With energy prices rocketing – we need to get real. And get cracking on fracking
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S unjust and evil war on Ukraine has finally reminded everyone that if your energy supplies are at the mercy of a dictator you have one of two unpleasant choices. One is to keep the gas coming and pay for it. Even now, Europe pays about £3billion a week for Russian oil and gas. […]
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S unjust and evil war on Ukraine has finally reminded everyone that if your energy supplies are at the mercy of a dictator you have one of two unpleasant choices.
One is to keep the gas coming and pay for it.
Even now, Europe pays about £3billion a week for Russian oil and gas.
That money protects Russia from sanctions and funds its war machine.
The other is to turn off the gas.
Then, you have to get it somewhere else, or else ration supplies.
That happened in Britain in 1973, when OPEC, the oil- producing countries, simply cut us off.
Luckily, North Sea oil was coming, and we never faced the problem again.
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But if Europe decides not to buy Putin’s gas — or sees the supply cut off — rationing could be coming while every- one scrambles for alternatives.
Britain doesn’t get much oil and gas from Russia.
But we would not be immune to the consequences.
Prices would shoot up further.
We would have to compete with others for gas.
Hard-pressed people here could easily see energy bills soar further.
That is why it was so foolish of us to stop shale gas extraction in this country in 2019.
If we hadn’t, we would by now have a British gas bonanza, and we could help the rest of Europe, too.
I never really understood why the Government brought in the ban.
It surprised me hugely when I heard about it one morning in Downing Street.
The supposed reason was the risk of so-called earthquakes.
But the limit for shocks was set absurdly low, the same as of a door slamming or someone sitting down in a desk chair — the seismic equivalent of the “comfy chair” brought out in the torture chamber of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition
BAD BOY OF EUROPE
I think the real reason was that even then the Government had its eye on 2021’s Glasgow climate jamboree.
Too many people felt that Brexit made us the bad boy of Europe.
Setting ourselves up as the top pupil in the class on a net zero emissions target was a way of showing we were nice people really.
But obviously we had to kill off our national shale industry if we were going to do this — the price we had to pay for international acceptability.
Since then we have been thrashing around frantically to deal with the consequences.
Get rid of gas boilers. Stop petrol cars. Put an extra third on your fuel bills. Drive energy-intensive manufacturing out of the country.
And all the time we are told that some magic technology will appear to save us from the consequences of our own folly.
This mania has to stop.
What will actually happen if we don’t stop it is that you will face rationing — if not now, then soon.
Maybe not directly. But you’ll find it gets too expensive to take flights.
NEED TO GET REAL
It will become too much trouble to go any- where far in your unreliable electric car. Your heat pump won’t keep you warm.
Welcome to the Third World.
Except that real developing countries don’t give a stuff about all this unless they are made to by Western donors.
Meanwhile, countries such as China are building coal and gas power stations as fast as they can.
We need to get real.
The truth is, we just don’t have the technology to get to zero carbon at this pace.
To generate the electricity we need from wind by 2035 we need ten times as many offshore wind turbines as we have now.
And even then, only if the wind is blowing, because the battery capacity to store the power at scale has not been developed yet.
So we need reliable and large-scale “base load” generating capacity for when the wind doesn’t blow.
In about ten years, if we start now, nuclear can do the job.
LIFT THE BAN
Meanwhile, there is gas.
There is still a lot in the North Sea. But under Yorkshire and Lancashire is enough shale gas for our needs for 50 years.
Modern fracking has a tiny footprint and brings no risk.
The Americans do it every day — and we import the results.
Shale won’t solve our problems overnight. But it will bring investment and lots of high-productivity, well-paid jobs in areas that need them.
It stops us having to turn to dirty coal when the wind stops, as we had to last month.
It means we don’t have to rush at unproven renewables technology before it’s ready and it helps us get a grip on the cost of renewables subsidies.
And finally, it’s ours. It’s under our own control.
Our shale makes money for our Government and our people, not others.
It makes us safe and gives us the strength to stand up for ourselves.
In a dangerous world that matters.
Lift the ban.
