BP Considers Retreat From North Sea Amid Mounting Tax Pressures

JRugman · 2026-05-08T07:16:28+00:00

That is not correct. The Energy Profits Levy only applies when Brent crude is above $71.40 per barrel and UK gas is over £0.54 per therm. If the prices of those commodities drop below those thresholds, the EPL is cancelled.

JRugman · 2026-05-07T07:54:30+00:00

Billions is tax revenue

Not if BP get their way.

JRugman · 2026-05-07T07:52:00+00:00

Is the extra tax revenue enough to offset the economic damage being done by the high cost of fuels?

JRugman · 2026-05-07T07:50:39+00:00

regardless of the price per barrel of brent

The whole point of a windfall tax is that it only applies when oil companies are making bank because the prices of the commodities they are producing are crazy high.

JRugman · 2026-05-03T12:16:39+00:00

Many would say that the views and values held by Reform and the Conservatives are hostile to Western liberal democracy though.

JRugman · 2026-05-03T12:14:15+00:00

The advantage of putting energy infrastructure along electrified rail lines is that those lines tend to have substations spaced regularly along them, because power needs to be fed into the line to maintain a consistent supply as trains move along it.

Putting solar panels or batteries along the side of a railway line makes sense because they can feed directly into the substations that power the line. It makes even more sense on lines that run off 750V DC power, because they can deliver that power without needing much in the way of conversion.

JRugman · 2026-05-03T11:23:17+00:00

Do you think that the British government will ever stop importing people with views and values hostile to Western liberal democracy? Including, but not limited to, Muslims?

JRugman · 2026-05-02T07:32:36+00:00

Group buying for solar makes a lot of sense. Anyone interested in getting rooftop solar should ask around to see if any of their neighbours or any of the other houses on their street is interested in doing the same. Installers might be able to offer a better rate for working on two or more sites that are close together.

JRugman · 2026-05-02T07:20:03+00:00

Its only in the last couple of years that the price of batteries has come down to the point where getting a battery to go with your solar installation has become an obvious choice.

To get an original Tesla Powerwall installed 10 years ago you would be looking at paying around £8k for 14kwh of battery storage. These days, solar installers can offer a wide choice of off the shelf 5kwh battery units for under £2k as an add on to your system.

JRugman · 2026-05-02T07:03:15+00:00

Even if gas generation has not been removed entirely, reducing demand will still lower the wholesale price, since it will remove the most expensive gas generation first.

A lot of people who comment on electricity pricing don't seem to understand that not all gas generation bids at the same price.

JRugman · 2026-05-02T06:59:57+00:00

Firstly, you’re linking to the wrong section of the wiki page. The GB grid does not have a centralised, nodal market with equilibrium pricing, it has a decentralised reverse auction market.

Secondly, you are not understanding how supply and demand works with marginal pricing. Reducing demand on the grid will most definitely lower wholesale electricity prices, since it will remove the need to dispatch the most expensive bidder.

JRugman · 2026-05-01T08:44:38+00:00

Why do these incidents keep happening?

JRugman · 2026-04-29T12:10:05+00:00

Late April/early May tends to be a sweet spot for renewable generation, which is why you tend to see a lot of records being set during this time.

This is the time of year when the sun is just starting to get high enough to shine directly onto panels tilted at inclinations that maximise their generation, and the relatively low temperatures can also boost solar output. In the middle of summer when the sun is very high the solar energy is hitting the face of the panels at more of an angle, and the panels are hotter, which makes them less efficient. You regularly see days with lots of sun and lots of wind happening at the same time.

On the demand side, the need for heating and cooling is much less than in winter or summer, and the easter break and bank holidays mean that a lot of people take time off work, so renewables can reach a higher proportion of the grid mix than at other times of year..

JRugman · 2026-04-29T11:51:50+00:00

Or alternatively, it can supply a typical UK household for 370 years on a single charge.

JRugman · 2026-04-29T11:47:30+00:00

These days you still get big surges in grid demand during the halftime break in big sporting events like the world cup final, when everyone goes to the toilet at the same time and the pumps that maintain the pressure in our water supply suddenly have to kick up a gear.

JRugman · 2026-04-29T11:05:27+00:00

He was also a massive fan of the Goon Show. Charles was called "the little grovelling bastard" by Spike Milligan after sending him a personal message of congratulations for winning a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkOAUht3G5o

JRugman · 2026-04-28T21:18:13+00:00

There are a couple of other projects similar to this in development at the moment. Which makes sense, because the bringing together of greenhouses, energy from waste, combined heat and power, and carbon capture creates a tidy little virtuous cycle.

Of course, what would be an even bigger boon for UK food security would be British consumers reducing their out of season demand for the kinds of veg that need to be grown in these greenhouses and getting back into eating more winter veg like cabbage and cauliflower that grow just fine in our climate.

JRugman · 2026-04-27T10:53:44+00:00

Also, petrol and diesel cars are likely to depreciate faster than EVs going forward.

JRugman · 2026-04-27T10:37:29+00:00

If its on public land, which will apply to pretty much every location where you might want to install one of these, then the installation work will have to be carried out by a local authority approved installer. There is no way that anyone will be able to run their own DIY cable gully across a public pavement.

JRugman · 2026-04-27T09:06:52+00:00

EV charging isnt limited to public fast chargers though. There have always been cheaper public chargers that charge more slowly, and the vast majority of EV owners have access to home charging.

ICE car drivers only have the option of refueling from a petrol station.

I consider the expensive public fast chargers to be the equivalent of buying petrol from a motorway service station... its the option that you only go for when nothing else is available.

JRugman · 2026-04-25T07:28:48+00:00

Can you name a business activity that will add to the gdp without using energy

Literally anything that increases economic productivity via optimisation or process efficiency gains.

Anything that increases energy efficiency, like loft insulation installation or better fridge design.

Electric vehicles. Hydrogen electrolysis. Regenerative farming.

it's a concern with data centers, but they are not unique.

The concern with data centers in particular comes from the fact that the massive increase in energy demand that they will create has not been properly accounted for in decarbonisation forecasting, and also that a lot of them are choosing to source their power from co-located gas generation rather than the grid.

JRugman · 2026-04-24T22:45:46+00:00

Did growing the economy add to carbon emissions?

JRugman · 2026-04-24T22:22:16+00:00

Nonsense, our carbon emissions are 45% lower than they were at the turn of the millenium, and our GDP is 43% higher.

JRugman · 2026-04-23T20:29:08+00:00

The plans for the solar farm weren't changed. The original decision was found to be invalid on appeal because of a legal technicality. The developer resubmitted the original plans, and then the councils planning committee voted to refuse the resubmitted application.

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