But the greater factor in the past couple of months has been the UK’s painful exposure to higher oil and gas prices, and thus inflationary pressures. Britain imports 40% of its energy and already has some of the highest electricity prices in the western world.
What a wondrous energy policy we’ve had since 2008 and the Climate Change Act, eh?
We must suffer for Gaia!
We must embrace the cold.
Only then will the planet forgive us.
I personally have become acutely aware about how much energy AI uses and have now reduced my weekly requests for deepfake pictures of Greta Thunberg down to the low hundreds.
But Tim, you want to inflict Stern on top of all that don’t you………
No. *Instead of*. The entire point is that if we change prices, the once, then leave markets to work, the solution will be cheaper, faster, than if we allow the bureaucrats to gurn at us over their slide rules.
Yes, it’s possible to insist that there is no problem that needs solving. But my reckoning is that that ship has sailed. The morons are going to do something. So, might as well recommend what would actually solve the claimed problem and do so efficiently.
Just going all Pigou with Stern numbers would end most of this, though. And that’s replacement, not addition. We’re currently spending above Stern in petrol tax. Solar and wind have subsidies far above Stern and would probably not add up if you applied just that. Fracking would add up. No mandates on heat pumps.
Replace with Pigou. Apply a massive windfall tax to solar and wind to take most of the money back.
WB, if they are already getting us to pay moar tax what makes anyone think they will accept us paying less tax?
See what they are doing to EV vehicle owners to replace the fuel duty they have lost, demonstrating clearly that it isn’t about getting people out of ICE cars and into electric.
Tim, you have drunk the Flavor Aid and surrendered, many of us have not.
As i’ve posted before:
“There is nothing quite so futile as doing efficiently, that which should not be done at all”.
And as I’ve posted before, unless you can convince people that all this Gaia stuff is bollocks, you can’t win. All the efforts to show it’s bollocks haven’t worked yet. 60% of the UK supports Net Zero by 2050 in polling. 77% of the population are concerned about climate change. You’re not going to win on “end this all because it’s not real”.
So until everyone realises it’s bollocks, what’s the least worst thing to do?
We need to present our case that it’s all bollocks. We are not able to becase of media policies. Contra-narrative arguments must not be allowed. As it is, all the one-sided propaganda has only convinced 60%, you say? Surely a few actual facts and a suggestion of corruption would change that. How? Fuctifino.
There are plenty of sceptics writing solid analyses, pointing out various issues, so why isn’t it taking effect?
I think it’s because people have high trust in academia. “Believe the science”. And that’s generally a great thing, if you’re talking maths, physics, chemistry, medicine and biology. Randomised drug trials work.
You also then have the media pushing catastrophe around it, because that’s what sells news channels.
What I think is going to change everything is just that climate science will start to fail. People will notice that the chart keeps going up but there are no signs of Ragnarok anywhere. To me, there’s no 3rd party validation of it. No shifts in where grapes are grown, no extra identifiable deaths, no rise in insurance premiums related to it.
But the fairy tale is so old that we already have decades’ worth of falsified predictions. We also have lots of people pointing out how fake the temperature measurements are. The case for Global Warming is just fraudulent and anyone who takes an interest could find that out in a few hours.
Yes, but most people don’t take that much of an interest. Most people didn’t look into the Covid stats and see it was people in their 80s dying of it. Most people support us hosting the Olympics again, even though economists unilaterally think it’s a bad idea. I remember having to tell people that I knew that no, there wasn’t going to be a nuclear catastrophe because of Y2K.
They mostly watch and read the MSM or get stuff their friends share, a lot of which is utter bollocks. Walk down an average street and see how many supporters of renewables know about the intermittency problem.
The MSM’s goal is getting eyeballs. And scaring people gets that. Caveman brain watches for threats. It’s why the environment took off at the end of the Cold War. They’d spent decades scaring everyone about a nuclear winter, and that was winding down, so they jumped all over it. They don’t want Lomborg saying that it’s really nothing to worry about, even if the IPCC are right.
Many of the people who aren’t convinced, aren’t because their wages (or their welfare cheques) depend on not being convinced.
So attempting to convince them is a vain exercise.
That’s not 70% of people, though. I don’t know what it is. 10-20% maybe?
That’s all utter horseshit.
Polling organisations have long been used to lead the public, not to follow them.
What’s needed to convince the average Joe is a lengthy period of shivering in the dark. Coming to the UK soon – probably within the next two or three winters, unless something changes fairly radically.
“Apply a massive windfall tax to solar and wind to take most of the money back.”
Which of course is Reform policy.
And is one I approve of.
@Tim
My reckoning is that that ship is about to be torpedoed by HMS Reality. The only question is how many of us go down with the ship.
We ought to look at the failure of climate disaster predictions and claim the problem is over, fixed by bold action. Then dismantle the regulations which are stopping us having cheap energy. Put as much propaganda into that narrative as was put into the pack of lies. Oh, and we can quote the IPCC latest report in support of the unlikelihood of a climate disaster.
