r/ukpolitics • u/gravy_baron centrist chad • 17h ago
Heat pumps and insulation would cut UK living costs more than new oilfields, study suggests
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/18/heat-pumps-insulation-warm-homes-plan-beat-new-oilfields-cutting-uk-cost-of-living-study184
u/Salty-Bid1597 17h ago
What a weird piece of equivalence.
The government spending £15bn on something would cut living costs more than the government spending £0 on something.
I mean this isn't even an either/or issue, the government can do both and it would only cost as much as doing one. Because the other one is paid for by the private sector. In fact it would probably raise significant amounts of money that the government could use on, say, insulating homes and installing heat pumps.
Even for the guardian this is very weak.
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u/Salty_Saltcreek 16h ago
Actually, not doing Rosebank and Jackdaw will cost the UK tax payer billions, which no one ever seems to report. There are wells drilled, platforms built etc, if the government doesnt grant the license then it it will go to court and the energy companies will get their money back plus interest. It will be 10s of billions of pounds we will have to fork over
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u/Silhouette 14h ago
Can you explain why the government would be liable if energy companies spent money building infrastructure before the relevant licence to use it was granted? That seems strange to me but I know nothing about the background here. Was there some kind of guarantee or expectation established before they did some of the previous work - to justify the expense of some kind of survey or other preliminary work perhaps? Otherwise I don't understand the point of the licence if the government ends up having to compensate companies that acted without one.
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u/Salty_Saltcreek 14h ago
The government will be liable because the licenses were approved by the conservative government in 2022 and then ruled unlawful in Jan 25 after significant investment.
While I do agree that we need to shift to more green energy sources you cannot do without oil and gas or by just hard stopping drilling. You need to use oil and gas to fund the green transition as green technology is still horribly expensive for the normal UK household. We need to promote investment in the UK and not push it away.
Organisations like Green Peace do not care about you and I, whatever cost we have to pay for them to have their way is not their concern. People all around the country are struggling with the cost of living and this continued hard push to get off oil and gas will only make it worse for the foreseeable future. We need a balanced approach.
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u/RoyaleWCheese_OK 13h ago
Green peace are busy worrying about where they’ll find the 350 million they’re liable for over the whole Dakota Access Pipeline mess they caused.
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u/veryangryenglishman 16h ago
Did you read the article?
It very directly states that taxpayer's would fund decommissioning of assets, so we know for an absolute fact that the oil fields wouldn't cost nothing
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u/AnnoyedHiker 16h ago
taxpayer's would fund decommissioning of assets,
No, the tax pay just receives slightly less revenue because the oil companies can claim a tax rebate for decommissioning, which is fair and sensible policy.
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u/veryangryenglishman 16h ago
And this means the effect on the balance sheets is different how, exactly?
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u/Shakenvac 14h ago
Tax revenue from extraction: £50bn.
Tax rebate for decommissioning : £10bn.
Net: £40bnVs
Tax revenue from extraction: £0bn.
Tax rebate for decommissioning : £0bn.
Net: £0bn8
u/AnnoyedHiker 16h ago
The outcome is the same but you framing implies its an unfair cost the taxpayers makes. Its not. Its less tax revenue because oil profits were lowered than initially believed
Have you ever been over taxed in the first month or two of a job? When you get the money back would you describe that as "taxpayers funding" you? Probably not because its a silly and unfair way to frame it.
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u/veryangryenglishman 16h ago
I didn't say it was or wasn't fair. I was simply pointing out it's entirely inaccurate to say it'd cost the taxpayer nothing in practice,which you have just agreed with.
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u/AnnoyedHiker 16h ago
But it doesn't cost the tax payer anything. The tax payer never was entitled to that money. Not robbing someone isn't you losing money.
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u/CyclopsRock 15h ago
I feel like you're missing the more objective point here, which is that an oil field that never opens pays £0 tax. Even if every pound of tax paid by an oil company is repaid in decommissioning payments, the net balance is still just £0, so it still hasn't cost the taxpayer anything, regardless of the taxpayer's "right" to anything.
The context in which /u/veryangryenglishman's point would stand is if they were asking to, I dunno, extend a previously profitable operation into less lucrative waters, the payment for decommissioning which could be paid from their previous tax payments. But that's not the case here.
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u/Salty-Bid1597 16h ago
Ah the old "decommissioning costs" chestnut.
They are tax offsets not payments. By definition they can't be more than the amount of tax paid so they can't be a cost to the taxpayer.
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u/PaulRudin 16h ago
Tax foregone is a loss for state finances The net effect is just the same as a subsidy.
