“Britain must urgently reconsider its energy security.”
“The sudden push to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and oil could trigger a paradigm shift to clean energy sources that might be quickly scaled up.”
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There have been outcries at the docking of Russian tankers laden with oil:
Russian Energy Cargoes Encounter Protests on Arrival
So, what are the alternatives?
Across Europe, everyone seems to be switching back to coal:
Coal’s on a comeback in energy-desperate Europe – E&E News
Coal not ‘taboo’ as EU seeks Russian gas exit – POLITICO
Peter Lilley, writing in today’s Telegraph, suggests the UK should switch back to drilling for shale gas:
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shows the shallowness of Net Zero
As European leaders fall over themselves to disavow the policy, Britain must urgently reconsider its energy security
BEIS officials – who are devotees of the Net Zero religion – resist change on three grounds. First, that high and volatile gas prices make offshore wind even more competitive – so we should go for wind, not gas. But they are not alternatives. We need both. Indeed, existing plans for offshore wind assume a heroic pace of expansion which will be hard to increase. They involve eventually adding the equivalent of the world’s largest offshore wind farm every 10 weeks.
Second, BEIS says shale gas cannot be developed in time to alleviate shortages. But wind farms and offshore fields take far longer to build than drilling onshore wells. US shale output grew tenfold over ten years. Third, UK shale gas would not reduce prices since they are set across Europe. Yet shale gas halved US prices in less than a decade and kept them low while ours have risen six-fold. If UK output is insufficient to reduce European prices all that value will be reflected in British incomes and huge tax take for the Treasury instead of going to Qatar, America or financing Putin’s war.
In short, Britain can now longer allow its energy security to be compromised. To do so would be nothing less than appeasing the loudest voices who have held the megaphone, and our politician’s attention, for far too long.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shows the shallowness of Net Zero
Lord Lilley is right to question much of the cynicism of the Net Zero agenda:
“The idea of net zero carbon is a dangerous trap” – this is greenwashing – Vision Group for Sidmouth
But should we be highlighting eveyone’s dash to fossil fuels all of a sudden? Deutsche Welle thinks otherwise in a report out this week:
Will war fast-track the energy transition?
The sudden push to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and oil could trigger a paradigm shift to clean energy sources that might be quickly scaled up.
To both minimize Russian fossil fuel dependence and mitigate climate change, German environmental think tank the Wuppertal Institute this week released a study, commissioned by Greenpeace, that shows how heating can be completely run on renewable energies by 2035. The key will be to substitute electric heat pumps, powered by renewables, for gas and oil heating systems often fed by Russian fossil fuels...
For environmental activist and author Bill McKibben, more of Europe could transition much sooner to heat pumps. “President Biden should immediately invoke the Defense Production Act to get American manufacturers to start producing electric heat pumps in quantity, so we can ship them to Europe where they can be installed in time to dramatically lessen Putin’s power,” he wrote this week.
But, then, Peter Lilley is no Bill McKibben: