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jordandtoday at 1:14 PM2 repliesview on HN

Exactly, and the Tories banned onshore wind, and refused to really invest in offshore wind. We've got the North Sea and its perfect for wind farms we should have had for decades


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skippyboxedherotoday at 1:42 PM

They didn't refuse to invest in offshore wind. Tories were the ones who started this ball rolling in the mid-2010s by breaknecking the removal of non-renewable energy production without any clear plan.

The issue with offshore wind is that it isn't always windy. If you look at modelling with energy system with a high proportion of offshore wind, you need other sources of energy which often isn't factored into the economic return of the original investment.

We are doing this because, for some reason, we have decided there is political capital in paying out these huge subsidies to large companies to produce expensive energy. I would think that would be obvious when the UK has extremely high electricity prices and renewable production is very high...where do you think the money is going? It is going to subsidise inefficient and expensive supply.

Also, one of the primary issues with the UK is that the political system heavily incentivizes people to blame "the other side" for these issues. The Tories were extremely aggressive in moving towards green energy but people who vote for Labour, because they support green energy, will have to believe the opposite. There are other posts on this chain that also blame the Tories for things that didn't happen. In this system, it is very hard for anything good to happen and is how you end up with someone like Starmer who appears to have almost no opinions on anything other than staying in power and keeping the gravy train going for the lads. Not serious. Expect things to get significantly worse.

Our electricity prices are much higher than anywhere else. I remember reading research last year that the cost of government intervention in so high that if gas prices tapered to zero, electricity prices would not fall. It is going to get much, much, much worse.

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mytailorisrichtoday at 1:18 PM

The current government is banning wind turbines factories and billions of Pounds in investments because "China". It is too easy to blame the previous government(s) when the current one has no strategic thinking or plan, either.

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