Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How can England possibly be running out of water?

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 524 posts

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#511

Post by mytailorisrich »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #410
swiftcoder wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My provider is Thames Water. They are losing money. Are they losing money because costs exceed revenue, or are they losing money because they are servicing massive loan interest on money they already distributed to shareholders?

Page 10 of their 24/25 annual report says they only pay 8% toward interest payments, the largest outgoing is infrastructure, then opex. https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-library/l13deqmw/thames-...

And yet they have paid dividends until last year and the regulator has now banned them from doing so without approval and fined them, too.

They are a scam operation, frankly.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#512

Post by jamiejquinn »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #392
krona wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sewage has to be dumped (especially in storm conditions), and the water companies have licences to do so. However Thames was found to be in breach of the license, so were fined. Many people claim these things happen because "shareholders" however it was completely widespread practice to dump sewage before privatisation and the system is literally designed to do so. This doesn't make it OK, however.

Sewage doesn't have to be dumped. Simply separate your black water and grey water. Storm drains can go to rivers (if the rivers have capacity – if not, it's sometimes easier to give the river more capacity than to build more sewers), and the amount of water in sewage pipes will be independent of the amount of rain. Sure, the sewers might not currently be designed that way, but that can be changed. (It's a logistical…

Aye, the fact that the WHOLE system would cost trillions to upgrade doesn't stop anyone from upgrading it slowly in this way. The problem will still exist in 50 years, any progress is better than none.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#513

Post by philipallstar »

alt227 wrote: post #333
philipallstar wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not always the immigrants. That comment's just as intelligent as actually believing it's always the immigrants. If the population were growing rapidly due to everyone having larger families, that would be the reason, but it's not. If you add millions of people over the last 25 years (say) then of course water will become much scarcer. And it's not like, say, food supply, which scales up and down relatively nicel…

> If you add millions of people over the last 25 years (say) then of course water will become much scarcer. Not if the profits from selling the water are reinvested into the network to increase the capacity to fit the need. Are you saying that its fine that billions of pounds of UK water profits money have gone into overseas investors pockets, because we shouldnt have let so many immigrants into the country and so th…

> Are you saying that its fine that billions of pounds of UK water profits money have gone into overseas investors pockets, because we shouldnt have let so many immigrants into the country and so there would still be enough water services for all if we hadn't?

I'm not saying it's fine, no.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#514

Post by KoolKat23 »

qcnguy wrote: post #412
qcnguy wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no contradiction. Thames and gilts both pay ~5.8% on average. This is about the same as "Baa" (moderate risk) corporate debt. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BAA Thames' debt costs are normal for a company of its type, but for a government this bond yield is danger-level high. That's why there's so much talk in financial circles now about the UK needing another IMF bailout, although I have grave doubts abo…

Given that ratings agencies were brought up it's worth adding a bit more detail here. Thames' debt is C-grade because it recently defaulted on its debt. How is that possible given that its debt servicing costs are not unusually high? Normally you'd expect interest costs to go up well before default. Well, on the surface level because it couldn't raise more money from investors to meet rising costs. It couldn't do tha…

Again Thanks, extremely interesting insight.

I'm not sure they're entirely to blame although I'm sure they've played their part.

Look at the shareholding changes (2011-2017 Macquarie) and dividend payout percentage. It seems the current shareholders were left holding the bag, and perhaps we should be pointing fingers at Macquarie. When they left the debt had been increased by £2bln. If you look at their dividend payout ratio, in most of the years it held the investment, this ratio is extraordinarily high. Perhaps they sucked this dry, necessitating a price increase. (Current shareholders have barely paid anything).

Capital expenditure has been flat, only really increasing in 2021-2024. Perhaps chickens coming home to roost?

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#515

Post by p1dda »

KaiserPro wrote: post #249
p1dda wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build new power plants genius

congratulations, you now have 8x the debt, breaks the legal requirements for decarbonising the grid, diverts money away from uprading the grid from where its needed, and pisses off the most of the locals. Then you discover that all your fresh water is by the coast, so you now also need to build huge water moving infrastructure. you might as well just do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Contour_Canal and spen…

Nuclear power plants is the answer

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#516

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

boomskats wrote: post #58

This last year I've noticed a disproportionate number of burst mains water pipes pissing ridiculous amounts of water everywhere, with whole roads flooded for days, sometimes weeks, before Thames Water's subcontractors managed to get round to dealing with it. This has happened before on occasion, but this year I've seen maybe 10x more leaks than any previous year. Critical infrastructure is bursting in unison because…

It's not just water either. Nothing works in the UK anymore. Trains, the NHS, BT, roads, the CCRC, everything seems to be deteriorating more and more. What the hell's going on?

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#517

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

braza wrote: post #63

> People across England are already banned from using hosepipes, with more restrictions probable over coming months. > So how on earth did famously rainswept England, notorious the world over for being green and wet with our national symbol pretty much a furled umbrella, come to this? > The UK is one of the rainier places in Europe. Some areas are wetter than others > Water companies in England and Wales lose about 1…

>> Given that, why does the England government not provide a definitive solution?

Every government in the last 20 years has been incompetent when it comes to managing the country. All they know is to make statements to the news about hot-button issues, like Brexit, foreigners, flags, Ukraine, Palestine, trans rights, Lucy Letby, etc. Both the Tories and Labour. They've both been more like teams of social media influencers than governments.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#518

Post by neuroelectron »

antonly wrote: post #326
neuroelectron wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16% As of the 2021 Census, approximately 16% of the population in England and Wales were born outside the UK, which translates to about 10 million people. This figure represents a significant increase from previous years, indicating a growing presence of foreign-born individuals in the country. Wikipedia +1

Woah there, not all foreign born people are refugees. That's some serious misunderstanding you have there. Also, the "foreign born" statistic is pretty moot, seeing as UK was part of the EU until shortly before 2021 with free movement of labour. Most other European countries have higher levels of "foreign born" people living there, e.g. Austria, Germany and Sweden with around 20%[^1]. If you scroll further down, you…

Now you're just nitpicking, which proves my point since you cannot attack the main issue, which is free movement of labor undermining sovereignty and eventually quality of living.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#519

Post by anon84873628 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #492
scubbo wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the people who made it so that there was no way for humans to enjoy those reasonable comforts without contributing to pollution. > Are you posting these comments from a computer powered by solar panels? That's precisely the point. It shouldn't be individual responsibility to improve our infrastructure (though, in point of fact, I actually _am_ posting using solar power). A good society is one in which everyone _i…

I am not sure about you, but me and many other commenters here, live in Democracies and in places where capitalism offers choice. Yet, most people weren't voting for the green parties. Oversized vehicles are very popular. Even people who voice their concerns about climate change have complained to me about gas prices. When I tell people they should celebrate high gas prices I get treated like I am insane. We've been…

Yeah, it's the definition of a game theory prisoner's dilemma type situation. Which normally governments are best positioned to solve. But this one requires coordination between politicians over long timescales, and across sovereign governments altogether.

So it really does require worldwide grassroots activism, which unfortunately is very slow and incremental. I'm not hopeful... Our ape brains are just not built for what it takes.

Post reply on HN