Well, then: is it to be:
- Thanks, Ed, but you're not needed now
- Ed, I need you to to stay where you are, it's great job you're doing in keeping the greens onside
- Ed, you're my Chancellor - you're the only one who can solve Rubik's Cube
- Ed? No no, it's David I wanted on the line
- Rosebank (oil) and Jackdaw (gas)
- DESNZ capital budget being sacrificed for Defence spending: where does the axe fall?
Rosebank is a bit different: it'll be produced via a floating structure / subsea completion. Again, the structure is complete and making its way over from Norway, but the briefing is, that's being done at the producers' own risk. And if it's a 'no', it could be used elsewhere. Also the argument for loacl oil production, though still perfectly sound, has just a couple of extra (low) hurdles to jump: and Mili has staked his colours to the 'No Rosebank' mast - so, a bit of humiliation involved.
What would be even funnier, is if he gets offered the Treasury provided that he green-lights both Jackdaw and Rosebank on his way to the DESNZ door. Does Burnham have a sense of humour? He certainly likes industry and jobs.
2. OK, so the A46 Newark Bypass extension has been sacrificed for Defence spending. Big deal: it was only ever a nice-to-have. Yep, the big capital budgets to be raided will be those of Mili at DESNZ. Now most DESNZ capital schemes are loaded onto electricity bill-payers' bills, the big exceptions being:
(a) HMG's equity contributions to Sizewell C, given that EDF refuses to take equity risk (which we've written about many times)
(b) The farce that is Carbon Capture and Storage - by far the biggest (thus far) at £21bn (sic) of HMT's best pounds, NOT recharged to bill-payers. Very unusual. And very stupid.
I think we can guess which will be the sacrificial lamb, notwithstanding Mili's considerable attachment to it.
More popcorn, please, as I raise a hopeful glass to Burnham's sense of fun.
UPDATE: Right on cue, this from the DTel:
Miliband willing to approve North Sea oil to land job as chancellor - Energy Secretary wants to prove he is a ‘pragmatist’ rather than a ‘zealot’ on environmental policy to help his case for being chancellor
ND
21 comments:
Which option involves the least effort, the minimal amount of ruffled feathers, and can be communicated via a post-it note. That will be his pick.
CH
The jolly Norwegian football supporters have given me an idea. Let's tie Weird Ed into a longboat with plenty of kindling, set it afire, and let it go to sea on an ebb tide.
Uh, isn't Jackdaw mainly gas and Rosebank mainly oil? (That's what Grok says anyway.)
Argh. Yes indeed - and the text that followed was correct, but not the sub-heading. Corrected now! Thanks, Phil
CCS seems scientifically illiterate. Isn't there a thing called entropy?
"Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!"
Net Zero and all that is out the same barrel. The world will carry on sinning until it can't. I can't see anyone who matters in the world taking the slightest real notice. The consequences might be very severe but a long way off. I doubt Mr Trump or Mr Xi lose any sleep. When will solar panels make enough energy to replace themselves - mining, ore conversion and all the rest.
For the rest mere political game playing. Keeps lots and lots of people employed. Keep taking the money.
As for Miliband, in the absence of a gulag I suppose Miliband is like captured CO2, liable to come bubbling up wherever you put him with no means of stuffing him back down the hole. Tents and pissing.
See update - Miliband willing to approve North Sea oil to land job as chancellor - Energy Secretary wants to prove he is a ‘pragmatist’ rather than a ‘zealot’ on environmental policy to help his case for being chancellor
Hahah !
jim - "I can't see anyone who matters in the world taking the slightest real notice."
Other than our governments, you mean? As China's yearly coal burn is twenty times larger than the UKs maximum in 1913 it does seem bizarre that our steam trains run on coal from Colombia and Kazakhstan, when steam coal still exists in Wales.
Who are 'our governments'?
Do you mean UK and EU? Making up about 7% of CO2. And does the UK and EU refuse to buy from or sell to the RoW in any effective manner? For it seems fairly clear the US is not cutting back on fossil fuels and China is still using oil and gas. So is India and Russia and the rest of Asia and the less fussy bits of Europe.
The UK got rid of its large scale coal mines way back. Uneconomical to run and offended the prevailing political nostrums. In truth we probably could dig enough coal to drive our heritage railways but the legislative and prodnose burden probably makes it not worth while. Hence Colombia and Kazakstan. But even if we pushed the prodnoses out the way I doubt it would be economic to run coal power stations for decade long investment periods.
I doubt very much we will find Net Zero an economically feasible option and ultimately we will be fighting over the coal and oil and gas reserves. Not optimistic re economics of fusion either. But a nice little sinecure in one of 'our governments' mouthing hopeless platitudes will suit the likes of Ed very well - or counting beans and mouthing platitudes for that matter.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Green notion but I don't think we will like the journey there. But no one is talking the realities.
If we restarted coal mining at scale, the salaries would either have to be high, or we'd have to import labour willing to do it on the cheap.
For context, when Kellingley closed, the average miners salary was around £40k, adjusted for inflation, around £60k.
Now, you could mouth off about removing bennos, or other forms of economically forcing people, but that's not very realistic, and likely to have the left's officer class drooling were it to get over the obstacles before it.
And that's not accounting for the new infrastructure and training involved.
UK coal would not be cheap, and so would have to be subsidised to a heavy tune. Anybody volunteering for an increase in taxes to pay for that? Or are we all happy having a coalwave of migrants?
CH
We don’t want the coal dug up yet.
But we do want the oil and gas.
And the fracking.
We will did the coal up when it moves from $120 a ton to $120 a bag.As everyone else will too.
And what are you basing this long term price rise upon, Mystic Meg?
Given the raft of alternatives, it's hard to see a situation where coal at that price is viable as a fuel, and even for coking, there comes a price point where alternatives become economically viable.
CH
Pleased to see China aren't happy with our steel nationalisation.
"We buy your plant"
"We shut it down and abandon it so you have to buy Chinese steel"
"You nationalise it - we want compo !"
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/17/british-steel-nationalisation-china-strongly-dissatisfied
Even the Guardian has woken up to the European industrial disaster, though without making the energy connection.
.
To have a decent “defence” industry, you need a substrate of smaller suppliers, a productive ecosystem if you like. The Mittelstand did that for Germany, by a mile the most productive economy in Europe. When Dyson was doing the Ballbarrow he could go to J1 M5 and find steel tubes, people who'd bend them and powder coaters within a mile radius.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/13/the-guardian-view-on-volkswagens-crisis-another-wake-up-call-for-germany-and-the-eu
“according to a recent analysis, China enjoys a surplus in its manufactured goods trade with the European Union that is roughly equivalent to Italy’s national income. That trade disparity, it is estimated, continues to grow by about 30% each year. The stark implication, according to a paper from Centre for European Reform, is that Europe, with Germany in the frontline, risks “deindustrialisation at China’s hand”.”
Looks like St Leger Day is early this year. Be interesting to see what happens on Monday.
@Anonymous @3:07 pm, do you mean North sea oil stocks may rally on Monday with today's news that Burnham will greenlight Rosebank and Jackdaw?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c935yx2z9d4o
I was wondering more if the tech stock slump would continue... (and I got the "sell in May" adage base over apex) ....
Don’t we have the usual useless politician’s compromise? Drill baby, drill BUT no new licences?
Aha I see 😀👍
Does look like it
Did anyone have Healey on their radar?
CH
Post a Comment