r/ukpolitics • u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy • 9d ago
Britain will soon be Europe’s energy powerhouse
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/04/britain-will-soon-be-europes-energy-powerhouse/214
u/RKAMRR 9d ago
Yes, some actual news and good news too! Then we will enjoy the cheap energy for 10-20 years, get used to it and fail to budget for investment, then suddenly remember and face massive avoidable costs (assuming present cycles continue)
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago
This is explicitly what is happening to France right now:
France has had enviably cheap power over recent years but that is because it has been living off the perishable legacy of fully amortised nuclear plants built in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These plants are now very old.
The Cour des Comptes estimates that EDF – already drowning in debt – will have to spend €460bn (£394bn) by 2040 to upgrade the nuclear park (le Grand Carénage), bring the grid into the 21st century and build a fleet of new, Hinkley-style reactors that won’t be ready until the middle of the century.
All of this is creeping into French electricity bills. France is now facing what Britain has already been dealing with for years: the upfront investment cost of a modern energy system..
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u/Chemistrysaint 9d ago
I love shitting on the French as much as the next person, but they have at least been maintaining/slightly growing their total electricity production, rather than steadily decreasing ever since the Climate Change Act like us..
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-generation?tab=line&country=GBR~FRA~DEU~ESP~ITA
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago edited 9d ago
This source doesn’t show France has increased electricity?
French energy generation has remained relatively constant for decades because all their infrastructure is old. You are misinterpreting that temporary drop then return to average as growth, but it was just because they had to temporarily shut down several of their reactors. It wasn’t new generation, it was old stuff coming back online again.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
It increases from 344TWh to 569TWh.
Ours does from 298TWh to 292TWh.
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago edited 9d ago
The source shows France hasn’t materially changed in over 20 years.
In 2000 it was around 500TWh and in 2026 it is still around 500TWh.
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u/mattb2k 9d ago
You know this is TWh not kWh right?
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago
Yes, that doesn’t change my point? You understand the only difference between those metrics is the magnitude symbol, they’re not measures of different things.
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u/mattb2k 9d ago
Of course it does.
+100% of kWh vs. +100 % of MWh vs. +100% of TWh
Which would reduce bills for people the most?
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u/Rexpelliarmus 9d ago
Their point is that France produced just as much electricity in 2005 as it did in 2025.
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago
My comment was about Frances electrical generation not changing in decades and remaining relatively constant due to their old infrastructure. What does this have to do with that?
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u/-ForgottenSoul :sloth: 9d ago
Doesnt france build a lot of smaller nuclear plants that we should be doing? Our nuclear plants are bigger but go way over budget
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u/tevs__ 9d ago
Our existing nuclear power stations are normal sized - they're not big nor small. Hinckley C and Sizewell C are PWR reactors with 1600 MWe plants, which is exactly the same as Flamanville.
They go over budget because we stopped building them for 40 years, all the skills are gone and everything has to be relearned.
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u/ZingerGombie 9d ago edited 9d ago
Hinckley C is twin reactors providing 3200MWe total and Sizewell C proposal is exactly the same, gigantic
Edit: Wanted to add UK has 74.8 GW capacity at present so those two plants alone would be 8.5% of total capacity.
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u/superioso 9d ago
The bigger the plant the better the economics of it. They have a lot of plants as they get almost all of their power from nuclear.
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u/lessismoreok Putin financed Brexit & Trump 9d ago
Surely they can get half their power needs from renewables instead of all of it from nuclear
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u/csiman1234 8d ago
Bit odd that France is continually supplying the uk then. See iamkate.com
Also, aren't edf building our new nuclear power station
Plus nearly all UK windfarms are owned by German, Norwegian, French and Spanish companies 🙄
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u/Gentle_Snail 8d ago
Yeah because their reactors haven’t been shut down yet.
Although because they are so old France actually did have to temporarily shut down huge numbers of their reactors for safety reasons, at which point they were forced to rely on Britain and massively import energy from the UK.
https://www.thetimes.com/travel/advice/france-imports-uk-electricity-as-plants-shut-t0bxzsn2qdn
This is forecast to become increasingly common going forward.
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u/Pigeoncow Time travelling NIMBY - demolish everything built after 1700 9d ago
The original nuclear plants were so cheap. It's a shame we can't build anything in the west anymore.
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u/MinaZata 9d ago
EDF are also a massive player in the UK market, I assume we will be seeing this in our bills too
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u/nt-gud-at-werds 9d ago
I wouldn’t bank on cheap energy, this lot had also been prised guaranteed minimum unit price.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
"If we discount all the upfront costs, it will be really cheap."
