5 ms·

why do you think the UK will be worse off without coal?

roenxi 6y ago
Their per-capita electricity demand is dropping off quite sharply, and their position relative to Europe is apparently quite low [0]. Those aren't small differences. Either they are giving up their industrial production capabilities or giving up on lifestyle choices. If I had to chop my electricity use by 10-20% I'd be pretty noticeably worse off. Maybe they've got some really impressive tech to maintain their lifestyles but the Occam's razor here is they're probably just going to be doing without and will likely lose industrial capability or see worse living conditions. [0] https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-cons...
- OJFord 6y ago
  That's not household usage though, it's total per capita. The UK is primarily a services economy, other European countries have more energy hungry industrial users.
- Retric 6y ago
  TV’s, PC’s, and lightbulbs have gotten a lot more efficient over time. A 50 inch LED TV for example uses the same power as a 21 inch CRT. Even just looking back to Plasma TV’s and LED’s use 1/3 the power for the same size TV. That’s continued with many people using very low power tablets rather than laptops, desktops, or giant TV’s. For portable devices low power means longer battery life and less weight which has been constantly pushing demand lower.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Compared to the 1950s, the biggest cause of changes to domestic electricity use in the UK wouldn’t be TVs and lightbulbs, it would be double glazing, cavity wall insulation, and loft insulation (for electrically heated houses, which certainly isn’t all of them), microwave dinners replacing Sunday roasts (at least, in so far as 50s UK stoves and hobs were electric rather than gas), and showers replacing hot baths. That said, IIRC the main electricity users in the UK are business rather than domestic, and I don’t know anything about how that’s changed in the last 70 years, only that it has.
    - FartyMcFarter 6y ago
      > (for electrically heated houses, which certainly isn’t all of them) Electrically heated houses are a very small minority of UK houses: https://www.statista.com/statistics/426988/united-kingdom-uk-heating-methods/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/426988/united-kingdom-uk...
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  One thing you may or may not be missing is that most heating in the UK is done using gas fired central heating, air conditioning is very rarely used due to the UK's climate (even working from home there might have been 3 weeks in the year I'd have appreciated it).
- makomk 6y ago
  The UK is giving up on its industrial production capabilities. I saw a National Grid document not too long ago talking about how their infrastructure plans involve downscaling the grid capacity up North as it comes up for replacement, including outright removing lines, because it was built to support industrt that no longer exists in the country. In general, there's just not the political will to actually make things here, and the press tends to push the narrative that anyone who thinks we should is stuck in the past.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    Financial services doesn't help, it's such a large part of our economy that it tends to suppress other sectors. It's our form of Dutch disease. Brexit adds to the pressure, we are likely to lose most of our car production over the next decade.
    - youngtaff 6y ago
      I think even without Brexit we were likely to lose most of our car production over the next decade, but with Brexit I can't see manufacturers retooling plants to build new models in the UK Electrification does make cars simpler so perhaps there's still some scope for someone
  - pjc50 6y ago
    > In general, there's just not the political will to actually make things here, and the press tends to push the narrative that anyone who thinks we should is stuck in the past. We make a surprising amount of high-tech stuff, but it tends to be bespoke and expensive or very automated. Mass employment manufacturing is down to a few car plants owned by Nissan and Honda whose future is in doubt over Brexit. This is partly due to terrible industrial relations in the 1970s and 80s.
- yodelshady 6y ago
  Little of all - as an example, one of my previous jobs was enhancing control software for a german-made product (no, not that). Also worth mentioning: the UK has a cool, maritime climate and abundant natural gas, so there's just not much demand for the biggest sink of residential electricity. This is one of the UK's bigger challenges for further decarbonisation: the political consequences of a cold, windless spell, electrical heating, and lots of pensioners would be... interesting.
- memetherapy 6y ago
  Not sure why this is being downvoted. The UK has been intentionally deindustrialising since the 1980s and has essentially lost most of its industrial capability already. What remains is essentially assembly and finishing (i.e. our car manufacturing industry should be more accurately termed as car assembly) This was done first because this was the easiest way for Thatcher to break the unions, and then because it turned out that focussing on services (now 80% of the UK economy and 40-50% of our exports) was more productive anyway for the UK (and locally produced a better environment as we essentially exported our pollution). Of course with Brexit we've reduced our ability to export services to our biggest market and so ironically may actually see a boost to manufacturing as it becomes relatively more profitable, especially since the Tories intend to reduce worker and environmental protections which is why they fought so hard against including none regression clauses in the Brexit deal.

