Simon's Blog

Drill Baby Drill or Green God…you decide.

There is a very silly political squabble doing the rounds at the moment in the right wing circles. It involves the granting of new drilling licences to two sectors in British territorial waters. According to the proponents of this action it will somehow solve Britain’s reliance on imported hydrocarbons. Even the slightest examination of the proposals will show that the British oil boom is over and has been for over 20 years. The oil and gas fields left are clearly worth exploiting, there wouldn’t be the noise and furrow about this, but they would do little to resolve the hydrocarbon issues.

The interesting thing about the debate around this is that each side argues the inverse of the other side and end up being just a little silly. They both use special pleading which to me seems a little dubious. For the drill baby drill side they argue that there is still plenty of oil and gas and if only the government stopped taxing the exploitation, and the companies profits, the would be a mini bonana. Yipee. Of course there wouldn’t unless of course you are a shareholder of the oil companies.

On the stop side, the argument is about Britain meeting the 1.5% CO2 target commitments regardless of other considerations. This appears to paint the picture that if the oil and gas was drilled it would have a massive impact on meeting those targets. I am not in any position to discuss this but it seems to me the oil and gas will still extracted from somewhere regardless of whether it comes from the British territorial waters or not which somewhat leaves the objection moot.

For whatever it worth my view is this: If granting the exploitation licence generates income for Britain and much need tax revenues for the government then we should grant the licences. The money raised could be used help the reduction of Britain’s dependency of Hydrocarbon products. The most obvious way would be to increase renewable energy sources such as replacing natural gas with hydrogen in the electric generation system.

Which brings me to that closet green god Donald J. Trump. For someone so opposed to renewable energy he appears to be doing his utmost to encourage their uptake. Thanks to his great efforts in southern Mesopotamia much of SE Asia appears to be installing solar power to replace natural gas electricity generation. He has also illustrated the strategic weaknesses caused by reliance on excessive importation of hydrocarbon products. This means that many countries, Britain included, are developing strategies to reduce this dependence. Even in his own country he is encouraging an ever great expansion of renewable energy sources. I know he pretends he isn’t but Mr. President we can really see what you are upto.

“Judge a man by his actions, not his words.”

Often attributed as a general proverb (Google A.I. – so you judge the validity of the source)

So does this mean I too am now a green god? Has owning an EV for three weeks turned me into some form of zealot? I hope not. For the record I have been studying electrical system since the early 1990’s when we in Britain were still using coal as the base load provider for our electricity generation system. I understood CHP schemes and the need for action on the ever present climate crises. I have been planning to buy an EV for quite a long time but the economics didn’t really add up. However, thanks to the four dimensional chess being played by Donald J. Trump I have decided to take the jump and seriously decarbonised the way that I live. So instead of Donald J. Trump trying to appear as Jesus, sorry medical doctor, he perhaps should have chosen Gaia instead? (You’re welcome Dr. Lovelock)