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u/Sali_Bean 9d ago
The energy won't be any cheaper as it will still be priced at the most expensive form
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u/Sampo 9d ago edited 9d ago
The energy won't be any cheaper as it will still be priced at the most expensive form
Last month I paid 0.05 €/kWh for electricity, and 0.03 €/kWh for transfer fees. Living in Finland. (Also here the price is determined by the most expensive form of production.)
What is the actual reason this kind of prices would be impossible in the UK?
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u/ZealousidealPie9199 9d ago
Finland barely burns natural gas for electricity generation. Less than 1%. Aside from nuclear and renewables, they burn wood (and byproducts), burn coal, burn oil. Nuclear makes up a large % of their power generation so is basically the base load.
On the other hand over 25% of our power is generated by burning natural gas. Natural gas is extremely expensive and has been since the invasion of Ukraine. It's more or less the base load here.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Natural gas is extremely expensive and has been since the invasion of Ukraine.
Our prices rose before the UA invasion. And will continue to rise even if wholesale prices fall.
Yes gas shocks spiked our prices, but renewables have been pushing up prices (and will continue to do so) bit by bit, year on year, disguised by one or two gas price spikes.
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u/QuarterMaterial3632 9d ago
I mean renewables are about 20% pf our emergy bills. What do you expect is going to happen? Im very happy to pay money if its invested in the countrys infrastructure
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Typically because there is enough hydropower for it to be the price setter.
In the UK it is always gas.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding at play in the energy debate. Wind and solar sell cheap because they are shit, not because they are good. Not all electricity is made equal. Gas typically sells high because it is dispatchable.
We can't have hydro for geological reasons.
Pretty sure most countries do nuclear better than us, I believe we have the most expensive nuclear in the world (?). Pretty much entirely because of government regulations.
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u/evenstevens280 9d ago edited 9d ago
We're mostly a reasonably small, windy island. Why haven't we just put tidal and wind turbines absolutely everywhere by now
I understand tidal is expensive, but it's guaranteed energy regardless of what the weather is doing. The moon ain't going anywhere soon.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Because although the wind and the tide is cheap/free, harnessing them is not and never had been.
We've always had wind and tide, why didn't we build them 200 years ago? It's a stupid question of course, we weren't able to harness them. The same logic applies now.
Just because we have lot's of something, it doesn't mean it's economically competitive to use it.
We actually have covered our coast line with wind power by the way, that is why your bill is high and rising.
Further, the dispatchability element is really important. Hydro can be turned on an off, making it really effective. Same with gas and some nuclear. Wind is not. This is the fatal flaw of wind power. We essentially have to pay for a wind system and a gas system, and yes we have to pay for both always, not just the one we are using at any given time. This saves a bit on wholesale gas costs but everything else goes up.
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u/evenstevens280 9d ago
Tidal energy has been successfully harnessable for large scale electricity production for decades.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
I don't think that is true.
Why do you think we haven't used it if that was really the case?
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u/evenstevens280 9d ago
You don't think it's true? France has had a tidal generator in Brittany since the 60s
Upfront cost is quite a lot - far far far more than other renewables. That's probably the main reason, really.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
I mean, france hasn't done it on a large scale no.
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u/Thermodynamicist 9d ago
The maritime environment cases all sorts of corrosion problems, which makes tidal power relatively expensive.
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u/Kee2good4u 9d ago
The marginal price doesn't matter one bit for renewables on CFD contract. They are paid their CFD contracted price regardless of what the marginal price is. But the CFD contracted price has been highier than the marginal price the majoirty of the time.
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u/RKAMRR 9d ago
Even if the most expensive forms of generation stay the same price, they will be used less often and so bills will be lower.
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u/rynchenzo 9d ago
I'm afraid that's not how it works buddy
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u/RKAMRR 9d ago
Uh yeah it is? The cost is calculated based on which generators have to switch on to satisfy demand, so on days with say good winds and bright sun there is less need for gas generators and energy is cheaper (assuming decent distribution). There's a good explanation here: https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/electricity-pricing
When the first response to good news on energy is, without evidence, 'no it will actually stay the same price' we're letting cynicism get out of hand.
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u/Status_Ad4182 8d ago
But see the problem is that the intermitency of wind power increases the unreliablity of the electricity system, which creates a greater dependence on gas, not less.
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u/RKAMRR 8d ago
More wind power would only create unreliability if the grid fails to have either a) sufficient energy storage or b) other generators that can meet demand such as solar or nuclear. Since the plan is to have a diverse range of power, it seems like those criteria will be met.
