Rachel Reeves’s new National Wealth Fund is preparing to back a UK gigafactory as part of the efforts by its new chief executive to put £28 billion of public money to use on green energy projects.
John Flint, appointed in October to run the chancellor’s key investment engine, said he was “very busy” on gigafactories, which are crucial if the government is to transform the car industry into electric vehicles.
Mucho Moolah, right?
But on Thursday night, at a court in New York, Northvolt’s lawyers filed for bankruptcy protection amid a cash crisis for the European battery champion.
More than just investing in those businesses of the future that are obviously going to work – for, of course, even dumb and stupid capitalists operating in markets can achieve that, hunh! – our tax money is going to be invested in those strategic industries of the future. Even, alongside strict conditionality!
Despite raising more than $15bn (£12bn) from investors, bondholders, pension funds and European governments since it was founded in 2016, this week the company had less than one week’s cash remaining – $30m.
We’re all gonna get so, so rich, right?
Sigh.
If they’re really worried, why not pay the South Koreans to build the nukes needed to provide the UK with all that nice green electricity??
Of course, if I was running things, I’d just legalise fracking throughout the whole country.
WTFs a gigafactory, battery or otherwise?
Car production in Western Europe is now a legacy/specialist industry. BYD are building a factory to sell into the EU and they’re building it in Turkey. Because the Turks can sell into the EU and do it cheaper than everyone else. Audis are being made in Hungary, Fiat 500s are made in Poland.
There’s almost an inverse effect with government, isn’t there? That by the time they realise something is important, it’s about over. Like, all this HS2 stuff that came along at about the time that commuter rail stopped growing and remote work started to happen. Or how colleges teach things like music production even though there are 10 million songs to listen to on Spotify.
Sexy, sexy! Gigawatt…..
Even in the context of government cash-spaffing, it is depressing to know that £28billion will be utterly wasted. It would be better to burn it for fuel.
The UAE paid Korea $25bn to build 5.4GWe of nuclear power. It took 15 years. We’d take that long to deal with the owl habitat reports and $25bn wouldn’t cover the legal fees.
It reminds me of that old adage: Generals are always prepared to fight the last war.
WTFs a gigafactory
A Grift Is Grift Again factory.
I thought a National Wealth Fund was a big fat piggy bank in which a prudent country, as it might be Norway, saved up the proceeds of a revenue stream, as it might be oil and gas extraction royalties to be used on revenue generating projects.
This Reeves thing is nothing more than an appropriation from general taxation and borrowing and given a misleading name, rather like putting lipstick on a piggy bank.
You all need to take the long view. Yes, its all shit, and depressingly reminiscent of the 70s and far worse. But the way I look at it is the more of this crap we endure, the closer the Milei Moment becomes. The UK was never going to vote for someone to step in and clean the Augean Stables until there was literally no alternative. We’re not quite there yet. But I think another 4 years of Starmer and Co will push us pretty close to that point. Both cheeks of the Uniparty need to discredit themselves, the Tories have done that pretty successfully, Labour are showing they are no slouches in that department too.
To my way of thinking its all going rather well.
Lipstick, Ribbon and Glitter…. It’s also “Green” and “Sustainable”…
Which, of course, it won’t be at all once you the final tally…
When are these factories scheduled to start producing gigas?
I believe Rolls Royce have put a price tag of around £2billion on a 470MW SMR, so £28 billion would buy around 6GW of actual “green” reliable base load power. And I also understand that around 80% of this money would be spent within the UK.
How much have Electricite De Fuckup received so for for hinkley point and are we likely to ever see it up and running?
@Jim
Yes, I would agree.
I didn’t see it myself, but I have seen a number of clips. Apparently the Nige was on question time and the hand picked audience of inner party members was not entirely in full two minute hate mode.
Most strange!
Undoubtedly you’re correct, Jim. To change it’s necessary to not only adopt the new but also to abandon the old. And there needs to be a reason to abandon the old, because the old is entrenched & will keep coming back whenever the new falters. The Tory party long lost its reason for existing because the only thing it was interested in conserving was itself. And Labour’s no different. It’s sole election aim was to put Starmer in No 10.
“John Flint, appointed in October to run the chancellor’s key investment engine”
And when it all goes wrong for Our Man Flint the consequences for him will be … ?
“ To my way of thinking it’s all going rather well.”