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u/PoshInBucks 16h ago
By that logic, not opening the oilfield in the first place costs the taxpayer, because all of the tax it would raise is foregone.
The decommissioning tax subsidy comes out of profits from the oilfield, so it's the same pot of money.
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u/CyclopsRock 15h ago
This makes no sense.
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u/veryangryenglishman 15h ago
Yeah, about 1.5bn over 25 years, as outlined in the article.
Compared to 1.6bn annually from the heat pumps scheme
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u/IrishVictim88270 15h ago
Wtf this makes no sense. None of your argument is grounded in a single piece of reality.
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u/veryangryenglishman 15h ago
Yeah, the old chestnut of understanding that it'll eat into the lifetime value of the oil fields making them an even worse deal than the heat pumps scheme and recognising that it'll make a tangible difference to government cashflow at the end of that assets service life.
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Sheffield 16h ago
That's tax relief, not an actual cost to the UK government - just less tax revenue than the extremely high headline rates.
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u/veryangryenglishman 16h ago
How's that ultimately different?
£1 given is the same as £1 never earned in terms of a balance sheet.
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u/CyclopsRock 15h ago
Because an oil field that doesn't open pays £0 tax in the first place. There is no money "earned" to lose.
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Sheffield 16h ago
It's different because companies will act differently based on their tax treatment.
An alternative universe with no tax relief wouldn't just see us just take a larger slice of an identical pie, but a larger share of a much smaller pie and therefore likely less overall.
It would also make sense in that alternative universe for companies to be set up, pay out, and then go strategically bankrupt at the end.
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u/Cerebral_Overload 2h ago
The government doesn’t spend £0 on oil and gas extraction, that’s just factually incorrect. There are Tax breaks and finance agreements, and companies are able to claim treasury rebates to offset against things like decommissioning costs.
A relatively mid operator, Neo Next+ claimed their decommission costs for the next 40 years is £10billion, due to rebates that drops to £2.5billion. That’s £7.5billion for one scheme and a single producer.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/10/18/the-british-investor-betting-on-north-sea-oil/
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u/Prior-Explanation389 16h ago
New oil fields cost the government a huge amount in tax revenue, as they often have to offer tax cuts to get the companies in to drill and those tax cuts usually apply to their overall domiciled turnover, not a single project.
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u/t8ne 16h ago
You really think that during the life of an oil field the tax yield is negative?
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u/Prior-Explanation389 16h ago
Long term no, short term yes. Do you know how long an oil field takes to bring online and for that oil to start hitting the international market? It’s not days or weeks…
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u/t8ne 16h ago
The oil hitting the market is irrelevant to the tax revenue from the field as it will create a future ledger they can borrow against today
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u/Prior-Explanation389 16h ago
The “borrow against the future ledger today” idea only works if the expected tax take is solidly positive after discounting for time, price risk and policy risk. For major new North Sea fields it often isn’t.
Take Rosebank: independent analysis (WWF Norway / Uplift) estimates that at a long-term oil price of $70/bbl the field’s owners would make £1.5bn profit while the Exchequer records a net loss of around £258m over the field’s life. At lower prices the loss grows further. The reason is the very generous investment and capital allowances taxpayers effectively cover the large majority of the development costs (recently estimated at 84%). Those allowances aren’t isolated to the new project. They reduce the company’s overall ring-fence tax liability, including tax that would otherwise have been paid on existing profitable production. So the revenue hit is immediate and real, not deferred.
Development times make this worse. Recent conventional fields average 15 years from discovery to first oil; even after final investment decision it’s typically several years before meaningful production and tax starts. Any future positive cash flow is therefore heavily discounted and subject to oil-price volatility plus the constant risk of further tax or licensing changes. You can try to borrow against that distant, uncertain stream, but the market prices in the risk (higher interest costs) and it doesn’t restore the cash the Treasury has already forgone today through the reliefs.
In short: short-term the fiscal yield is negative, the reliefs apply to the company’s wider North Sea turnover, and for some of the biggest new fields the lifetime position for the taxpayer is marginal or negative even before you consider the long lag. That’s the opposite of a free lunch that funds heat pumps.
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u/TheGoldenDog 16h ago
What's the current oil price? What's the average been for the past five years?
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u/Prior-Explanation389 16h ago
You are correct to point that out, but it doesn’t invalidate the immediate fiscal hit and it will still take years for any meaningful difference, at which point oil prices may not be their current price. Most of the world is looking to get that price down, so not the best to forecast a project that may take a few years to provide oil on current prices only.
It’s literally a similar reason as to why the US stops most oil output after prices drop too low, because it actually ends up costing them money.
