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We'll see. This is probably going to be much harder and more politically painful than people realise, and the last Labour government didn't really manage it. Th

by makomk 3y ago

We'll see. This is probably going to be much harder and more politically painful than people realise, and the last Labour government didn't really manage it. The current state of UK political discourse is that anything the ruling Tories rejected gets portrayed as a perfect solution to all our problems and any issues or problems are erased, and they cancelled onshore wind soon after getting in to power. So the problems with NIMBYs and local opposition that were already causing projects to get stuck in planning hell turned into something the Tories made up to justify their own opposition to it. Misleading talking points like the cancelled projects being enough to replace the UK's Russian natural gas imports were rife (this is actually a fairly small amount of energy, since we were never reliant on Russian gas, but makes it sound like enough to avoid the problems caused by Russia cutting off gas exports to the rest of Europe which used vastly more of it). And so on.

tialaramex 3y ago
In practice though over a decade in power the Tories have rejected a lot of perfectly nice ideas that are against their ideology, which results in a lot of low hanging fruit for a Labour government not stuck with that ideology to just do the obvious things that any Tory minister has been told are a good idea but knows they mustn't actually do for ideological reasons. There are also known bad policies which can be scrapped because a new government doesn't need to pretend they were a good idea, the Tories were able to do some of that because they kept changing leader, but not as much as they'd have liked. This winter can't necessarily be expected to be as mild as last winter, but the French nukes are back online, which is a big boost for all of Western Europe, and there's more wind online in the UK even after just twelve months.
scott_w 3y ago
> This is probably going to be much harder and more politically painful than people realise I'd recommend you watch Starmer's interview on exactly this topic where he brings up all of the problems you just highlighted. He discusses a high-level idea of what he wants to do to fix the issue but part of the political pain is the blunt fact of inaction or reversal of green investment over the last 13 years. > So the problems with NIMBYs and local opposition The NIMBYism was created by the Tories when they changed the rules so that a single objection can kill a planning application for onshore wind farms. That's why this is an effective ban rather than an outright ban. > we were never reliant on Russian gas In a roundabout way, we are reliant on Russian gas. If we weren't, the UK wouldn't have been among the worst hit by fuel prices going through the roof. Anyone with half a brain knew immediately that those reliant on Russian gas would switch over to the same sources that the UK used, putting upwards pressure on the price that we would pay.
- makomk 3y ago
  The problem with NIMBYism absolutely was not created by the Tories. Even before their de facto ban, it was ludicrously hard and time-consuming to get wind farms through the planning process, to the point that even berfore the Tories got into power the UK's only wind turbine factory closed down due to not getting the UK order flow they needed because all the onshore wind farms were stuck in planning hell: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/29/vestas-wind-turbines-environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/29/vestas-w... The media reporting that claimed otherwise was misleading. It relied on surveys about support for wind turbines that were questionably worded and ignored the actual, on-the-ground reality of the problems that companies were having before that change in the rules. Also, up until very recently abandoning onshore wind in favour of offshore basically worked. It got a whole bunch of wind turbines built with far less NIMBY problems than before (partly because they're out of sight and partly because fewer, larger farms were easier to get through planning), prices were trending down to lower than onshore, that wind turbine factory reopened and competitors set up their own in the UK thanks to the consistent demand, it even encouraged other countries to also do big offshore wind roll outs. > Anyone with half a brain knew immediately that those reliant on Russian gas would switch over to the same sources that the UK used, putting upwards pressure on the price that we would pay. Yeah, which is the whole reason that talking point about how the cancelled onshore wind was enough to replace all the gas that the UK imported from Russia was deceptive and meaningless. Replacing the UK's own gas imports from Russia was trivial and not the problem, the problem was precisely that other countries which used far more Russian gas switched over to the same suppliers the UK relied on for the rest of our gas. It's deceptively worded to make a relatively small amount of energy sound like a big, impactful fix for our problems.
  - scott_w 3y ago
    Try reading my comment in its full context instead of cherrypicking the parts you want. The NIMBYism I refer to is the explicit ability of a single complaint to kill an onshore wind farm. What you link to is the general planning issue that plagues the UK but doesn't automatically kill a planning application. Starmer specifically talks about the planning system in his interview at the Future of Britain conference. > It got a whole bunch of wind turbines built with far less NIMBY problems than before That could have happened anyway, except we'd also be further ahead in at least some onshore wind, too. > Yeah, which is the whole reason that talking point about how the cancelled onshore wind was enough to replace all the gas that the UK imported from Russia was deceptive and meaningless. Nobody in any government or energy sector claimed this. And no, don't waste your time citing a Tory source because they've made a lot of verifiably nonsense claims on energy security in the past 18 months, so they're not a reliable source.

