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The UK government has just stopped off-shore wind turbine growth for the next decade, delayed their ban on internal combustion engine cars another five years, c

The UK government has just stopped off-shore wind turbine growth for the next decade, delayed their ban on internal combustion engine cars another five years, cancelled the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway extension and said they’ll put that money into roads instead. Great.

hef19898 3y ago
Populism at work, no surprise since Brexit was tze same thing.
- netsharc 3y ago
  Tories are a disgusting bunch, they found out being against ULEZ was a vote winner so now they've gone "We love cars!", naked manouvering in hopes of winning those votes and staying in power. Just like Brexit, the fuckwit Goehring but dumb Nigel Farage was going to steal Tory votes, so dumb dumb Cameron promised the Brexit vote to keep those votes. And he was too chickenshit to ignore the results of the referendum although the government was allowed to do so (again, for the price of electoral annihilation).
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    They had a super easy way out of it: another referendum voting for options, or a referendum on any deal. Nobody could agree on what leaving meant and giving the choice to the electorate would have a) been more democratic and b) probably have kept the UK in the EU as every other option got discussed.
ksec 3y ago
>The UK government has just stopped off-shore wind turbine growth for the next decade Any links? Last time I check they have huge amount of work going on in that area.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  (I can't find where I got "decade" into my head). They didn't announce a policy change on the matter, but they have auctions for companies to bid for guaranteed electricity prices every couple of years, the most recent one this year. The government were warned that their guaranteed price is too low considering recent inflation and supply chain increases and no bids were expected for offshore wind power, they did nothing, no companies bid in the last auction, so there won't be any new offshore wind power built this round. The next auction date doesn't seem to be announced, there is an announcement that they might become annual so it could be next year. (Having companies' offshore skills idle the next year or two seems likely to lead to knock-on delays if future auctions are bid for and won). From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66740920 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66740920 - "Dan McGrail, the chief executive of industry group RenewableUK, told the BBC: "Industry has highlighted to government on several occasions that this auction has been set up in a way which is very unlikely to secure the capacity we need to stay on track to meet the government's own target of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050 [up from 13.66GW now]." and also "Labour's shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC: "This is just the latest episode in the Tories' 13 years of failed energy policy. They broke the onshore wind market by banning it, they undermined the solar industry by removing the feed-in tariff, and they caused chaos in the home insulation market with their failed schemes." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 - "the lack of offshore wind will be a blow to the pledge to deliver 50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030 compared with 14GW today." So you can either think that was incompetent or malicious. And when trying to decide you can look at the mentioned de-facto onshore wind power block the Tories put in since 2015 ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66715141 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66715141 ) and the previously announced ban combustion cars by 2030 which they pushed back to 2035 while talking about a new ban on solar panels on farmland ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66863110 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66863110 ). Or maybe their Return to Office policy ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61145692 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61145692 and