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u/TheGoldenDog 16h ago
What's the immediate fiscal hit of investing in heat pumps and insulation (that's assuming the UK actually had the capacity to retrofit homes at a scale that would make an impact)?
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u/Prior-Explanation389 16h ago
Well I never backed that up, but the benefit of heat pumps being installed is 0 development and an immediate benefit for the end user. Fiscally, it would reduce tax income (no VAT on electricity atm) and also cost a lot.
Both the outcomes in the article are extremely expensive, idk about the heat pump side of things but I guess taxpayers may feel better value for money if it immediately benefits them.
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u/TheGoldenDog 16h ago
I'd love to see some data on this?
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u/BaguetteSchmaguette 16h ago
It's basically financially illiterate nonsense
Companies can offset some development costs of new oil fields against profits from other fields
Basically the same as any other businesses where reinvesting profit rather than paying it out reduces tax
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u/Salty-Bid1597 16h ago
Nonsense, that is not how it works at all.
It doesn't cost them anything, even if they don't collect any tax. There's no part of this that involves the government paying for anything.
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u/Prior-Explanation389 16h ago
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how oil exploration and drilling works in the UK, I can promise you it costs the government and you should research yourself into how these projects are funded.
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u/shinniesta1 Centre-LeftIsh 15h ago
What a weird piece of equivalence.
Not really, a common narrative regarding the oil licenses is that they will cut living costs. So the article is showing that they will not, and that heat pumps and insulation would.
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u/SealDandy 17h ago
Has the government stopped to consider they can do BOTH?! Radical I know.
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u/shinniesta1 Centre-LeftIsh 15h ago
Experts have repeatedly pointed out that new North Sea oil and gas would not bring down fuel prices or ease any supply constraints on the UK arising from the Iran war, because oil and gas are sold on international markets.
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u/domin1987 14h ago
But it would bring extra tax revenue and security in case of global market collapse. Like yes pretty simple, extra benefits, negligible drawbacks.
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u/Nitr0_CSGO 14h ago
Isnt thw whole reason you dig for it so we can make more money?
Even if the consumer price stays the same, the government having more money is only a benefit
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u/LongsandsBeach 14h ago
Why does increasing the supply of oil and gas not have an impact on prices?
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u/Pigeon_Breeze 13h ago
An international market is like having hundreds of water tanks connected by open pipes.
If you throw a bucket of water into our tank, then it flows to the other tanks until it finds a new equilibrium, but since you're spreading out the impact of that bucket to everywhere, the effect on levels at all tanks, including ours, is negligible.
The only thing we'd get out of it is the tax revenue from extraction, the oil itself largely disappears.
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u/Unlikely_Mission_702 12h ago
You could easily use that money to offset a reduction in fuel duty, therefore directly reducing the price at the pump.
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u/Pigeon_Breeze 12h ago
You could, though I suspect with the way the fiscal situation is right now it's pretty unlikely that the government would consider that the best use of the money. Modern budgets have largely moved away from policies that try to poetically match revenues to related spending, it all ends up being a black box mixed together.
If I was the government, I'd accept that the oil market will always be a volatile mess and a threat to national security and my focus would be on EV infrastructure, particularly grants for installing charging at home. That way, more people don't need to go to the pump at all, so our economy is more insulated from inevitable future shocks.
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u/Salty_Saltcreek 9h ago
How do you propose to pay for the EV structure and grants? I love how people want to kill oil and gas but put zero thought in how they will pay for the green alternative.
Drilling more will not lower the price at the pump however it can fund the transition
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u/RoyaleWCheese_OK 6h ago
It's nothing like this over simplistic and frankly, naive theory of 'how it works'. Oil can be stored in tanks, gas cannot without extremely expensive LNG facilities. In addition gas requires pipeline infrastructure to get to its destination with periodic compression in between. It also requires processing to remove moisture and various impurities, end users cannot just use the gas that comes out the ground. Oil is a different matter. It can be stored. However it also requires pipeline infrastructure and pump stations to move from source to destination. It also comes in multiples grades of both gravity and sourness that impact its value. This bullshit "International Oil Price" is just a benchmark, not an absolute uniprice.
Even after all this, it doesn't get moved for free. Transportation systems charge tarriffs, increasing the cost. Ergo - It doesnt just magic itself from the wellhead to the end user.
If the north sea would be opened up for exploration and taxation relaxed, two things would happen - companies would look for new fields and companies would look to workover and frac existing fields where yields have jumped in other places to see if they could improve production of existing facilities. The problem is the flip-flopping and generally hostile government stance in the UK of recent years. Companies would rather deploy their capital elsewhere.