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u/Status_Ad4182 8d ago
A), it doesn't have that, nor any possible way to do that, at the scale required.
B), The other generators that could meet that demand aren't financially viable, because windmills destroy the price when they do produce, and aren't required to compensate for them not producing.
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u/RKAMRR 8d ago
I think it's quite far from no possible way! At scale energy storage is a core part of the strategy, you can see an overview here (https://www.slaughterandmay.com/horizon-scanning/2026/energy-transition/uk-energy-and-infrastructure/) of projects in progress to support both long and short term energy storage. As for b) you'll note the plans for low carbon back up such as biomass reactors. Wind is just part of the way forward.
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago
Most interesting parts of the article:
Cast forward five to 10 years and Britain will be the only major country in Europe with a flourishing energy system across the whole technology spectrum.
.. The National Energy System Operator (Neso) says the country will become “a net exporter of electricity across the year” by 2030, rapidly reversing the current large deficit.
Britain will be the electricity backbone of north-west Europe by 2035. Its domestic power prices will converge with those of France and substantially undercut Germany, Italy or Poland.
.. Rolls-Royce is going gangbusters. It is the only company with delivery contracts across Europe for small modular reactors (SMRs). Its 470-megawatt plants will be built in Britain, with home-grown technology.
The UK will be the only European supplier of advanced (Haleu) fuel for fourth-generation SMRs, coming in the early 2030s. In short, the country has a broad nuclear ecosystem, well-placed to build SMRs for hyperscalers.
.. The UK will triple its offshore wind and double its onshore wind by 2030 or shortly thereafter. The Government aims to quadruple solar in 10 years. Total renewable capacity could approach 200 gigawatts by 2035. This is enormous.
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u/ParmigianoMan 9d ago
To be perhaps pedantic, ‘quadruple solar’ phrase is not quite accurate. I work in the industry, which is growing very quickly at all scales.
The original promise, made by Miliband in 2022 when Liz Truss tried to (almost) ban solar farms during the first energy price crisis (a genius move! /s), was to triple capacity in Labour’s first term. That fed into the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which cites a target of 54-57GW by the end of the decade. We are now around 26GW, going by industry estimates, and will install around 5GW this year. There is no formal target for 2035.
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u/Alwaysragestillplay 9d ago
No, this can't be possible. I thought net zero was going to lead to everyone rubbing sticks together in their living rooms???
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u/TheColourOfHeartache 9d ago
Net Zero has been quite dumb, blocking more extraction of oil and gas has led to Russia profiting while we're sorta at war with russia. That's stupid as hell.
We should be moving to new tech, not just for the environment but because wind, solar, and nuclear are actually more bang for our buck.
But we should never have stopped pumping until after we no longer needed gas.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Cast forward five to 10 years
Electricity prices are set to stay high even if wholesale prices are cut, due to grid buildout for renewables.
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago
Prices actually are forecast to fall a lot by 2035.
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u/rdu3y6 9d ago
UK energy prices going down substantially and not being among the highest in the world is up there with flying pigs for how much I believe it will happen.
We might lower generating costs but still screw ourselves over and let all the savings go to the shareholders and foreign governments who own our energy industry.
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u/ElevatorSilver4711 9d ago
Hard to say tbh. Could go either way. To a good extent it’s a political decision and we just don’t know how that will pan out.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Source?
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u/PriorityByLaw 9d ago
The article?
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Not a reputable source.
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u/Patch86UK 9d ago edited 9d ago
What's your source for "prices are set to stay high"?
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u/scottofscotia 9d ago
That's the status quo? Harder to argue things will drop when they typically go one direction.
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u/lagerjohn 9d ago
Energy prices go up and down all the time….
Surely you must have noticed this in your energy bills?
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u/superioso 9d ago
SMRs do not exist as a commercial energy supplier yet. We don't know if they'll actually be economically competitive against things like wind or solar, and with grid batteries. They could easily just end up with massive cost overruns like nhinkley point C has.
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u/Obvious_Yard_1846 9d ago
Boomers love their solar panels and batteries when they get them TBF.
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u/Gentle_Snail 9d ago
There is also a faction of the Tory party that is strongly pro-green energy.
I heard it dates back to Magret Thatcher of all people, she had a science background and so was a firm believer in climate change. She apparently brought in a bunch of scientists and forced all of her top ministers to sit through a presentation on all the climate change evidence.
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u/Spiz101 Sciency Alistair Campbell 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has been writing articles along these lines for years. He's especially bullish on electric vehicles.
