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Re:Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted ... by nicoburns on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @10:07AM (#27893890)
I live in the UK, and I don't think energy has anything to do with it. We're producing less electricity because we're consuming less electrcity, which is mostly due to more energy efficient appliances and decreasing industrial usage isn't impacting lifestyles.

If you want to point to something, I'd look towards massively inflated house prices (almost 10x over 30 years in some places), and stagnating real wages.

Re:Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted ... by roenxi on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @03:26AM (#27903345)
> ...which is mostly due to more energy efficient appliances and decreasing industrial usage isn't impacting lifestyles.

For energy efficiency to cover the change + population growth with no winding back of lifestyles it would need to be something like a 30% increase in efficiency over 10 years, affecting all electrical devices in the country. There is reason to be sceptical that it is a major factor here.

Add to that there is an argument/observation (Jevons's Paradox) that increasing efficiency of using a commodity generally doesn't lead to reduced usage. If it made sense to procure X commodity when it generated Y, it makes it even more sensibly to procure X when it gets you (Y+something).

As for decreasing industrial use ... the default position when a country jettisons its industry is "gee, that might reasonable upset a lot of people and/or cause social problems!". The changes are rather large. Deindustrialising might foreseeable lead to such things as stagnating real wages, as the country can't produce as many goods, or massively inflated house prices as it becomes more difficult to secure useful work/build new houses.