Why we need "Net zero"

[Beelbeebub]

14 minutes ago, -rick- said:

Sort of, though from what limited stuff I'm hearing it's adding more work rather than taking it away. You have to do the work once for the quarterly report and then do the tax return at the end of the year. Yes the software should eliminate a lot of the duplication but not all.

Yeah, this can often be the way with "simplification"!😁

 

I looked into it as I thought I was going to have to do it (turns out I'm in the group that avoids it).  It's very dependent on your software. In theory all you have r to do is the normal admin (allocating payments to invoices and bills and tagging various transactions by type) on a reasonably timely schedule and then hit the upload button every now and again.

 

If you're reasonably on it, there shouldn't be much extra work.

 

But for the people who just chuck all their invoices and receipts in the glove box and then have a mad rush about just before the deadline trying to make sense of scraps of paper from 12 months ago - it's gonna be a change (but probably for the better)

[Beelbeebub]

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

under my system you would pay tax on a refund as it would be treated as income.

Obviously genuine mistake would be an exception.

I would tax state benefits as well. Then it just becomes an arguement about how large they should be, not a threshold arguement.

That seems rather bad, especially if the government is taking the money at source (eg PAYE) and has not adjusted quick enough to changing circumstances.

[Beelbeebub]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9xe09jz4eo

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say

 

Looks like the government is going to approve Jackdaw and Rosebank.

 

We shall be back to 1p kWh gas and probably under £1 liter of petrol before Christmas! /S

 

Well that's what you'd think if you listened to the bosses of those projects.

 

"Chris O'Shea, the boss of British Gas owner Centrica, said any additional domestic gas supply would reduce Britain's reliance on imported fossil fuels, "so it's got to be good"..." 

 

But then he tries the pull off the impressive feat of making an argument that he fatally undermined earlier in the same sentence ..

 

"He told the BBC's Today programme: "It wouldn't lower the cost materially, but basic economics would tell you that if you've got a fixed demand for a product and you increase the supply, the price should move."

 

So it won't do anything but basic economics says it will?

 

There is much trumpeting that the gas field will produce, at it's peak, 6% of UK gas output - which opponents point out is only 2% of the UKs actual gas use.

 

It would be really interesting to see exactly what the treasury outcome is in all of this. I know there will be some tax collected but that has to be set against the tax write-offs that this project will enable companies to utilise.  I have seen various takes that place the final outcome anywhere from a few billion met revenue for the treasury over the lifetime to a few billion net loss.

 

What would also be interesting would be how much an equivalent saving in gas would cost ie how much would we need to spend driving insulation, heat pumps etc to achieve an equivalent drop in UK gas consumption?

 

IIRC turning down your thermostat reduces your gas consumption by about 10%.

 

So Jackdaw is equivalent to 1 in 5 people turning their thermostat down by 1C.

 

[JohnMo]

18 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

Looks like the government is going to approve Jackdaw and Rosebank.

About time 

 

18 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

There is much trumpeting that the gas field will produce, at it's peak, 6% of UK gas output - which opponents point out is only 2% of the UKs actual gas use.

But it a lot of gas not being pumped from elsewhere, so win win.

 

18 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

turning down your thermostat reduces your gas consumption by about 10%.

But you can't keep claiming that as a win, most people already have and then down another notch as gas prices increased.

 

18 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

What would also be interesting would be how much an equivalent saving in gas would cost ie how much would we need to spend driving insulation, heat pumps etc to achieve an equivalent drop in UK gas consumption?

And how long it would take also, all this takes time, no magic wand.

 

18 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

So Jackdaw is equivalent to 1 in 5 people turning their thermostat down by 1C.

Or a load of LNG tankers, from who knows where. But this doesn't fit your narrative. 

[SteamyTea]

By extracting more fossil fuels, it just delays the inevitable transfusion to overall cheaper renewables.  Be a bit like not bothering to cover a roof as it seems cheaper to just repaint the ceiling every few weeks.

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

But it a lot of gas not being pumped from elsewhere, so win win.

[emphasis mine]

But it's not a lot of gas - that's the point. 

 

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

But you can't keep claiming that as a win, most people already have and then down another notch as gas prices increased.

It

 

was more to illustrate the relative size of the change ie not alot 

 

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

And how long it would take also, all this takes time, no magic wand

It would take some time, true. 

So the argument goes - "well those things would be great but we have a supply problem NOW, so we must do this less ideal thing as it will help NOW" 

 

But the magnitude of the output means there will be absolutely no discernable change to prices or energy security.

 

So it won't help now, or ever.

 

But starting to install HPs and insulate will have a small and growing effect that will compound over time.  To paraphrase "the best time to have started the energy transition was a decade ago, the second best time is today" 

 

But I am interested in the overall net effect on tax revenue.  Yes tax revenue will be created from various oil taxes and corporation taxes plus keeping people in work (the net increase in jobs is around 25 although it will assure some 200 or so current jobs). But my understanding (and this is why a proper analysis by non-partisan experts like the HoC library would be good) is that the pio companies can use the costs of this venture to offset revenue elsewhere potentially lowering their tax bills.  So the question is whether the increase direct tax revenue are greater than the decreased tax revenue elsewhere.

 

If (and it is a big if) the net effect is negative then not only are we not doing anything to help out current and imminent situation (high energy prices) but we are actively hampering the deployment of solutions that will help.

 

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

Or a load of LNG tankers, from who knows where. But this doesn't fit your narrative.

Again the relative size is important 

 

UK consumption is approximately equivalent to 1 LNG tanker a day.

 

The 2% of UK demand that jackdaw might provide is therefore 2% of a LNG tanker.

 

So the worst case 7 LNG tankers a year out of 120 or so. Bear in mind the majority of LNG effectively ends up as export (the volume of UK gas exports being broadly the same as UK LNG imports) - we are in effect one of Europe's main LNG terminals 

 

 

Again, the main point is that jackdaw will do jackshit (sorry) about our prices or energy security.

 

What it will do is make a bunch of cash for oil companies and use that reserve of gas up for the future.

 

Imagine and alternate path.... We don't licence jackdaw - yet.  We transition away from gas for heating etc to electricity.

 

Of course our electric generation needs to go up, which we do via renewables.

 

However, as the deniers delight in crowing, we will probably still need gas for the few times it's dark and still and for some balancing and backup. The gas use will be a fraction of current use. Maybe 10% maybe even less over time.

 

At this point the government reactivates jackdaw but as the exclusive supplier for the national gas stockpile to power the thermal power stations in emergencies 

 

This will provide genuine price benefits (the gas bit being open market) and genuine security if supply (the gas being exclusively used for UK emergency generation).

 

Of course all of this relies on the gas being there rather than having been already extracted for zero before to anyone but the oil companies.

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

5 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

By extracting more fossil fuels, it just delays the inevitable transfusion to overall cheaper renewables.  Be a bit like not bothering to cover a roof as it seems cheaper to just repaint the ceiling every few weeks.

 

 

Except we aren't even repainting the ceiling. We're dabbing a bit of tipex on 2% of the ceiling.

[Beelbeebub]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

Except we aren't even repainting the ceiling. We're dabbing a bit of tipex on 2% of the ceiling.

Just realised my "tipex" comment has massively dated me! 😁