UK starts new licensing round for oil and gas exploration ‘despite climate fears’, says ITV News

North Sea gas rig [image credit: safety4sea.com]

Climate obsessives think importing energy from anywhere and everywhere is somehow better than producing it at home. Economics and geo-politics don’t get considered. They expect to wake up one day and find fuel power is history, despite it providing about 80% of the world’s energy. Time to abandon the dismal mythology.
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The UK has started a new licencing round for oil and gas exploration despite the government’s pledge to achieving its net zero target, says ITV News.

Business and Energy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has insisted the move will boost both the UK’s economy and energy security.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has now begun the 33rd round of offshore licences, which are being made available for sectors of the North Sea – known as blocks – with the NSTA estimating that over 100 may be granted.

Shetland Island residents must earn £104,000 to avoid fuel poverty next year, warns official

Sullom Voe oil and gas terminal [image credit: shetland.org]

The climate hasn’t got colder, so something else has to take the blame. How did a place on the doorstep of various gas and oil fields, and even touted as ideal for wind power, get itself into such a state?
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Some 96% of residents of the Shetland Islands could find themselves in fuel poverty by next April, according to a local official, who issued a stark warning about the future of the archipelago, reports Sky News.

Despite Scotland supplying much of the UK’s gas, islanders must earn a salary of £104,000 to avoid slipping into fuel poverty, according to the Leader of Shetland Islands Council.

The estimated average energy cost on the Shetland Islands will rise to £10,300 per household by next April, with the vast majority of residents spending 10% of their income on energy bills.

How governments and the cult of net zero wrecked the energy market – Telegraph

The headline says it all. Despite claiming ‘The original error was not with the science of climate change’ – well, we disagree there – the article charts the real course of the current energy fiasco quite well. Climate obsession has a lot to answer for.
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Putin may be the proximate cause of this crisis, but the reason we were vulnerable was an intentional policy to crush fossil fuel investment, says The Telegraph.
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And now? Well, now, as “big oil” might say: “We just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face.”

Europe needs gas. It is pleading for gas.

Instead of flying media to gas fields to court capital, the oil and gas men are being flown to the capitals of Europe and begged to invest.

Wind Turbine Collapses: ‘Leaking Oil Everywhere!’

Example of product type used by the wind industry

So much for ‘keeping it in the ground’, as climate obsessives like to intone to anyone who will listen to their anti-oil rants.
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On Sunday, puzzled Swedish journalist and political commentator Peter Imanuelsen tweeted the news: “A wind power turbine just collapsed in Sweden”, says CNS News.

“People are being warned to keep their distance because…it is now leaking oil everywhere! “Wait, these “green” wind turbines use oil???”

West reaping consequences of “demonising oil and gas companies” says Qatari minister

Equating climate obsessions to facts is getting the offending governments into no end of economic trouble, which may well get even worse if current energy policies aren’t revised. They shouldn’t need to be told by visiting politicians that the wind and sun aren’t reliable energy sources.
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Qatar is willing to help the UK with its cost of living crisis, the country’s energy minister has said – but he also criticised western countries who spent years “demonising oil and gas companies”, says Sky News.

In an exclusive interview, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said that years of pushing for a rapid end to fossil fuel production and calling producers the “bad guys” had contributed to the current crisis.

He told Sky News that the root causes of the recent increase in gas and energy prices in Europe and beyond could be traced back many years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Aramco dethrones Apple as the world’s most valuable company

Anti-fossil fuel types should ask themselves who’s doing all the buying and why. Whoever it may be, i.e. most countries, they don’t want to sit around waiting for renewables — which themselves need renewing every 20 years or so — to take over in some imaginary far distant future.
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Saudi Aramco reported a net profit of $39.5 billion for the first quarter of the year on the back of increasingly strong crude oil prices, reports OilPrice.com.

The figure represented an 82-percent annual improvement and a record quarterly profit for Aramco since it went public three years ago.

Exxon Values Carbon Capture Market At $4 Trillion By 2050

A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money – or not? Where is this finance supposed to come from, and how is so-called ‘carbon’ capture supposed to be an investment opportunity? Try making an oil tanker without fossil fuels.
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Exxon made a bold announcement on April 19th, 2022 says the Carbon Herald.

The oil major estimates that the carbon capture and storage market would be valued at $4 trillion by 2050.

The figure comes to 60% of the $6.5 trillion market for the oil and gas sector the company predicts by mid-century.

New inquiry into how the UK can (?) cut fossil fuels and accelerate net zero transition

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

Re-writing the laws of physics is not an option. The only thing accelerating at the moment is the downward spiral into energy poverty for ever larger numbers of the population, in manic pursuit of the mystical ‘net zero’ climate target. Another trip to cloud cuckoo land beckons for these blinkered climate obsessives.
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The Environmental Audit Committee announced the inquiry in response to the rise in fossil fuel prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued speculation on what will be included in the government’s Energy Security Strategy, reports Energy Live News.

