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How can England possibly be running out of water?

theguardian.com

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

#81

Post by tankenmate »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #66
tankenmate wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption and undue political influence stemming from a large source of extractive income isn't a an issue particular to Islam as I can see it; in fact I'd say it's something endemic to the human condition. But, when it comes to oil production what I would say is that due to the overlapping geography of the foundation and consequent spread of Islam and largest and easiest to extract oil resources in the world being…

Your sentences are quite difficult to read so I apologise if I'm misunderstanding, but I think it's good to remember cases like Saudi where religious fundamentalists were placed into power by Western powers. These days we see them as representative of the Islamic world but it's largely our own doing. I'm aware that there are non Islamic "oil countries" of course and I don't think the GP comment was equating oil with…

"It's just something that does happen in other contexts and that we should be aware of when speaking"; I guess my point can be mostly boiled down to this one point, "jumping to conclusions" (meant in both the none emotive and emotive sense) cuts both ways. Again, something that comes as a part of the human condition.

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

#82

Post by rlpb »

braza wrote: post #67
sandbags wrote: post #34

As the article mentions, privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources. What the article doesn’t mention is that pre-privatisation a new reservoir was built every year up to about 1960 and then every few years until privatisation in 1992. So we are about 30 years behind in adding capacity to the system. This combined with the inadequate levels of i…

> Water should never have been privatised. At least not without a framework for a national strategy for water. But one can make a very fair argument where you can have a strong regulatory framework to ensure investment goals, exit clauses, and penalties in case of missing goals, no?

That never happens because the appointed regulator has no incentive to efficiently and effectively regulate, either.

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

#83

Post by elAhmo »

hnhg wrote: post #37

Short answer is that the UK gave private companies to extract as much wealth as possible with minimal re-investment in infrastructure. The nation has since seen water rationing and raw sewage being pumped into rivers and beaches, but at least some shareholders have benefited, right?

Yes! Same with trains.

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

#84

Post by tome »

sandbags wrote: post #34

As the article mentions, privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources. What the article doesn’t mention is that pre-privatisation a new reservoir was built every year up to about 1960 and then every few years until privatisation in 1992. So we are about 30 years behind in adding capacity to the system. This combined with the inadequate levels of i…

> privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources

Why does privatisation mean that the government can't build infrastructure? I think the answer is more likely nimbyism than privatisation.

I personally think it makes no sense to privatise infrastructure for which no competition can reasonably take place, and I'd include distribution networks of many sorts in that: water distribution, rail lines, electricity distribution.

But I'm not aware that privatisation means that the state can't take on reservoir projects. The problem is that development of all kinds in the UK is utterly crippled by nimbyism. The article mentions the proposed Abingdon reservoir but links it to the boogyman of data centres rather than call out what the picture obviously shows: it's being stalled by nimbys.

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

#85

Post by bbrks »

kawsper wrote: post #69
KingOfCoders wrote: post #26

As a German, what amazes me, it seems like many people in England are on a water flatrate, as far as I understand it. No one (?) in Germany is.

That surprised me too. Flatrate is the default, but you can get a metered water connection installed if you want, and it is often cheaper than the flatrate.

It's not the default. You cannot buy a new house today without being on a meter. That is the default.

It's just our housing stock being so old and decrepit, where nobody can be bothered updating anything even if it's provided for free by the utility companies, that the majority of houses simply do not have a water meter!

There's a general sentiment that smart meters and metered water will make costs skyrocket or somehow hold you ransom to abrupt and unfair price changes, as if that somehow wasn't the case today...

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

#86

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

Frieren wrote: post #3

> Future generations, who will be dealing with long, dry summers, would probably be shocked at the profligate way clean tap water was used to flush toilets, water gardens and run washing machines. Climate change means societal change. There was a time that Northern Africa was one of the best places in the world to grow crops. They were at the top of civilization for thousands of years. Climate changed, what people co…

[flagged]

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

#87

Post by jgraham »

Nursie wrote: post #79
Revisional_Sin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I did not know about the wholesale price issue, that's pretty bad. It also incentivises avoiding cheap sources from dominating the market.

It's my understanding, though don't take it as 100% gospel truth. I can see that the model does incentivise both cheaper energy sources (more over-pay leads to greate investment possibilities) and pricing honestly. If the scheme chose the cheapest X units and paid them out at their bid rates, there would be incentive to bid as close as you can to what you predict the day's cutoff would be... but it does seem likely t…

It's true, see https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-expensive-gas-not-...

From that article:

> The UK’s electricity market operates using a system known as “marginal pricing”. This means that all of the power plants running in each half-hour period are paid the same price, set by the final generator that has to switch on to meet demand, which is known as the “marginal” unit.

> While this is unfamiliar to many people, marginal pricing is far from unique to the UK’s electricity market. It is used in most electricity markets in Europe and around the world, as well as being widely used in commodity markets in general.

The thing that's unique about the UK is that the marginal price is almost always (98% of the time) set by the price of gas. That means when the gas price increases, the wholesale price of electricity, and hence consumer bills, increase in direct response.

Of course the situation is also made worse by the fact that gas is used directly for heating and cooking in a high proportion of British homes.

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

#88

Post by gpderetta »

derriz wrote: post #45
rhubarbtree wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too right, this is why I have switched to green hydrogen for my household heating. Sure, for now I’ve had to jerry-rig a hydrogen storage tank in my back yard and I’m piping the stuff over the roof, but I’m sure the govt will catch up soon. I’ve converted my car to run on renewable wood pellets, stop moaning start fixing. It’s all about individual choice, the oil companies are simply responding to demand. My next ste…

Why hydrogen? It has an extremely potent greenhouse effect and is obviously the leakiest of gases - the leakage alone could make it more environmentally damaging than actually burning natural gas. And have you seen how hydrogen burns or how easy it is to trigger an explosion? I wouldn’t live anywhere near a “jerry rigged” hydrogen storage facility.

I think the parent was extremely sarcastic.

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

#90

Post by seanalltogether »

sandbags wrote: post #34

As the article mentions, privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources. What the article doesn’t mention is that pre-privatisation a new reservoir was built every year up to about 1960 and then every few years until privatisation in 1992. So we are about 30 years behind in adding capacity to the system. This combined with the inadequate levels of i…

The concept of reservoirs and emergency supply seems to be completely at odds with privatisation. What private company is going to spend loads of money to build deep reservoirs that are stressed only once every 5 or 10 years. None. They're going to reach for an immediate supply like a river or aquifer and then raise prices if those sources run low. It's insane to plan out infrastructure on the belief that private companies are capable of building such large buffers.
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