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.

[Sheilbh]

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.

Yeah they are big employers who pay their taxes and as you say have a tiny margin. I'd also note that compared with most of Europe (and indeed historically) British people pay a very low share of their income on food. It is comparatively very cheap here.

Now I kind of sympathise with European systems which are more expensive and more protective of local farmers and tradition etc. But that argument was lost 180 years ago and British people like cheaper food, don't care where it comes from and hate farmers - so we have the supermarkets we have and they do what their customers want

But I don't think they're massive price gougers and actually I think they're one of the few sectors of our economy that I think performs pretty well. I was really impressed in covid for example.

Also just to be clear I'm not totally opposed to price controls. In fact I think it is going to be an increasingly necessary part of the policy repertoire in an era of climate change and active geopolitics. I think supply shocks are more likely to become an issue. Although, I could be wrong, but I think price controls probably also need to sit around some regime of rationing.

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 

Agree and Ed Miliband is pushing on this which I think is good - I have questions about his policies but I think he is probably the most effective minister in this government.

Edit: And I kind of get it on location. I grew up near a nuclear plant and the community was very pro-nuclear, hostile/disappointed in decommissioning the plant. I think that probably makes it a lot easier to build new nuclear on the site of old nuclear.

I'd add on positive policies that Reeves has pushed a couple in the last day or two. One basically devolving a lot of decision making powers about local transport infrastructure to Metro-Mayors and the other limiting all judicial review (except in relation to human rights) for critically important national infrastructure projects. Both of those sound very, very positive to me.

Although I saw Faisal Islam spot that lots and lots of policies were being announced by ministers in the last few days presumably to try and get stuff done before they're potentially replaced if Burnham comes in or Starmer is removed. I only wish they'd had a similar sense of urgency for the previous two years