The Committee believes protecting consumers from high fossil fuel prices and fuel poverty while ensuring security of supply and continued progress towards net zero is critical for any strategy on energy security to be successful.

Ukraine: The Guardian seizes another chance to press for less fossil fuels

Germany’s main gas supplier: Russia

Headline: ‘Is Putin’s Ukraine invasion about fossil fuels?’ asks The Guardian. Then says ‘no’, but raises its usual climate alarm topic anyway.
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The continent has grown over-reliant on Russian gas – but Putin knows he is vulnerable to Europe cleaning up its energy sector.
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Is this really another war over fossil fuels?

No. Energy resources are not the focus of this threatened conflict.

Vladimir Putin has a long history of territorial ambitions in former Soviet nations, which he made explicit this week, and of attempts to exert political control over Ukraine.

Putin is said by supporters to be concerned over the possibility of Nato expansion, although many analysts say this is a pretext.

Neom: What’s the green truth behind a planned eco-city in the Saudi desert?

Who is this supposedly green all-renewable energy virtue signalling mega-project actually for, some are asking. The BBC attempts to look behind the curtain, while the Saudis confirm they want to keep selling oil until there either isn’t any more to sell or there are no buyers.
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Glow-in-the dark beaches. Billions of trees planted in a country dominated by the desert. Levitating trains. A fake moon. A car-free, carbon-free city built in a straight line over 100 miles long in the desert.

These are some of the plans for Neom – a futuristic eco-city that is part of Saudi Arabia’s pivot to go green. But is it all too good to be true?

Neom claims to be a “blueprint for tomorrow in which humanity progresses without compromise to the health of the planet”.

Six new UK oil and gas fields to be fired up as Sunak takes action

Dismay for renewable energy fanatics, but common sense from the perspective that about 80% of total UK energy use is from fuel burning. Increasing the reliance on imports while ignoring available energy at home would be expensive and pointless.
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Six North Sea oil and gas fields are set to be given the green light this year, according to newspaper reports this morning.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has asked Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, to fast-track the licenses amid Treasury fears over the economic impact of making the UK a net zero carbon emitter by 2050, says AGCC news.

Joe Biden has issued more oil drilling permits than Donald Trump, despite gushing climate change promises

Oil extraction [image credit: ewg.org]

Politicking turns out to be more important than supposed climate ‘ambition’. As one observer commented: “Objectively, he over-promised and under-delivered”. Claims to be trying to save the planet from unthinkable climate nasties – which lacked credibility anyway – are left looking even more threadbare.
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Joe Biden issued more oil and gas drilling permits than Donald Trump in his first year as president despite pledging to halt the practice as part of ambitious climate change goals, says The Telegraph.

When he entered the White House, Mr Biden identified climate change as one of four priorities and promised a dramatic reversal after the tenure of Mr Trump, who frequently mocked climate science.

However, federal data shows the Biden administration approved 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first year, far outpacing the Trump administration’s 12-month total of 2,658.

The yawning gulf between Mr Biden’s policies on oil, gas and coal extraction and his initial promises has threatened to throw his climate credentials into disarray.

As demand rises, activists demand an immediate end to oil production

Demand for energy on a global scale is set to increase substantially in the coming years, as this article points out. So-called activists need to activate their brains a bit more. Unless they hope to suppress demand permanently in some ultra-draconian manner, the current system has to continue unless or until something better takes its place, which won’t be any time soon as demand now exceeds 100 million barrels per day.
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Europe may be in the grips of an energy shortage and forced to reopen retired coal plants to cope but climate activists insist that it is time to part company with fossil fuels, the sooner, the better says OilPrice.com.

According to them, this is a simple solution to the world’s emission problems. “It is overflowing with too much carbon. The world can’t absorb any more,” said Tom Goldtooth, an activist and the executive director of the North American Indigenous Environmental Network on the sidelines of COP26, as quoted by CNBC. “The simple solution, that we are still demanding, is the world has to turn the valve off.”

Yet the solution of turning off the valve appears to not be as simple as it may sound. Goldtooth is neither the first nor the last activist to call for an immediate end to oil and gas production.

UK floats ‘climate compatibility’ test for new oil and gas drilling

Having put the climate millstone round its neck, the UK government tries to avoid totally sabotaging a productive industry, partly by pointing to its net importer status.
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The UK government says new oil and gas licensing can fit with its climate commitments. Campaigners, citing the International Energy Agency, disagree says Climate Home News.

The UK government has launched a consultation on “climate compatibility” tests for new rounds of North Sea oil and gas drilling licences, ignoring calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Calls for ‘reasoned debate’ over UK oil and gas future

North Sea oil platform [image credit: matchtech.com]

Getting a reasoned debate out of ‘net-zero’ obsessed political leaders is going to be a tall order, when their entire energy policy is based on extreme climate dogma and decrees of what they intend to do, having taken the ‘advice’ (orders?) of the Climate Change Committee. Asking for energy plans that make sense seems unlikely to strike a chord with those in power.
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Business leaders have written a joint open letter to party leaders calling for a “reasoned debate” over the future of oil and gas in the UK, reports BBC News.