Yes, but there comes a point where the hole is so deep that you can’t climb out of it.
Sexy, sexy! Gigawatt…..
Yeah, I know, its designed to appeal to simpleton politicians and greens who think wavy arm claims about battery technology will solve the intermittency problem.
Talking of simpleton politicians and greenies, its not just at the national level:
Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing gigatube men!…………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………….Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing gigatube men!
……………………………………………Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing gigatube men!……………………………………………..
Hi, I’m Steer Kalmer, President and CEO of Steer Kalmer’s Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing GigaTube Renewable Green Futures Emporium and Warehouse! Thanks to a shipping error by Rachel in Accounts I am now currently overstocked on wacky waving inflatable arm flailing gigatube men, and I am passing the savings on to **YOU!!** Attract customers to your business, Make a splash at your next presentation, Keep grandma company, Protect your crops. Confuse your neighbours. White in an unfamilar neighbourhood? Testify in church, Or just raise the roof! Whatever your wacky waving inflatable arm flailing gigatube man needs are! So come on down to Steer Kalmer’s Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing GigaTube Man Emporium and Warehouse! Just off the A2 in Hildenborough.
WTFs a gigafactory, battery or otherwise?
A thousand times a megafactory.
So it’s a billion factory in proper usage, but a thousand million factory or a milliard factory in improper usage.
If only we’d had a Labour government in the 1840s we’d still have an industry producing wooden ships powered by sails; beautiful things – clippers, frigates, first raters, and such.
In their day the most intricate machines ever made by man, the basis of British power and prosperity, the ships that freed tens of thousands of slaves, traditional employers for hundreds of thousands of British families, their builders being innovators in mass production with interchangeable parts, so the High Tech of their day …
@Martin Near The M25 – December 8, 2024 at 11:19 am
And when it all goes wrong for Our Man Flint the consequences for him will be … ?
… either absolutely zero or a Peerage.
Could be worse, Tim.
ISIS 2.0 has just taken over Syria, cancelled Christmas, forced women to hide behind veils and will be back to its favourite hobbies of murdering Christians and Shia Muslims like a dog to its own vomit.
The Spectator’s take:
Syria is emerging from a nightmare
BIS,
“The Tory party long lost its reason for existing because the only thing it was interested in conserving was itself.”
I’m not even sure they cared about that. The general impression I get from the Conservatives is that they are the sort of polite poshos who would rather lose while being “nice” than to win by being “nasty”. Like they really did nothing about immigration (and actually raised it) even though it’s the biggest issue for Conservative voters and the second biggest issue in the country. But they were banging on about Net Zero which most Conservative voters don’t care about.
Got a link for that, Steve? The only stories I could find were from 2023, with Syria “cancelling” Christmas in “solidarity” with Gaza.
Ted – just videos on Telegram so far. One of the first things they did on entering Damascus was to smash Christmas decorations. Apparently the head terrorist in ISIS 2.0 is telling his boys to go softly on this stuff for now because it might create difficulties for their Western sponsors. We’ll see how that shakes out. It’s like having a bunch of strutting Nazis on the streets when you’re a Jewish shopkeeper – only a matter of time.
Google isn’t our friend on this topic, for reasons Mike Benz explained to Joe Rogan recently (ht Interested)
Western media/big tech is pulling hard for ISIS 2.0, because it’s supposed by the CIA, Turkey and Israel. So lots of planted stories intended to deceive you, like:
How Syria’s ‘diversity-friendly’ jihadists plan on building a state – the Telegraph
(No doubt it’ll also be a Net Zero, gender respecting caliphate)
But they’ve just put exactly the same sort of people who attacked Israel on October 7th in charge of Syria. Does that mean we can send all those “refugees” back?
WTFs a gigafactory, battery or otherwise?
A gigafactory is one that requires at least a billion dollars of subsidies before anyone will build it. Simples!
@Chris Millar
So that’s Gigabucks instead of Megabucks. Of course the nationals debt is measured in Terabucks.
With regard to the Syrian rebels, it is not important that they are are trying to look OK now. What matters in a revolutionary change of regime is not the folks who did the campaigning but who creeps out from the safe shadows and takes over the organisation afterwards. That’s the story in most revolutions. The most ideological political group takes over. Syria is going to be a worse hell than under Assad, who will turn out to have been relatively benign. I’d love to be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
The big loser from the fall of Assad is Iran. Good.