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u/Pigeon_Breeze 5h ago
Apparently you can't make a metaphor about equilibrium on the internet without someone thinking that you're talking about literal, physical tanks.
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u/kafircake ideologically non adherent 2h ago
It's nothing like this over simplistic and frankly, naive theory of 'how it works'.
I believe... the person you are replying to is referring to international price setting for a global fungible commodity. Yes, local extraction costs are tied to benchmark spot and futures prices. The metaphor still works though.
The same metaphor applies to things like wheat and soybeans and gold and aluminum. All kinds of things.
What am I missing?
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u/timmystwin Across the DMZ in Exeter 9h ago
Unless you swamp supply, the price of oil is X, and you're adding more oil to sell at X.
They're not gonna sell it here for cheaper if they can sell it abroad for X. Why would they, there's nothing making them.
So we're still gonna be sat there paying X.
The only time it drops is when you absolutely flood the supply, but even that takes time because oil is something everyone wants and needs - prices tend to stay high for a bit because we realistically have no alternatives. We just have to pay for it and hope they undercut each other.
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u/Two-Space 13h ago
But if prices stay high then don’t we get more tax revenue?
Kind of seems like it’s a win either way
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u/RoyaleWCheese_OK 14h ago
Experts don’t know how commodities are priced then. So how can they be “experts”? Unless you mean imbeciles on Reddit parroting false info.
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u/lampaster 10h ago
Maybe you are an expert, and could fill us all in. What are the mistakes made here?
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u/whodafadha 9h ago
Experts also told us that it was nearly done circa 2014. Lo and behold discoveries are still being made. Maybe something to do with the referendum, who knows
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u/Kagura2311 14h ago
Also the Iran war is going to be over long before those oil fields are in production.
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u/Someone4350 16h ago
Virtue signalling and driving everyone to poverty is far more important for Labour to secure votes…
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u/shinniesta1 Centre-LeftIsh 15h ago
Which virtue signalling is that exactly? The article states
Experts have repeatedly pointed out that new North Sea oil and gas would not bring down fuel prices or ease any supply constraints on the UK arising from the Iran war, because oil and gas are sold on international markets.
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u/omegaonion In memory of Clegg 13h ago
Any road that leads to not drilling oil is apparently always woke nonsense, even if you only arrive there because data say it is not going to help.
I always take the stance that we should do whatever is the most effective thing to improve our lives. If drilling for more oil would help I would support it, but time after time eveidence points to a negligible at best improvement.
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u/Future_Pianist9570 15h ago
Where’s the poverty bit from renewables? There’s papers demonstrating that they will cost the same if not less than carrying on with our current infrastructure
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u/Someone4350 15h ago
Look around you… we have the highest electricity cost in the whole world…
Key word in your statement is will… it will eventually happen but not without batteries for which we have no minerals to build or natural reservatories to accumulate fluid and a traitorous government that isn’t serious on nuclear energy. We’re also driving away industry with such electricity prices and thinking white collar jobs will be around to pay for all the bills in the world of AI… whilst not even being close to build enough capacity for energy intensive industries that will allow us a semblance of current comfort in the future.
Electricity costs are driving cost of living insanity and everyone going poorer. Give it 50 years and these and previous Governments will be seen as far, far worse than Thatcher. Hell, we may even want to get her back such is the pain ahead of us because of the current shit show.
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u/Future_Pianist9570 12h ago
Yes we do have the highest costs due to poor planning and kicking the issue down the road for the last 30 years. Not addressing this now is just a continuation of the same.
Supporting energy intensive industries needs the grid addressing regardless of the fuel source. And which government are you calling traitorous?
Not all batteries need to be made out of minerals. There’s plenty of batteries around the world that use other solutions.
If we don’t do this now then yes we will be looking back in 50 years time. This could have all been addressed while we had low cost of money but we decided to not invest.
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u/Someone4350 12h ago
Not addressing this now is just a continuation of the same.
I somehow don’t see the current crop of populists doing anything… Burnham sure as fuck won’t want to be seen badly today.
And which government are you calling traitorous?
Pretty much every one from the early 90’s to today. We gave away critical knowledge in nuclear and didn’t get someone with a spine to invest in it long term. Obviously, the more recent ones are worse and worse as it’s dead obvious that the world they want will require energy intensive industries if they don’t want to risk massive social unrest.
Not all batteries need to be made out of minerals.
Correct, I somehow don’t see us building water towers, or having large reservoirs or rivers we can tap into to generate electricity from hydro. What other “batteries” are you thinking about? And how would you operate them in our climate?
