I don’t understand. The oil price has been up and down, but I recently bought a tank full of heating oil for a lower price than about 9 months ago.
We are told that we have increased our use of renewable electricity sources. Have wind and sun gone up in price!
Meanwhile the CEO of EON takes home £1.1 million.
Oil and gas prices are not really correlated. Global gas prices have been at all time highs.
Despite the build out of renewables we still generate circa 50% of power from gas. Gas goes up, power goes up.
The UK's low-carbon energy supplies are dominated by wind power, which when its windy can generate up to 20GW, about 50% of the average current electricity demand on a winter's day. When its mostly calm, this drops to 2GW. The difference is mostly made up by burning gas. Many European countries have followed a similar model. The second half of 2021 was exceptional for low winds, which meant unprecedented demand for gas. Hence the price went sky high.
Our other big investment in renewable energy is solar, which next summer could generate 10GW or 30% of our average current summer electricity demand. Even in winter it can generate 2- 3GW when there's a reasonable amount of daylight, but will never dent into the gap above.
There are three other low carbon ways to generate electricity which aren't subject to the vagaries of the weather. 1) Hydro - but our geography isn't conducive to that - it helps if you have lots of mountains. If you flooded most of the valleys in the Scottish Highlands you'd meet some of our needs but not all. 2) Nuclear - there are lot of people who have objections and it would take 10 years for any new projects to come on line. 3) Tidal - we've got the best geography in the world for that, but there are a lot of environmental objections to walling off large parts of the Bristol Channel, and the Thames and installing huge turbines. However, without any of these three we will be at the mercy of fluctuating energy prices.
There isn't a single option that anyone will vote for. And if we do nothing voters will complain to the government about its failure of environmental policy. Much as I have little love for the current government, it, and any of its successors will have its backs to the wall on this topic.
Sorry, I have a soap box on this one. I'll get off it now.