The key fact is that the factories were unprofitable. But would cheap local energy, by itself, have made the factories profitable? I don't know the numbers involved, but I would guess probably not. Surely energy was not the #1 or #2 expenditure for these factories.
So why were the factories unprofitable, at a time when their equivalents in Europe were often profitable? I don't know, but there are plenty of alternative hypotheses besides energy costs: local skill to build/maintain the machinery, quality of local workers, local capital costs, ...
I find the focus on energy kinda sus.
The key fact is that the factories were unprofitable. But would cheap local energy, by itself, have made the factories profitable? I don't know the numbers involved, but I would guess probably not. Surely energy was not the #1 or #2 expenditure for these factories.
So why were the factories unprofitable, at a time when their equivalents in Europe were often profitable? I don't know, but there are plenty of alternative hypotheses besides energy costs: local skill to build/maintain the machinery, quality of local workers, local capital costs, ...
Hey John, wrote out my thoughts here:
https://lostfutures.substack.com/p/sort-of-contra-john-wentworth
TL;DR Idk that the factories would have profitable even with cheap energy but I think it was next to impossible to make them profitable without it.