From Benny Peiser at The GWPF:
In a sane world, no one would dream of building power sources whose cost is 22 times greater than that of vastly more efficient competitors. But the Government feels compelled to do just this because it sees it as the only way to meet our commitment to the EU that within nine years Britain must generate nearly a third of its electricity from “renewable” sources, six times more than we do at present. Madness is far too polite a word. –-Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 21 August 2011
They are among the nation’s wealthiest aristocrats, whose families have protected the British landscape for centuries. Until now that is. For increasing numbers of the nobility – among them dukes and even a cousin of the Queen – are being tempted by tens of millions of pounds offered by developers. —Robert Mendick and Edward Malnick, The Sunday Telegraph, 21 August 2011
In the course of the 25-year lifespan of the wind farm at Fallago Rig it could net the Duke anywhere between £18 million and £62.5 million. One industry expert estimated Fallago Rig could generate about £875 million income over the next quarter of a century for the Duke and his commercial partner North British Windpower. —Robert Mendick and Edward Malnick, The Sunday Telegraph, 21 August 2011
The level of subsidy available to landowners to put up these turbines is out of all proportion to the public benefit derived from them and the temptation to ruin what is usually outstanding landscapes is overwhelming. It is a crime against the landscape. –Sir Simon Jenkins, National Trust, The Sunday Telegraph, 21 August 2011
Green taxes will make up more than a third of the price of electricity by the end of the decade, pushing up prices to new highs by 2020. Figures from Utilyx, the energy consultants and traders, forecast a 58pc rise in the cost of power by 2020, largely driven by the impending avalanche of green taxes due to come into force over the next 10 years. –Rowena Mason, The Sunday Telegraph, 21 August 2011
If Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has his way, Britons will be forced to subsidise renewable energy by approximately £100billion in the next 20 years. Electricity prices are likely to double as a direct result. The Government has to force energy companies to make electricity bills fully transparent so that the ever-increasing level of hidden green taxes are clearly listed for families and households. –-Benny Peiser, Daily Mail, 8 July 2011
Energy firms have been asked to clearly explain how they calculate bills after concerns were raised that customers may have been overcharged after price rises. —Totally Money, 20 August 2011
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To expand a little on the EU issue ….
The EU has de facto legislative power in all EU countries. It can hand out directives which the national parliaments must implement as national law. By binding international treaties they have no option to vote no, they must vote yes.
The EU authority who does this is the EU commission. It is not an elected body, its members are appointed by the national governments, thus a fundamental breach of basic democratic rights as well as the separation of powers principle.
Until two or three years ago the commission could pass directives directly, so it could effectively create national laws without any democratic process. This has been amended somewhat recently, now the EU directives have to pass the EU parliament which is elected by the general population. However still today the EU parliament has no right to initiate directives, only the unelected EU commission has that right. Therefore the process is still illegitimate.
BTW I’m in Germany.
This link is a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_deficit_in_the_European_Union
Wind-power, subsidized by captive electric rate-payers, is a form of public robbery by the promoters of AGW. We need to restore common-sense by allowing all sources of energy to compete on a fair market basis, including coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, wind and solar. Those that can’t compete fairly should be outlawed, even if we need to elect a new sheriff to lead a new posse that will put away the ecoreligious crooks who are charging us so unfairly.
This is just too depressing to even muster a comment.
The only sane thing to do is to emigrate. Preferrably to a warm climate, after all most of us could do with a bit of real global warming.
Wow! I never imagined my comment could be so earthshaking! We just suffered a fairly rocking earthquake here in un-prone New Jersey!
Bob in Castlemaine:
Your description reminds me of a certain poem, which if updated might read:
And on the pedestal these words appear
“We must save the planet while we still have time!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the stillness
of that hulking stone, the lanes and meadowlands
stretch far away.
Damn! I’m too quick on the trigger.
I would now change the 2nd line to:
“We must save the planet while we still have time!”
terry dewhurst says:
August 23, 2011 at 1:10 am
I’ve signed the petition and I voted UKIP at the last election.
Technically, I’m one of the ‘elderly’ and despair of finding any more ways of cutting down further on my fuel bills. Good job I don’t eat much…………
I spread the word and pass on sites like WUWT to as many people as I can, but I still feel impotent. I’m not an aggressive person, but sometimes I feel such utter frustration I would almost welcome violent revolution.
UK spring anyone?
richard verney says: August 23, 2011 at 10:51 am
“This is just too depressing to even muster a comment. The only sane thing to do is to emigrate.”
Alternatively, help to get rid of the legislation that mandates this nonsense:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035
anorak2 says: August 23, 2011 at 10:02 am ” BTW I’m in Germany”
Nice to meet you…
Ukip are often said to be ‘anti-European’, which of course we are not. We are anti-EU.
