Once again, drilling the North Sea for fossil fuels shown to be a sub-optimum way of achieving its stated goals

One of the major problems with the whole opening up new oil fields in the North Sea to help with cost of living and create British jobs is that, time and time again, studies are showing that it simply won’t work, or at least not be the most efficient manner of doing so:

Heat pumps and insulation would cut UK living costs more than new oilfields, study suggests

This is of course a minor point compared to any fresh fossil fuel extraction helping further fuel the destruction of the environment we live in, with its many already existing catastrophic consequences.

There has been talk of the government removing heat pump subsidies. This is idiocy.

One reason I’m slightly sympathetic to is that in their present form they tend to go to relatively rich households vs the truly poor. This is because you typically need thousands of pounds yourself in order to take advantage of them.

The solution to this is of course not to remove the subsidy. It’s to redesign it so you don’t need substantial wealth to access it.

It’s not rocket science. The solution to a poorly designed but important subsidy is to improve its design, not eliminate it entirely. The issue is set out to solve remains a very important one.

Encouraging heat pump installation of course potentially provides Britain with economic growth, new industry, new decent jobs, reduces our abject dependence on potentially rogue foreign states - all whilst directly addressing the cost of living crisis, heating that is too expensive to use, whilst protecting the environment a lot more than many of its alternatives, including drilling the North Sea further.

I am confused why this is not obvious.