Their per-capita electricity demand is dropping off quite sharply, and their position relative to Europe is apparently quite low [0]. Those aren't small differences. Either they are giving up their industrial production capabilities or giving up on lifestyle choices. If I had to chop my electricity use by 10-20% I'd be pretty noticeably worse off. Maybe they've got some really impressive tech to maintain their lifestyles but the Occam's razor here is they're probably just going to be doing without and will likely lose industrial capability or see worse living conditions. [0] https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/united-kingdom/energy-cons...

OJFord 6y ago
That's not household usage though, it's total per capita. The UK is primarily a services economy, other European countries have more energy hungry industrial users.
Retric 6y ago
TV’s, PC’s, and lightbulbs have gotten a lot more efficient over time. A 50 inch LED TV for example uses the same power as a 21 inch CRT. Even just looking back to Plasma TV’s and LED’s use 1/3 the power for the same size TV. That’s continued with many people using very low power tablets rather than laptops, desktops, or giant TV’s. For portable devices low power means longer battery life and less weight which has been constantly pushing demand lower.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Compared to the 1950s, the biggest cause of changes to domestic electricity use in the UK wouldn’t be TVs and lightbulbs, it would be double glazing, cavity wall insulation, and loft insulation (for electrically heated houses, which certainly isn’t all of them), microwave dinners replacing Sunday roasts (at least, in so far as 50s UK stoves and hobs were electric rather than gas), and showers replacing hot baths. That said, IIRC the main electricity users in the UK are business rather than domestic, and I don’t know anything about how that’s changed in the last 70 years, only that it has.
  - FartyMcFarter 6y ago
    > (for electrically heated houses, which certainly isn’t all of them) Electrically heated houses are a very small minority of UK houses: https://www.statista.com/statistics/426988/united-kingdom-uk-heating-methods/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/426988/united-kingdom-uk...
VBprogrammer 6y ago
One thing you may or may not be missing is that most heating in the UK is done using gas fired central heating, air conditioning is very rarely used due to the UK's climate (even working from home there might have been 3 weeks in the year I'd have appreciated it).
makomk 6y ago
The UK is giving up on its industrial production capabilities. I saw a National Grid document not too long ago talking about how their infrastructure plans involve downscaling the grid capacity up North as it comes up for replacement, including outright removing lines, because it was built to support industrt that no longer exists in the country. In general, there's just not the political will to actually make things here, and the press tends to push the narrative that anyone who thinks we should is stuck in the past.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Financial services doesn't help, it's such a large part of our economy that it tends to suppress other sectors. It's our form of Dutch disease. Brexit adds to the pressure, we are likely to lose most of our car production over the next decade.
  - youngtaff 6y ago
    I think even without Brexit we were likely to lose most of our car production over the next decade, but with Brexit I can't see manufacturers retooling plants to build new models in the UK Electrification does make cars simpler so perhaps there's still some scope for someone
- pjc50 6y ago
  > In general, there's just not the political will to actually make things here, and the press tends to push the narrative that anyone who thinks we should is stuck in the past. We make a surprising amount of high-tech stuff, but it tends to be bespoke and expensive or very automated. Mass employment manufacturing is down to a few car plants owned by Nissan and Honda whose future is in doubt over Brexit. This is partly due to terrible industrial relations in the 1970s and 80s.
yodelshady 6y ago
Little of all - as an example, one of my previous jobs was enhancing control software for a german-made product (no, not that). Also worth mentioning: the UK has a cool, maritime climate and abundant natural gas, so there's just not much demand for the biggest sink of residential electricity. This is one of the UK's bigger challenges for further decarbonisation: the political consequences of a cold, windless spell, electrical heating, and lots of pensioners would be... interesting.
memetherapy 6y ago
Not sure why this is being downvoted. The UK has been intentionally deindustrialising since the 1980s and has essentially lost most of its industrial capability already. What remains is essentially assembly and finishing (i.e. our car manufacturing industry should be more accurately termed as car assembly) This was done first because this was the easiest way for Thatcher to break the unions, and then because it turned out that focussing on services (now 80% of the UK economy and 40-50% of our exports) was more productive anyway for the UK (and locally produced a better environment as we essentially exported our pollution). Of course with Brexit we've reduced our ability to export services to our biggest market and so ironically may actually see a boost to manufacturing as it becomes relatively more profitable, especially since the Tories intend to reduce worker and environmental protections which is why they fought so hard against including none regression clauses in the Brexit deal.