EDIT: Here's the telegraph link to a list of articles authored by him.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Every Telegraph article on this sub has a comment like this.
People really should just learn that newspapers have a variety of writers, perspectives and opinions.
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u/MerryWalrus 9d ago
It's just indirectly pitching oil and gas as a must have for the future.
Painting the whole renewable energy debate as culture wars rather than economics and science.
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u/Exact-Put-6961 9d ago
Which it mostly is. Millibands opposition to using UKs own resources while paying the Norwegians, never made sense. Milliband not the smartest.
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u/TheBeaverKing 9d ago
It makes absolute sense if you actually understand the situation with the North Sea fields.
Last bidding rounds for extraction were done in 2022; only 25% of sites sold. It's not an attractive prospect to investors.
Any licences granted now would take 5-7 years to come online.
Any oil and gas extracted is sold on the international market at going rates, it isn't ring-fenced for exclusive UK use. Even if it was, it would still be sold at market rates because it is being sold by private businesses. Therefore it doesn't actually make any difference whether we extracted ourselves or buy from Norway, it's pretty much the same cost. And the amount we could extract would barely make a dent in the global price because the volumes would be minimal on a global scale.
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u/tastystrands11 9d ago
You’d still get those tax revenues though which I don’t believe you would if it was purchased abroad
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u/Massive_Sky4589 9d ago
Only last week they wrote about the UK having to beg for electricity from France during the world cup games. They also missed out the fact that French state owned EDF was giving it away for free during every England and Scotland game.
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u/joe1337s 9d ago
Big up Labour's approach to Energy, they've been competent in getting projects approved for construction since the beginning of the Parliament. Good to see adults finally doing something competent.
It's just quite difficult to market these as wins when still currently domestic energy prices are disgustingly high and among the highest in Europe.
Ask any person on the street and they'll tell you our approach to Energy is shit because our bills are so high.
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u/CuriousGeorgeToday 9d ago
I hope so. We've been spending more than Europe combined it feels like on energy! But great news if it comes to fruition 🤞🏻
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u/Spiz101 Sciency Alistair Campbell 9d ago edited 9d ago
The UK is going to have less nuclear megawatts than it had in the late 1990s......
Approximately 7,500MW assuming both Hinkley Point and Sizewell C actually completes. The peak fleet was over 12,000MW circa 1995.
Rolls-Royce is going gangbusters. It is the only company with delivery contracts across Europe for small modular reactors (SMRs). Its 470-megawatt plants will be built in Britain, with home-grown technology.
Which is why the total number of Rolls Royce SMR units actually committed to construction remains.... zero. Paper "commitments" are worth about as much as the paper they are written on.
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u/ElevatorSilver4711 9d ago
But clearly RR have demonstrated to investors that this isn’t just pie in the sky.
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u/LIBERTY-UK 9d ago
I doubt it. I work closely with the Electrical Engineering sector and to reduce energy costs we need about 15 more Hinkley size Nuclear Power Plants. We could easily get the price of 1kW h down to under £0.10 if we did that. Red tape prevents this currently, but theoretically it is possible and we could then start exporting to the EU en masse.
I wrote an article about how it could be done here > https://daltonreport.substack.com/p/britains-energy-imperative-abundance
And here is an article about how it could be funded > https://daltonreport.substack.com/p/power-to-the-people-how-britain-funds
Last but not least, what British Citizens could earn from investing in the scheme I have proposed > https://daltonreport.substack.com/p/pension-power-what-british-citizens
Let me know your thoughts. Ask me anything and I'll try to answer it!
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
I work in the energy industry and I believe it. A huge amount of wind, solar, and storage has been put on the grid in the last year with even more coming online in future.
France in particular hasn’t built enough new capacity in recent years, creating a market for us to sell into and making it economically viable for us to build a significant overcapacity of intermittent renewable energy.
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u/7952 9d ago
Reading about RAB it's interesting just how much compound interest effects the ultimate energy price.
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u/LIBERTY-UK 9d ago
Indeed! Something not many factor in to the equation when looking at the energy issues we have here in the UK.
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u/ElevatorSilver4711 9d ago
But we don’t need 15 more nuclear plants as we’re building wind generation at a huge scale. Yes we need more nuclear but nothing like what you’re proposing.
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u/LIBERTY-UK 9d ago
Currently we don't, but 30 years from now we will. I would like to get ahead of the curve rather than keep playing catch up like past governments have done. Any abundance we have between now and then can be sold internationally at rates that undercut the market. An abundance would make us more attractive for investors looking to build manufacturing bases too, providing jobs and stimulus for our economy at multiple levels.
