How the U.K. broke its own economy • Hacker News Board

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

#761

Post by cupcakecommons » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:09 AM UTC

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #751

cupcakecommons wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being purposefully aggravating here because your argument is weak but it's been socially supported for some time now. Nuclear power lagged behind renewables due primarily to proliferation fears and subsequent over-regulation in most of the world, not technical flaws, missing out on innovations like modular reactors. China’s pushing ahead with 150 GW by 2030, leveraging nuclear’s advantages: it’s compact (1-4…

Nuclear power has famously had negative learning by doing throughout its entire life. There was a first large scale attempt at scaling nuclear power culminating 40 years ago. Nuclear power peaked at ~20% of the global electricity mix in the 1990s. It was all negative learning by doing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... Then we tried again 20 years ago. There was a massive subsidy push. T…

Your figures for China's mix are meaningless because you don't bother to mention when you think "saturation" occurs. They are on track to build far more Nuclear than 2-3% of their current mix in the next 20 years - and this is as the world's top manufacturer of solar and wind products.

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

#762

Post by Manuel_D » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:52 AM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #758

Manuel_D wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately 12 hours of storage is still going to be a shortfall, even with overproduction. Researchers analyze historical weather data and simulate how renewable grids would perform on that historical trends, measuring periods of underproduction. Even with 50% overproduction and 12 hours of storage, we're still looking at an unacceptably unreliable grid: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z > However…

That nature paper is garbage. It's imagining a grid that is 100% solar+wind, which no one is proposing building. Changing that to a grid that has 20% nuclear/geothermal would completely change the figures (in that it would dramatically shift the wind/solar ratios). Also my battery assumptions were missing the fact that the world already has ~5TWh of hydro which can be used as a battery (even when not pumped hydro by…

Dams don't double as energy storage in the same way as batteries. Their rate of recharge is limited by precipitation. You can't run a dam turbine in reverse and fill the dam with excess power (you can with pumped hydro, but we have way less than 5 TWh of that). The best you can do is totally shut them off and let them refill. And in reality, dams have to constantly release a minimum amount of water to avoid creating a totally dry riverbed.

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

#763

Post by JackYoustra » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 5:00 AM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #705

JackYoustra wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not great, sure, but it's only something like a long-run 2% drag. 2% is a lot, don't get me wrong! But the loss from planning is pretty high double digits, well over 10% in the US, to say nothing about the gains from liberalizing migration

A recent estimation puts the cost of Brexit as 6% of GDP, since 2020 - because that's when the UK actually left. So over 5 full years. That's a lot. And it's not a one-off either.

Oh yeah. Higher than I thought! I still doubt it's as high as housing or migration, but yeah probably the first thing after that.

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

#764

Post by gadders » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #738

gadders wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone". Everyone said there would be a run on the pound as well. Stay delusional.

"Would be a run on the pound" is forecasting, just like expecting that Brexit will eventually be neutral or slightly positive. The article reports agreement on past/present facts.

"And the OBR's other working assumption" - Assumptions no more weight than forecasts.

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

#765

Post by ViewTrick1002 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 11:05 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #753

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have already given you all that but you keep dodging instead single mindedly focusing on what is outside the scope of a meta studie of the entire field. Trying to frame it like you disprove something when you truly don’t. You can go and read the individual studies it sources the statements from, which are then used to build those arguments arguments. But I suppose that is too hard when you gotta find any possible s…

> I have already given you all that but you keep dodging No, you have not. The quotes you posted just list various storage systems and don't bother to set specific capacity requirements. I'll ask again: How many TWh of battery storage are provisioned in your hypothetical 100% renewable world? How many TWh of pumped hydro? How many TWh of other storage? And what are these alternative storage systems? The posts you lin…

Open the study. It provides a Sankey diagram showing the entire energy flow of the Danish energy system. You know, all those TWh you want.

Why do you keep dodging? Because you truly can't bring yourself to read anything that would disprove your nuclear fanboyism? You truly keep tumbling strawmen instead of disproving the studies.

Pathetic.

I'll add the studies without any picked out quotes:

See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to meet the grid load.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...

Or the same for Australia if you went a more sunny locale finding that renewables ends up with a grid costing less than half of "best case nth of a kind nuclear power":

https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25Co...

Come one now. Stop dodging! Is accepting that nuclear power is horrifically expensive that scary? Is your income dependent on the nuclear industry?

