@ChrisMayLA6 the UK exports 85% of the oil it produces because it doesn’t have the refinery capacity to meet its own demands, so it buys more than it exports at higher cost. Oil underpins everything we take for granted. And globally, oil EROI has slid from 1:100 to 1:15 in the past 80 years. It becomes loss making at about 1:10.
No amount of political wishful thinking or strategic shift in monetary policy is going to change material reality or magic up economic dynamism
@ChrisMayLA6 the UK exports 85% of the oil it produces because it doesn’t have the refinery capacity to meet its own demands, so it buys more than it exports at higher cost. Oil underpins everything we take for granted. And globally, oil EROI has slid from 1:100 to 1:15 in the past 80 years. It becomes loss making at about 1:10.
No amount of political wishful thinking or strategic shift in monetary policy is going to change material reality or magic up economic dynamism
@urlyman @ChrisMayLA6 UK refinery capacity has shrunk significantly over recent years, down from 18 in the 1970s to 4 today. The most recent casualties were Grangemouth and Lindley. Seemingly it's not economic to refine here anymore.
While some of that is due to the decline in domestically extracted North Sea oil and gas, at the same time the Gulf states have heavily invested in refining their own crude, so capturing the value added. I suppose we should recognise this as a form of decolonisation.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2025-0235/CDP-2025-0235.pdf
@marjolica and because burning fossil fuels is accelerating the erosion of the basis upon which economies of scale can exist at all, even countries which have a CAPEX head start are just narrowing the window within which any strategic shift that ignores thermodynamic reality can stand up.
Can we muster any new thinking at all?
@ChrisMayLA6 not in the corridors of power, anyway
