1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,560 OK, imagine this. You're in the UK, it's grey and 2 00:00:03,560 --> 00:00:07,600 raining as usual, and someone pitches you the idea to run a 3 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:12,080 4000 kilometer extension cord from your house to the deserts 4 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:15,960 of Morocco so that you can power your kettle with solar energy. 5 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,880 That's basically what X Links the now cancelled green energy 6 00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:23,880 power project was in what was supposed to be a triumph of 7 00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:25,720 engineering and climate ambition. 8 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:31,160 The X Links Morocco UK Power project was designed to be a 77 9 00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:37,440 square mile solar array, a 580 square mile wind farm and A50 10 00:00:37,440 --> 00:00:41,680 square mile battery array, all based in Morocco and connected 11 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,760 to the UK with the world's longest undersea power cable. 12 00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:50,840 The project would have supplied 8% of EU KS electricity at a 13 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:55,320 cost of £24 billion. And that's if you believe that 14 00:00:55,320 --> 00:00:58,920 there wouldn't be cost overruns, which there always are. 15 00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:03,160 Critics of the project called it green colonialism, with 16 00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:06,640 Greenpeace saying that it was just another case of the global 17 00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:09,640 N exploiting the global S for energy. 18 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:14,200 While Africa's strong solar and wind potential make it an 19 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:18,000 attractive place to produce green energy, many residents 20 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,040 question that the energy should be exported rather than used 21 00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:25,240 internally. Unfortunately, the X Links 22 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:29,320 project has joined a growing graveyard of planned megaproject 23 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,160 that are grand in vision, bloated in cost and ultimately 24 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:37,520 undone by their own complexity. From high speed rail lines that 25 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:40,800 never reached their destination to nuclear plants with 26 00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:44,560 underwater acoustic systems dubbed the fish disco by the 27 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:48,520 press, which is supposed to deter marine life, Western 28 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:51,480 countries have become astonishingly bad at building 29 00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:54,880 core infrastructure. The question is no longer why 30 00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:58,920 these projects fail, but whether we've forgotten how to succeed. 31 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:03,280 X Links was supposed to be privately funded, but the 32 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:07,320 developers were depending on a 25 year contract for difference 33 00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:11,680 or CFD from the UK government. Which is a fancy way of saying 34 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:14,960 we'll build it, but the government has to guarantee us a 35 00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:18,680 fixed price for the electricity for the next 25 years. 36 00:02:18,920 --> 00:02:22,560 So while not officially subsidized, this was a type of 37 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:26,120 subsidy and the project won't be going ahead without it. 38 00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:32,240 That electricity price 70 to 80 lbs per MW hour, which is 39 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:36,200 actually not bad for the UK. It's cheaper than nuclear and 40 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:40,200 competitive with offshore wind, but it's by no means a bargain. 41 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:43,920 It's about 3 times the wholesale cost of electricity in the 42 00:02:43,920 --> 00:02:48,240 United States, so energy hungry industry would still be at a 43 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:52,120 significant disadvantage if manufacturing in the UK. 44 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:55,600 That contract for difference would have meant billions of 45 00:02:55,600 --> 00:02:59,280 pounds in government price guarantees over the next 25 46 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,200 years. So let's talk about transmission 47 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:05,400 losses next. High voltage direct current, or 48 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:11,720 HVDC cables lose about 3 1/2% of their power per 1000 kilometers. 49 00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:16,720 With a 4000 kilometer cable, that's 14% in losses. 50 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:20,800 Then you've got battery losses on top of that of another 10 to 51 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:24,320 15%. So you're losing more than 1/4 52 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:27,680 of your energy before it even hits the UK grid. 53 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:32,000 Imagine ordering a pizza and the delivery guy eats a quarter of 54 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,160 it on the way. That's essentially what X Links 55 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:38,280 is. The project's estimated cost 56 00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:43,160 jumped from 20 billion to £24 billion before a single solar 57 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:46,960 panel was installed. The planned battery array would 58 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:51,400 have been 16 times larger than the world's largest completed 59 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:54,880 battery system. Occupying 50 square miles in the 60 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,360 Moroccan desert, the subsea cable would have been the 61 00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:02,280 longest in the world, traversing deep sea environments and 62 00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:06,080 multiple jurisdictions. Channels like the Common Sense 63 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:09,680 Skeptic have criticized similar ideas that have been pitched in 64 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:13,960 the United States due to their reliance on unproven scale, the 65 00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:18,120 vulnerability to transmission losses and the sheer material 66 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:20,320 intensity of the battery systems. 