David Toke rejects the counsel of despair to drill
As I write, the oil crisis looks progressively worse as a result of the pointless war that the USA and Israel launched against Iran. We’ve had oil and gas crises regularly since the 1970s – in 1973, 1979, then 2007-2012, 2022, and now 2026. Yet the call is always the same – make us ever more dependent on fossil fuels through more drilling and chase fantasies about nuclear power which don’t materialise. Meanwhile, it is left up to independent forces to come up with real options for avoiding fossil fuel dependence. The establishment then adopts them reluctantly, knowing that a lot of party- political donations come from the oil and gas industry.
The wrong debate
Debate today in the UK is dominated by an argument about whether there should be more UK oil and gas drilling. This is at best irrelevant to costs faced by UK energy consumers and at worst merely puts resources into fossil fuel extraction when they ought to be going to fossil fuel reduction. As readers will know, we pay internationally driven oil and gas prices. Ironically, the Conservative/Reform/Scottish Labour politicians who are keenest on more oil and gas drilling propose to reduce ‘windfall profits’ taxes on oil and gas profits, thus taking money out of consumers’ pockets. Yet, according to Simon Cran-McGreehin from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU): “Official UK oil and gas statistics and projections suggest that 93% of the oil and gas that is likely to be produced from the North Sea has already been extracted”. We need to focus on getting away from oil and gas. But Conservatives and Reform seem hell-bent on cancelling Government support for new renewables, heat pumps and Electric Vehicles. In fact, the lesson of history is that past oil crises have spurred technological development of green options as an alternative.
Past oil crises
The oil crises of the 1970s powered the inception of the modern wind power industry. This was started by grassroots activists in Denmark, and soon modern wind turbines were given a market in California. The technology proliferated throughout the world thereafter.
The next oil crisis, which began in 2007, boosted state efforts to promote renewable energy, especially through the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive of 2009. It also marked the emergence of solar PV as a mass market technology on the back of the new European market for solar PV created by state incentives. The costs of the technology began a rapid decline, which continues today. This oil crisis also saw the birth of the modern Electric Vehicle. The Tesla Roadster began production in 2008 and the Nissan Leaf was first manufactured in 2009. Then there was an oil and gas crisis in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
One thing that did not happen, though much predicted, was a ‘nuclear renaissance’. This has been trumpeted for 20 years, yet now nuclear power generates a much lower proportion of world electricity than it did then.
Boosting renewables
So what technological leaps will this latest oil crisis generate? Certainly, the crisis will make wind power, solar PV, batteries, heat pumps and Electric Vehicles essential means to help mitigate the effects of the coming economic cataclysm. Without solar and wind power, the European gas crisis of 2022-23 would have been all the worse. This 2026 oil and gas crisis would be all the worse without the amount of solar PV, wind power, batteries and heat pumps that are in operation.
Ed Miliband has made a start by organising the issue of new contracts for wind and solar projects, giving some support for heat pumps and EVs, and also putting into effect new housing building standards which encourage green energy in new homes. But much more radical measures need to be adopted to ensure rapid increases in electricity consumption to replace oil and gas consumption. A lot needs to be done to dramatically increase the shift towards heat pumps. This can best be achieved by reducing the price of electricity. Miliband started a move towards taking some of the green levies away from being loaded on electricity bills. This electricity price reduction needs to be accelerated so that people will see more benefits in heat pumps relative to gas boilers. We also need much more vigorous encouragement of EVs. An obvious target should be scrapping the planned tax on EV mileage coming in in 2028, and the motor vehicle tax on new EVs should be scrapped. We also need a great deal more support for heat networks powered by heat pumps.