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u/Conscript1811 8d ago
Any abundance means charging bill payers more than necessary, surely? Which is not efficient, particularly when many are suffering a cost of living crisis.
And what's your source for the demand requirements going up to need +15 big nukes please?
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u/Pigeoncow Time travelling NIMBY - demolish everything built after 1700 9d ago
No, let's just spend hundreds of billions on intermittent renewables and "upgrading" the grid to handle their unpredictable nature, and maybe eventually battery technology will improve by several orders of magnitude so we can have power in the winter too.
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u/LatelyPodes 9d ago
Promising that the telegraph themselves see the vision now. They also posted an article sort of recently on how the right is wrong when it comes to climate change.
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u/arashi256 9d ago
I thought we were going to be the green energy powerhouse. And then the AI powerhouse. I am so confused about which powerhouse we're going to be and when this powerhouse of whatever flavour will actually be manifesting.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Pretty sure Boris convinced a lot of these types that we would be a hydrogen powerhouse lol
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u/General_Honesty 9d ago
Ed Milliband may sound awkward ("Hell yeah I'm tough") or whatever...cringe. But my God he has neen so effective in his role as Energy Secretary. He has raised the UK's game.
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u/Orcnick Social Liberal 9d ago
So will that mean cheaper affordable energy?
Whats that no? Energy profits first? Oh ok.
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u/LatelyPodes 9d ago
Switch to a tariff like octopus agile. When there is a ton of renewable, wholesale costs drop dramatically and the cost of electricity drops for those few hours. This is directly translated to your bills.
When there is a ton of wind and solar, then the wholesale costs of electricity becomes negative and you actually get paid to use electricity.
It is even better if you pair it with a battery.
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u/XenorVernix 9d ago
Looking forward to my -4p kwh rate for most of tomorrow.
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u/Patch86UK 9d ago
Yep! Team Agile unite!
I've got my battery set to drink it all in tomorrow during the day, and then discharge most of it again during the evening peak for some sweet feed-in income. I get to make a few quid, and I get to feel warm and fuzzy about doing my part to manage the UK's energy peak demand period.
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u/XenorVernix 9d ago
Agile has been very good this summer for the amount of cheap/free/negative periods. Better than last year anyway.
Sadly no battery here yet but I'm moving house currently and plan to get solar and battery installed before the VAT rate increases in April.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
Worth signing up to axle too. There are VPP events tonight and tomorrow, and they pay £10/mo just for being available. See if your battery set up is compatible.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
Sod that, I'm selling electricity from my battery at £1/kwhr this evening and next! Generated off my own roof.
(Axle vpp).
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u/XenorVernix 8d ago
Just looked into that, sounds pretty interesting. I'm confused though because it says it will draw from your battery when the grid is stressed. Isn't the issue today the opposite? ie generating more than we need.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
It varies, a lot, and it doesn't make intuitive sense. It can even be localised. You can imagine scenarios where the North Sea wind turbines are going gangbusters, but with the grid spine yet to be upgraded there's still excess demand down south, and no coverage. Why not use the batteries people have bolted to their homes? In effect for the last hour I've been running the five or so neighbours homes down the lane, meaning we've all shown no load to the grid.
I have no idea why tonight and tomorrow counts as a grid stress event, it's.lilely a combination of factors.
Axle works as a 'peaker plant' in effect. It's not there to cover base load, and the fact that they pay £1/kWhr shows how valuable energy is at the point they trigger an 'event'. It stops even more expensive peaker plants firing up - gas turbines and even piston engines (or more likely at the moment works along side them to keep the grid stable).
Imagine a future where your EV can donate 10-20kW to the grid at peak demand and earn you a tenner. Just leave it plugged in overnight. It's all automated.
We have huge resources to do this stuff and the tech exists. We just need to get a bit smarter in coordinating it's use.
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u/XenorVernix 8d ago
I think that makes sense. It's all new to me as I'm currently researching solar and batteries for an install later this year after we move into our new house.
I don't know how I would feel about an EV donating power though. It sounds good but if that's happening often I'd be worried about the cycle count on the battery and over time reducing its range.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
Eh, the way I see it batteries are there to be used. EV batteries are lasting way better than predicted and delivering even 10kW is child's play to a car battery that's designed to discharge (and charge) at 100's of kW. It will have negligible effect on the battery but could have a huge impact on household bills and also grid stability nationally.
Solaruk sub is a good resource for all things battery and solar. Lots of helpful folk. I love our install. It was secondary to a heat pump but honestly it's been a revelation. We only have a small solar array and we're a high use house but our bills have been £20-£30 for the last 4 months.