67 00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:24,440 The singular vulnerability to terrorist attacks and damage 68 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:27,360 from storms or extreme weather events too. 69 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,720 Ed Miliband, the UK's energy secretary, rejected the proposal 70 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:35,800 a few weeks ago. The project, he said, had too 71 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:38,600 many holes and didn't provide value for money. 72 00:04:38,840 --> 00:04:42,680 He cited security concerns, delivery risk and the lack of 73 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:46,520 domestic economic benefit. He expressed a preference for 74 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:50,280 home grown renewables. So translation, we'd rather 75 00:04:50,280 --> 00:04:53,800 build wind farms in Yorkshire than run a 4000 kilometre 76 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:58,880 extension cord to Africa. X Links is unfortunately not an 77 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,320 outlier. It's part of the bigger pattern. 78 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,720 The UK's infrastructure ambitions are littered with 79 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:08,160 projects that start with fanfare and then in farce. 80 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:12,480 HS2, the high speed rail line it meant to connect London to the 81 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:16,840 north, so it's northern like scrapped after costs ballooned 82 00:05:16,840 --> 00:05:21,520 past £100 billion. Along the way it spent £119 83 00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:26,200 million on a special tunnel to preserve a protected bad column, 84 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:30,200 despite there being no evidence the high speed trains interfere 85 00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:34,000 with that. Then there's Hinkley Point C, 86 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:38,840 the nuclear plant in Somerset now expected to cost £46 87 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:41,560 billion. Among its more surprising 88 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:45,640 features was the proposed Fish Disco, an acoustic deterrent 89 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:49,680 system designed to keep marine life away from the cooling water 90 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:52,680 intake. EDF, the plant's developer, 91 00:05:52,840 --> 00:05:56,800 tried to abandon this part of the plan, citing Diverse safety 92 00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,480 and questionable effectiveness, but environmental campaigners 93 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:03,560 pushed back. The fish disco may have to go 94 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:06,600 ahead. Britain's failed infrastructure 95 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:11,560 projects reflect A deeper malaise, not just in the UK but 96 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:15,560 in much of the developed world, of a system of development that 97 00:06:15,560 --> 00:06:19,760 over promises, under delivers and gets bogged down in a tangle 98 00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:23,480 of regulation, litigation and political risk aversion. 99 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:28,440 As the Danish economist Ben Fleiber has noted, megaprojects 100 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:33,280 are almost always over budget, overtime and under benefit due 101 00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:37,080 to a mix of psychological bias, political incentives and 102 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:41,040 structural complexity. He identifies A phenomenon he 103 00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:45,200 calls the Iron Law of megaprojects, where 9 out of 10 104 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:49,640 projects incur cost overruns, delays, or fail to deliver 105 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:53,240 expected benefits. This poor performance is driven 106 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:57,440 by what he terms the Four sublimes, the technological, 107 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:01,520 political, economic, and aesthetic thrills that motivate 108 00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:05,440 planners to pursue grand projects, often at the expense 109 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:08,440 of realism. When this is combined with 110 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:12,520 flawed forecasting, strategic misrepresentation, and a 111 00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:16,840 tendency to ignore lessons of the past, these forces lead to 112 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:21,080 what he calls the survival of the unfittest, where the most 113 00:07:21,080 --> 00:07:25,680 misleadingly optimistic projects are approved but are then the 114 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:29,800 most likely to fail. Megaprojects are tangible, 115 00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:33,280 garner attention, and lend an air of proactiveness to 116 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:36,280 political leaders. On top of that, they tend to be 117 00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:40,920 media magnets, and the attention they draw appeals to promoters 118 00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:44,920 who enjoy a few things more than the visibility they get from 119 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:48,840 announcing a new mega project. A few months ago, I was 120 00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:52,840 listening to a podcast from the Irish economist David McWilliams 121 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:56,120 called Why Do Good People Make Bad Decisions? 