North Sea Drilling for Oil and Gas (the alarming results)
It’s in the news all the time, these days. That we should ‘open up the North Sea for drilling the reserves of oil and gas, to keep down energy bills’.
This does not mean plonking wind turbines everywhere. The answer to reducing oil is walkable communities, organic food and local shops, rather than supermarkets (lots of oil -pesticides, all-night lights, central distribution houses, importing goods etc).
It’s not about replacing like with like, it’s about changing over to low-carbon local communities. And mass insulation of older homes and discouraging consumerist societies. Then we can keep to 1.5 degree targets, without worrying about ‘net zero’ targets.
This post is more about the science of what would happen if the Conservatives and Reform UK had their way (which they will if they get into power). And Trump is also telling them to make use of North Sea oil and gas.
For more detailed explanations on the science, visit Uplift UK .
Drilling in the North Sea won’t boost our economy, as there is slow demand for oil worldwide, as most countries (including China) rapidly switch to green fuel (Trump is an island of his own). Rising poverty is already happening in Aberdeen, due to people losing oil-based jobs in a dead-end industry.
We only have around 15% of oil/gas stocks left, and drilling for them will also harm our precious marine wildlife and endangered birds. And also risk oil pollution accidents, which would cost a fortune to clean up.
Tessa Khan (Uplift) says that Trump’s claims about ‘oil over windmills’ are ill-informed. And his claims that the UK has hundreds of years of oil left are nonsense. She says around 20 years at most, and it would cost a fortune to extract.
The mature basin of the North Sea also is almost out of gas, so Nigel Farage’s claim for England to be self-sufficient in gas is impossible. She says that no matter what the right-wing rhetoric, it ‘doesn’t change the geology or economics of the ageing North Sea’.
North Sea reserves are owned by companies who sell to the highest bidders, so the oil/gas would not flow into England homes anyway.
Kemi Badenoch is wrong to claim that new oil and gas is the answer. This rhetoric is not reckless for the climate, and the fastest way to lock households into higher bills and greater energy insecurity.
Fossil fuels are the reason energy costs have soared. To burn more will lock in a future of worsening floods, deadly heatwaves and wildfires. And put people’s homes, health and livelihoods in danger.
The path to genuine energy security, lower bills, warmer homes and hundreds of thousands of quality jobs is clean energy and heating, and modern low-carbon industries. UK Green Building Council
