Comment by digdugdirk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by digdugdirk | Hacker News Reader

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It's important to look at the whole picture though - most of the issues you raised are political issues, either brought about by NIMBYism or a lack of infrastructure investment over the past few decades. Without this investment (which, yes, is more expensive than it would be if it weren't also providing additional benefits tailored for renewables) the grid would continue to deteriorate. So clearly there is some amount of this cost that would need to be invested regardless.

There's also subsidies for fossil fuels to consider [0]. I don't hold these figures as gospel, but there's inarguably a massive amount of money going to propping up the (wildly profitable and hugely destructive) industry that's causing most of your raised issues in the first place - either through reduced maintenance and infrastructure investment (gotta get those shareholder returns) or lobbying/public influence campaigns.

To be clear - I absolutely agree with most of your complaints. I just see them as issues caused/exacerbated by entrenched political players, and I think the benefits to our society of getting off our fossil fuel addiction are worth the costs of modernizing our infrastructure for the long haul.

[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/09/fossil-f...

I'm certainly not saying we should stay on fossil fuels, my main point is that for the money that is being spent on various renewables could have been spent on a giant nuclear expansion at lower cost and far higher relability.

I don't really agree with this 'declining grid' narrative the renewable lobby has pushed. Yes there is upgrades to be done, etc etc. But peak UK electricity demand is down from ~65GW to ~45GW (which may change, but doesn't look to be).

Nearly all of the cost on the grid is to do with renewables, not 'general upgrades'. We would not be building 10GW of HVDC from scotland to england. We wouldn't be doing a drastic 275kV -> 400kV rerating and duplication in the middle of nowhere scotland otherwise.

Again, we're in agreement, and I yearn for a world with massive buildout of scalable nuclear power.

But what is this "renewable lobby", and how are they doing funding-wise against the various extremely well funded and deeply entrenched fossil fuel industry lobbying groups (and companies!) that have been pouring money into UK politics ever since they stopped setting UK foreign policy directly and overtly?

All I ask is that people take a step back and look at the whole picture, and then question whether their arguments benefit an industry that is responsible for so much damage and destruction (environmental, economic, human health, societal, political, etc.) or if their arguments benefit individuals and society as a whole.

Nuclear power built out in such a way as to achieve the original "too cheap to meter" goal would be a dream. But don't let perfect be the enemy of good and all that.

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