481–490 of 784 posts
A new report, titled “Foundations,” captures the country’s economic malaise in detail. That 'new' report was discussed here 5 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41600388
The source report is a much better read. The article barely adds anything of value to it, outside of quoting it a dozen times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> not low for the average person, but not that expensive either I think this is very high for the average person.
But not for someone thinking their £2m house will “lose value” There are a lot of rich people in the U.K.
Fascinatng that `brexit` isn't mentioned once in that article. Making trading harder with your closest neighbour can't be a great move for the economy.
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.
"These problems are obvious to many British politicians. Leaders in the Conservative and Labour Parties often comment on expensive energy and scarce housing. But their goals haven’t been translated into priorities and policies that lead to growth." I can't find this mentioned anywhere in the article, but the current imbalance of supply and demand and the resulting high prices is quite beneficial for parts of the real…
Ah, the class-based society.
“To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do.” Which is fine if resources were infinite or distribution was equal, but neither are true and the private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment. In any case, plain as day, the big problem with the UK economy was and is the 2008 financial crisis that chopped 5% of GDP off the eco…
On top of that there is a part of the private sector which currently benefits tremendously from the imbalance of supply and demand.
Approximately one in five Members of UK Parliament are landlords or have investments in the property market.
So a part of the private sector is ALREADY "doing what it wants to do", and surely supports the political direction in its favor.
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…
People might object to the view of wind farms, but they'll also object to any other new building. There are quite a lot of existing power stations in scenic areas! Torness, Longannet, Cockenzie come to mind in the Lothians/Fife area; any one could be seen from miles around, as they were built on the coast for water access. The latter two have been demolished. There is no way you could build them today without a similar huge level of objection. Similarly there is a spot in the plain of Yorkshire where you used to see three coal-fired power stations in relatively close proximity, dominating the countryside.
And if you look around London, you'll see the (long closed and repurposed) Battersea and Bankside powerstations. Yes, people built several massive coal fired power stations right in the middle of the city! No wonder there was a smog problem worse than 90s Beijing or LA. Again, completely inconcievable that you could build them today.
Once you build it and it exists for a few years, the complaints melt away. Leave it long enough and there will be a society for preserving historic wind farms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I’m not sure this is a fossil fuel industry thing. I think there are just people who really dislike the appearance of windmills in the landscape. Onshore, it is often better to put windmills on hills where they will be more prominent and so any one windmill can be ‘local’ to many people. Offshore, wind farms may ‘spoil’ a view out to sea, though they are also harder to oppose. P.s. I think you meant to write fomentin…
In my experience off-shore wind, even off a popular tourist beech has very little impact. Often just about visible in the haze in the distance.
The impact of onshore wind is definitely more notable. I personally don't find it that offensive, I find them elegant in the day way as an aircraft might be. Also, the blot on the land could be almost completely eradicated in hours if something better was invented tomorrow. Compared to the decades long process of decommissioning even fossil fueled power plants that seems like a pretty big win.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has already been proposed by the current government for wind farms: https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/new-energy-bill-discoun... And the switch to zonal energy pricing will likely have a similar effect for other sources of generation.
I agree with the incentives for zonal pricing to encourage clean local production. The downside however is that the grid becomes defunded and a tragedy of commons ensues. We invest in common infrastructure precisely because of variance, which in the long run we hope to ameliorate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But not for someone thinking their £2m house will “lose value” There are a lot of rich people in the U.K.
I don't understand this sort of response. The context is the average person. What do you mean in that context?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cheapest source is accurate. It may not eliminate the need for expensive LPG, but reducing the amount needed is still a massive benefit to the economy.
It's misleading, and those who use it generally know it's misleading. It's used to persuade the layperson that electricity generated by wind turbines is cheaper to the consumer or industry than electricity generated by thermal sources or hydro turbines, when in fact that is only true if you disregard the requirement for said electricity to be available on demand - a fairly important omission.
The coal or nuclear plant that commits to generating a set amount consistently but never even attempting to meet the actual demand is some kind of hoax?
In reality we're moving from baseload and peaker gas plants to follow demand to renewables and firming (the same gas plants just running at different times). It's a holistic system with parts working together.
The main difference is that renewables are cheaper and cleaner which gets them built faster and displaces more and more coal and gas from the market. With batteries eating the market from the other direction (starting with daily peaks and expanding out from there).
You can see this in carbon intensity of electricity production and the ever increasing share of renewables around the world.
Of course that plan falters a bit if you ban cheap onshore wind across an entire nation for a decade.