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by wood_spirit7 hours ago |
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upvoteby praxulus6 hours ago|
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It can be good or bad depending on what's driving the change. Improving efficiency, assuming it comes at a reasonable cost, is generally good.

If people are just going without, then that's generally bad.

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upvoteby esskay6 hours ago|
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They arent going without. Blackouts/brownouts are exceptionally rare in the UK.
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upvoteby nradov6 hours ago|
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That's fine for residential customers. But if there isn't cheap, reliable excess capacity then that inhibits industrial growth. Low economic growth rates cause everyone to go without.
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upvoteby tom_6 hours ago|
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The UK doesn't really rely on industrial growth for the economic growth it has.
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upvoteby nradov5 hours ago|
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Right, that's one of the reasons why UK economic growth has been so anemic.
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upvoteby Danox4 hours ago|
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The UK deindustrialize themselves they stopped making things that reduced the energy that the used to use.
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upvoteby praxulus2 hours ago|
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That's not the only way to go without. Cutting back on your electricity usage because your utility bill is getting too high is another way to do it.

Sometimes that's fine if you're just reducing waste. However other times it could mean that you can't keep your house at a reasonable temperature because you can't afford to run your heater/air conditioning enough. That's a form of going without.

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upvoteby advisedwang7 hours ago|
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Only 9% of the UK is electric only heating [1], so I suspect heating is not a large driver here.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/...

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upvoteby mhh__6 hours ago|
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No it's a catastrophic failure of planning and institutional nerve.
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upvoteby esskay6 hours ago|
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Explain. Nobodys going without power.
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upvoteby mhh__6 hours ago|
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We have expensive, potentially unreliable (if an interconnect fails we are completely fucked so certainly fragile), energy.

Energy is what allows modernity to function, we have made it so expensive that no one can make anything in Britain just in time for hard power and manufacturing to be really important again.

Chemicals, metals, pottery, glass,fertiliser etc are all basically impossible to do competitively in Britain.

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upvoteby esskay6 hours ago|
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Energy has only been expensive recently, and there has been zero issue with power supply beyond silly tabloid fear mongering. So between the 70s and lets say 10 years ago, the argument for expensive power really does not hold true.
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upvoteby veqq6 hours ago|
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UK has some of the highest costs of power in the world. There's a lot of demand destruction there, a lot of industries left. due to high costs.
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upvoteby esskay6 hours ago|
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Which industries? If you're going to make that claim be specific. The UK has deindustrialised since the 70s which was nothing to do with electricity costs or availability. Any recent industries leaving are not covered by the stats here so would be pretty irrelevant, which means you're not talking about those, you're talking about something else for it to cover the period between the 70s and now.
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upvoteby lenerdenator6 hours ago|
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What were the prices like relative to the rest of the world 20-40 years ago when most of that industry was offshored?
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upvoteby Danox2 hours ago|
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There are so many great companies that were in existence in Britain that were as good as any company in the world. And most of them have folded up like a cheap suit. Note: the Brits aren’t alone. The thing that hurts is that Great Britain had access to the North Sea oil and basically squandered it. Their partner/peer across the North Sea, Norway, had a plan and they executed very well to the derision of many economic purists/conservatives even today because they didn’t give the gentry class the share they wanted.

There are many companies that have folded or who are in reduced circumstances in the United States. Many of them were dominant after the war. And they were on top of their game, but despite being on the top, the management team wanted to set themselves up and just wanted to milk the proceeds and primarily stick them into their pockets.

US Steel, Xerox, Kodak, IBM, Intel Microsoft, Motorola Schaumburg, Illinois let’s be honest, most of these companies stagnated at the top, in many areas of modern technology, being on top isn’t the end it’s just the start. of an endless process on a treadmill for as long as you are in existence, as a company. Which is the main reason why Apple had better take the design and engineering of memory in house the treadmill never stops.

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upvoteby badatnames7 hours ago|
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Just an observation, but my first thought was how energy demand strongly correlates with economic growth and wondered if the article could be cast in that light. Might be fun to overlay that graph with UK gilt rates

edit: helpful robot boyfriend plotted it https://i.imgur.com/Hp199vV.png

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upvoteby xnorswap6 hours ago|
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That link is particularly helpful for UK users, "Content not available in your region".
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upvoteby pj_mukh7 hours ago|
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Isn’t most of the housing in the UK from the 1970’s too?
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upvoteby dukeyukey2 hours ago|
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About half the homes I've lived in (maybe a dozen?) were built before WW1. Lots of Victorian conversions.
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upvoteby rjsw1 hours ago|
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My house is from the 1870s.
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upvoteby foldr6 hours ago|
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No? It would be pretty remarkable if the majority of all UK housing was built in a single decade. If you meant to say 'from before the 1970s' then that might be a more defensible claim. But old houses can be upgraded with double glazing, insulation, etc.
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upvoteby 6 hours ago|
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deleted
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upvoteby NooneAtAll35 hours ago|
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jevon's paradox says that improved efficiencies would increase consumption

I see a lot of comments here see "per capita" and think "residential consumption" - but the decrease is more indicating of general deindustrialization

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upvoteby wood_spirit5 hours ago|
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If houses get more efficient that doesn’t mean we build more houses? A case where jevons paradox doesn’t apply?
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upvoteby NooneAtAll34 hours ago|
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houses using less energy means energy is cheaper for everyone else, f.e. industry
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