The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person Than in the 1970s

Re:The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person ... by kypro on Tuesday October 13, 2026 @04:10PM (#50077944)

Here in the UK the debate around energy is really unbelievably stupid.

It's not just degrowth mindset, but the dogmatic refusal to be pragmatic on energy. Given most UK homes are heated by gas and we have a lot of gas-powered power plants, it makes no sense for us to import natural gas where we can avoid it (especially LNG) as it's more costly and less green than domestic production.

Plus, domestic production means more domestic jobs and additional tax revenues.

It seems to me there's basically no upside of us refusing to exploit what we can of the North Sea. It's just people taking an ideological dislike to us doing it domestically because "fossil fuels = bad".

Some people also just seem wildly misinformed. For example, our media seems to think 50% of our energy problems stem from it being priced wrong. I guess we have the same problem with housing – maybe everyone could have a home if we just sold them for less. It's really very stupid.

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Re:The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person ... by youngtaff on Tuesday October 13, 2026 @05:36PM (#50079178)

The North Sea is a mature basin and there isn't that much gas left in the UK sectors

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Re:The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person ... by throwaway473825 on Tuesday October 13, 2026 @06:06PM (#50079570)

If there's little left, why does it need to be banned? This is like the German argument against nuclear - it's supposedly expensive, and yet it needs to be banned because otherwise there would be plenty of it.

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Re:The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person ... by teamonkey on Tuesday October 13, 2026 @07:03PM (#50080189)

It isn’t banned.

Well, fracking kind of is, we stopped after we tried it and it caused ground tremors.

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Re:The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person ... by youngtaff on Wednesday October 14, 2026 @05:38AM (#50084844)

AFAIK we use fracking type techniques in the North Sea

Part of the problem with fracking on mainland UK is not just the tremors but that there’s also not much proven gas either

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Re:The United Kingdom Generates Less Electricity per Person ... by panick21_ on Wednesday October 14, 2026 @09:08AM (#50087185)

Look you can make an argument that slightly more domestic oil production could have happened. But lets actually be realistic. Even best case you don't get that much and it takes a long time.

And its in no way going to solve any of the actual long term energy issues in the UK.

For example, if you assume limited government resources, massive investment in North Sea fossil is just inherently stupid.

Allowing some private exploration and production would be tiny and barley relevant to solve any problem. The right wing people who advocate this as some kind of 'solution' are more delusional then any 'leftist'.

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