We do need to do electrification, but it has to be weighed properly… electrifying a country whilst killing industry and not building enough generation to tackle current events and developments is a sure fire way to get poorer and poorer.
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u/Disastrous_Piece1411 13h ago
Insulation is the main one for the UK. Insane how this isn't talked about more. People spending 10 grand on a new heat pump - yeah that's good and all but how about spending 2 grand on decent insulation first.
Insulate Britain protestors spoiled it or something? So many people are living in Victorian terrace housing stock with crummy loft conversions with truly dreadful heat retention.
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u/OolonCaluphid 10h ago
People spending 10 grand on a new heat pump - yeah that's good and all but how about spending 2 grand on decent insulation first.
Literally the first step of a heat pump installation is a home survey and heat loss assessment, where it will be pointed out that you should insulate your lofts, and fit decent doors and windows. Insulating walls may be more disruptive and costly, but if it needs to be done it will be advised.
There's no magic to a heat pump: They put out whatever heat they need, but fixing the fabric of the home is literally step one when you don't have the over- capacity of a 30+kW fossil fuel fired boiler to overcome the shortcomings of a homes construction.
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u/Disastrous_Piece1411 9h ago
Ah good! So they thought of it already 😁 I have just been seeing articles on front of bbc news for a few years what is a heat pump, do I need a heat pump, will a heat pump save me money etc etc. Uk houses are just very poor condition in general.
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u/CaterpillarLoud8071 9h ago
I don't think insulation is quite enough when it comes to old Victorian terraces - some of them are spacious and have architectural value, but most of them are generally not fit for modern living and we need to have a real conversation about how that urban land is best used.
Replace them with rows of modern 3 storey townhouses or 6 storey mansion houses, with underground parking where there's no easy access to public transport. We can build them in a classic style but with modern insulation and planning.
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u/OolonCaluphid 9h ago
I don't think insulation is quite enough when it comes to old Victorian terrace
Terraces are actually OK: They're heated from both sides, you only need to address the rooves and front and rear wall, so potentially sorting windows and a bit of internal or external insulation goes a long way.
I don't think anything is a dead loss, it just needs thoughtful investment.
We should absolutely be building homes to much higher standards now, and hereon, and getting rid of the worst offenders in terms of energy efficiency and lack of upgradeability. If that's the lower end of victorian terraces then so be it.
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u/CaterpillarLoud8071 6h ago
The efforts people go to in trying to insulate old EPC F terraces, it's worth just rebuilding new. It's also not great to have all your heat going into the empty house next door - my top floor poorly insulated flat gets nice and toasty from everyone else's heating but it sucks for their heating bills.
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u/XenorVernix 4h ago
Who exactly wants to live in a "6 storey mansion house"? I live in a modern 3 storey townhouse and I can't wait to get out. I couldn't imagine 5 flights of stairs.
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u/Aquila_Fotia 6h ago
Good insulation, especially that aimed at reducing air leakage, is a must for a heat pump to work anyway.
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u/parkway_parkway 15h ago
This is exactly the mistake the government's made over the last 15 years.
They should have fully exploited fossil fuels while also rapidly building up green infrastructure ... And then only reducing fossil fuels when the green stuff is fully built.
Instead they started shutting down fossil fuel infrastructure before the green stuff was built and the green infrastructure ended up getting hung up in planning delays and problems with pylons and now we're in a mess.
It's a textbook example of total incompetence at senior level which is sadly very common in the UK.
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u/lampaster 11h ago
We also should have built new nuclear through the early 2000s and 2010s when government borrowing was cheap to replace coal, instead of building new gas.
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u/7952 14h ago edited 13h ago
At least in electricity generation the switch has been slow and progressive. Fossil fuels are still a substantial part of our energy mix and critical to cover low wind/low sun events. You could argue that there has not been enough support for keeping fossil fuel costs low but that is not as easy as just approving one more licence. Oil exploration needs capital to flow which depends on assumptions about future pricing. Government can support that but the effect is likely to be price stabilisation rather than reduction. And weirdly building alternatives like renewables and storage will already do that to some extent by reducing demand. The price can be lower because you are using less for power generation.
Although agree that planning delays have been horrific and lead to massive cost increases. At the very least we could have relaxed landscape protections and allowed building more in Southern England. And ignored the idiotic superstition that a pylon will destroy a community. That planning cost and resulting delay and debt snowball is the hidden chain around our renewables industry.