The big winner is Turkey. Hmm. Not so good but better than nothing. Turkey hosts 4 million refugees which they want rid of, has a very large army which definitely doesn’t want an ISIS 2.0 on its doorstep.
Syria won’t become a pluralistic democracy and will become Islamic with a capital S, but I’m hopeful it won’t become a paedophile genocidal caliphate a la ISIS.
Rhoda, Philip – if we had a leader, now is a golden moment to deport, deport, deport every “Syrian” “refugee”.
Unfortunately we have Cock Piss Starmer.
Steve… This is the Day the Big Evil Dictator got Ousted…
*Tomorrow* is quite another story…..
I am looking on with …. total utter incredulity…. how on earth a “power” that’s recognised as a branch of Bin Laden-ism is hailed onto the International Stage as “better then sliced bread”.
It’s Afghanistan all over again… The only thing I can remotely find why they’d be “good” is because they’re not fans or Iran.
Not surprising, because they’re even *worse*. Iran is , in their eyes, not Strict enough…
I do believe we should let play this out, just like the current UK government.
And then Glass the place.
Historical sites be damned. ( if there’s any left, given what the Taliban have shown so far….. At least *that* makes it an easy choice…)
“Yes, but there comes a point where the hole is so deep that you can’t climb out of it.”
Rubbish. Germany and Japan managed to come back within a couple of decades from their countries having been bombed into the Stone age. We’re not that bad. We have functioning infrastructure, just about. All our problems are self inflicted and can be turned around into one Parliament. Change the laws, free the people from the State yoke, and watch the economy soar.
Germany and Japan managed to come back within a couple of decades from their countries having been bombed into the Stone age.
Germany and Japan hadn’t been deliberately filled with Mozzers and (Ed – grasp the point being made but let’s not use that sort of language, thank you?) who hate us. I don’t know how we come back from that, because we’re not the old “we” any more.
As far as Syria is concerned, Israel’s attitude is key. I reckon they think ISIS 2.0 to be an easier fight than Iran, not least because ISIS 2.0 isn’t likely to go nuclear, has few domestic economic resources and isn’t interested in exploiting what they have. Just like all the other pikeys in the area. And Iran won’t fund them. Turkey might. Qatar will.
[Watch what the dumb pikeys do with Assad’s posh car collection. They could arrange to have it sold and make millions. They won’t. They’ll just trash it. Silly cunts.]
I note Israel has taken the opportunity to bomb Syria’s remaining military gear that could be used against it, and also to remove hostile powers (the UN) from the Golan DMZ.
Glass the place? It’s what the Millenarian Iranian death cultists want.
Jim
Post-War Germany and Japan were occupied and democracy yet to be (re-)introduced, so not analogous to the UK now or in the foreseeable future. In welfare democracies, everyone wants benefits and entitlements that are paid for by someone else. The result is (at least some) politicians know what needs to be done, but they don’t know how to get re-elected once they have done it or even how to get elected in the first place if they tell the voters what needs to be done.
To win the next election, Reform will have to garner the votes of left-leaning but anti-immigration voters. Reform will not achieve that without moving leftwards economically (cf Trump’s simple-minded protectionism) and without offering electoral bribes. Austerity + low immigration is hardly an election-winning formula. So I conclude the outlook is bleak…
Rhoda, Philip – if we had a leader, now is a golden moment to deport, deport, deport every “Syrian” “refugee”.
Unfortunately we have Cock Piss Starmer.
I paraphrase this video:
Irishman to someone crowd: What are you celebrating:
Anon: Demascus is now free
Irishman: Does that mean you’ll all be going back home?
Anon: Oh no, the economic situation isn’t good.
Irishman: So its about economics now!
https://x.com/KeithWoodsYT/status/1865757436247683573
” In welfare democracies, everyone wants benefits and entitlements that are paid for by someone else. The result is (at least some) politicians know what needs to be done, but they don’t know how to get re-elected once they have done it or even how to get elected in the first place if they tell the voters what needs to be done.”
I could get the UK economy going without cutting a single benefit, or even cutting a single tax. There’s huge amounts of self inflicted injuries that can reversed without costing a penny.
Firstly deregulate. Its totally free, doesn’t cost anything, in fact will save money, which can be immediately recycled into tax cuts for even more benefits. The only reason we don’t is because the politicians are addicted to control.
