Beelbeebub

The die hard anti renewable zealot will include as "cost of net zero" things like the distribution network costs even though not all of them are due to renewables. Some are simply due to the need to renew and upgrade 50 year old infrastructure.

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10505/CBP-10505.pdf Up to date, thorough and legally required to be non-partisan. HoC library stuff is about the gold standard for information on politically tricky stuff. Almost every other report from an "institute" of "research center" will have some sort of bias or spin. Some will still be fairly good but some are rabidly partisan and it is a common trick (especially amongst the right leaning ones) to name their think tanks to sound left leaning eg "the institute for renewable energy studies" or "foundation for energy transition research" and then pump out lots of anti stories that sound more balanced because they "look even a renewables think tank says wind energy is rubbish"

That article seems to make some pretty bold assumptions to get those figures. The fact is that the current price paid per Mwh of new wind/solar is lower than the price paid per Mwh of new CCGT and still investors are preferring renewables. This indicates the returns for providing a Mwh of renewables are better than that of doing it via gas even at the lower price.

Windfarms, solar panels etc aren't built by government subsidies. They get a guaranteed price per Mwh for providing a certain capacity. Originally that was higher than a new gas plant would get. So sort of a subsidy But now the price per Mwh for a wine farm is lower than that for a gas plant. So investors pile money into wind and solar

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/12/ministers-plan-slash-heat-pump-subsidies-fund-defence-spending Bad (if they happen) but maybe will also help squeeze out the "grant farmers" and make more people just go ahead and do a simple "DIY" install rather than having a gold plated MCS one which ends up costing the same anyway. I note the VAT exemption for solar installs is ending this April so I don't expect that will be renewed but I understand they are 5% rated anyway so not a huge difference?

I've been arguing we should be moving away from ICE for transport precisely to avoid having these sorts of events. The larger the proportion of our vehicle fleet that is electric and the better our charging infrastructure the less we can be impacted by an incompetent US adminstration flailing about out of it's depth or a murderous Russian president flailing around out of his depth

"Small fraction" is over egging it. It's about 50% according to that graph. The UK produces more petrol but less diesel than it uses - which is why the petrol price rise has been less than diesel. The difference head been made up by diesel from Russia until they invaded Ukraine and then we switched to importing from the US. But in (literal) crude terms the UK extraction of crude oil is about half the UK consumption of barrel of oil *equivalent* finished products like petrol, diesel, chemicals, plastics etc. The supply chain between the stuff that comes out of the ground and the stuff you put in your tank is much more complex. With crude oil being exported to be refined abroad and then the resulting products reimported and vice-versa. For example I'm fairly certain the imports from the Netherlands are, in large part, originally from the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/24/eu-trump-diesel-export-ban-fuel-prices-europe At this rate banning sales of ICE cars from 2030 won't be necessary as nobody will be able to run them....

Interestingly enough one of the ways I "discovered" the facts around how little the north sea has left was certain politicians from a certain "party" (ltd) talking about how it would lower bills and ensure energy security. I believe the phrase "Saudi Arabia on Thames" or similar might have been uttered. So I thought I'd look into it and lo-and-behold the politician was full of shit. I don't doubt the UK could have (should have) done things very differently. I do wonder if the volumes extracted and still to extract would be the same with a different approach to exploration and extraction or is it just the Norway had more to start with? <Shrugs> But we are where we are and whether or not Rosebank and jackdaw get licences or any others get granted won't make any difernqble difference in our finances, security or carbon emissions. What will help is reducing our reliance on a product we need to buy on the world market in competition with all the other countries using it around the globe.

Saw this ☝️ Seems to take the vehicle DC output from the fast charge port and use a dc-dc converter to step the voltage down a bit (depending on your battery architecture). Then connect it to the mppt panel inputs on a solar inverter moving a string of solar panels. I can see this as being quite clever - especially if the inverter has spare solar inputs. You could have your panels on 1 and 2 and your car on 3. If the box can talk to your inverter to get the house demand it could then set it's "solar panel string" to provide the appropriate output either to just match the homemload or provide enough for export.

This bit was very interesting. One thing that struck me, reading this, is that electrons aren't sweet or sour. They aren't dry or wet. Your car or heatpump will run just as well on electricity from a coal plant as a wind turbine as a nuclear plant. Again though the point regarding the UK North sea is that it still won't make much difference to any of the metrics CO2, energy prices, energy security. At least as long as the gas is extracted by private businesses and sold on the international market. *If* we are taking about some sort of nationalised gas company that extracts the gas and provides it exclusively for UK requirements (either electricity, domestic heating and/or industrial use) *then* there may well be benefits in those areas - particularly energy prices and security. However I am 99% sure the above is not what the lobbyists pushing for more North sea drilling have in mind....

Just some context The average age for a miner in 1980 was in the region of £115 a week (excluding any other perks like free coal) This was towards the upper quartile of manual workers wages and about 50% of all workers wages.

We were self sufficient in gas for a fair while so the switch wasn't as completely mad idea. But we are where we are and our best par forward is ramping up renewables - investing in battery storage at a domestic level, longer term storage at a national level and electrifying as much as we can.

Up from low 1.80 a bout a week ago to mid/high 1.90's I was looking at the display on the pump today as I filled up and at the big sign outside. I'm not sure they can display a number starting with a "2"....😂

"more North Sea drilling will lower UK fuel prices and ensure energy security...." So a country that is the world's largest oil producer and 2nd largest exporters should be fine..... Right.... Right?....