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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

#681

Post by nonrandomstring »

pjc50 wrote: post #488
nonrandomstring wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Zonal pricing (UK) does not conflict with grid funding, it is the grid funding. It also exposes the economic incentives for allowing new grid infrastructure to be built.

I hope you're right. Incentives both ways and support for national infra is ideal. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia just showed [0] how flexible grids can be at the international level. However I think at the national level some countries aren't that happy to support national grids.

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/brell-lithuania-latvia-and-estonia-tur...

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

#682

Post by Manuel_D »

brohee wrote: post #521
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…

The effect of overcapacity is null or negative price, which has the property to make more storage viable (who cares if it only gives back 25% if the input is free or very cheap), so I'd say intermittent sources overcapacity is an enabler of on grid storage. E.g. today in Germany you can buy MWh at 14€ at 13:00 and sell it back at 180€ at 18:00. I didn't look all of Europe but it looked like the biggest spread today..…

This is precisely why intermittent sources aren't viable without a breakthrough in energy storage. Existing storage mechanisms aren't capable of delivering at the tens to hundreds of terawatt hour scale required to make intermittent sources viable.

Remember, 66.8 TWh of electricity is used daily. Intermittent sources don't just experience daily fluctuations, but seasonal fluctuations lasting days or weeks. Even 12 hours of storage would still leave us with periods of insufficient production multiple orders of magnitude more frequent than the status quo: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z

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

#683

Post by Manuel_D »

cycomanic wrote: post #454
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…

> 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 ener…

"Base load" refers to electricity demand, not sources of electricity. Things that consume electricity are a "load". The "base load" is the level of energy demand that is always present in the grid. E.g. if a grid consumes 5 GW of electricity at peak demand, and 4 GW at minimum demand, then 4 GW is the base load.

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

#684

Post by smcl »

WalterBright wrote: post #677
keybored wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like building transport infrastructure to nowhere, hmm? And then they build all the other infrastructure around it.[1] Because with such central planning you don’t need to build around and on top of existing infrastructure—you can build like in Sim City. That vacant “Paris” also turned out to become populated later. Ha ha they centrally planned a city and didn’t move people into it before it was done... like what you…

google "vacant cities in china"

Oh yeah that's a boomer favourite! There are a bunch of articles from the early 2010s of Americans laughing at China for exactly this ... and a handful of more recent ones from the latter part of that decade conceding that actually those "ghost cities" are rapidly filling up. They don't do articles on them any more, it's too embarrassing because they're filling up and just turning out to be normal cities. You can get a nice overview of each on the wikipedia page if you like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underoccupied_developments_in_...

They've also built thousands of miles of high-speed rail, many dozens of subway lines and elevated hundreds of millions into the middle class. I don't particularly like the CCP for a variety of reasons, however to downplay their incredible strategic planning starting in the early 1980s in terms of industry and infrastructure is to be frighteningly ignorant of the world outside your borders. If you're an older American, you can probably afford to live out the rest of your days in this blissful ignorance. The rest of us however will have to figure out how the rapid decline of the USA and ascendency of China will affect our lives and plan accordingly.

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

#685

Post by smcl »

randomcarbloke wrote: post #425
smcl wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

post '08 and until 2016 the UK economy was the fastest growing in the G7, notably countries that imposed much more severe austerity fared even better - Ireland who are still wedded to the policy continues to thrive, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian economies all grew at a much faster rate than the UK (and by extension the rest of the G7)

> post '08 and until 2016 the UK economy was the fastest growing in the G7,

Found George Osborne's account! Seriously though, you're wrong:

- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1370599/g7-country-gdp-g... there is one year (2014) where the UK has a higher GDP growth rate

- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1370625/g7-country-gdp-l... when looking at GDP per-capita it tells a similar story

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

#686

Post by intended »

geye1234 wrote: post #573
mytailorisrich wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the year ending June 2024 the net migration into the UK was 728,000. That is the root cause. The government (and this hasn't started with the current government) has a policy of high immigration then makes noise about the need of doing more to solve the "housing crisis"...

You are correct. Immigration exploded under Blair, and exploded again (from its previous high) under Johnson. That is the root cause of the housing crisis. Look at how many people in their 20s were able to buy homes in the 1990s, then look at immigration levels in that decade. You and the other person who pointed this out got downvoted. As you say, it's forbidden to bring this up. But it's true. Immigration has benef…

The article itself points out that this isn’t the cause of the crisis, and that the misunderstanding of the crisis results in this exact argument.

However, the emotional aspect of this question is what needs to be addressed.

Britain is leaving its citizens out to dry. Well - you need to get with your legislators and more importantly neighbours and decide that you are ok with new housing being built, which ISNT for the rich, very rich, and super rich.

Actual middle class housing.

You need a boom in construction to start dealing with the fact that there isn’t enough affordable housing available. Hopefully that will give the UK enough to restart its growth, and then tackle the issue of railways.

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

#687

Post by ben_w »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #662
ben_w wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK House ownership rates are pretty high, but they went down right after the global financial crisis, presumably because the banks had tighter lending rules: https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/214874/economics/why-its-... House prices are also way up. Lots of people who own them really like this, but it makes it harder to become a home owner in the first place.

For most people who own houses it's probably not relevant that the value has gone up? If you upgrade you pay the margin, which is higher. Legal/admin/moving costs tend to be a percentage of house value, so costs are higher. When you retire you might downsize and release a lot of equity, but that's not going to be true for most house owners (happy to be proved wrong) - downsizing is for the wealthy, if I ever downsize…

> If you upgrade you pay the margin, which is higher. Legal/admin/moving costs tend to be a percentage of house value, so costs are higher.

Indeed.

But psychology: monkey likes seeing number go up.

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

#688

Post by intended »

fpoling wrote: post #520
junto wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same narrative is being pushed on Germany for instance. I think it’s quite simple. Renewable energy is a route to energy independence for various nations that were previously highly dependent on foreign nations and corporations and there are very powerful fossil fuel interconnected groups / nations that are terrified of that. Russia wants Germany to buy Russian gas. The U.S. wants Europe to buy their gas’s too. T…

It is not any fossil fuel, it is specifically oil and gas. Coal is not a problem for energy independence as it is much more evenly distributed on Earth. What Germany has done with its reliance on Russian gas is truly insane. Not only they closed nuclear stations, but they also have been closing coal power stations. They should be pushing electrical vehicles and modernization of coal plants instead as China is doing.…

It’s insane today. Trade was specifically a way to ensure people learn to work together.

I guess, this is the era for consequences

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

#689

Post by WalterBright »

smcl wrote: post #684
WalterBright wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google "vacant cities in china"

Oh yeah that's a boomer favourite! There are a bunch of articles from the early 2010s of Americans laughing at China for exactly this ... and a handful of more recent ones from the latter part of that decade conceding that actually those "ghost cities" are rapidly filling up. They don't do articles on them any more, it's too embarrassing because they're filling up and just turning out to be normal cities. You can get…

From one year ago:

https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1762205898217283781

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

#690

Post by [deleted] »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #470
chgs wrote: post #441

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.

Of course, but I think a country can't survive long term if it's focused on raising the property prices of those with already expansive houses especially given the demographic slowdown/collapse. Or am I crazy?

[deleted]
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