Filenews 28 March 2022
By David Vetter
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine entering its second month of combat operations, researchers at the University of Oxford have revealed that the UK has paid out around €30 billion a year to buy Russian oil and gas since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 – an amount Vladimir Putin could use to buy 8,000 new-generation tanks.
In the analysis published by the Smith School of Business and Environment in Oxford, the researchers suggest that Britain could limit imports of Russian oil by 2023 and Russian natural gas by 2024 if the government followed the recommendations of the country's Climate Change Commission (CCC).
Moreover, they reveal that Britain could become completely independent of Russian gas if each household lowered its central heating by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
"It is shocking to think that we have given 22 billion pounds to Russia, with Putin launching a brutal and pernicious military offensive," Cameron Hepburn, director of the Smith School, stressed, noting that this amount equals the acquisition of 8,000 advanced T-14 Armata tanks from Russia. With the price of each chariot amounting to 4 million. dollars, the T-14 has not been deployed on the battlefield, since its cost is too large for Russian forces to risk losing it, according to some analysts.
"The money spent on importing oil and gas can instead be invested in installing cheaper clean energy, saving long-term money for UK households and helping to protect the planet," Hepburn observed.
As he explained, a commitment to the CCC's commitment (2020) to a "balanced path towards zero net energy consumption" would reduce by 30% the demand for oil and gas in the UK from 2022 to 2030, saving around €70 billion ($93 billion) by the end of the decade.
"Such a drop in demand would give the UK the option to limit the most costly imports or the strategic choice to reduce imports of Russian gas and oil by 2024," Hepburn stressed.
The CCC's plan sets out an investment strategy aimed at reducing emissions in the United Kingdom. Kingdom by 78% – compared to 1990 levels – by 2035. In this context, an increase in investment to €50 billion is foreseen ($66 billion) per year until 2030, mostly from the private sector, in order to continue the energy transition from fossil fuels, the energy upgrade of buildings and to create infrastructure for the use of electric vehicles. Coupled with government policy, the CCC says the impact of these investments will be wide-ranging: among other things, a plethora of new jobs will be created, consumers will see reductions in energy bills and improved health outcomes.
The Oxford analysis also includes the sentence "Minus 1". In particular, it finds that "the UK could eliminate its need to obtain supply of Russian gas if all households lowered their thermostats by 1 degree Celsius". This estimate is based on a study by Simon Evans, a researcher and assistant editor-in-chief of the Carbon Brief, who estimated that this would reduce the demand for natural gas by 21 terawatt-hours a year. According to Oxford researchers, this amount is equivalent to the share of Russian gas in the UK's energy mix.
Source: Forbes