122 00:07:56,360 --> 00:08:00,480 In the podcast, he pointed out that mega projects didn't always 123 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:02,640 stall out like they seem to today. 124 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:07,280 He used the example of Ireland in the 1920s, which had just 125 00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:10,800 come through a war of independence, a civil war and 126 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:14,440 with a fragile democracy in place, managed to build the 127 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:18,520 Ardna Crusha hydroelectric plant in just three years. 128 00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:23,720 Ireland at the time was a post colonial state with no money, no 129 00:08:23,720 --> 00:08:27,560 industry and no energy. It had what's described as a 130 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:31,200 beer and biscuits economy where the only real industry in the 131 00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:35,240 country was Guinness's and Jacobs, both of which drew on 132 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,120 agriculture. So there was no real industrial 133 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:41,240 base at all. There were no large deposits of 134 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:44,240 fossil fuels in Ireland like there were in other European 135 00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:46,800 countries. So there had been no real 136 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:50,480 industrial revolution where cheap energy could be converted 137 00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:53,720 into production. Irish people instead moved 138 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:56,720 abroad if they wanted to find jobs in industry. 139 00:08:57,320 --> 00:09:01,560 Electricity was a very new technology at the time and the 140 00:09:01,560 --> 00:09:06,520 leadership of the country spent 20% of GDP over three years to 141 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:10,360 build Ardna Crusha, a hydroelectric power plant which 142 00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:14,800 until the Hoover Dam was built in 1933, was the largest 143 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:19,000 hydroelectric dam in the world. The country also built an 144 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:23,120 electrical grid which brought power not just to cities but to 145 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:29,600 farms all over the country. Between 1937 and 1947, the River 146 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:34,320 Liffey was dammed at Pula Fuca to build a second hydroelectric 147 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:37,160 station. This dam created a reservoir 148 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:40,640 that delivered fresh drinking water to every home in Dublin. 149 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:45,080 So why was a poor country able to build huge high tech 150 00:09:45,080 --> 00:09:49,040 infrastructure like this in just a few years, which benefited 151 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:52,440 most of the population and dragged the country into the 152 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:55,680 modern world, when today it's impossible to build enough 153 00:09:55,680 --> 00:09:59,000 housing for the population or even a new road? 154 00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:03,720 McWilliams argues in this podcast that western societies 155 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:08,080 have today become victims of hyper democracy, a system where 156 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:11,240 everyone has a veto but no one has responsibility. 157 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:16,520 He argues that well-intentioned regulation, environmentalism, 158 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:21,760 Nimbyism and localism have created a system so overburdened 159 00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:26,080 that even basic infrastructure becomes impossible to deliver. 160 00:10:26,560 --> 00:10:30,920 As an example, let's talk about Hinckley Point C, Britain's 161 00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:35,160 flagship nuclear project, which also happens to be the most 162 00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:38,720 expensive nuclear power station that has ever been built. 163 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:44,240 Hinkley Point C is 4 times more expensive per MW to similar 164 00:10:44,240 --> 00:10:49,000 plants that are being built in South Korea, and even costs 25% 165 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:53,000 more than a near identical plant in France that was built by the 166 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:56,680 same company. Why is it so much more expensive 167 00:10:56,680 --> 00:11:01,040 than because in Britain we can't just build things, we have to 168 00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:03,880 reinvent them. Instead of just building a 169 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:08,040 proven design, it was decided to modify it a lot. 170 00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:14,400 EU KS nuclear regulator required 7000 design changes to Ed FS 171 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:18,920 already approved reactor. The changes required 25% more 172 00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:24,360 concrete, 35% more steel, and a reactor so bespoke it's now 173 00:11:24,360 --> 00:11:29,480 known known as the UKEPRA. Brand new design in everything 174 00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:33,520 but name. To protect 45 tons of fish per 175 00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:36,640 year, less than a small fishing boat catches. 