https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/get-back-work-office-britains-business-minister-says-2022-01-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/get-back-work-office-britai... ) which. And you can see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-redirects-hs2-funding-to-revolutionise-transport-across-the-north-and-midlands https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-redirects-hs2-funding-... about the HS2 rail, and wonder to yourself why the "Spiralling HS2 costs" were something the government could not cope with, but the "faster journey times, increased capacity and more frequent, reliable services across rail, buses and roads" are something they will be able to deliver. When part of the HS2 plan was to move intercity trains off the local lines and freight off the roads, leading to more frequent reliable road and bus journeys. "billions to fix potholes on the country’s roads" - first, we know what causes potholes; heavy vehicles moving frieght". And this is more reliable bus journeys from the government which brought us "Buses in 'crisis' as 3,000 routes reduced or scrapped" in 2018 ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44681974 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44681974 ) and killed off 20% of bus services in the last year ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66442599 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66442599 ).
thedrbrian 3y ago
>The UK government has just stopped off-shore wind turbine growth for the next decade surely the power companies can just build them if wind is so cheap
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  You need permitting to do anything in a developed country.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  Power companies won’t build anything unless the government guarantees them a profit. Privatise the profit, socialise the losses. Yay capitalism, right?
therein 3y ago
Is this really what we want? Is this really going to work? What will be the consequences? Have they been discussed? 2030-2049 all remaining airports close all shipping declines to zero, no flying for 2050, and after electric planes may fly. https://i.imgur.com/hLJAqGQ.png https://i.imgur.com/hLJAqGQ.png
toomuchtodo 3y ago
It is unfortunate, but there are paths to success without UK policy encouraging it. Viking Link [1], a 1.4GW electrical interconnector between Great Britain and Denmark, comes online by end of year (it has already been added as an asset in the ENTSO-E electrical market transparency platform). At the same time, their last coal fired generator [Drax North Yorkshire] will be retired within the next year [2] (I emailed Drax to get a rough closure date, reply pending). Less than a million vehicles a year are built in the UK and about 2 million vehicles a year are sold in their market, compared to a global market of ~80M units/year. Importantly, those coal generators need to be demolished as soon as possible after decommissioning to prevent turning them back on (advocacy call to action: if you live near a decommissioned coal generator, push to have it demo'd unless there are very firm plans to convert them to high efficiency fossil gas generation). Therefore, you would only need to find economic linchpins or similar points of leverage in the UKs fossil gas supply, automative supply chain and marketplace, and petroleum supplies to force a more rapid transition despite neglected policy. The rest of the global market will drag the UK, as California does in the US with regards to automative fuel efficiency standards. A successful EV future depends on the continuing rapid expansion globally by Tesla and BYD [3] (as well as smaller players of course, if they can ramp expeditiously), not politicians or older constituents who could not care less about a future they won't exist in. (also important is deploying as much inexpensive low carbon energy generation as possible as fast as possible, but is a topic for another thread [4]) [1] https://www.viking-link.com/ https://www.viking-link.com/ [2] https://www.drax.com/press_release/drax-ends-half-a-century-of-coal-fired-power-generation/ https://www.drax.com/press_release/drax-ends-half-a-century-... [3] https://www.statista.com/chart/30758/most-popular-plug-in-electric-car-brands/ https://www.statista.com/chart/30758/most-popular-plug-in-el... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924

