Hunderte von Konservativen erteilte Nordseelizenzen haben „bisher nur Gas für 36 Tage gefördert“

The argument that we should be exploiting North Sea oil further is a silly one at best.

There isn’t much left, it’s now much more difficult to extract than previously (making it more expensive to extract – therefore NOT reducing cost for consumers) and it locks in a dependency that means we would require a larger dependancy on global oil supplies just as such supplies become more unsustainable.

It’s such a poorly considered argument to say „drill, baby, drill“ when now is economically the time to be investing in alternatives.

Problem is you get the equipment setup and the people trained. You decide it is too expensive so you moth ball the equipment and lay off the highly trained personnel. Then a few years later you decide hey you know what we actually do need it, so you spend money to get the equipment back up to good running condition. You then try find all those experienced people you fired a few years back, who have all found work in other more stable industries. The only way to entice them back is with bigger salaries..etc

It’s called the Yo-Yo effect.

They have the potential to produce an equivalent of 6 months of UK gas consumption, but acknowledging that gas doesn’t instantly come out the ground as soon as a licence is issued makes a less sensationalist headline.

Is the North Sea a bottomless well of oil and gas? No. Does that mean we should willingly forgo extracting that which can be economically extracted, creating/sustaining jobs and providing revenue for the exchequer? Also no.

The current propaganda push to pretend we shouldn’t drill for what oil and gas there is is like trying to tell someone they shouldn’t pick up the tenner on the ground in front of them because there’s only 1. It’s completely nonsensical.