Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I think there is a difference between making a serious effort to limit exposure to the constant fossil fuel cost shocks and achieving some kind of pure glowing ball of light state.

Yeah as I say I find it frustrating because I think the debate just polarises into are you for or against net zero.

When I think the actual issues are about base power - and the UK is going for nuclear so the question is how do we speed up and reduce the costs of building nuclear power? Challenges around upgrading the grid and how we ultimately subsidise energy transition for households (plus the question around the trade-off on EVs)?

But my experience (and from what I see in the press) is that if you talk about that or raise the issues around supply of fossil fuels for industry and agriculture, then it's very often read as "I'm opposed to net zero and/or don't think climate change is a thing". It's quite frustrating and I think it's a political problem and why you need, to RH's point, a statesman/woman or leader as teacher - explaining and bringing people along that it's a both/and issue not an either/or.

I'd add slightly aside from the supply shock/security issue, I'm also very unsure on the sort of ethics - I mentioned before that there was huge opposition to a new coal mine being opened (I think it was ultimately blocked). It would only produce coke for steel production. And it was really weird because you had lots of people, politicians, papers who had absolutely backed the nationalisation of the steel industry (as I did) but also totally opposed domestic production of the input into that industry on climate grounds. Which just feels to me a bit weird and almost unethical - that somehow if it's foreigners bearing the carbon "cost" on a spreadsheet (and also the real labour and physical cost of mining) our steel is cleaner. I have moral/ethical concerns aroundan energy transition that is based on the negative externalities of energy in our world just being pushed on other people rather than us assuming responsibility for it. In my view if you think it is necessary for Britain to have a steel industry (and I do) then you should at least be open to the possibility of Britain also producing, if it can, the necessary inputs. Things aren't greener (sometimes they opposite) because they arrive on a tanker.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I get quite peeved about the public whining about supermarket profits; which is in reality an efficient sector of the UK economy. Tesco for example, £2.4bn profit....cue fuming rage....but that is on a turnover of £74bn; in addition, because of the bricks and mortar way it operates, HMRC gets a quarter of that profit back in corporation tax.

[Richard Hakluyt]

To be more positive I like the look of the small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Here is the Rolls Royce spiel on them https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-latest-news. Critically they can provide baseload but also have adjustable power output, which will be a great help in balancing the grid, something that becomes an increasing problem as wind and solar output goes up. The government has ordered an initial three which will be located at the old nuclear power plant site in Anglesey; though I would have thought that it would make more sense to put them in an electricity deficit region such as South-east England....Surrey for example 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

and as a reminder regarding the struggling chemical sector: I will again mention that Antwerpen has the second biggest cluster of chemical industry


in the world!
Despite everything. But it won't last unless, for a big part, those energy prices come down. It would be a disaster if Europe would lose this.