'Only ones who benefit from more drilling are energy firms - and Rishi Sunak'
Rishi Sunak ’s plan to wring the last drops of oil and gas from the North Sea will do nothing to lower our energy bills or provide energy security.
Here’s why - The price we pay for fossil fuels is dictated by the global market. We have no say or control in this. That’s why we paid ten times more for our gas in last winter’s energy crisis, even though half of it came from our own North Sea.
Unless Sunak ends this absurdity no amount of fossils fuels made here can affect the price we pay for fossil fuels and therefore our energy bills. Britain’s energy insecurity is actually about price not supply - the world has no shortage of fossil fuels.
The only people who will benefit from more drilling are the oil and gas companies and Sunak - whose family company signed a $1.5bn contract with BP just before his shock announcement. Sunak’s is right about one thing - the energy we use in Britain should be made here. It makes sense, but the only way to do it is through green energy. What’s left in the North Sea is a fraction of what we need, and just can’t meet our needs.
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In contrast we have enough green energy to power Britain many times over, it will never run out and there is no global market setting the price for it - we get to do that. This is the only way we can actually lower our energy bills and create energy security.
Energy bills are likely to remain high (Getty Images)There’s a clear economic argument for this. Investing in fossil fuels doesn’t make business sense. I’ve published research showing that for every pound spent on green energy, we get 2.5 times as many jobs and twice the GDP growth that we get from investing the same sum in fossil fuels.
Sunak knows this too, Parliament’s own OBR told him just last week that sticking with fossil fuels will cost our economy twice as much as moving to green energy. The economic case for green energy is enormous and based in fact not fiction. It should not be skewed by politics.
Why else would the USA, China and the EU be making huge investments in green energy? It’s not out of charity. They’re doing it because of the economic growth and secure jobs they know it will bring. And we are falling behind. It’s reckless and venal beyond words to behave this way in the teeth of an incredible climate crisis on the one hand and an incredible economic opportunity on the other. Sunak will impoverish our country and strip all credibility from us on the word stage - we already see that happening now.
Harnessing this opportunity is easy.
First we need to get to 100% green electricity on the grid. We can do that in just ten years with no public money - I’ll repeat that, no public money. Onshore wind and solar power are the fastest, cleanest and cheapest forms of new energy we can build - they need no financial support. All they need is a level playing field in the planning system, starting with the removal of the Tories’ near decade long ban onshore wind.
Right wing politicians and media are spinning a false narrative that we can’t afford the green energy transition, the truth is exactly the opposite. It makes great economic sense to move to green energy and no sense to invest any of our time and money in new fossil fuels. The Tory ban on onshore wind has already cost every British family nearly £200 a year on their energy bills, crashed an entire industry and cost the country well-paid jobs.
Second we need to replace fossil fuels in our gas grid. We have the opportunity to create an entire new industry here. Sunak’s plan to ban gas boilers and replace them with heat pumps is simple economic and environmental madness. It’s not been remotely thought through. They’re expensive to install, at about £8k per house and expensive to run, adding about 50% to household energy bills. We’ll need to scrap millions of appliances and the gas grid. And generate three times more electricity than we do now to power our homes - and upgrade the grid to deliver it. The total cost of a national heat pump program is £300 Billion. And at today’s prices, £7 billion added to our energy bills every year.
We have an alternative, simply change the gas in the grid, replace fossil gas with green gas and keep our appliances and heating systems as they are. We can make all the green gas we need from the grass that grows here in abundance. This new Green Gas industry will create 160,000 jobs and add £15 billion to rural economies up and down the country. And provide a transition for farmers. For one sixth of the cost of the move to heat pumps.
The combination of green electricity and gas made right here in Britain, from a source that never runs out, is what we need. It makes great economic sense, will provide actual energy security, permanently lower bills, end fuel poverty and make sure we never again have an energy crisis that sees our bills quadruple.
We’ll also get millions of well-paid forever jobs. The fact that it’s also a big step towards getting to Net Zero and therefore fighting the climate crisis... well that’s just the icing on the cake. Sunak knows all of this, his choice is political and personal - a desperate attempt to get elected, by demonising the green economy and the people that argue for it like me. All the while people across Britain suffer from higher bills, pollution and extreme weather.
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The Tories are living in a fantasy world, where truth, logic and fact have no bearing on policy, this latest move from Sunak is the clearest example yet. It goes against all that we know, science, economics, national interest, even simple common sense. A Green Britain is the answer. Don’t let the Tory party tell you otherwise.
* Dale Vince hosts the Zerocarbonista Podcast - new episodes each Friday.
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