The call comes after plans for the controversial Cambo Oil field off Shetland were put on hold.

The letter says any statements calling for an end to new exploration have shaken investor confidence, placing tens of thousands of jobs at risk.

It warns politicians against creating a “hostile investment environment”.

The 800 million barrel oilfield getting Boris Johnson in trouble

North Sea oil platform [image credit: matchtech.com]

Politics versus climate dogma. Oil products are still in high demand, so blocking one project to make some sort of point wouldn’t make any difference to UK consumption levels. Recent events showed the chaos that can easily happen when fuel isn’t readily available at filling stations. But climate obsessives will drone on endlessly about such things anyway.
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The planned Cambo oilfield in the U.K.’s North Sea, thought to hold 800 million barrels of oil, faced significant pressure in the lead up to COP26, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared hypocritical in his promise for a clean energy transition while giving the go-ahead on a new oil exploration project.

Following the global climate summit, will Cambo go ahead? — asks OilPrice.com.

The proposed exploration would take place in the Cambo oil field, located around 125km west of the Shetland Islands, at a depth of between 1,050m to 1,100m underwater.

Johnson continues to back the project, stating that as licensing approval took place in 2001, well before recent considerations for new exploration licensing restrictions, there is no reason to cancel a project that will support the U.K.’s energy security in the coming years.

Coal And Oil Continue Domination: Unexpected Demand Creates Global Energy Havoc

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When the energy going gets tough…coal, gas and oil get going.

PA Pundits - International

By Vijay Raj Jayaraj~

Coal is no longer the king. Era of Oil is over. Our economies will be Carbon neutral.

These are some of the common claims that you might have heard or read in the mainstream media.

Many people truly believe that our economies are being decarbonized and getting rid of the dirty coal and evil oil. This is because they have been informed so.

However, the ground reality is strikingly different. Not only are fossil fuels still leading the energy mix, their prospects are stronger than ever.

The post-pandemic economic recovery has sent the fuel demand skyrocketing across the globe. Coal and Oil–the two most used energy resources are in high demand and their prices have touched record highs.

Unfortunately, many nations were caught off-guard, partly because of the unexpected pace of economic recovery and partly due to misleading projections about coal and oil demand.

Early…

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Greenpeace loses North Sea Vorlich field legal challenge

North Sea oil platform [image credit: matchtech.com]

Shouting ‘climate’ in court doesn’t guarantee legal victories. Appeal to the Supreme Court pending.
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Environmental group Greenpeace has lost its case against the UK government over a North Sea oil field permit, reports BBC News.

Permission to drill the Vorlich site off Aberdeen was given to BP in 2018.

Greenpeace argued in Scotland’s highest civil court there had been “a myriad of failures in the public consultation” and the permit did not consider the climate impacts of burning fossil fuel.

The Court of Session ruling means operations will continue at the field. Greenpeace plans to appeal.

The UK government welcomed the outcome.

Eliminating Crude Oil Is Like Jumping Out Of A Plane Without A Chute

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Having an energy ‘safety net’ may sound like a plausible idea but suggestions tend to run up against the laws of physics and other practical roadblocks, such as cost and sheer inadequacy.

PA Pundits - International

By Ronald Stein ~

The world, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are proposing banishment of fossil fuels and are focused on reducing emissions from fossil fuels at any costs, but a safety net of having a viable replacement should be in place before we jump off that cliff.

Banning oil imports, fracking, and ceasing oil production to focus on the symbolic renewable energy as the fossil fuels replacement is fooling ourselves as that “clean energy” is only electricity generated from breezes and sunshine.

Before the healthy and wealthy countries abandon all crude oil fracking and exploration that will eliminate the supply chain to refineries and put an end to that manufacturing sector, we should have a safety net to live without the crude oil fuels and derivatives that are manufactured from that energy source. Without any clones to access everything we get from crude oil; the termination…

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Greenland ditches oil exploration efforts after 50 years of failure

Kvanefjeld, Greenland [image credit: polarconnection.org]

Not too hard to give up what you haven’t got anyway? Its leaders now favour renewables, but with up to twenty hours of darkness in December they won’t get much winter help from solar power. At a guess they won’t be dispensing with their diesel generators any time soon.
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Greenland is abandoning its ambition of 50 years of becoming an oil-producing nation, suspending its oil exploration strategy because of environmental and climate concerns, reports OilPrice.com.

Greenland, an autonomous territory part of Denmark, has been trying to find oil reserves for 50 years, without success, and it now considers that the climate concerns are far greater than the potential benefits of becoming an oil producer, the government of Greenland says.

According to one estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Greenland’s offshore area, East Greenland Rift Basins Province, likely contains a mean estimate of 31.4 billion of barrels equivalent of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids.