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Covid19 - we will need lots of money. Oil and Gas Exploration?

  • 29-04-2020 1:56pm
    #1
    Dinarius
    Registered Users Posts: 3,393 ✭✭✭


    I have no idea of the scale of the financial meltdown we're heading into. No one does.


    To get us out of this mess, we will need money; shed loads of it.


    Where will it come from?


    Last September Leo Varadkar, in one of his solo-runs which he usually does when abroad, said that we would end oil and gas exploration.



    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/varadkar-pledges-end-to-irish-oil-exploration-with-gas-to-follow-1.4028129


    Thus, any chance we had of becoming the next Norway was flushed down the toilet. Explorers have been handing back exploration licenses since then.


    Whether I like it or don't like it, it's going to come to an end anyway. It's a finite resource. So, should we be using it up and then moving on? Well, from our current perspective, I think the answer has to be yes.


    Per-capita, we are now the second most indebted nation in the OECD after Japan, and that was before Covid19. The situation is going to get far worse.


    We need money wherever we can get it. If there is gas and oil in the Atlantic basin, then bring it on. Of course, if Leo were to do a volte face on this, the explorers would have us over a (ahem!) barrel now. But, it wouldn't be the first time we messed up.


    If the Green brigade (I'm green with a small 'g' by instinct. But, I think that our Greens are Blue Shirts in green jumpers.) say, "No", then there's is always the Atlantic's abundance of wind, which we're also not using. Again, I have no issue with a forest of windmills offshore. In a giant cluster, they look quite beautiful. (Anyone ever noticed them off the coast of Anglesea on a flight to London? They look amazing.)



    We can't have it every way, and we have to stop looking gift horses in the mouth, now more than ever.


    D.


Comments

  • #2
    Diarmuid
    Registered Users Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭Diarmuid


    Thus, any chance we had of becoming the next Norway was flushed down the toilet.


    Is this a wind up?

    Ireland didn't have oil reserves when oil was $140/barrel, and it still doesn't have reserves now that it's $20/barrel


  • #3
    Dinarius
    Registered Users Posts: 3,393 ✭✭✭Dinarius


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Is this a wind up?

    Ireland didn't have oil reserves when oil was $140/barrel, and it still doesn't have reserves now that it's $20/barrel

    Erm...Ireland didn’t have oil reserves because none has ever been found.

    And whatever your views on oil, we’ll be using gas for a very long time.

    Nor have you addressed the issue of wind.

    Who’s winding up whom, I wonder?

    D.


  • #4
    BrokenArrows
    Registered Users Posts: 7,500 ✭✭✭BrokenArrows


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Is this a wind up?

    Ireland didn't have oil reserves when oil was $140/barrel, and it still doesn't have reserves now that it's $20/barrel

    Ireland has plenty of oil resources. The problem is its insanely hard to get to, so we might as well not have any.


  • #5
    Dinarius
    Registered Users Posts: 3,393 ✭✭✭Dinarius


    BrokenArrows wrote: »
    Ireland has plenty of oil resources. The problem is its insanely hard to get to, so we might as well not have any.

    That’s a fair point. But, if not oil, then more gas?

    But, Corrib and Kinsale gas have kept the lights on (and the central heating and the cooking) to varying degrees. Kinsale is almost spent. And a large quantity comes from the Brits. Anyone want to be relying on Priti Patel to keep the lights on?

    That said, this is encouraging, but we need a lot more of it if we’re gong to avoid fossil fuels.
    https://www.independent.ie/business/wind-overtakes-natural-gas-as-irelands-top-source-of-electricity-39164036.html

    D


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