Similarly cutting mass immigration is free. Just pass laws and enforce them. The savings from paying for all the immigrants will more than pay for the enforcement costs.
Cutting woke costs nothing, again saves money. Abolish the Equality Act, pass a replacement that says no public or private body may maintain any data on their employees or customers sex or race.
Starting fracking costs nothing. Abolishing the green subsidies (or taxing the profits so created at 100% if their payment is required by law) saves money, which will feed straight into people’s pockets.
Cut all spending that isn’t required and won’t affect the masses. HS2, gone. Overseas aid budget, gone. All subsidies to the arts, gone. All payments to any charity that spends a single penny on campaigning, gone (I’d ban all charities from campaigning anyway). All subsidies to Universities, gone (maybe STEM research could stay). BBC privatised, or maybe mutualised, let the licence payers sell their shares if they want to. All environmental spending, gone.
Then as the economy grows, and tax revenues rise, use that money to reform the tax system into a far far simpler one. As immigration falls, wages will be forced higher and the differential between benefits and wages will force more people into paid employment, without cutting a single benefit. Over time you could restrict access to benefits (far easier to stop people getting on the gravy train than getting them off it later).
Reforming the UK without it costing a penny is simple. You just need the balls to do it.
Theophrastus said:
“To win the next election, Reform will have to garner the votes of left-leaning but anti-immigration voters. Reform will not achieve that without moving leftwards economically (cf Trump’s simple-minded protectionism) and without offering electoral bribes. Austerity + low immigration is hardly an election-winning formula. So I conclude the outlook is bleak…”
Not necessarily. If immigration is seen as a big enough problem, people will vote for an anti-immigration party even if they don’t support its economic policies – so long as there isn’t anything they see as causing themselves significant direct harm.
So Reform can’t propose to slash pensions (even if they wanted to), but could promise to take a chainsaw to bureaucracies, so long as those bureaucracies are seen as pro-immigrant wokery.
Jim lists some other ideas too, most of which are good and which wouldn’t stop the anti-immigration left from voting for them.
(although I suspect the university one might not work yet, because too many voters still see getting their children into one as the way to advancement. But graduate unemployment and student loans might change that)
A welfare democracy will always trend left for the simple reason that beneficiaries will always eventually outnumber contributors, creating a permanent majority in favour of spending other people’s money. Pareto sees to that. So the only way out is to restrict suffrage to net contributors. Who has the balls to do that?
One delightful consequence is that it would disenfranchise the entire public sector. They don’t pay tax; their taxes are in effect simply docked wages.
“No representation without taxation”
Mmmm. Sounds kind of catchy.
jgh in Japan
December 8, 2024 at 12:52 pm
“Hi, I’m Steer Kalmer . . . .”
I’m still laughing. That was good.
Jim
Governing is hard, not easy.* While many of the UK’s problem are self-inflicted, none of the worthy measures you suggest is sufficient (jointly or singly) for economic growth. And funding welfarism from economic growth is little more than a giant Ponzi scheme, because eventually growth stalls or even vanishes.
*because of: civil service pushback, lobby groups, media hysteria, party management problems, judicial reviews, the law of unintended consequences, localism, bureaucracy and ‘chocolate levers’, system overload, financial constraints, “events, dear boy, events”…etc, etc
RichardT
If immigration is seen as a big enough problem, people will vote for an anti-immigration party even if they don’t support its economic policies – so long as there isn’t anything they see as causing themselves significant direct harm.
That’s a big “If”…
Norman
the only way out is to restrict suffrage to net contributors.
Indeed.
Who has the balls to do that?
The problem is not balls but practical politics. How do you get a majority for reducing the franchise? And if you do, how do you implement it in the teeth of furious – riotous – opposition? Myself, I’d start small – most folk on non-contributory benefits for more than 12 months lose their right to vote?
Rather than taking votes away from people you could give taxpayers extra votes. One if you pay income tax, two if you pay council tax as well etc.
So the only way out is to restrict suffrage to net contributors.
Wasn’t something like that tried during the French revolution(s) by way of Active Citizens? It didn’t end well IIRC.
We could try the Starship Troopers model.
Only citizens can vote. Citizenship only achieved by proving you can consider things beyond your own narrow interests.
Iran is , in their eyes, not Strict enough…
That’s the view of Shi’as held by most Sunnis – the latter are the wee frees or Mennonites to the former’s Anglicans. No popery!