Fear of global warming / eco-catastrophe is a hysterical reaction to the turn of the millenium, entirely confined to the Christian West.
Last time this nonsense happened it took until about 1037 to entirely peter out.
Thanks Philip. I hadn’t thought of that one!!!
Was there really any significant widespread fear of the year 1000? Far as I know, historians think this was just another myth about the “Dark Ages” or early medievals that developed later, rather than mainstream part of the culture at the time.
There are parallels with Tulip Mania, ~1635.
Britain imports 40% of its energy
Before breakfast.
Transport?
Heating?
Industry?
Yes this is the “energy” figure, not the “electricity” figure. So includes transport, heating fuels etc. Measured in mtoe, millions of tonnes of oil equivalent. Comes from the DUKES data set. Transport is the big one.
It’s been about the 40% mark for a while. Used to be 50%+ in the 1970s. You can see on a graph the impact of North Sea oil that made us a net exporter until 2004, except, temporarily, after the Piper Alpha disaster (slightly outdated): https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04046/
More up to date figures in this pdf: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68dbe477ef1c2f72bc1e4c4d/DUKES_2025_Chapters_1-7.pdf
As of December 2025, UK crude oil production was reported at approximately 597,468 barrels per day
United Kingdom Oil Consumption was reported at 1,325.100 Barrel/Day th in Dec 2024
So you import 55% of your oil.
UK produced gas still supplies a substantial portion of national demand. Based on NSTA statistics, UK domestic production accounted for 43% of annual gas supply between 2020 and 2024.
So you import 57% of your natural gas.
“It’s been about the 40% mark for a while.”
Gas/oil 55-57%. What am I missing?
What you are missing is nuclear where we import a relatively tiny amount from France whenever the French have a surplus of electricity generated over the amount consumed domestically [No, it is not at all dependent on UK supply-demand balance, National Grid will just shut off some gas-fired stations when France wants to export electricity).
Also (but it is less significant) hydroelectricity.
Imports are around 40% on a sunny windy day when wind and solar are generating at or near maximum.
Wind varies between 0.2% of *electricity* demand and 60%, averaging 23%, solar from nil to 50-ish%, averaging 6%, “biomass” (burning waste and generating CO2 so very anti-green) varies from 1% to 10%, average 7%.
The reason why the UK has high electricity prices is Red Ed – the electricity produced by CCGTs costs half the average electricity price [British Gas tells its prices per kWh and electricity is FOUR times the price of gas, CCGTs are more than 50% efficient so gas-produced electricity is less than twice the price of gas which leads to the undeniable conclusion that other electricity costs more than twice as much as that generated by CCGTs]
It’s not all about electricity production, about 3 mtoe of bioenergy is used in transport (see DUKES table 1.1), mainly road transport but some in air. Standard grade petrol in the UK is now E10, ie contains up to 10% ethanol. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e10-petrol-explained
No, it isn’t all about electricity production but Gamecock asked what he was missing. Ethanol in petrol is minor (many cars can only use E5 not E10, petrol consumption is only two-thirds that of diesel, quite a lot of imported oil is used to produce chemicals: plastics, artificial fibres). Your figure would make ethanol <2% of energy which verges on a rounding error.
2024 figures from DUKES Table 1.1, in mtoe, skipping some minor categories like coal and ignoring effects of stock changes or marine bunkers:
Production 95 (primary oils 33, natural gas 30, bioenergy + waste 14, primary electricity 18)
Imports 139 (primary oils 52, petroleum products 35, natural gas 39, bioenergy + waste 7, electricity 4)
Exports 64 (primary oils 31, petroleum products 21, natural gas 10, bioenergy + waste 1, electricity 1)
Net imports 75 (primary oils 21, petroleum products 14, natural gas 29, bioenergy + waste 6, electricity 3)
Total supply 169 (primary oils 55, petroleum products 12, natural gas 59, bioenergy + waste 20, primary electricity + net electricity imports 21)
These data do give the 44% import dependency claimed in the writeup.
I think the big thing you’re missing is the 18 mtoe of primary electricity, which is about 19% of UK energy production and slightly over 10% of UK energy supply. That’s nuclear generation plus wind/solar/hydro, which all counts as domestic (for DUKES accounting, imported uranium is not treated the same way as imported fossil fuels). That’s somewhat offset by net imports of 3 mtoe of electricity from Europe via the interconnector cables.
The other thing you’re missing is bioenergy and waste, which is another 20 mtoe of supply (12% of the total) and that only includes 6 mtoe of net imports. So not as high an import dependency as fossil fuels.
Combining primary oils + petroleum products + natural gas would give 126 mtoe total supply (74% of UK total) of which 65 mtoe is net imports and 63 mtoe is domestic production (the missing. 2 mtoe is due to stock changes and marine bunkers). So as you identified, import dependency for fossil fuels is over 50%.
Thx, Anon. That explains it.
Addendum: The oil/gas production numbers for UK surprised me. With you producing 55-57% domestically, WTF does Miliband give a shit about getting a little more from North Sea? It makes it all the more bizarre.