Potentially increased extraction of fossil fuels is incompatible with the UK's climate obligations and not something that should be celebrated.
Much of the UK's reduction in grid carbon emissions since around 2010 is due to a coal -> renewables shift, rather than just coal -> gas. In fact, even gas-fired electricity production has begun to decline in the UK as more wind capacity comes online.
Total low-carbon (renewables + nuclear) production reached 56% share in 2018.
Around Europe we can see the countries that have low emissions are either heavy on nuclear or have good access to hydro, or both. The rest that are doing well are on gas. Those who shunned gas and nuclear and went all in with wind and solar are usually amongst the worst. We can expand renewables as much as we like but it's not going to be enough until we have a scalable way of storing the energy generated from it. If we want to reduce gas in order to cut emissions even further, it's going to have to be nuclear. However, if we're talking about the cost of nuclear, the cost of carbon capture and storage of gas generation also becomes an option.
Yes, there is significant day-to-day variance in renewables production. But renewables are a very significant and rapidly growing energy source in the UK, reaching 30% of total grid production in 2018, while both gas and coal are in decline.
In fact, just wind + solar has already exceeded the combined annual generation from the UK's entire nuclear fleet. And it's likely that in the next 1-2 years, wind alone will exceed nuclear production.
Daily variance is also declining over time as the wind turbine fleet becomes more geographically dispersed.
It's true that if the UK had never built gas power plants and still relied extensively on coal, then we'd be in a much worse situation. But if we had gone for gas alone, emissions would be far higher than with a gas+renewables mix. And energy security would be worse, leaving the UK vulnerable to fluctuating prices and potential gas shortages and supply interruptions as most natural gas is imported.
> "Those who shunned gas and nuclear and went all in with wind and solar are usually amongst the worst."
Well, we all know about Germany. The problem here is that not only are they relying on coal, but much of it is actually lignite (brown coal) - the dirtiest form of coal.
And much of the reason they are still so dependent on fossil fuels is not because of lack of renewables production, but because of transmission constraints between the north (where most of the wind production is) and the south (where the biggest demand centers are). This issue is being resolved over time.
You also seem to be ignoring countries like Denmark, Spain, and Portugal who have very successfully moved to wind and solar and now have very little dependence on coal.
They are much more heavily taxed than other companies.
>This means that the marginal tax rate on PRT paying fields is now 81% (fields not paying PRT pay a rate of 62%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_Revenue_Tax
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/oil-gas-and-mining-petroleum-rev...
I guess the Empire finally colonised itself.