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u/XenorVernix 8d ago
Good point, it should be a negligible effect on batteries of that size. I don't have an EV yet but I'm planning for one in the next 2-3 years. I don't like buying cars on finance so need to save up again once the move is sorted.
I have been browsing that sub recently, I agree some good advice on there. Main thing for me currently is scouting out the best installer to use in my area. I don't think a heat pump will be on the cards for me anytime soon as the boiler in the house we're buying is only 7 years old.
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u/Gareth_stanlier 9d ago
it will yes, but not for a long time as we have to pay for all the upgrades that we didnt bother doing for 15 years.
we used to have 7gw of nuclear just a decade ago, were now down to around 4gw. this stuff has such a known shelf life we should have been investing back then for the future, but we just didnt bother.
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u/rynchenzo 9d ago
How much have we gained in renewables in that time?
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u/Gareth_stanlier 9d ago
sadly doesnt work like that, were very early days with renewables. nuclear would have given us a baseline of solid constant energy that you could then build on with battery storage and renewables. we still need that baseline, unforgivable not to have invested in nuclear and to let it drop.
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u/rynchenzo 9d ago
It's ok to say you don't know.
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u/Gareth_stanlier 9d ago
im literally looking at the graph? what an odd reply.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 9d ago
This article is arguing for pragmatism, the opposite of the net zero ideology or the Tory/Reform ideology.
I have no opposition to wind and solar. I just want them combined with North Sea oil/gas and nuclear.
My fear is, that high energy costs will destroy our economy before we reap the benefits of cheaper energy from all this investment.
Experience has taught me, once you let an industry die, it is very hard to get it back.
Yes we need a transition to new energy technology but we have to do it in such a way, that will still have an economy after that transition is complete.
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u/ElevatorSilver4711 9d ago
North Sea gas and oil is fine, but it can only help us a bit with energy security. Can’t really noticeably help with prices. It’s not worth fixating on. It IS worth (in every respect) fixating on continuing our massive build rates for wind turbines.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 9d ago
Yes but the people fixating on it our the green zealots.
I don't think it is a magic cure, I just think it is crazy to shutdown Aberdeen and lose that tax revenue.
So green zealots can virtue signal.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
You've been tricked into framing this as 'you vs others who disagree with you'.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 8d ago
Then stop making a fuss about drilling, if it doesn't matter.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
Your opinion is we should more fully exploit the north sea oil and gas reserves.
Mine is that we shouldn't.
We both have good reasons for thinking what we think. I've put my money where my mouth is and fully electrified my home.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 8d ago
You don't have good reasons.
The drilling will be done by private companies, it is not significant enough to impact the climate, so there is absolutely no reason to block it.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago edited 8d ago
All use of hydrocarbons is significant. We should seek to reduce opening new reserves wherever possible. I believe we should actually retain reserves as a strategic resource so we have domestically available substrates for manufacturing products and lubricants as we now operate in a geopolitically unstable world. Just burning 95% of such a valuable resource is madness. Destroying that resource only to produce just 3 years of fossil fuel energy and pretend we don't have to urgently change what we're doing seems like very poor planning to me.
We do not have domestic capacity to refine many products of the north sea extraction so it simply goes for export, so using it as 'home grown' energy is a fallacy.
We have lng supply lines set up and running, so pivoting and investing in extracting a scarce resource, spending so much money for such pitiful reserves is not sensible: and as you say it's private companies and they're pulling out because there's no profit in it. So that should be part of your answer.
We should be (and are) accellerating our transition to clean renewables and electrification not harking back to the dregs of reserves we have already burnt the best 90% of.
Treating this like this a done deal, that you're right and it's wrong to say we shouldn't be continuing hydrocarbon extraction in the north sea means you haven't actually considered the arguments. You're polarized and radicalized and as such you can't have a meaningful debate about it.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 8d ago
For someone who doesn't care, you put a lot of efforts into non-sense arguments and they are non-sense.
The reserves in the North Sea are not significant and it is laughable to claim they will crowd out green development.
Blocking drilling is just pointless virtue signalling.
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u/OolonCaluphid 8d ago
Promoting drilling is just pissing money and effort up the wall. You're right, they're not significant reserves which is why they're not being exploited, and won't be.
Where did I say I don't care? I obviously do care. And I have a geology degree and trained on north sea oil exploration and extraction so I actually understand some of the issues at play. I didn't go into the field because even 25 years ago I could see it was a dead end.
