doug Parr from Greenpeace told BBC News.

Chris Stark, chief executive of the CCC, said the committee was disappointed with the UK oil and gas industry’s ambitions to cut its own operational emissions.

It said the industry could lower pollution by reducing methane venting and electrifying oil platforms. And it warned that over-supply of hydro-carbons globally would “blow the Paris climate agreement out of the water.”

Lord Deben, the committee’s chairman, was emphatic about the need to continue on the path away from burning gas. He said if the UK followed through with green policies outlined by the prime minister, it would cut £100 off bills in the future.

He said average home bills would have been £40 lower now if the former PM David Cameron hadn’t scrapped schemes to insulate the UK as part of his initiative to “cut the green crap” – a remark ascribed to one of his aides, which led to an assault against energy-saving programmes.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) welcomed the report as an "acknowledgement that carbon budgets can still be met if new oil and gas fields are developed in the UK".

"There will continue to be ongoing demand for oil and gas over the coming decades as we transition to cleaner and cheaper forms of energy generated in this country," the spokesperson said.

Craig Mackinlay, one of the most vocal MPs calling for increased North Sea drilling, said the CCC advice had "finally acknowledged" that UK "domestic gas production creates jobs, can reduce energy prices and helps towards energy security".

The report comes a day after a think tank, Green Alliance, accused the government of wasting millions of pounds on propping up North Sea oil and gas.

"Tax relief and subsidies have made the UK one of the most skewed tax environments in the world for oil and gas production," it said.

The report estimated that fossil fuel companies received nearly £10bn in tax relief for new exploration in the North Sea between 2016 and 2020, while £3.7bn was granted in tax relief for decommissioning costs.

But the report warned that revenue is expected to drop from the mature basin, as remaining resources become harder to extract.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60497058

 

The whole article, which only includes just a solitary short comment by Craig Mackinlay in support of gas, totally misses the point.

Whether energy prices fall as a result of the UK drilling for oil and gas is irrelevant, as there will be huge financial benefits for the country anyway, not to mention bolstering energy security.

And on a wider scale, a resumption of drilling around the world, particularly in the US, would reduce gas prices, just as it always has in the past.

A detailed study by Warwick Business School two years ago projected that UK gas output would halve to below 20 bcm by 2035. Meanwhile, consumption of natural gas would continue to remain high throughout the period.

We currently rely on pipeline imports from Norway for two thirds of our imports, with LNG supplies making up most of the difference:

 

Given that we are already effectively maximising Norwegian supplies, and shortfall in North Sea gas production would have to be made up from extremely volatile world markets.

The Warwick Study found our shale reserves could yield 330 bcm over the next twenty years or so. This would replace all of the decline in North Sea output, and meet a quarter of demand.

There is of course no certainty of this, and shale production might be less. But given that Cuadrilla are keen to invest millions in developing the Bowland Shale, it is really a no-brainer.

The CCC naturally want yet more unreliable wind and solar power, yet it is their own detailed analysis, included in various Carbon Budgets etc, which emphasise that the UK will remain heavily reliant on natural gas for many years to come.

As they know full well, wind and solar power cannot supply the energy we need in winter for heating homes, which is met with gas at the moment. Moreover we will still need gas power for years to come, in order to keep the grid running.

In the longer term, the CCC want us to rely more on hydrogen, but this too needs gas to manufacture it in bulk.

Given that they know all of this, why does the CCC want to throw away our energy security for purely ideological reasons?

FOOTNOTE

At current gas prices of £1.75/therm, the potential yield of 330 bcm is worth £202 bn, or £10.1bn a year.

The government would be expected to take a sizeable chunk of this in taxation.