Comment by bjourne
3 years ago
The North Sea Link is 720 km long and costed only £1.6 billion and took only three years to lay: https://www.4coffshore.com/news/north-sea-link-starts-operat... So a new 440 km long cable for £3.4 billion done in 2029 seem like a crummy deal.
Yeah. The cost objection seems like learned helplessness.
A government interested in raising national productivity would underwrite the necessary cables and expedite their installation. However, that's apparently not the UK government since 2008.
1. "Productivity and potential 2003-2012: the UK decade that decayed", 2013: https://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/productivity-and-pot...
2. "UK productivity continues lost decade", 2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47826195
3. "The UK is facing two lost decades on living standards", 2022: https://www.ft.com/content/7968048a-3f7f-4cb0-8fa1-e10aff14b...
The UK conservative party is peak neoliberal. The cabinet is/was largely made up of people that have openly written proposals on how to dismantle national services.
Our shortest serving prime minister was one of these people. At a time of national crisis she supported a budget that overwhelmingly cut taxes on the income of the most wealthy while providing effectively zero support for those unable to afford the massive cost of living increase. Causing financial panic, increasing inflation, and requiring massive public spending to keep pension funds from collapse.
Government investment during a decade of near zero percent interest rates was non-existent.
I assume that cables aren’t all equal, eg maybe the new one carries more power or is more efficient or the sea floor makes it harder to lay. It could still be a good deal even if the upfront cost is higher.
I guess there could also be accounting shenanigans, eg if you pay $x upfront and $y over several years, you could focus on $x if the project seems unpopular and focus on $(x+y) if the project shows a popular serious investment in a government policy.
But I’ve no idea about this case.