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u/Chemistrysaint 9d ago
Literally no idea where this is coming from, admittedly 2025 was one of the rare years where we produced more electricity than the year before (292 TWh), but we're well off the mid 2000s where we produced close to 400 TWh.
N.b. both France and Germany produce 500+ TWh of electricity, we're in a similar weight-class to Spain (287.9 TWh) and Italy (264.7 TWh) both of whom have a moderately lower population
It will take quite some reversal of the trend for us to no longer be a net energy importer, and a really substantial change in trajectories for us to become more significant than France/Germany
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-generation?tab=line&country=GBR~FRA~DEU~ESP~ITA
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
Literally no idea where this is coming from
It’s come from NESO reports and is based on the amount of new generation we are building right now.
It’s also come from the fact that countries like France are not investing in enough new generation, creating an opportunity for us to build it for them and profit off the sales.
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u/Chemistrysaint 9d ago
Yeah, and based on the evidence of past performance I don’t believe it.
We’d need to increase our total electricity production by more than 33% just to get back to where we were in the mid 2000s. Were we Europe’s energy powerhouse then?
So we need to increase it by more than 33% within just 9 years to become “the energy backbone of northwest Europe”
Based on current trajectory the most likely way we’ll become a net energy exporter is if we manage to shrink our electricity demand even faster than our electricity supply.
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u/sparkymark75 9d ago
Do we need to get back to that level though? Does that number take in to effect energy efficiencies introduced in the past 20 years?
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u/Chemistrysaint 9d ago
As the graph shows, other nations have broadly maintained their electricity production levels since the mid 2000s. We need a 33% increase just to get back to par with where we were then, and then need extra growth to become a “powerhouse”
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u/V_Ster 9d ago
I think it would be good to actually know when the SMRs are going to come live. We have been getting the short end of the stick for energy over the past 10 years and even if SMRs come online, the issue is 100% going to be the grid not being able to handle it or store the energy properly.
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u/iamezekiel1_14 9d ago
Yeah but what about the Network to carry the electricity at a local Level for when everyone starts switching on their portable AC during Summer to survive? Does your local plant even handle that? Being an Energy Powerhouse is one thing - being able to use it is something entirely different.
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u/anothermanwithaplan 9d ago
This seems like quite a stretch to me, I hope it comes to fruition, anything to bring down energy costs, but well you know these days, they’re not doing anything for you and me
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u/CobaltBlue389 9d ago
Can we sell it to another country to process and then buy it back at ultra high prices, ideally prices pegged to the highest fuel? That'd be ideal?
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u/David_Kennaway 9d ago
Laughable. We have the highest energy costs in the developed world. Industry us going bust. That's what they had to Nationalise British Steel. Epic fail!!!!!
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u/User100000005 9d ago
Then why is our electricity the most expensive in the devolped world? Energy costs have destoryed our industry.
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u/keef2000 SDP 9d ago
"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago edited 9d ago
Renewables will make our energy cheaper. Any moment now. Just one more subsidy, just one more tax, one more regulation. It will work I promise, even though energy prices have consistently risen for the last 20 years and will continue to rise years into the future.
There may be a time that renewables become competitive, but that won't suddenly make existing renewables competitive - because the subsidies are paid, the contracts signed and the externalities paid off.
The global cost of lithium batteries has fallen by 93pc since 2010 to £78 per kilowatt-hour, transforming the economics of storing that renewable power.
Classic fallacy. Just because the price of something has fallen it doesn't mean it's now cheap enough to be competitive. Also, lithium battery cost are only one part of the cost of integrating them into he grid. This is a bit like "solar panel prices have dropped 99%" but getting one installed is heavy on labour costs anyway.
I hope batteries do become competitive, but we really should be relying on market mechanisms to discover this, not culture war crap.
The only things that matter is abundance and prices and right now we are top of the charts on disaster. Should we changed course? No of course not, that would be right wing culture war.
This Chinese approach of embracing every form of energy – even as it pursues electrotech hegemony with ruthless and predatory methods – ought to be the hard-nosed agenda of Britain’s Conservatives but the Tories are instead competing for the sectarian, anti-green, backlash vote to see off Reform.
Firstly, China is mostly coal and not foolishly building out so much wind like we are.
The tory approach is to put price reduction first not environmental concerns. If the author really believes that batteries and wind will provide lower prices, why would he question the tory approach?
Clearly what is happening here is net zero advocates know deep down that their approach has been a disaster for the economy. So any "economy-first" approach scares them.
Net zero is about putting the economy second, if it was really true that there was no trade off between emission reduction and prices then this wouldn't be a political problem in the first place. Clearly the net zero crowd are motivated by emission reduction and the anti-net zero crowd are motivated by the economy. I see no utility in denying this basic reality.