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

#766

Post by ViewTrick1002 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 11:08 AM UTC

cupcakecommons wrote: post #759

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power has famously had negative learning by doing throughout its entire life. There was a first large scale attempt at scaling nuclear power culminating 40 years ago. Nuclear power peaked at ~20% of the global electricity mix in the 1990s. It was all negative learning by doing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... Then we tried again 20 years ago. There was a massive subsidy push. T…

It's too costly to build high speed rail in many parts of the world (California for instance). It's not because high speed rail isn't a viable solution, it's regulation. The article you posted from sciencedirect supports this. The study points primarily to a changing complex regulation landscape as a primary driver of costs. Meanwhile, France is in an excellent position in the EU in terms of energy in large part beca…

Given that Flamanville 3 being 7x over budget and 13 years late on a 5 year construction schedule even the French are wholly unable to build new nuclear power.

We should of course keep our existing fleet around as long as it is safe, needed and economical.

Then you round of with an endless stream of excuses as to why nuclear power does not deliver.

The only thing hindering nuclear power is its economics. Otherwise less regulated countries would pounce on the opportunity to have cheaper energy. That hasn’t happened.

Where nuclear power has a good niche it gets utilized, and no amount of campaigning limits it. One such example are submarines.

So stop attempting to shift the blame and go invest your own money in advancing nuclear power rather than crying for another absolutely enormous government handout when the competition in renewables already deliver on that said promise: extremely cheap green scalable energy.

Unsubsidized renewables are today cheaper than fossil fuels. Lets embrace that rather than wasting another trillion dollars on nuclear subsidies.

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

#767

Post by ViewTrick1002 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 11:10 AM UTC

cupcakecommons wrote: post #761

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power has famously had negative learning by doing throughout its entire life. There was a first large scale attempt at scaling nuclear power culminating 40 years ago. Nuclear power peaked at ~20% of the global electricity mix in the 1990s. It was all negative learning by doing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... Then we tried again 20 years ago. There was a massive subsidy push. T…

Your figures for China's mix are meaningless because you don't bother to mention when you think "saturation" occurs. They are on track to build far more Nuclear than 2-3% of their current mix in the next 20 years - and this is as the world's top manufacturer of solar and wind products.

Love the excuses when apparently China was not building as much nuclear power as your fantasy land imagined.

You do know that nuclear power as a share of the Chinese electricity mix is dropping?

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

#768

Post by ViewTrick1002 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 11:12 AM UTC

cupcakecommons wrote: post #755

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love that you try to avoid the issue of cost. Yeah, in the land of infinite money and resources you can do anything. In the real world the energy crisis was a cost crisis. But you seem to no care the slightest about massively increasing the ratepayers bills and by that creating a new self made energy crisis. This time fueled by nuclear subsidies. So you skipped the first two studies. I suppose because you found nothi…

The cost of nuclear is primarily from regulation/human decision making that prevents it from externalizing its costs onto the environment (decom costs, waste handling) not physics. Wind and solar are limited severely by physics and they are much more vulnerable to a changing climate. China eating its own dogfood with heavy investments in renewables is meaningful but only illuminates some of what is happening. A signi…

All I see is a bunch of excuses to nuclear power not delivering. Nuclear power has had a negative learning curve throughout its entire life.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

And don't come and tell me that the Uranium supply chain is cleanest thing known to mankind. It currently is generally outsourced from the west because the enormous amounts of cost managing the externalities adds. Especially the processing steps from raw uranium to fuel rods.

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

#769

Post by triceratops » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #714

triceratops wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many ideal locations for windmills...happen to also be ideal places for threatened or endangered large raptors. The person I replied to was making a quantity-of-birds argument. Not an endangered species argument. > there's the (unproven) connection with noise generated by offshore wind farms disturbing wildlife migration and movement Do they make a lot more noise than giant cruise ships? Luxury yachts? I don't see…

> Bringing up bird welfare to oppose wind turbines is bullshit. If people cared about birds or wildlife we wouldn't be in this mess at all. Your comment seems to be a blanket opposition to bird welfare in general, not a limited critique of quantity harmed. I do think the distinction remains important, hence why I made my post. > Do they make a lot more noise than giant cruise ships? Luxury yachts? Given that the ship…

> Your comment seems to be a blanket opposition to bird welfare in general

I don't know how you got that. I just think a lot of fake bird lovers come out of the woodwork to oppose wind turbines because of $MADE_UP_REASON. Real wildlife lovers recognize that clean energy is good for wildlife.

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

#770

Post by sdenton4 » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:39 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #764

sdenton4 wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Would be a run on the pound" is forecasting, just like expecting that Brexit will eventually be neutral or slightly positive. The article reports agreement on past/present facts.

"And the OBR's other working assumption" - Assumptions no more weight than forecasts.

The obr is not the only source here, but one among many.

You seem very invested in ignoring evidence that before wasn't a great idea. This suggests you're more interested in ideology than evidence-based reasoning. It's distressing that "free thinking" has become an excuse to ignore evidence and pursue vibes-based policy.