hef19898 3y ago

Populism at work, no surprise since Brexit was tze same thing.

netsharc 3y ago
Tories are a disgusting bunch, they found out being against ULEZ was a vote winner so now they've gone "We love cars!", naked manouvering in hopes of winning those votes and staying in power. Just like Brexit, the fuckwit Goehring but dumb Nigel Farage was going to steal Tory votes, so dumb dumb Cameron promised the Brexit vote to keep those votes. And he was too chickenshit to ignore the results of the referendum although the government was allowed to do so (again, for the price of electoral annihilation).
- jemmyw 3y ago
  They had a super easy way out of it: another referendum voting for options, or a referendum on any deal. Nobody could agree on what leaving meant and giving the choice to the electorate would have a) been more democratic and b) probably have kept the UK in the EU as every other option got discussed.

ksec 3y ago

>The UK government has just stopped off-shore wind turbine growth for the next decade Any links? Last time I check they have huge amount of work going on in that area.

jodrellblank 3y ago
(I can't find where I got "decade" into my head). They didn't announce a policy change on the matter, but they have auctions for companies to bid for guaranteed electricity prices every couple of years, the most recent one this year. The government were warned that their guaranteed price is too low considering recent inflation and supply chain increases and no bids were expected for offshore wind power, they did nothing, no companies bid in the last auction, so there won't be any new offshore wind power built this round. The next auction date doesn't seem to be announced, there is an announcement that they might become annual so it could be next year. (Having companies' offshore skills idle the next year or two seems likely to lead to knock-on delays if future auctions are bid for and won). From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66740920 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66740920 - "Dan McGrail, the chief executive of industry group RenewableUK, told the BBC: "Industry has highlighted to government on several occasions that this auction has been set up in a way which is very unlikely to secure the capacity we need to stay on track to meet the government's own target of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050 [up from 13.66GW now]." and also "Labour's shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC: "This is just the latest episode in the Tories' 13 years of failed energy policy. They broke the onshore wind market by banning it, they undermined the solar industry by removing the feed-in tariff, and they caused chaos in the home insulation market with their failed schemes." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344 - "the lack of offshore wind will be a blow to the pledge to deliver 50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030 compared with 14GW today." So you can either think that was incompetent or malicious. And when trying to decide you can look at the mentioned de-facto onshore wind power block the Tories put in since 2015 ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66715141 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66715141 ) and the previously announced ban combustion cars by 2030 which they pushed back to 2035 while talking about a new ban on solar panels on farmland ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66863110 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66863110 ). Or maybe their Return to Office policy ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61145692 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61145692 and https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/get-back-work-office-britains-business-minister-says-2022-01-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/get-back-work-office-britai... ) which. And you can see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-redirects-hs2-funding-to-revolutionise-transport-across-the-north-and-midlands https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-redirects-hs2-funding-... about the HS2 rail, and wonder to yourself why the "Spiralling HS2 costs" were something the government could not cope with, but the "faster journey times, increased capacity and more frequent, reliable services across rail, buses and roads" are something they will be able to deliver. When part of the HS2 plan was to move intercity trains off the local lines and freight off the roads, leading to more frequent reliable road and bus journeys. "billions to fix potholes on the country’s roads" - first, we know what causes potholes; heavy vehicles moving frieght". And this is more reliable bus journeys from the government which brought us "Buses in 'crisis' as 3,000 routes reduced or scrapped" in 2018 ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44681974 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44681974 ) and killed off 20% of bus services in the last year ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66442599 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66442599 ).

thedrbrian 3y ago

>The UK government has just stopped off-shore wind turbine growth for the next decade surely the power companies can just build them if wind is so cheap

bobthepanda 3y ago
You need permitting to do anything in a developed country.
jodrellblank 3y ago
Power companies won’t build anything unless the government guarantees them a profit. Privatise the profit, socialise the losses. Yay capitalism, right?

therein 3y ago

Is this really what we want? Is this really going to work? What will be the consequences? Have they been discussed? 2030-2049 all remaining airports close all shipping declines to zero, no flying for 2050, and after electric planes may fly. https://i.imgur.com/hLJAqGQ.png https://i.imgur.com/hLJAqGQ.png

toomuchtodo 3y ago

It is unfortunate, but there are paths to success without UK policy encouraging it. Viking Link [1], a 1.4GW electrical interconnector between Great Britain and Denmark, comes online by end of year (it has already been added as an asset in the ENTSO-E electrical market transparency platform). At the same time, their last coal fired generator [Drax North Yorkshire] will be retired within the next year [2] (I emailed Drax to get a rough closure date, reply pending). Less than a million vehicles a year are built in the UK and about 2 million vehicles a year are sold in their market, compared to a global market of ~80M units/year. Importantly, those coal generators need to be demolished as soon as possible after decommissioning to prevent turning them back on (advocacy call to action: if you live near a decommissioned coal generator, push to have it demo'd unless there are very firm plans to convert them to high efficiency fossil gas generation). Therefore, you would only need to find economic linchpins or similar points of leverage in the UKs fossil gas supply, automative supply chain and marketplace, and petroleum supplies to force a more rapid transition despite neglected policy. The rest of the global market will drag the UK, as California does in the US with regards to automative fuel efficiency standards. A successful EV future depends on the continuing rapid expansion globally by Tesla and BYD [3] (as well as smaller players of course, if they can ramp expeditiously), not politicians or older constituents who could not care less about a future they won't exist in. (also important is deploying as much inexpensive low carbon energy generation as possible as fast as possible, but is a topic for another thread [4]) [1] https://www.viking-link.com/ https://www.viking-link.com/ [2] https://www.drax.com/press_release/drax-ends-half-a-century-of-coal-fired-power-generation/ https://www.drax.com/press_release/drax-ends-half-a-century-... [3] https://www.statista.com/chart/30758/most-popular-plug-in-electric-car-brands/ https://www.statista.com/chart/30758/most-popular-plug-in-el... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37502924