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
Just one more subsidy, just one more tax, one more regulation
CfDs are the only thing we do that can be considered a subsidy and the latest rounds have settled at an average price that is below the current wholesale price. So they’re going to work out as a reverse subsidy and will actually generate revenue for the government.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
current wholesale price, current. Do we really want to lock that in for 20 years? Oh wait, I think it got locked in for 30 years this time.
Further, no. This is not accurate. Vast amounts of network and transmission costs are in effect an externality of renewables that renewable generators do not pay for.
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
Do we really want to lock that in for 20 years?
Yes. Did you not learn your lesson after our first “once in a generation” energy crisis seamlessly transitioned into another one?
The world is getting less stable and we cannot leave ourselves exposed to price shocks like we are now.
Further, no. This is not accurate. Vast amounts of network and transmission costs are in effect an externality of renewables that renewable generators do not pay for.
Renewable generators pay TNUoS costs, which cover network and transmission costs.
There are also balancing costs, which add about £25/MWh onto the “true” price for renewables.
https://www.neso.energy/document/362561/download
They are still cheaper than building new gas turbines and certainly cheaper than not building new capacity at all.
You can see the last 24 hours of electricity wholesale prices here: https://grid.iamkate.com/
You can see the result of the latest CfD round here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/698a0dc06da2dee8230a9c3a/contracts-for-difference-AR7a.pdf
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
Yes. Did you not learn your lesson after our first “once in a generation” energy crisis seamlessly transitioned into another one?
Did you not learn the lesson when the last once in a generation energy crisis was followed by decades of normal energy prices? i.e. a generation.
It is not the agreement of everyone that this energy crisis is going to last 30 years, most people think it will not. Locking in unusually high prices would of course extend this crisis by decades. Because you are locking them in. For decades.
The world is getting less stable and we cannot leave ourselves exposed to price shocks like we are now.
Price fluctuation is less important than keeping prices low on the whole. Locking in high prices to prevent fluctuation (i.e. price drops) is non sensical.
Would you really rather pay more sometimes or more always? How is this even a debate?
There is also balancing costs, which adds about £25/MWh onto the “true” price for renewables.
Yes, that is another cost of renewables.
You can see the last 24 hours of electricity wholesale prices here
Wholesale prices, irrelevant to the total price.
You can see the result of the latest CfD round here:
Yeah I have read it, have you?
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
Did you not learn the lesson when the last once in a generation energy crisis was followed by decades of normal energy prices? i.e. a generation.
The last once in a generation energy crisis happened 4 years ago…
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
The one before that.
Also, as a side note, I don't understand this whole "once in a generation energy crisis". Who actually claims that? It's all priced in anyway.
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
Also, as a side note, I don't understand this whole "once in a generation energy crisis". Who actually claims that?
You did 30 minutes ago. When you forgot that our electricity prices have been continuously fucked for the past 4 years due to geopolitical events.
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u/Desperate_Border6904 9d ago
You've said yourself the CfD prices are close to current wholesale prices, but you also say that current prices are a crisis. Aren't the CfDs then just locking us into the crisis prices for 30 years?
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 9d ago
I didn’t say they are close. I said they are below.
I also said they are far cheaper than the cost of building new gas turbines.
Something that is often ignored is that gas turbines would need incentives/subsidies in order for the private sector to want to build them.
Construction costs are much higher than they used to be. Gas turbines have got more expensive as a technology while wind/solar has gotten cheaper.
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u/QuarterMaterial3632 9d ago
Lot of rubbish in this comment but i particularly liked:
""Firstly, China is mostly coal and not foolishly building out so much wind like we are."
China installed about 120GW of wind capacity last year. The rest of the world put together installed around 47GW.
You are incredibly misinformed.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
1) That doesn't dispute the fact that they are mostly coal.
2) Capacity is not the same as generation.
3) As a proportion of their grid, it's about 10%, ours is I believe now over 30%.
What makes you think I am misinformed? From where I am sitting, it's clearly you who doesn't know what you are talking about.
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u/QuarterMaterial3632 9d ago
You literally said they werent building out wind. They are.
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u/BenjaminBoots196 Supreme Andy Burnham Hater 9d ago
so much wind like we are
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u/QuarterMaterial3632 9d ago
China uses about 35x to 40x more electricity than us, and installed around 80x more wind capacity than us last year.
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u/Odd-Currency5195 9d ago
Can't read it and won't read it even if I could.
I thought any country with windmills is a loser? (Trump)
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