Rest assured that the UK would have damaged manufacturing and living standards regardless of renewables. It is just too complicated and expensive to build things. That not only damages the things you mentioned but renewables, gas and nuclear deployment.

But yeah bet against the Chinese solar and battery industries. And bet in favour of cheap plentiful gas in northern Europe.

> Rest assured that the UK would have damaged manufacturing and living standards regardless of renewables. It is just too complicated and expensive to build things. That not only damages the things you mentioned but renewables, gas and nuclear deployment.

High energy prices unquestionably make most primary and manufacturing production less competitive, and they reduce living standards. What are you even trying to say?

> But yeah bet against the Chinese solar and battery industries. And bet in favour of cheap plentiful gas in northern Europe.

This does not address what I wrote.

I was trying to say that high energy costs are just one issue. And even then renewables are not the root cause of high energy costs.

> I was trying to say that high energy costs are just one issue.

The one issue we were discussing.

> And even then renewables are not the root cause of high energy costs.

There is rarely one single root cause of anything. Renewables have certainly caused higher costs and worse service in some cases. I don't know the specifics of the UK, but you could argue the point with the above poster who said gas was cheaper.

I do know the specifics of the UK and that is what was being discussed here. But yeah dismissing anything that doesn't align with an easily argued point seems foolish to me.

Renewables are heavily effected by capital costs. So a renewable energy scheme selling at wholesale prices may sometimes be ridiculously profitable. But it will also have higher interest rates that could wipe out that benefit for the developer. The more successful renewable energy is the lower the average wholesale price is likely to be. And the temporary peaks are likely to correlate with times where the weather conditions will reduce renewable output.

All these reasons make CfD's positive for both consumers and developers. The fact that schemes can be developed outside of this just shows how good the technology is.

That could make sense as a criticism if Apple were some tiny struggling company. But they have the resources to do better. And a brand identity that definitely sets it apart from the rest of the internet.

This applies to the UK particularly as a result of privatisation. Utilities, pensions and transport are completely dependant on previous government agreements that commit the public to long term expenses that sit outside tax. It takes debt of the government books, but also defuses responsibility. And becomes a necessary evil for getting anything done.

The US occasionally has mayors & governors who spitefully or corruptly trap their successors contractually in long-term commitments with private parties which are obviously bad financial decisions.

I argue that we have a reasonableness standard we can apply here - "Lack of consideration" is what might void a contract indenturing a 20 year old idiot in an unpaid MLM scheme.

Consideration of the public is a factor.

> "Chicago's 2008 parking meter deal, a 75-year, $1.16 billion lease to private investors, is widely criticized as a lopsided, "worst practice" agreement. The deal, pushed through in 72 hours under Mayor Daley, forces the city to pay "true-up" fees for lost revenue, resulting in over $2 billion in revenue for investors [so far] while the city continues to settle costly disputes."

I am getting the feeling that Americans love "leadership without oversight". In my country we have a parliament on the national level whose single job is to make life miserable for whoever is in power and on the local level there are city councils who do the same.

The pattern I’ve observed throughout the US is that we have all those same things as well as citizens who can go to speak at various council meetings.

People are ignored, councils seem to rubber stamp things and the tactic at higher levels is to make a terrible decision and then attempt to use courts to delay any attempt to stop whatever the decision was. When it’s finally stopped, it will be done again slightly different and restart the lengthy court process.

I do not think it is those big and visible privatisations of utilities and transport that are the real problem (I am not sure what you mean about pensions though).

The big problem is long term outsourcing contracts, that serves to get the debt off the government’s books. If anyone else did it they would be required to show the debt under off-balance sheet financing rules, but the government gets to set its own rules and gets away with hiding the real situation. Gordon Brown did a lot of this so he could pretend to have balanced the budget.

Apart from central government a lot of local authorities have done this too. Sheffield's notorious street management contract (the one that lead to cutting down huge numbers of trees) is a good example.

And I guess you need uncovered skin which can be tricky in a cold winter.

The problem is that it lead to investment on the expectation of high electricity prices in the future. Oil companies went and overspent on offshore wind concessions. When the prices dropped they were back to relying on strike prices that didn't offer enough profit and cancelled schemes. At least in the UK offshore wind has been somewhat stalled by that and by delay to grid connections.

The classic system does sound pretty elegant really.

A deaf person wouldn't be able to either. We need better non audible ways of signalling.

Yes, but it needs to work both ways. Heat needs to be extracted during the winter. Otherwise the ground would just be heated up to much. That is what a ground source heat pump does.

There is a good technology connections video about building backup batteries into the actual stove.

I think part of the problem with whole home backups is that they tend to be sized to a maximum load that is unusual or could be avoided with some effort. And that providing a backup for the essentials you actually need is relatively cheap and uncomplicated if you make some modest sacrifices.