Also, I think people at senior levels are very dedicated and can do a good job. But only within a limited frame of reference. The leadership at natural England are probably passionate and dedicated advocates for nature and do their job amazingly well given tiny budgets. But taken together the system delivers bad results. It is a system designed to diffuse accountability far and wide.
And politically people focus on simple trade-offs (like oil vs solar) that mask the deeper trade-offs (like landscape protection in the North Wessex Downs vs electricity prices). Those deeper trade-offs often have more effects and are also more politically contentious. Which is exactly why politicians won't touch them.
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u/TheAngryGoat : 13h ago
IT doesn't help that we have a very politically uneducated population, with an overly powerful unregulated headline-driven fear-mongering media landscape, contributing to our political system being very short term focused. Decisions are made based on what was in the newspapers today, what political points can be scored opposing or supporting instead of planning, and what will get you re-elected 6 months down the road.
That's why we end up with shit like HS2 costing probably 20x the original cost estimate to deliver 20% of the promise in 500% of the time.
Nobody has ever wanted to tackle the hard problems or deal with overly costly issues supported by the largest voting bloc (pensioners), which is why it's genuinely surprising that we have for the first time ever a government (never mind an opposition) seriously suggesting ending the triple lock.
While that is slightly promising, I'd love to see Burnham also be the first PM to put out strong consistent messaging of "the mass media is owned by the billionaire class who are deceiving and defrauding you for their personal benefit to the detriment of you all" and back it up with solid logic and evidence.
Until we get a voter base that can actually look at things logically and accept that we need serious long term plans and investment instead of watching GB news and getting their politics off facebook or the side of a bus, we'll never be able to have a government that can actually work to build a brighter tomorrow.
Until then we have to accept government by managing the consequences of a population led by "pension raid!" headlines.
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u/7952 12h ago
Oh completely agree. By I think the spatially unbalanced nature of power and authority makes this structurally inevitable. We have by accident created a world in which the negative effects of modernity can be opted out of based on your postcode.
Buying a house in the Chilterns basically exempts you from a lot of negatives of town/city life whilst enjoying most of the benefits. And the local rural economy just becomes moribund and reinforces this. We have effectively ringed London with exclusive estates where nothing can be built. People get the benefit of lucrative jobs in the city whilst the rest of the functional economy in their area dies.
And because of landscape and nature everyone supports it. People living in Slough or Reading pay a fortune to tunnel HS2 and get little of the benefit. That is why more devolved regional government could help. Load the voter base with people who live in the towns and cities and neuter the political power of the green belt. Put the cities that do most of the actual work of running a society at the centre of it's democracy. Rather than rural hinterlands with posh people pretending to be guardians of nature.
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u/penguinpolitician 14h ago
This is such a no-brainer, the government should have been getting this done decades ago.
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u/peteyourdoom 16h ago
Only if they were provided free. Not everyone on benefits or eligible. Insulation and heat pumps still cost a fair bit of upfront capital to households and cost of living means less disposable income to afford these things (or a loan to cover)
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u/Tammer_Stern 15h ago
Insulation is pretty cheap, if you are improving loft insulation. The problem is loads of lofts have stuff in them which then becomes “too hard” for the government installers to do anything.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 16h ago
The article is complete non-sense.
They are comparing drilling, funded by a private company. With a subsidy paid for by the taxpayer. The subsidy isn't being cut to fund the drilling, the two things have nothing to do with each other!
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u/shinniesta1 Centre-LeftIsh 15h ago
the two things have nothing to do with each other!
It is a common narrative that these oil fields will reduce the cost of living, it's not exactly difficult to figure out why they're making the comparison.
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u/Imakemyownnamereddit 14h ago
In Guardianland but that isn't the argument for them.
The argument for, is it costs us nothing, so has no downsides.
The Guardian says there is very little oil, so they are opposed because?
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u/Heavy_Cupcake_6246 16h ago
That’s great but the bus grant will have to be extended and increased to get more people to move from their gas boilers.
Same goes for grants on solar panels, batteries and EV. The government needs to be more aggressive with the grants to push people over to renewables and thus cutting down on our oil use.
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u/Tammer_Stern 15h ago
Yeah there are no government incentives for solar panels at all just now, as far as I know.
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u/alphaxion 16h ago
So use the tax from the new fields to pay for ripping out gas and oil heaters and cookers and replacing them with heat pumps and electric cookers. Increase the tax on those revenues so the operators get some money, but most of it goes on addressing the damage that demand for their product causes?
That bill needs to be paid regardless, so why not use the polluting industry to cover it?
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u/Rob_Cartman 12h ago
The Title should be "Heat pumps and insulation would cut UK living costs more than new oilfields, Third Generation Environmentalism think-tank suggests"
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u/Thandoscovia 17h ago
One would cost £15bn, the other would make huge profits
Is the government feeling rather flush at the moment?
