In any case, when journalists made that sort âonly X yearsâ comment they forgot a few words. The way the oil industry works is that it talks about proven reserves and in particular commercially viable reserves. There are two main factors that some into play when talking about commercially viable reserves: the cost of extraction and the market price of the oil/gas. As oil reserves deplete often stimulation techniques are used to extract more gas/oil but it is only done if the market price is good enough. This is significant: if the market price is good enough. So the life of oil fields gets reappraised over the years and who does this?
It is the relevant experts who do it, based on the state of the reservoir, advances in technology and changes in oil price, not the journalists or politicians.
Comments like
fail to see this. And they donât get the irony, they are asking for government intervention, subsidies, increased taxes, handouts and so on and so forth.
How much are the carbon emissions of legacy fossil fuels priced in at the moment?
Iâm slightly sympathetic to the marginal preferred costs of gas (good graph here) - actually no screw it, weâre facing an existential crisis that threatens the future of the planet, of civilisation, of countless species, the future well being of children yet to be born etc etc etc⊠The UK government should be doing a Manhattan/Apollo level project and pushing for solar panels on every single new residential/commercial building and filling our seas with turbines PLUS looking for next valley to flood for hydro storage etc etc
Polite contract negotiations arenât going to save the world. Itâs like fiddling whilst Rome burns.
It shouldnât be every new roof. Thereâs a semi âecoâ development near me, one house has the solar panel facing south, the next one north. Unless of course you legislated that houses had to be designed to make effective use of solar irradiation. But that would require thinking from government.
YES! Letâs do that. I think it should be every new roof. Letâs make new builds have roof layouts aligned (in terms of pitch and direction) to achieve the maximum theoretical solar EV potential for their location. I donât mind whether thatâs enforced within building regs or planning regs - Iâm flexible.
As someone whoâs lucky enough to be looking into rooftop solar at the moment, I have absolutely no doubt that in the future - alongside building efficiency ratings - weâll see houses on the market also having a âsolar potentialâ rating for their roofs and the property price being affected proportionately.
Forcing builders to have the most optimised roofs for solar could lead to some innovative designs for new builds and the slums of the future todayâs new build estates.
e: Sorry, I know Iâve gone a bit off topic and turned this into a rant about permanent scars being pushed on this green and pleasant land but Iâm down the rabbit hole now and enjoying the content from this Twitter account too - https://twitter.com/NewHomeQuality1
Yes, but letâs look at the problem holistically. We need to have good design, from insulation and solar panels, to HVAC and heat pumps. Further, we shouldnât keep expanding into the country side, we should build integrated cities, that have walkable neighbourhoods, not dependence on cars. This stuff is expensive, and would need planning, foresight and political will, both from the government and populace.
There is still so much low hanging fruit though, such as not having doors on fridges in supermarkets. That alone requires 1% of UK energy production. Insulation on homes, get an EPC report that says you have no roof insulation, but you are still allowed to sell it? Madness.
In summary: cheap energy via US Shale oil and gas is not the saviour for Europe this winter:
Ben Dell, chief executive of private equity group Kimmeridge Energy, said the shale industryâs investors on Wall Street would not give their blessing to a big production increase, preferring a low-production, high-profit model.
âInvestors generally donât want shale companies to pursue a growth model,â he said. âThe capital availability is extremely limited.â
In the past output was what they chased, profits would come later. That all changed when oil in the US fell into negative territory.
But i disagree with the belief that they wont increase output. If they can export it they will start to increase output but i donât think the infrastructure is there for big exports.
