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Comment by KevinMS | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that the list of high energy prices and blackouts?

Are you referring to California? IIRC the prices are driven by several factors, including expensive payouts for wildfire damage, but there isn't anything suggesting that renewables is a major factor. And rolling blackouts haven't been a thing since 2020. That might have been arguably related to renewables since they were experiencing abnormally hot climate change related heat waves that were extending into the evening hours and driving high air conditioning load beyond the time solar was prepared to handle it. I believe that in the meantime they've installed quite a number of batteries, which is why it is not a problem now.

Although "Getting rid of cheaper electricity generation would make the electricity cheaper" is genuinely an actual right wing talking point in the UK it doesn't make any sense. The reason it's a talking point is that they're funded by billionaires who'd reap the rewards from new fossil fuel licensing. They know they can't deliver, but what they learned from Brexit is that their supporters aren't too smart and simple messages, even if nonsensical, resonate well with those voters. "Drill baby drill" is simple. Wrong, but simple.

Right now in a dark and not very windy UK w/ 10GW of gas burners running the spot price for electricity here is almost £150 per MWh, but at 10am it was sunny with a brisk wind and sure enough that spot price was about £25 per MWh. Gee, I wonder whether the wind and sun are cheaper...

> Although "Getting rid of cheaper electricity generation would make the electricity cheaper" is genuinely an actual right wing talking point in the UK it doesn't make any sense

Can you cite this please?

Specifically both the Tories and Reform pledge to eliminate the "Green levy" funding for renewables. But that funding doesn't just vanish in a puff of smoke after voters pay it, it's paying for us to have renewable energy generation.

The very stupid part is that we spent a lot of money already and they can't reverse time's arrow, they can't unspend that money, they can only choose (and at least publicly are choosing) not to reap the reward.

Edited: Ah, maybe you want a citation for the specific phrasing, in which case that's fair, I cannot cite a UK politician, on the right or anywhere else, who has said those exact words.

In the UK, Reform probably gets paid by russia to be anti-renewable, I highly doubt they believe that themselves.

The anti-renewable policies would cost the UK a roughly similar amount to Brexit.

Some random numbers:

Renewables reduced UK energy costs by 100 Billion over the 2010-2023 period (despite just getting started and costs continuing to decline)

The conservative "cut the green crap" changes around 2013 that are milder versions of what Farage would do, add a cost of about 5-15 billion a year (ongoing) in higher bills.

EVs will be 30 to 70 Billion a year savings once you get to 33 million.

He's also against grid batteries that will save about 5 to 15 billions per year once scaled.

Brexit is about 100 billion a year according to Bloomberg.

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