by makomk 3y ago

tialaramex 3y ago

In practice though over a decade in power the Tories have rejected a lot of perfectly nice ideas that are against their ideology, which results in a lot of low hanging fruit for a Labour government not stuck with that ideology to just do the obvious things that any Tory minister has been told are a good idea but knows they mustn't actually do for ideological reasons. There are also known bad policies which can be scrapped because a new government doesn't need to pretend they were a good idea, the Tories were able to do some of that because they kept changing leader, but not as much as they'd have liked. This winter can't necessarily be expected to be as mild as last winter, but the French nukes are back online, which is a big boost for all of Western Europe, and there's more wind online in the UK even after just twelve months.

scott_w 3y ago

> This is probably going to be much harder and more politically painful than people realise I'd recommend you watch Starmer's interview on exactly this topic where he brings up all of the problems you just highlighted. He discusses a high-level idea of what he wants to do to fix the issue but part of the political pain is the blunt fact of inaction or reversal of green investment over the last 13 years. > So the problems with NIMBYs and local opposition The NIMBYism was created by the Tories when they changed the rules so that a single objection can kill a planning application for onshore wind farms. That's why this is an effective ban rather than an outright ban. > we were never reliant on Russian gas In a roundabout way, we are reliant on Russian gas. If we weren't, the UK wouldn't have been among the worst hit by fuel prices going through the roof. Anyone with half a brain knew immediately that those reliant on Russian gas would switch over to the same sources that the UK used, putting upwards pressure on the price that we would pay.

makomk 3y ago
The problem with NIMBYism absolutely was not created by the Tories. Even before their de facto ban, it was ludicrously hard and time-consuming to get wind farms through the planning process, to the point that even berfore the Tories got into power the UK's only wind turbine factory closed down due to not getting the UK order flow they needed because all the onshore wind farms were stuck in planning hell: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/29/vestas-wind-turbines-environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/29/vestas-w... The media reporting that claimed otherwise was misleading. It relied on surveys about support for wind turbines that were questionably worded and ignored the actual, on-the-ground reality of the problems that companies were having before that change in the rules. Also, up until very recently abandoning onshore wind in favour of offshore basically worked. It got a whole bunch of wind turbines built with far less NIMBY problems than before (partly because they're out of sight and partly because fewer, larger farms were easier to get through planning), prices were trending down to lower than onshore, that wind turbine factory reopened and competitors set up their own in the UK thanks to the consistent demand, it even encouraged other countries to also do big offshore wind roll outs. > Anyone with half a brain knew immediately that those reliant on Russian gas would switch over to the same sources that the UK used, putting upwards pressure on the price that we would pay. Yeah, which is the whole reason that talking point about how the cancelled onshore wind was enough to replace all the gas that the UK imported from Russia was deceptive and meaningless. Replacing the UK's own gas imports from Russia was trivial and not the problem, the problem was precisely that other countries which used far more Russian gas switched over to the same suppliers the UK relied on for the rest of our gas. It's deceptively worded to make a relatively small amount of energy sound like a big, impactful fix for our problems.
- scott_w 3y ago
  Try reading my comment in its full context instead of cherrypicking the parts you want. The NIMBYism I refer to is the explicit ability of a single complaint to kill an onshore wind farm. What you link to is the general planning issue that plagues the UK but doesn't automatically kill a planning application. Starmer specifically talks about the planning system in his interview at the Future of Britain conference. > It got a whole bunch of wind turbines built with far less NIMBY problems than before That could have happened anyway, except we'd also be further ahead in at least some onshore wind, too. > Yeah, which is the whole reason that talking point about how the cancelled onshore wind was enough to replace all the gas that the UK imported from Russia was deceptive and meaningless. Nobody in any government or energy sector claimed this. And no, don't waste your time citing a Tory source because they've made a lot of verifiably nonsense claims on energy security in the past 18 months, so they're not a reliable source.