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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

#491

Post by phicoh »

Retric wrote: post #463
phicoh wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason for anyone with a wind park to sell cheap if there are customers willing to pay a high price. That said with a battery and dynamic prices, there are many days where you can charge a battery when the prices are low and use them battery when the prices are high.

Constant pricing means they make more when wholesale prices tank and less when whole prices rise. I’ll sell you X% of my output for Y$/kWh is a perfectly valid strategy and batteries can absorb output spikes just as they absorb blackouts. Hedges like this are a useful risk mitigation strategy as going bankrupt is a much larger downside than making slightly more money.

This fine. But from the fact that prices are sometimes high, we can conclude that overlll there is a shortage of windpower. Which will factor into the prices. The owner of the windpark can take the prices for each hour, and compute weighted average with production. And set that as the constant price.

So the consumer does not gain anything.

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

#493

Post by switch007 »

walthamstow wrote: post #365
switch007 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I didn't forget it, it's not a deduction from my salary. You don't pay 42% of your salary. Employee NI went down by 2pts last year, employer NI is going up by 1.2pts this year.

Fair enough if you want to believe you only pay 26% tax. Sounds like you know about it but disagree it's unrealised salary?

You can see why the government created it in such a way !

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

#494

Post by HPsquared »

rickdeckard wrote: post #480

"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…

Mission accomplished, in other words.

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

#495

Post by blitzar »

Retric wrote: post #460
isaacfrond wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Coal is dead in the UK, from 30% in 2014 to 0.5% in 2024. They went a full month with zero coal electricity generation back in 2020 and 2025 will be entirely coal free. Even natural gas is in decline.

Some people would build a coal power plant in their back yard to own the libs and fight the scurge of rooftop solar pannels destroying the country.

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

#496

Post by 2-3-7-43-1807 »

as a german i do not believe that brexit is actually a root of their problems. it is more that despite advantages thanks to brexit they still fucked it up because their government is a bunch of greedy grifters. eu membership at best takes away some of their power and averages the incompetence and ignorance over several countries (as every member exerts indirectly power over all the other members to some extent). also leaving eu is a long-term project. it's ridiculous to argue that it's a bad thing to do just because the immediate effects are negative. that's always the case if something fundamentally is changed. the eu is a huge bureaucratic self-service shop for the politicians and their minions.

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

#497

Post by thepaulmcbride »

f6v wrote: post #484
rickdeckard wrote: post #480

"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…

> Approximately one in five Members of UK Parliament are landlords or have investments in the property market. Ah, the class-based society.

Everybody wants affordable housing until it’s their housing becoming affordable.

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

#498

Post by [deleted] »

blibble wrote: post #228
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.

wouldn't have mattered due to the screwed up energy pricing system, if there's a single watt of electricity in the grid produced by burning gas, we pay for the entire grid output as if it was gas

[deleted]

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

#499

Post by Symbiote »

Ekaros wrote: post #325
alvah wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I often wonder how many people would accept automatic black outs when buying green energy. A process that "happens" here. You can buy for example purely wind powered electricity. But somehow that does not stop being delivered when there is no wind. Instead there would be electric relay connected to mains in your home and when there is less supply than demand you would get blackout. That would be similar comparison to…

Large users like the supermarkets have agreements with electricity providers that they will reduce their use at certain times in return for a discount.

Tesco doesn't care if the freezers in store run at 04:00-04:15, or 04:30-04:45, and will pick whichever is cheaper.

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

#500

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

sgt101 wrote: post #443

“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…

> private sector will not safe guard the public sphere of the environment.

In what sense are homes for people to live in not the public sphere of the environment?

What do you expect people to do? Go back to freezing in the dark?

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