Norway shows why net zero is a self-inflicted disaster for the UK: Yorkshire Post Letters

While the Labour government is fixated on decarbonisation and running down and closing our platforms Norway, although blessed with abundant cheap hydro electricity, continues to develop new fields.

A small country with only five million people manages to produce two million barrels a day while the UK is down to 650,000 barrels a day. Miliband punishes producers, Norway rewards them. We will need oil and gas for 100 years or more - just think of all the work these fuels do and all the things that are made from them. Oil and gas shortages caused by Trump's and Netanyahu's illegal war against Iran show just how important these treasures are.

Net zero is a burden on our economy, a self-inflicted disaster. The Tories and Reform will scrap it and now 40 Labour MPs are railing against it. It's worth reminding ourselves that Britain had cheap electricity only 25 years ago when the Grid was powered by coal. Temples to modern industry like Ferrybridge, Longannet, Fiddler's Ferry, and Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station produced 2GW of reliable 365/24 electricity using British coal, British turbines, British generators, instrumentation, cables, and steel. Not a Chinese made item in sight. I wrote in this paper two years ago that Ratcliffe should have been mothballed, not demolished for energy emergencies such as the one we are now entering. Japan had that such foresight and are now powering up mothballed coal fired plant to reinforce their grid.

Forget the soothsayers of doom predicting a climate Armageddon if we don't stop using the Earth's fossil treasures. We should look to reopen our coal fields, perhaps using robotic mining, and build new power stations with the latest clean coal technology. There are reserves of over three billion tons of quality coal in Scotland, England and Wales . Let's get mining again.

Robin Campbell, Rosebarn Lane, Exeter.

New figures lay bare just how far North Sea gas output has fallen, and they make for uncomfortable reading. Over 25 years, hundreds of fresh licences were handed out to drill in the North Sea. The promise was energy security. The reality? All those licences combined had the potential to produce enough gas to keep Britain warm for just six months. And of that potential, we have actually seen the benefit of a mere 36 days' worth.

That is not a typo. Thirty-six days!

Yet while some Westminster politicians talk up new North Sea drilling as some kind of answer to the energy crisis, the evidence tells a different story. Over the past year, wind, solar and hydroelectric power have quietly been doing the heavy lifting. Without them, the 8.4 gigawatts of gas generated electricity we’ve been averaging would have required over 21 gigawatts instead. That is a massive saving — and it is renewables we have to thank for it.

So let us be blunt. Pouring money and effort into new North Sea gas infrastructure is not a long-term solution. It’s not even a short-term one as it will do nothing meaningful to ease the squeeze that families across the country are going to see on their energy bills later this year.

The ones it does help are the politicians bankrolled by donors with deep interests in fossil fuels, and the shareholders and executives who have done very nicely indeed out of soaring prices. Why are some people so easily fooled?