How the U.K. broke its own economy • Hacker News Board

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#341

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:22 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #226

>Per capita electricity generation in the U.K. is now roughly one-third that of the United States, and energy use per unit of GDP is the lowest in the G7. By these measures, at least, Britain may be the most energy-starved nation in the developed world. Yikes. Housing is the big issue that gets everyone’s attention, but this is huge. Cheap energy drives economic growth at all levels. It’s incredible that the various…

Nobody wants to see any electricity infrastructure being built. The British media is so inward looking and personality driven nobody will dare to connect "no infrastructure" with "high prices".

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#342

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:24 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #86

PaulRobinson wrote: post #64

The core argument - that the state is getting in the way of the private sector fixing everything - is clearly false, at least in the case of the UK. If that were the case, public transport (which underwent radical privatisation and deregulation across the UK some 40+ years ago), would be the cheapest and most effective in Europe. In fact, it's the most expensive in Europe. It is all currently being wrestled back into…

I googled the transportation privatization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail So the UK rail network was privatized in the 1990s with tracks and stations remaining under government control and private companies bid for a 'franchise' running train services for whole regions. So basically franchises operate as regional monopolies and meaning passengers don't have any real choice of providers? T…

The train situation is deeply stupid - the franchise companies are empty shells, all that changes is the nameplate. The actual profit taking is ownership of the trains by ROSCOs. They invented landlordism for trains.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#343

Post by TheSunSet » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:25 AM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #286

marliechiller wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brexit was the most stupid thing a country ever did to itself From an economic standpoint, brexit was indeed a big L, but I dont think brexiteers were largely voting on economic grounds - a point which is lost on most remainers.

Brexit was absolutely about Economic conditions. Anti immigration sentiment was one big factor that everyone talks about, but in reality the sentiment itself was a symptom on display for the underlying condition of people having their living standards drop. The second big factor people kept bringing up was that EU was making decisions for UK, which people thought needed to be reversed. Austerity measures, which EU ad…

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Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#344

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:26 AM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #334

walthamstow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you think the north and Scotland would be better off together. The south east would only get richer under such a scenario. Taxes-too-high is a common refrain but income tax + national insurance takes 26% of my 95th-percentile income. Is that so bad?

You forgot employers NI (for the unfamiliar - the employER has to pay 15% from April - not a typo - of part of your salary in taxes to the government and this is hidden from your payroll taxes as an employee) What's the % if you include those deductions? In my case my tax rate is 29% but employers NI is 13% so 42%, going up to 44/45% in April

[deleted]

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#345

Post by rich_sasha » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:26 AM UTC

marliechiller wrote: post #256

tacker2000 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that’s really funny. Im not sure how you can write an article like this and never even mention it once. Brexit was the most stupid thing a country ever did to itself, and the full effects are just starting to come to the surface now. I dont think the UK will ever fully recover from it.

> Brexit was the most stupid thing a country ever did to itself From an economic standpoint, brexit was indeed a big L, but I dont think brexiteers were largely voting on economic grounds - a point which is lost on most remainers.

It was sold as a win on all fronts. Who wouldn't want a new hospital every year?

I'm not sure people would vote for it if they knew it comes with an economic meltdown.

Maybe still they would do, though.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#346

Post by Manuel_D » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:26 AM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #328

Manuel_D wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capacity factor is calculated in. But intermittency is not. The issue is that once demand is saturated during periods of peak production, the excess energy is wasted so the effective capacity factor drops as adoption grows. E.g. once you saturate daytime energy demand, further investment in solar energy yields no more useable energy. Intermittent sources are a good way to supplement dispatchable sources of energy lik…

it's possible (and fairly easy) to build infrastructure that only turns on when there is excess energy

You can see the breakdown of electricity usage here: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect...

For residential uses, heating, cooling, and refrigeration are the main uses.

For commercial electricity use: computing, refrigeration, cooling, and ventilation.

For industrial electricity use: machine drive (lathes, mills, etc.), process and boiler heating, facility heating and cooling, electrochemical process.

The only categories that I guess could be easily shifted is process and boiler heating. But some industrial processes need to run uninterrupted for weeks. Machine drive, perhaps, but then workers would not be able to work a regular schedule. Not to mention, industrial applications in total is less than 25% of electricity use.

Demand shifting is a lot easier said than done. I see it proposed very frequently, but I've yet to see a detailed plan for what electricity uses will be shifted, and how.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#347

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:27 AM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #3

British economic dysfunction is an old, old story. My favorite quip: "This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time." - Aneurin Bevan, British Labour politician, in a speech at Blackpool, 24 May 1945

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#348

Post by smcl » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #290

nikkwong wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British economy was doing quite well before Brexit. Now it's absolutely crippled.

Not really, growth in the UK has effectively stalled since 2008, quite a few years before Brexit. I’m sure Brexit hasn’t helped, but it seems that the economic stewardship of the coalition and post-coalition governments was also lacking. I don’t know what the UK can do about it, but it’s been stuck in a spiral of economic stagnation for over 15 years now.

That’s the time the Conservative Party were voted in and imposed “austerity”. This involved scaling back government spending and scratching their heads wondering why growth is stalled.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#349

Post by smcl » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:30 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #339

> Postwar Britain had been swept up by the theory that nationalization created economies of scale that gave citizens better outcomes than pure capitalism. “There was an idea that if we could rationalize the planning system … then we could build things in the right way—considered, and planned, and environmentally friendly,” ... But the costs of nationalization became clear within a few decades. Central economic planni…

Seems to be working extremely well in China, to be honest.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#350

Post by tsimionescu » Tue, Mar 04, 2025, 7:30 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #247

WeylandYutani wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the Netherlands builds them out in the sea. Just far enough so that you cannot see them. Even the biggest reactionary NIMBY has no complaints.As for wildlife come on man who the fuck cares?

Minus the last sentence, this is a great point. Do any downvoters have any issue with everything but the last sentence? If anything, the Netherlands is probably Europe's most intensely developed country. There is hardly a square meter that hasn't been carefully planned out over the last 500 years.

The Netherlands still produces 64% more CO2 per capita compared to France, despite having only 45% higher GDP per capita. And France has way more dirty industry, if we looked purely at power generation they would look even better.

This is what significant investment in nuclear does. Even the countries that invested the most in renewables can't beat it, yet. I'm very curious to see how long it will take the renewable-only countries to catch up, especially considering that emissions accumulate.