The Biased Oxford University Report That Claims Renewables Are Cheaper Than Gas
The University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment entered Britain’s North Sea policy debate last week with its latest ‘rapid analysis’ entitled ‘Impact of Oil and Gas Exploitation in the North Sea on UK Household Energy Bills‘. Yahoo Finance UK was the first UK media outlet to publish a full article on the study, headlined ‘”Sheer fantasy” to claim draining North Sea oil would cut bills – experts’. A day later, GB News published its piece: ‘North Sea oil would barely cut UK energy bills claim Oxford experts.’
Given that the Smith School is explicitly committed to “the green transition to achieve Net Zero emissions and sustainable development”, the study’s conclusions are no surprise. According to the analysis, even a maximalist ‘drill baby drill’ strategy in the North Sea would save households a paltry £16 to £82 per year — and then only under the heroic assumption that every penny of tax revenue is redistributed directly as bill rebates. Absent such redistribution, consumers would see “no discernible benefit” because oil and gas prices are set on international markets.
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I particularly liked the phrasing for the third rebuttal:
Oh, The Grid is bad because we can’t connect the solar ‘farms’.
‘The Grid’ works fine for the purpose it was built. It distributes power from the few generating stations to myriad consumers. A grid which can collect and combine power from myriad generators and then distribute it to myriad consumers is a different thing. If you want a different grid then build it into your costs.
There is also the paradoxical situation in which there has been a programme of decommissioning reliable baseload capable generation sources whilst at the same time pushing technologies that will increase demand for reliable electrical supplies. I am of course talking about EVs, AI data cantres and the like.
The two are mutually exclusive, and even if we had kept the reliable baseload generators the required expenditure on the transmission and distribution systems is astronomical. When we consider that these grid upgrades are ultimately paid for through utility bills the maths does not stack up when “cheap, plentiful renewables-based” electricity is the apparent aim.
Except even if they build the HT grid with enough windmills, the system has a single point of failure – the local, low voltage grid.
It cannot handle the consumer load demand that there would be to supply energy that is 100% electric, because it is rated to distribute only the 15% of energy we get from electricity now.
85% of our energy comes from the gas grid and by road in tankers.
When will these clowns understand there is no global gas market? It’s not oil. A lot of gas is piped between two points, from producer Country to consumer Country, therefore subject to contracted prices. Obviously – well not to the Net Zeroids – piped gas between two points cannot be diverted elsewhere to get a better price, or meet increased demand so the supply and demand remains the same and at the contracted price. What is a global market, is LNG which can be shipped anywhere, and which is subject to supply and demand fluctuations and therefore price volatility. Which is why securing UK domestic piped gas is so important. A fully “renewable” grid is technically impossible. It will always require fossil fuels – coal is best – for base load, and gas-fired power stations best to follow demand and for quick reaction back-up to cope with intermittency AND about 60% spinning generation is required to keep tension on the grid to provide inertia to maintain frequency at 50Hz. In other words, we shall have two parallel generating systems, one dispatchable, the other not, of equal capacity, at multiple times the cost of a single coal + gas generating system,… Read more »
Clearly a comprehensive grid is desirable but unachievable. Therefore we (The Powers That Be) should move everyone to where we can deliver power.
{sarcasm}
Next they’ll be saying high business taxes are good for businesses, and will encourage more and more businesses to come to Britain.
I’m not nearly clever enough to have got into Oxford – 3 dodgy A Levels in arts subjects and dropped out of a bullshit Uni course after 2 terms. Here’s my biased report: UK has a higher percentage of “renewables” than most other countries, and also has higher electricity prices than most other countries. Therefore this midwit calls bullshit on the “Oxford report”.
Here’s another simpleton argument:
If 1. was the solution to the problem posed by 2., the situation should be improving instead of getting worse. Sky-high electricty prices are a problem right now. Miliband effectively says something like: “Unfortunately, you’re having a problem now. But fear not! What I’m doing now will solve a different problem someone else will have in future!”
Even if the future was certain, this would be of no use to the people who’re having problems now and who expect politicians to deal with them because that’s their job.
I’d settle for Millibrain just going away right now…
Governments can make gas more expensive than renewables any time they want, by adding costs to gas through regulation and limiting supply by putting all kinds of obstacles in the way of production.
They can do this with anything they like and given the complexity of value chains, only a handful of people will really know about it and understand what is going on.
And of course this is what they do all the time. Which is why there are no more free markets. We have a centrally planned economy, with a thin, superficial veneer of a free market.
Agreed. Labour love the oil and gas price rises, with subsidies switched to gas who can avoid EVs and heat pumps??
Of course, no steel, no fertiliser and no cement production. In a word, no industry.
It’s wilful blindness to the knock on effects of their policies. They will never ever admit to the damaging effects of their policies. They’ll just reiterate their good intentions and their goal and the noble reasons they do what they do. And they will dismiss any evidence of the wreckage they cause along the way.
That in a nutshell is modern government.
The EU is creating a completely inter-dependent energy supply based on electricity and inter-connectors between member states. The pro-EU British Establishment is signed up to the policy and Red Ed is delivering the UK’s contribution with the windmills in the north sea and by refusing to use our oil/gas reserves there or to frack.
The eventual inter-dependent electricity grid will be used to control both member states and individuals. Step out of line and the power will be cut.
It is all about control … and obedience.
Torture the data long enough and it will confess to anything———Saying Renewables are cheaper than gas is like saying a helicopter is cheaper than a Jumbo Jet.
Gas is full time concentrated energy that provides energy for heating, cooking and electricity all day every day. Renewables are part time energy diffuse energy that needs huge areas of land that only provide electricity some of the time and crucially require constant backup from GAS that has to included in the price. There is also the carbon taxes and other absurd climate regulations that Gas gets pounded with while Renewables get 100% subsidy from the taxpayer. ——This story highlights the absolute ideological absurdity and political chicanery that is the necessary part of the climate/energy SCAM