176 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:42,640 EDF was asked to install 288 underwater speakers blasting 177 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:46,640 noise to scare the fish away. I'm guessing Michael Bolton, 178 00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:48,760 Phil Collins, or something like that. 179 00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:53,480 This is expensive, it's risky for divers, and it might delay 180 00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:57,200 the entire project. All this while climate change, a 181 00:11:57,200 --> 00:12:00,280 bigger threat to biodiversity, marches on. 182 00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:05,040 Even though multiple versions of this plant have already been 183 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:09,800 built, a 31,000 page environmental impact assessment 184 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:14,600 was needed, and then even minor changes trigger new planning 185 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:18,200 applications, legal reviews and years of delay. 186 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:23,000 Compare that to Ireland in the 1920s, where a poor country with 187 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:26,880 no industrial base was able to build the largest hydroelectric 188 00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:29,680 plant in the world in just three years. 189 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:33,240 Today, we can't even build a road without a decade of 190 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:36,760 consultations and possibly a tunnel for bats. 191 00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:41,200 My point isn't that we should give up on big projects, it's 192 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:44,600 that we should stop making them needlessly complicated. 193 00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:49,080 South Korea builds fleets of reactors using the same design 194 00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:52,800 over and over again. They've mastered replication 195 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:55,240 while we've mastered reinvention. 196 00:12:55,680 --> 00:12:59,360 If we want to fix our energy problems in the West, we need to 197 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:02,280 stop treating every project like a blank slate. 198 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:06,440 We need to build like the South Koreans, pragmatic, modular, and 199 00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:09,120 fast. Not because we're in a rush, but 200 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:12,960 because it's so wasteful, constantly tripping over our own 201 00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:14,880 feet. And there's a huge cost 202 00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:18,400 associated with the time wasted on planned projects that are 203 00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:21,520 never completed. This isn't the situation 204 00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:24,800 everywhere, however. We discussed in a recent video 205 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:29,520 how in the 1990s and 2000s, Madrid managed to triple the 206 00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:33,520 length of its metro system in just 12 years, and they made 207 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:36,920 these upgrades faster and cheaper than almost any other 208 00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:40,920 city in the world. In Madrid, a 35 mile metro 209 00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:45,120 expansion cost around $2.8 billion, which adjusted for 210 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:49,960 inflation is about the same as New York's 1 1/2 mile extension 211 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:53,160 of the Seven Subway to Hudson Yard cost. 212 00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:57,280 The paradox is this. The more we care about doing 213 00:13:57,280 --> 00:14:01,360 things right, environmentally, socially and politically, the 214 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:04,120 less we seem to be able to do anything at all. 215 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:07,000 Environmentalists oppose wind farms. 216 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:11,680 Housing advocates block density. Governments outsource delivery 217 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:16,040 but retain all the risk. The end result is paralysis. 218 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:20,680 Megaprojects like Xlenx are a system of this dysfunction. 219 00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:23,920 Too big to fail, too complex to succeed. 220 00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:28,080 They promise to solve every problem all at once, climate, 221 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:32,040 cost, security, but then collapse under the weight of 222 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,440 their own ambition. There may be a better way, where 223 00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:39,240 instead of betting on unproven megaprojects, governments could 224 00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:43,640 focus on pragmatic, modular and proven solutions to the problems 225 00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:46,800 faced by their citizens. Things like grid up grades, 226 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:50,440 domestic renewables, interconnectors with redundancy 227 00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,560 and public transport built to cost, not to impress. 228 00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:59,720 Madrid's metro, Singapore's grid strategy and Ireland's Turlock 229 00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:04,000 Hill pump storage plant are all examples of infrastructure that 230 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:08,080 works because it was designed with delivery in mind, where the 231 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:12,400 key is speed, simplicity and replicability, not scale and 232 00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,680 spectacle. One of the most underappreciated 233 00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:20,440 risks of the 6 Links project was its reliance on a single ultra 234 00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:23,560 long subsea cable. Recent incidents have 235 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:26,920 highlighted the vulnerability of undersea infrastructure. 