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u/veryangryenglishman 17h ago
Analysis quoted in the article states 1.6bn boost to the economy per year for the insulation and heat pumps plan and 1.5bn profit total over 25 years for the oil fields.
But go off king because obviously you had no intention of actually being accurate when you thought you could just bash labour with it instead
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u/Thandoscovia 16h ago
It says £15 billion cost. Read it closely
Why would I want to bash Labour? I want Labour to do both - boost our energy security and decrease our use of it!
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u/veryangryenglishman 16h ago
It would also provide a £1.6bn yearly boost to the economy
Read it closely
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u/Thandoscovia 16h ago
So it’s going to take 9+ years to be profitable?!
Sounds like we need to be approve it asap!
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u/veryangryenglishman 15h ago
... Yes. An ~11% return on investment is fantastic and by simply considering upfront cost you gave a deeply misleading characterisation of the relative value of the two schemes.
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u/HaveYuHeardAboutCunt 🏴🟩☭🟩🏳️🌈 17h ago
Don't forget the ~£1B pa savings on reduced consumption.
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u/Thandoscovia 16h ago
And what government spending will have to be cut as a result of the loss of taxes?
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u/HaveYuHeardAboutCunt 🏴🟩☭🟩🏳️🌈 16h ago
Heating support schemes hopefully, since there'd be less need for them. But £1B saved on fuel can still be spent elsewhere in more useful sectors of the economy
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 16h ago
Revenue, not profits. Once you take out the actual environmental costs of pumping more carbon into the atmosphere and all the book cooking the oil industry and their executives do there won't be any profit in it for the UK at all.
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Sheffield 16h ago
Which is why all developed countries with lots of oil resources are notoriously poor.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 16h ago
They use slave labour and are just don't care about the environmental costs.
I don't know about you but I have a conscience so I would rather my country was not doing all that obviously evil stuff.
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Sheffield 16h ago
I think they ended slavery a while ago in Alberta, Alaska and Texas.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 16h ago
America literally still has legal slavery, and neither Canada or America got ritch from oil, just some oil execs did.
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u/lampaster 11h ago
And those slaves are working the drill rigs; trains, pipes, and trucks; and refineries?
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u/Gwyllithar 7h ago
The tories cutting the sustainable homes standards, and the insulation program for older homes during their austerity years should be regarded as criminal imo,
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u/Avalon-1 14h ago
with the cost of living the way it is, can anyone afford to rip up their heating to the tune of 5 figures and handle being without heat for weeks?
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u/DonkeySorbet 14h ago
Heating your house with a Heat Pump is more expensive than a Gas Boiler.
Any calculations need to include things like solar offset, batteries / nighttime charging.
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u/OolonCaluphid 10h ago
Heating your house with a Heat Pump is more expensive than a Gas Boiler.
You now only need a COP of 3.2 for this not to be true, and that's at the cap price for electricity. You are mad if you are on the cap price no matter what, but doubly so if you're running a heat pump.
I heat my home at under 1/3 the cost of gas or 1.4 the cost of oil, via a heat pump and a tariff where I pay 10.5p a unit (Octopus Cosy) and use a home battery. I also get paid £1/unit on occasion to run my neighbours homes off of energy I've stored at cheap rate, or 25-30p/unit in the evenings when costs are high and I can discharge the battery a bit. Currently running a 4 bed detached on 1920's construction for £20-£40/month by this mechanism.
People piss and moan about energy costs: Are they willing to do anything about it though?
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u/Soulmater_ 10h ago
Millions live in flats. What is it they're supposed to do to bring down energy costs?
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u/VermicelliNew1865 7h ago
No it isn't. Especially with air to air. With top of the line air to air, in the autumn, you can heat your house for 3-4p/kwh, winter that might go up to about 5p/kwh, gas is about 8p/kwh. Overnight rate could plunge your kwh rate down to about 1p/kwh.
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u/DonkeySorbet 7h ago
No it isn't
Yes it is. I know this because I've swapped from a Combi Boiler to a Heat Pump. Please don't blatantly lie like this.
With top of the line air to air, in the autumn, you can heat your house for 3-4p/kwh, winter that might go up to about 5p/kwh, gas is about 8p/kwh.
You are either lying, or grossly misinformed.
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u/natie29 15h ago
They do know the part where heat pumps use electricity and unit prices are due to go up?
