We have some of the highest electricity prices in the world. The politicians obsess over net-zero at the expense of dealing with the issues affecting most people.
Part of the reason why we have high electricity costs (here in the UK) is that we peg the price to gas generation, on the face of it people complain about that but the higher price allows investments in renewables to make sense on an RoI PoV, effectively it's a subsidy to build out renewables at a higher rate than would otherwise be the case.
Electricity prices are high in the UK but there is a net benefit to it at least some ways, as always the devil is in the details, all the details.
Texas has some different choices in their electricity markets but they use the same pay-as-clear marginal pricing system that the above poster thinks is a secret UK plan to subsidise renewables. In reality it is the standard way to set the market price of commodities.
Texas famously had massive spikes in electricty prices and a near failure of the grid because of their electricity market structure, so it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
That would be wonderful. But that hasn't happened yet, so i'll point out that whatever our current energy strategy is, it's failing miserably and wrecking the economy. For some reason other countries seem to have it figured out much better, so forgive me for not falling over in excitement over the fact that some war in the middle east is costing us a billion less then it might have.
Between Brexit and the aging population, I don't think joining the rest of the world in poisoning the atmosphere for the future faster is going to improve the UK's situation. There are much, much bigger fish to fry than energy policy for improvement-per-unit-effort.
The UK relies heavily on tourism. Tourism is disrupted by global instability. Climate change and fossil-fuel-catalyzed wars cultivate global instability. And the UK doesn't have the land or people to compete on the global stage in manufacturing exports (not that they do bad work, just that the scale doesn't exactly pan out. Not unless people are really keen on telling the tale of two cities again).
Best policy is likely to focus on domestic affairs (how to keep the country stable and solvent as the population shifts towards more and more retirees) and maybe look into rejoining that massive free-trade sector right down the block that the country so short-sightedly left a short time ago, since it'd really open up the tourism and trade markets.
Other countries are not likely spending much less on the transition, it's just that they're paying for it more in tax and less in the electricity bill. The UK's strategy here basically means there's now a huge amount of investment in renewables even without government subsidies. And the nature of renewables and relying on gas in the meantime (which has pretty much always been setting the price of electricity, it's just gotten even more expensive recently) means that there's a relatively more painful period of investment before you get to the cost benefits of a nearly entirely renewable grid.
Nice to see you again. Yeah, i feel it's a political thing where green initiatives are being pushed against the interest and benefit of voters. The benefits are continually overhyped and frankly in the UK we are seeing none of them. I actually quite like the idea of renewables and don't entirely understand Trumps pathological hatred of them, but i don't think politicians hamstringing our economy to win green points with their pals is a good thing. Also what's the plan here? Fall years behind the rest of the world while we switch over and then expect to magically catch up somehow?
We have policies that are good in principal but when they interact with other policy become unworkable for a reasonable cost. But then you focus on one individual area of policy rather than the system as a whole.
Also, in my experience the green initiatives generally have terrible publicity and these kind of articles are just pointing out some positives in a sea of negatives. What we endlessly miss is that the British public generally wants Co2 reduced and have got that.
The "political thing" is the oil industry working hard to make you feel like going renewable is a "political thing". It's a matter of life-or-death for them that you believe their lies.
If you like the idea of renewables take some time to understand the economics instead of spouting the same tired lies.
They don't "hamstring the economy". Nor will adopting them cause you to "fall behind". The "rest of the world" is rapidly adopting renewables.
Turns out I'm actually on 20p from a fix from last year, I was just grabbing some representative numbers off the website. Also this discussion has reminded me to put in a meter reading.
> my electricity has been free to negative all day
Like a gambler who only talks about their wins, people on these smart energy plans on the few days it goes very cheap only seem to pipe up with the current low unit price, and never mention their longer-term moving-average unit price...