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How the U.K. broke its own economy

theatlantic.com

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

#431

Post by pjc50 »

isaacfrond wrote: post #391
pjc50 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we can see down thread, people have got into a terrible mess of duelling propaganda and gone mad about wind power. We can have cheap clean energy, it requires a small amount of change, oh no, let's destroy everything instead. I'm going to start suggesting that planning should have a local referendum: approve this set of projects and you'll get cheaper electricity. Disapprove and your bill goes up. Democratic choic…

That would not work. Just include a few million in your budget to convince the population of SmallVille and you can start building your coal-fired power station.

The UK is still implementing the Large Combustion Plant Directive ( https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1973/2015-12-31 ), so separate UK level legislation would be required to legalize any new coal plant. Very unlikely scenario.

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

#432

Post by gpderetta »

lesuorac wrote: post #139
nxm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Seriously? UK was the only EU member not part of the Schengen Zone as-in it was the only member you couldn't freely immigrate to. As well as it's an island, nobody hoping a boat from Morocco and landing in London. Pakistani's aren't taking your job. The economy is just stagnating. Post-Pandemic is a huge anomaly [1] but the article is talking about stuff pre-2019. [1]: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-br…

> it was the only member you couldn't freely immigrate to

Aside from not being the only nation outside of Schengen, Schengen only implies freedom from borders checks. As an EU citizen you could still emigrate freely (or as freely as anywhere else in the EU) to a non-Schengen countries. I know I did.

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

#433

Post by AstralStorm »

moooo99 wrote: post #412
Manuel_D wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> For residential uses, heating, cooling, and refrigeration are the main uses. Heating and cooling can be offloaded into grid peak availability hours relatively easily with the price serving as a reliable trigger. This assumes proper insulation for the most part, but is viable and using the price as an indicator automatically sets up the right incentives. As for refrigeration, the energy use for that in a private hou…

Heating and cooling can only be offloaded in extremely wellinsulated houses. A lot of the ones in the UK do not make the cut. Even some new EU ones do not.

If you try to offload it otherwise you just waste power heating/cooling yourself at wrong hours.

A boiler in this setup is a thermal battery. These are good, but space consuming and relatively failure prone and expensive to maintain. Inefficient compared to central too.

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

#434

Post by eitau_1 »

cm2187 wrote: post #340

It is also pleagued with high taxes, something the tory party did nothing to address. And labour seems to think the solution is more taxes, and oh surprise, this hurts the economy further.

> something the tory party did nothing to address

When PM Liz Truss tried, it ended with disaster.

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

#435

Post by robertlagrant »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #66
EndShell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus it was never about immigration, It was partly about immigration. According to these surveys 43% of people that voted leave think immigration should be reduced. https://public.tableau.com/views/Publicopinion2023/FIGURE9?:... > it was always - I think - a classic case of misinformation and greed from many places. Sadly many people fell for it. Why do many people assume that if someone thinks differently about a…

> Why do many people assume that if someone thinks differently about a particular political issue they must have fooled somehow? politicians sometimes lie…? the £350 million a day bus springs to mind as one example. the amazing trade deals which will unleash our new economy were another. like, those things sound great. people wanted those promises to become real and believed the people who were saying those things co…

> politicians sometimes lie…?

That isn't a big enough reason to assume everyone's been fooled. Or at least, the people who disagree with you have been fooled. That's possible, but it's also possible you've been fooled. So bringing it up one-sided is a bit grating.

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

#436

Post by DrScientist »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #80

The last government intentionally banned the cheapest source of energy, onshore wind, from being built in England, by making it so that a single complaint could stop a project. I cannot believe this article talks about planning constraints and energy prices and doesn't mention that.

I see a lot of irrational online hate for wind power - even going as far as wanting to dismantle offshore farms.

I do wonder who is fermenting this - the obvious place to look here is the fossil fuel industry - they have the means, the motive and a track record of flexible morals.

A lot of currently very rich and powerful people lose in a world where most countries and even people can generate most of the power they require.

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

#437

Post by mavhc »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #427
Manuel_D wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a bullshit argument it really paints the rest of your comment in a bad light. I responded to a comment stating that excess storage can be stored in batteries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43249008 I'd suggest reading the comments people are responding to before calling them bullshit. > You can get so far by just storing up to 12 hours OF NIGHT TIME on a local level. "only" 12 hours of storage i…

12 hours of night time is not 30TWh The world is currently at 26TWh A DAY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_energy_consumption Let's say it is 30Twh a day in 2030 - you can calculate 50% less energy usage during night making it 20 TWh during daytime and 10Twh during night time. This excludes large wind farms that add to base load if you average over the world. There is always wind somewhere around you. Realistic…

Are you including energy usage that's currently not electricity but should be in the future?

https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf suggests 240 TWh of storage is required, but also that that's a realistic target

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

#438

Post by alibarber »

robertlagrant wrote: post #419
Jtsummers wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, in the U.K., any individual who sues to stop a new project on environmental grounds—say, to oppose a new road or airport—generally has their legal damages capped at £5,000, if they lose in court. “Once you’ve done that,” Bowman said, “you’ve created a one-way system, where people have little incentive to not bring spurious cases to challenge any new development.” Not directly stated about wind power, but…

> not low for the average person, but not that expensive either I think this is very high for the average person.

I'd wager that for the sort of person who has the desire to care deeply about stopping windmills being built (perhaps feeling a need to 'conserve' the old way of doing things), instead of say, worrying about putting food on the table - this is pocket change.

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

#439

Post by [deleted] »

lenkite wrote: post #248
mulmen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt everyone agrees on anything. If you have contrary numbers please just save all of us the time and share them.

Ugghh. I meant everyone in bird conservation. The ABC article explains why the official numbers are a heavy underestimate. But this was in 2021 - it has gotten worse since then. This is not unique to the US - my personal experience of this was in India. https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/

[deleted]

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

#440

Post by mulmen »

kjaleshire wrote: post #229
mulmen wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that wind turbines are the only power source that kills birds. Marginal bird deaths per unit of power production is the interesting statistic. This MIT post [1] links to a 2009 study [2] which provides that comparison: Wind/nuclear: 0.3-0.4 birds/GWh Fossil: 5.2 birds/GWh So if you’re pro bird you’re pro wind power. [1]: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds [2]: https://www.sciencedirec…

4.98 birds/GWh in the fossil fuel estimate comes from unrealized climate change expectations. They also only looked at two coal power plants for the remainder of the study. The nuclear source bird death estimates are extrapolated from one bad weather incident over two nights from a single plant on the Florida coast. This is not a serious or rigorous study. Is there anything more recent?

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

You can dismiss any source by saying “nuh-uh” but you need to back it up to be taken seriously here.

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