Falling North Sea output a good thing?

[fishertrop]

It would seem as tho oil production from the North Sea is either in strong decline or may have even fallen off a cliff:

http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/article ... 232634&p=7

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/artic ... 37,00.html

Good this be a good thing for the UK ?

On the face of it, it's all BAD BAD news:
a) loss of tax revenues
b) loss of GDP contributions
c) having to import at HIGH prices
d) ...after having sold the crown jewels at $20/barrel

BUT
a) bringing the situation to a head asap is surely a good thing
b) it might force serious change on the Uk earlier than it might have done
c) a huge slice of the oil that is extracted is exported straight to the USA - less oil out of the ground means less goes overseas
d) the tail-end of the fields will remain and we only really need a few 100kbpd to run the essential stuff

The Uk economy is one of the best in Europe (on paper), but a lot of this comes from North Sea oil - if we drop to the bottom of the league table it might wake people up (we might even get a bigger EU grant!).

The sudden loss of oil forced Cuba into radical change, which was mostly good for the country overall - a similar shock-and-change might also leave the Uk in a better postion in teh end.

There is no avoiding the pain of chnage, we might as well bring it to a head asap so we can make a start on a new lifestyle.

Personally I have no faith in a Uk population wake-up as we are, I think we need a big and clear signal like this (or like the 2012 Olympics in a fuel-rationed london) to really trigger change.

What do people think?

[Bandidoz]

We'll just build pipelines - path of least resistance.

[isenhand]

I think people will spend more time trying to find someone to blame. With the system as it is the powers to be would spend their time trying to maintain what we have. To really do something would require a radical solution that will be hard to do. But on the other hand, the people on the street might start doing something.

[peaky]

Well fishertrop, I reckon you're probably right. Obviously, we'll all be doing our bit but our increasing reliance on imports will ratchet up the pressure quite a bit I reckon and will focus minds quite well, particularly those in industry (especially after Clive's Energy Future presentation at Peak Speak) who get shafted before the rest of us.

[DamianB]

I think people will spend more time trying to find someone to blame. With the system as it is the powers to be would spend their time trying to maintain what we have. To really do something would require a radical solution that will be hard to do. But on the other hand, the people on the street might start doing something.

The cool thing about the posters here is that we, none of us, blame anyone! The more people we get on board the easier the transition will be.