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The UK does have a remarkable habit of abandoning its lead in advanced technologies for rather short-sighted reasons. Nuclear power and high-speed rail, among o

The UK does have a remarkable habit of abandoning its lead in advanced technologies for rather short-sighted reasons. Nuclear power and high-speed rail, among others.

pjc50 8y ago
Same thing is playing out at present with wave power. The Treasury is the usual suspect here, but there's a systematic lack of vision at high level in both the state and private sectors. Engineering doesn't get the same respect as making a fortune from land ownership.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  To be fair, wave power is looking awfully expensive when compared to wind power... Not quite sure why, since nearly every wave power device is just a carefully shaped bit of concrete dropped into the sea and some generators. I could make you a 500 watt wave power device in an afternoon and $500 in materials (big plastic oil drum as an air reservoir, big concrete weight, hobby jet engine expander as the air to electricity convertor), and within a year it would have paid for it's materials cost (at wind subsidy rates). (I'm excluding the cost of a power interconnect to land here, but the cost of these scales favourably, so ends up not being a big fraction of the project cost for big projects). Yet somehow commercial projects seem to have decades of payback time even when given significant electricity subsidies.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    Concrete usage seems to be a major cost predictor for anything that is not construction. That's probably because if you need a lot of concrete it's because whatever you create will face a lot of stress (thus more and more expensive material and shorter life).
  - toyg 8y ago
    The comparison with wind is not strictly relevant, since the UK is basically abandoning that too - in favour of nuclear, an industry that pays better kickback for the politicians making decisions.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    A bit of googling finds a detailed cost breakdown for the Pelamis system: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/+/http:/www.dti.gov.uk/renewables/publications/pdfs/v0600197.pdf/ http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/+/http:/www.dt... Would the plastic oil drum solution even last a year? A big problem with these things is that the sea is a corrosive fluid with a lot of kinetic energy in it, and it tends to destroy things.
- inopinatus 8y ago
  My experience of growing up and joining tech startups in the UK in the 90s was fight against a prevailing culture of mediocrity, tall poppy syndrome, and snobbery; as though the practice of running a business and thereby making a real difference was a grubby low to which the high minded should not stoop. I was able to find like-minded people - usually those that’d travelled the world, and a high proportion of internationals - but we felt like a resented minority. This was often in stark contrast to the established expectation of academic excellence, where the UK has a long continuing history. It’s one of the reasons I left.
  - xevb3k 8y ago
    Yep! Based on personal experience I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think British society is ready to address these issues either, there’s still a lot of unacknowledged classism and racism. Overall, I’d sum up the British attitude as “it’s not that great here, but it’s the best country in the world”. That is, there’s a lot of cynicism, but people assume the balance in the UK is as good as it gets. It really isn’t.

The UK does have a remarkable habit of abandoning its lead in advanced technologies for rather short-sighted reasons. Nuclear power and high-speed rail, among others.

pjc50 8y ago

Same thing is playing out at present with wave power. The Treasury is the usual suspect here, but there's a systematic lack of vision at high level in both the state and private sectors. Engineering doesn't get the same respect as making a fortune from land ownership.

londons_explore 8y ago
To be fair, wave power is looking awfully expensive when compared to wind power... Not quite sure why, since nearly every wave power device is just a carefully shaped bit of concrete dropped into the sea and some generators. I could make you a 500 watt wave power device in an afternoon and $500 in materials (big plastic oil drum as an air reservoir, big concrete weight, hobby jet engine expander as the air to electricity convertor), and within a year it would have paid for it's materials cost (at wind subsidy rates). (I'm excluding the cost of a power interconnect to land here, but the cost of these scales favourably, so ends up not being a big fraction of the project cost for big projects). Yet somehow commercial projects seem to have decades of payback time even when given significant electricity subsidies.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  Concrete usage seems to be a major cost predictor for anything that is not construction. That's probably because if you need a lot of concrete it's because whatever you create will face a lot of stress (thus more and more expensive material and shorter life).
- toyg 8y ago
  The comparison with wind is not strictly relevant, since the UK is basically abandoning that too - in favour of nuclear, an industry that pays better kickback for the politicians making decisions.
- pjc50 8y ago
  A bit of googling finds a detailed cost breakdown for the Pelamis system: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/+/http:/www.dti.gov.uk/renewables/publications/pdfs/v0600197.pdf/ http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/+/http:/www.dt... Would the plastic oil drum solution even last a year? A big problem with these things is that the sea is a corrosive fluid with a lot of kinetic energy in it, and it tends to destroy things.
inopinatus 8y ago
My experience of growing up and joining tech startups in the UK in the 90s was fight against a prevailing culture of mediocrity, tall poppy syndrome, and snobbery; as though the practice of running a business and thereby making a real difference was a grubby low to which the high minded should not stoop. I was able to find like-minded people - usually those that’d travelled the world, and a high proportion of internationals - but we felt like a resented minority. This was often in stark contrast to the established expectation of academic excellence, where the UK has a long continuing history. It’s one of the reasons I left.
- xevb3k 8y ago
  Yep! Based on personal experience I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think British society is ready to address these issues either, there’s still a lot of unacknowledged classism and racism. Overall, I’d sum up the British attitude as “it’s not that great here, but it’s the best country in the world”. That is, there’s a lot of cynicism, but people assume the balance in the UK is as good as it gets. It really isn’t.