236 00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:31,560 Ships dragging anchors, fishing activity, and even suspected 237 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:36,400 sabotage have all caused cable cuts in strategic areas like the 238 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:40,880 Baltic Sea and around Taiwan. These acts are increasingly 239 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:45,280 being described as a form of Gray zone warfare, covert 240 00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:48,800 actions designed to weaken infrastructure with plausible 241 00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:52,040 deniability. The existence of a Chinese 242 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:56,800 patent for a towed submarine cable cutting device only adds 243 00:15:56,800 --> 00:16:01,200 to this concern. In this context, X Links begins 244 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:05,320 to look less like a resilient energy solution and more like a 245 00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:08,120 fragile lifeline waiting to be severed. 246 00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:12,520 The likelihood of the X Links project coming in on budget was 247 00:16:12,520 --> 00:16:16,440 extremely low based on the various risk factors and on 248 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:19,600 historical precedent. First up, the project had 249 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:23,640 already experienced significant cost escalation before 250 00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:28,320 construction even began. Initial estimates of £16 billion 251 00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:33,920 balloon to £20 billion and then 24 billion, a 50% increase, 252 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:38,480 mirroring the trajectory of other UK mega projects like HS2 253 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:43,880 and Hinkley Point C Second, the scale and complexity of X links 254 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:49,160 were unprecedented. The 22.5 GW hour battery array 255 00:16:49,320 --> 00:16:53,280 would have been 16 times larger than the world's largest 256 00:16:53,280 --> 00:16:58,200 completed battery system, requiring over 5700 battery 257 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:02,360 megapacks and occupying around 50 square miles. 258 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:07,800 The 4000 kilometers subsea HVDC cable would have been the 259 00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:11,640 longest in the world, traversing deep sea environments and 260 00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:15,359 multiple jurisdictions. No company involved had 261 00:17:15,359 --> 00:17:18,560 previously delivered a project of this scale. 262 00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:23,599 Third, the project was exposed to geopolitical and regulatory 263 00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:25,680 risks. The cables route through 264 00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:29,520 international waters raised concerns about sabotage and 265 00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:33,440 jurisdictional disputes. The UK government ultimately 266 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:37,480 cited security concerns and the lack of a domestic supply chain 267 00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:41,360 benefits as reasons for withdrawing support. 4th 268 00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:45,800 historical precedent suggests that mega projects of this 269 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:50,000 nature rarely stay on budget, and the larger and more novel 270 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,840 the project, the greater the likelihood of failure. 271 00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:56,720 Finally, the analysis done by Common Sense Skeptic on a 272 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,600 similar proposed project in the United States highlighted 273 00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:05,120 material constraints, storage inefficiencies, and transmission 274 00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:07,840 losses that would have plagued the project. 275 00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:12,080 The battery array alone would have required massive quantities 276 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:16,520 of lithium and other materials, potentially beyond existing 277 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:20,800 known global supplies. In short, X Links fit the 278 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:25,000 profile of a project that promised too much too soon and 279 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,760 would almost certainly have required additional public 280 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:30,880 funding or scope reductions to survive. 281 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:35,040 The developed world doesn't lack money or technology. 282 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:39,480 It instead lacks institutional clarity and political courage. 283 00:18:39,720 --> 00:18:43,520 We need to shift from grandiosity to delivery, from 284 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:47,360 spectacle to substance. If we want to decarbonize, house 285 00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:49,480 people, and modernize our economies. 286 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:53,280 We don't need more X links. We need to remember how to 287 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:55,480 build. Thanks for tuning into this 288 00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:58,200 week's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and 289 00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:01,440 hit the bell icon so that you're notified when a new Epic 290 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:04,480 Soldiers released. Have a great day and talk to you 291 00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:05,720 again soon. Bye.