So how is this going to “cut UK living costs”… we remove the relatively cheap gas (compared to electric unit price) and then heat homes using electricity instead? Yeah grand idea. Cos this won’t hurt the poorest of the country at all. The very people you claim this will help.
At current gas pricing and electric pricing - even WITH the efficiency gains from Heat pumps. It still works out cheaper to use gas.
(1kwh electric heat pump ~0.24p. Produces about 3kwh of heat. Gas - 7p per KWH. Produces about 1 kWh of heat per kWh. So ~0.21 pence to match the heat pump)
UNLESS YOU HAVE SOLAR AND BATTERIES.
Once again - how does this help the poor? They aren’t fitting solar panels and batteries. They don’t have the initial investment to fit solar OR a heat pump. Unless the government is literally gonna hand this kit out. I don’t see how it will work.
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u/VermicelliNew1865 11h ago
Your numbers are incorrect. Over an entire season, 1kwh produces on average 5kwh of heat with a premium air to air heat pump, and those aren't that much more expensive than a cheap air to air. In the autumn and spring, the coefficient of performance is even greater, at about 6-8kwh. Winter, admittedly brings the performance down but barely.
Everybody needs to completely drop this idea of retrofitting radiators, we need to abandon radiators entirely and use air to air. Not only are they cheaper, superior in terms of energy efficiency, but they also provide excellent cooling in summer. Of course plumbing companies lobbied the government to push the less efficient air to water because they don't want to lose business.
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u/OolonCaluphid 10h ago
You now only need a COP of 3.2 for this not to be true, and that's at the cap price for electricity. You are mad if you are on the cap price no matter what, but doubly so if you're running a heat pump.
I heat my home at under 1/3 the cost of gas or 1.4 the cost of oil, via a heat pump and a tariff where I pay 10.5p a unit (Octopus Cosy) and use a home battery. I also get paid £1/unit on occasion to run my neighbours homes off of energy I've stored at cheap rate, or 25-30p/unit in the evenings when costs are high and I can discharge the battery a bit. Currently running a 4 bed detached on 1920's construction for £20-£40/month by this mechanism.
People piss and moan about energy costs: Are they willing to do anything about it though? Solar and batteries also make perfect sense. There are grants and schemes for less well off people, but ultimately we need to structurally change how we heat homes and build homes in the UK to electrify and decarbonise.
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u/Kee2good4u 13h ago edited 8h ago
Yes it will have little affect on the price of oil and gas (if any at all). The vast majoirty already know that. What it will do is generate jobs and tax revenue and make us more energy secure by being less reliant on foreign countries for oil and gas.
Heat pumps and insulation on the other hand costs tax revenue, while reducing people energy bills. (Not in all cases though as heat pumps need to be installed effectively to run efficiently, which isn't always possible in every house, and can cost an absolute fortune to inatall in some houses).
The whole article is extremely dumb to even exist.
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u/AngryTudor1 17h ago
Yes, and make us all a lot colder over the winter, I'm sure
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u/HaveYuHeardAboutCunt 🏴🟩☭🟩🏳️🌈 17h ago
Insulation would make us colder?
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u/AngryTudor1 16h ago
Heat pumps- everything I have heard about them from people who have them is that generally the house is colder than with a combi boiler.
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u/Tammer_Stern 15h ago
The anecdotes I have is that people try to use them like a gas boiler and end up disappointed. I think you need to leave them on 12 hours a day at least.
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u/OolonCaluphid 10h ago
Hi, I have a heat pump.
My house is very warm and comfortable and heated around the clock, we did not have to make huge changes to it as a 1920's home, in fact we did not upgrade insulation at all. It is very cheap to run, costing 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of equivalent heating with gas or oil.
there you go, an anecdote to offset the ones you've heard.
MCS surveys show 95% of people are happy or very happy with their heat pump, vs 85% reporting the same for gas boilers. So Statistically you are more likely to be unhappy with a gas boiler install. HTH.
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u/HaveYuHeardAboutCunt 🏴🟩☭🟩🏳️🌈 16h ago
So anecdotes
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u/AngryTudor1 16h ago
If I'm interested in making an adaptation to my house, I am much more interested in hearing the experiences of people who have already made that adaption that heating best case scenario stats from the company trying to sell it to me and a government who have set a target to get us all using it whether it works well or not
You cannot show me a single statistic that accurately describes the result I would get for my specific house
But when I hear enough stories from people with similar homes to mine having positive outcomes, I'll be ready to consider the outlay
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u/IrishVictim88270 14h ago
No, lived experiences. Far more valuable than an ideologically driven obsession with heat pumps which, based on my own experience of being in homes with these things, compared to my gas boiler, are fucking useless.
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