UK: £50billion on wind farms? You might as well spend it on unicorn tears
Speaking to the virtual Conservative Party conference, the Prime Minister was, for once, full of that old bluster and self-confidence, as he announced his new energy plan for the UK.
The answer to our electricity needs? Off-shore wind farms. Loads of them. Everywhere up and down our coast. He would make Britain the “Saudi Arabia of green energy”, he told a bemused public.
This from a man who once said wind turbines couldn’t blow the skin off a rice pudding. He was pretty much right then. I wonder what changed his mind?
It’s another flip-flop on policy, this time nothing to do with Covid.
Last year the talk was all about nuclear power. That was a genuinely exciting plan to reduce our carbon emissions through stable, almost renewable energy. It would have worked, even if nuclear power stations do cost a few quid to build.
But now it’s those bloody turbines. You may remember David Cameron had one on the side of his house in Notting Hill when he was Prime Minister.
That was five years ago. It’s probably generated enough energy to boil a cup of tea by now.
Wind turbines are for virtue-signalling politicians. They’re not the real answer to our energy problems.
There’s nothing wrong with them being part — a small part — of our cleaner energy policy.
Even if they do scar the landscape from Northumberland to Cornwall and have a seriously bad effect on local wildlife.
The real problem, though, is that they won’t do what Boris expects them to do. It won’t work. Don’t take my word for it.
Here’s what the environmental campaigner Zion Lights had to say (yes, I know, it’s British law that all environmental campaigners must have weird names — like Pixie Hempmuncher or Peregrine Hummus).
She says: “Even if we cranked up wind-power provision to the level the Prime Minister proposes (40 gigawatts), this amount would power only about half the homes in Britain — or seven per cent of the total national energy demand. “And that is only when the turbines are turning — a key point.”
No kidding, Zion.
One of the problems with wind is that it doesn’t always blow — and batteries to store the electricity generated are nowhere near advanced enough to overcome this little difficulty.
Wind turbines, especially off-shore turbines, are also expensive to build, expensive to maintain, polluting to construct and they need replacing very often indeed.
So we will be investing a massive amount of money — some experts reckon more than £50billion — in an energy source that will satisfy less than ten per cent of our need.
Frankly, you might as well spend £50billion harvesting unicorn tears. They would be about as much use.
It’s yet another policy reversal — and one that yet again seems to have been made on an impulse, on the hoof.
Nuclear power — by far and away the safest means of generating electricity and one of the cleanest — is the way forward.
As that campaigner Zion Lights admitted.
Come on, Boris, think again. Or come election time, the voters may take your mojo and shove it somewhere the wind occasionally blows but the sun don’t shine.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12873191/50billion-on-wind-farms-spend-it-on-unicorn-tears/
Windfarm farce that blew £1.4billion of YOUR money!A botched green scheme is paying wind turbine owners seven times the value of the electricity they generate – and it is set to cost UK consumers an estimated £1.4billion.
The Daily Mail can reveal the eyewatering fiasco in the week Boris Johnson declared that wind power was the future for the nation’s energy generation.
The scheme was set up to encourage homeowners to install a small windmill to supply their needs and feed into the electricity grid.
But blundering civil servants set a subsidy rate so high it has been branded ‘a licence to print money’.
Owners are guaranteed bonanza pots of cash for 20 years, and the scheme is so lucrative, it has triggered a gold rush among investors, including leading pension funds. ,
The farcical initiative was set up in Northern Ireland, but the breathtaking costs will be felt in every corner of the UK thanks to higher ‘green levies’ on household and business utility bills.
It dwarfs the £500million wasted by an earlier botched green energy scandal in the province, dubbed ‘Cash for Ash’ which led to the fall of the Stormont Government three years ago.
A Mail investigation has found:
One turbine reaps about £375,000 a year, yet produces electricity worth just £51,000;
The bumper subsidy is available only in Ulster but adds £71million a year to energy bills across the UK;
As the subsidy is guaranteed for 20 years, the overall cost to UK consumers will be an estimated £1.4billion;
Incompetent officials tried to shut the scheme in 2016 – but loopholes let it run until March 2019;
In a stampede to erect turbines before the deadline, hundreds were put up, many owned by venture capitalists and even the Royal Bank of Scotland’s pension fund.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister made a dramatic pledge to power every home by wind by 2030.
