The Alternative Green Energy Thread

debitcardmayhem

Interesting from NESO APP now
notice NE England low carbon intensity (imports 13% renewablej
N Scotland high (but 32% renewable)

ed110220

debitcardmayhem said:

Interesting from NESO APP now
notice NE England low carbon intensity (imports 13% renewablej
N Scotland high (but 32% renewable)

Interesting, but I'm not sure how useful breaking up the country into regions like this is, because although there are grid constraints the grid basically functions as a single unit. Eg is it really useful to think of the electricity n Bristol as low emission and that just across the Severn estuary In South Wales as very high, when it's all the same system?

JKenH

BP defies Ed Miliband to reopen North Sea oil field

Energy giant says the site has enough oil and gas to keep it open for another decade

Mike Tholen, of trade body Offshore Energies UK, said: “Redevelopment of decommissioned fields is now a feature of the North Sea as new and innovative technologies make such opportunities possible.

“Looking ahead, the independent Climate Change Committee says the UK will need 13 billion to 15 billion barrels by 2050 come what may. We could produce half of this at home. But at the moment only four billion barrels are on track to be realised, which means imports will have to rise and the UK economy will miss out as jobs and capital move overseas.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/10/bp-defies-miliband-to-reopen-north-sea-oil-field/

If we need oil, and apparently we still do, does it not make sense to produce as much as we can ourselves and benefit from the employment and taxes?

Edit: the benefits could be significant.

“The Climate Change Committee says to get to net zero by 2050 the UK needs 13bn to 15bn barrels of oil and gas equivalent. Today, we’re on track to produce only 4bn of those barrels in the UK, but with the right polices to encourage firms to invest we could unlock another 3bn barrels and meet half our entire needs. This would add £150bn of gross value to the UK economy, on top of £200bn of economic value from current plans.

https://oeuk.org.uk/oeuk-business-outlook-2025-shows-uk-energy-reserves-could-cut-imports-and-boost-growth/

QrizB

Interesting.

Per DUKES the current UK annual primary energy demand is around 165 mtoe, 1.2 billion barrels. So 15 billion barrels is enough to meet the UK's entire primary energy demand for 12.5 years, or roughly half of our total demand from now to 2050.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digest-of-uk-energy-statistics-dukes

michaels

JKenH said:

BP defies Ed Miliband to reopen North Sea oil field

Energy giant says the site has enough oil and gas to keep it open for another decade

Mike Tholen, of trade body Offshore Energies UK, said: “Redevelopment of decommissioned fields is now a feature of the North Sea as new and innovative technologies make such opportunities possible.

“Looking ahead, the independent Climate Change Committee says the UK will need 13 billion to 15 billion barrels by 2050 come what may. We could produce half of this at home. But at the moment only four billion barrels are on track to be realised, which means imports will have to rise and the UK economy will miss out as jobs and capital move overseas.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/10/bp-defies-miliband-to-reopen-north-sea-oil-field/

If we need oil, and apparently we still do, does it not make sense to produce as much as we can ourselves and benefit from the employment and taxes?

Edit: the benefits could be significant.

“The Climate Change Committee says to get to net zero by 2050 the UK needs 13bn to 15bn barrels of oil and gas equivalent. Today, we’re on track to produce only 4bn of those barrels in the UK, but with the right polices to encourage firms to invest we could unlock another 3bn barrels and meet half our entire needs. This would add £150bn of gross value to the UK economy, on top of £200bn of economic value from current plans.

https://oeuk.org.uk/oeuk-business-outlook-2025-shows-uk-energy-reserves-could-cut-imports-and-boost-growth/

Is it clear cut? If we extract those 3bn barrels will that mean someone else doesn't?  Very hard to say. On the one hand it is a rounding error for total demand so unlikely to impact prices but then if prices are unaffected then surely there would be no change in demand and our 3bn would effectively become over supply.

Answer must be somewhere in the middle, extracting those 3bn UK barrels will lead to more fossil fuels being burned overall but not the whole 3bn.

More complicated might be what the UK did with the revenue, if it went on energy efficiency measures in the UK economy it could actually result in a net reduction in greenhouse emissions.

michaels

So I had another thought. Court rulings recently said the emissions from burning hydrocarbons need to be taken into account for planning purposes. Does this mean that where a company has an existing extraction licence they could instead leave the opi in the ground and claim an equivalent carbon credit.

Magnitio

ed110220 said:

debitcardmayhem said:

Interesting from NESO APP now
notice NE England low carbon intensity (imports 13% renewablej
N Scotland high (but 32% renewable)

Interesting, but I'm not sure how useful breaking up the country into regions like this is, because although there are grid constraints the grid basically functions as a single unit. Eg is it really useful to think of the electricity n Bristol as low emission and that just across the Severn estuary In South Wales as very high, when it's all the same system?

The following explanation might help (taken from https://carbonintensity.org.uk)

Cardew

Magnitio said:

ed110220 said:

Interesting, but I'm not sure how useful breaking up the country into regions like this is, because although there are grid constraints the grid basically functions as a single unit. Eg is it really useful to think of the electricity n Bristol as low emission and that just across the Severn estuary In South Wales as very high, when it's all the same system?

The following explanation might help (taken from https://carbonintensity.org.uk)

I didn't think the accuracy of the data was the issue.
I also couldn't see the point of 'breaking the country into regions' The area shown of North Scotland has a population of <1% of UK and, Aberdeen apart, very little heavy industry.

QrizB

ed110220 said:

Interesting, but I'm not sure how useful breaking up the country into regions like this is, ...

Aren't they simply the DNO regions, and therefore the old regional Electricity Board areas?

Cardew

It corresponds to SSE's North Scotland region.