Slartibartfast wrote:
Anyway, an energy mix encompassing renewable energy is the sensible route.
Here, I can wholeheartedly agree with you. Don't mistake my climate scepticism for any sort of anti-environmentalism. The two are very different things. I remain a committed environmentalist and I see that small-scale, localised use of 'renewable' energy makes perfect sense on the micro scale. The problem is that in trying to force the application of such nascent technology on the macro scale there has been an appalling waste of public money for very little in return (largely driven by EU doctrine). And there has been a scam of monumental proportions; one you and every household in the UK (and beyond) pays for every time we settle our energy bills.
And none of it is necessary if instead government ditched its wretched climate posturing and embraced a much healthier mix of fossil and renewables, striking the right balance between dependable, secure sources and unproven, inefficient renewable sources.
The transformation to the US energy economy as a result of its pro-shale gas policies has been amazing. Thousand of jobs, cheaper domestic energy bills and a secure, dependable home-grown energy source. It will happen in the UK in time - it is inevitable because in the end necessity will trump the cost and inefficiency of imaginary 'renewables'. Of course, no one will admit they were wrong; there will be no apology for the $billions wasted of taxpayers money chasing 'green' energy. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, rent-seekers all, will never admit to their wilful folly, nor will they ever be made to pay for their calculated deceit.
Quote:
By 2020 the Government will be handing over £100 million a year in rents to landowners simply for the right to put turbines on their turf. Property agents suggest that each large turbine generates around £40,000 a year risk-free for the landowner.
The Earl of Moray is reported to rake in nearly £2 million a year from his wind farm in Perthshire; the Duke of Roxburghe is expected to make £1.5 million a year from his development in the Lammermuir Hills. The Duke of Gloucester has given West Coast Energy permission for a scheme on his Northamptonshire estate that could generate £3 million over 25 years. Even the Prime Minister’s father-in-law, Sir Reginald Sheffield, is in on it, making £1,000 a day in rent in Lincolnshire. It’s enough for a peasants’ revolt, but all the landowners seem to care about is whether the blades will interfere with their pheasants.
What is astonishing about this money, financed by huge government subsidies, is just how little the landlords have to do. A mansion tax would not just affect those with inherited homes but those who have bought with the taxed proceeds of hard work. If ministers want to penalise the acquisition of huge sums by luck rather than judgment, they should be looking at wind energy rather than the housing market.
Perhaps even these undeserved gains (akin to the agricultural subsidies the same landowners have for years pocketed from Brussels) would be acceptable if they provided Britain with its most cost-effective, sustainable and efficient energy source and generated British jobs for British workers.
But wind farms fail on all these counts. Under the renewable energy obligation, electricity firms have to buy a percentage of their power from renewable sources. They then hand the extra cost, currently £1.4 billion a year but as much as £10 billion by 2020, on to consumers. It’s a green tax, only it doesn’t show up on your tax bill but your utilities bill. The Government may argue that, having signed up to European targets for reducing greenhouse gases, the only way to meet them is with wind farms. But they are more expensive than other power sources and even the turbines aren’t manufactured in Britain any more. [...]
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