Mr Johnson told the Conservative conference he would work at ‘gale-force speed’ to usher in his ‘green industrial revolution’.
But the Mail’s investigation uncovers how an existing wind scheme is being abused at a vast cost to consumers.
It was set up to incentivise landowners to erect small wind turbines. They would receive fees for ‘clean’ power fed into the electricity grid. Even David Cameron erected one in his back garden.
Ministers called it a ‘clean energy cashback’. To fund it, they introduced a ‘green levy’.
This so-called ‘renewables obligation’ adds about £73 a year to a typical household electricity bill.
After 2009, these incentives were recognised as being too generous and were dramatically cut down in England, Wales and Scotland.
But Northern Ireland officials inexplicably kept the rate sky-high – sparking a rush among wealthy investors to install clapped-out turbines and claim practically risk-free handouts.
Last night green energy expert Dr John Constable said: ‘Someone made a mistake: simple as that. Clever business people see these mistakes. There was a total stampede. Some people must be getting fabulously rich.
‘I watched the PM’s speech and thought, “here we go again”.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8824707/Windfarm-farce-blew-1-4billion-taxpayers-money.html
Energy Policy Advocates Fight Back Against Anti-Industrial ForcesThe anti-industrial Left is coming after your energy and a lot of other energy-related things that define your personal life. Every political defeat by the planning zealots results in doubling down on their agenda rather than moderating it. They have almost unlimited money (from private foundations as well as government) and strong emotions/ego that will not let go. Theirs is a road to serfdom where new extremes normalize previous extremism.
The good news is that the economic and civil libertarians are fighting back. A new group, Energy Policy Advocates, is working to unmask the dark forces of authoritarianism and government run amok.
Energy Policy Advocates (EPA, not to be confused with US EPA), with the tag line “where Energy, Environment, and Truth meet, describes its mission as follows:
Energy Policy Advocates is a nonprofit corporation … seek[ing] to bring transparency to the realm of energy and environmental policy. At EPA, we believe that you have a right to know who your government is talking to when it makes the decisions that affect you the most, and what the costs are of the policies bureaucrats make in the halls of government.
We don’t take policy positions, but we do use federal and state transparency laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act, to seek out information. Then, we share that information with you so that you can decide for yourself whether government is making the right choices for you and your family.
To date, Energy Policy Advocates has made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in a third of the states with more undoubtedly to come. EPA (not to be confused with the US EPA) is focused on the shadowy interplay between state attorney general offices and outside pressure groups. This June, Legal Newsline reported:
Attorneys general in multiple states are refusing to disclose their communications with private lawyers and outside groups that have a direct stake in climate litigation, citing the attorney-client privilege and other protections.
Energy Policy Advocates, a nonprofit policy group, and Government Accountability & Oversight, a public interest law firm, have sued the AGs in Michigan, Vermont and Washington to turn over emails and other correspondence among the AGs and with environmental groups and private attorneys.
Conclusion
The control-the-economy, control-your-life crusade to regulate the gas of life, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has necessitated the productive sector of world economies and pro-liberty philanthropists to divert funds and other resources from human needs. In the shame of it all, it is necessary that groups like Energy Policy Advocates swing into action on behalf of individuals and groups that cannot organize themselves. EPA’s work deserves appreciation from us all.
https://naturalgasnow.org/energy-policy-advocates-fight-back-against-anti-industrial-forces/
China steps up trade war ‘by slashing Australian coal imports’Australia is urgently trying to confirm reports that China has slashed its coal import quota, with analysts warning that Beijing could be stepping up its trade war with the world’s largest coal exporter.
China has already moved to restrict Australian agricultural exports severely, including beef and barley — moves that were taken after Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, led the push in April for an international investigation into the Chinese origins of the coronavirus.
Australian coal analysts said on Tuesday that almost all major Chinese steel mills had been informed of the clampdown on Australian coal, including coal waiting to offload and sitting in China’s port stockpiles.
Australian coal miners could be forced to sell “distressed” coal cargos at cut-rate prices
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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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