(love Europe but not the EU)
Being branch Chairman I am closely involved with three UKIP MEP’s.So I have it directly from the horse’s mouth…. What you say is true… some “directives have to pass the EU parliament which is elected by the general population”.
However I am told by my MEP friends that this is a scam… to put on a public show of democracy. They tell me that in reality often what they vote for is not understood, sometimes literally,
as there are only half dozen languages translated… and it is quick fire… the vote being cast at somtimes several directives per minute …so some MEP’s don’t even know what they are voting for… but they have to turn up and vote get paid !!! go figure.
Keith Battye says:
August 23, 2011 at 9:34 am “Links would be valuable in backing up all that you say”.
Hi to you too Keith..
Ok… with due respect…
I don’t have the inclination to look for links to ‘prove’ UKIP’s stance or what I have said.
Its very like climate stuff, We here on WUWT of course also have a ‘stance’ but what links would you give to a ‘new person’ to the subject ?
And… you would find the net crammed full of the opposite… Same as for the EU, they have billions of our money to promote themselves. and so as with climate…You have to find the truth about the E.U. from the noise for yourself.
Britain is providing very good evidence that they are not an example to follow.
The experience with wind farms in Iowa and Texas is not nearly so dismal..
By way of comment on politicians and their motives:
Some say the world will be destroyed
By knaves, some say by fools.
Everything I know of greed
Shows knavery could do the deed.
But foolishness raised to its full height
Is guaranteed to bring on blight.
AJB says:
August 22, 2011 at 6:38 pm
@tallbloke says August 22, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Wrong target. The BBC is by far the primary evil in our midst and should be just as worrying to those outside the UK as those within who are forced to pay for it via the disgusting license fee racket.
I threw the TV out of the window into the river several years ago. One of the BBC’s tax collectors turned up on my doorstep this spring. I doubt he’ll be back…
Re: Europe and wind:
http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/part-3-economics-of-wind-power/
supported by
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/
For anyone out there that doubts the efficacy of wind power, all you need to do is ask your politicians, media reporters, school teachers, co-workers, or pastors one question : “Why build something that is totally unsustainable?”
Wind Power has an Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) value, depending on grid upgrading required, of no more than 0.29. Why would anyone burn more than 3 barrels of oil to find one barrel of oil? This is the madness and legacy of wind power.
Slow to follow 2. 32pm – your first link is to a website operated by the EWEA, the European Wind Energy Association. Their own web site explains: “The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) is the voice of the wind industry, actively promoting the utilisation of wind power in Europe and worldwide. It is ideally situated in the heart of the EU district of Brussels ensuring close proximity to European decision-makers. ”
You don’t think they might be just the teensiest bit biased?
John B (UK) – not when they have the support of “The Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation”! :-0
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/library/doc/iee_mag_2_en.pdf
slow to follow 3.44pm.
Thanks for the link. Look, Im all in favour of energy efficiency.
I read the link.
Energy efficiency is a good think – yes, tick.
Leaving my expresso machine on standby costs an extra 10 euros a year – well, ok, yes tick.
But thats a biiiiiiig old jump to spending over £100 billion on windmills that will never ever run at peak capacity, and really will need reserve conventional power for when the wind doesn’t blow.
Incidentally, I notice that your link says this question of a reserve requirement is a myth in the UK – why? because, it says, at the present minimal contribution which wind power makes, it really doesn’t make any difference when it doesn’t work.
And they don’t seem to appreciate the irony in this…………………..
Snotrocket said:
“We – the stupid customers – are being steadily ripped off on current (bad pun!) billing by our suppliers who have a very long term plan to screw those poor people who still think overnight tariiffs are saving them money. We’re being had!”
Get busy man! Post your comparison charges somewhere. Some Blog. Some “letter to the editor” Even here. This is a story which could “Get Legs”.
I’m not sure if it’s a smart decision by UKGOV to demand that energy companies be more transparent on billing. If they did that the majority who have been kept in the dark may suddenly see the light and start blaming those who are actually the ones responsible for the price rise. But then when has UKGOV been able to make a smart decision?
A couple of weeks ago I went on a price comparison website and have changed our energy supplier to one that has frozen costs until 2014. This is because I think energy costs will go through the roof to pay for this AGW crap. Pity I cannot do the same for air fares and petrol or preferably bang the collective heads of our alleged leaders together.
Wil – I have to take issue with you, that’s an over-simplification of the situation. The last UK government was Labour, and had EXACTLY the same policies with regard to renewable energy as the current lot, the coalition of Conservative/Lib Dem (and all parties are under the EU thumb), so it doesn’t matter who we vote for, the result is the same. Imagine Democrats and Republicans having exactly the same energy policy: that’s basically what we have here. Labour and Lib Dem have most of the ‘eco-nazis’ as you call them, Conservatives have the ‘capitalist-nazis’, who plunder for profit – for them, obscenely subsidised renewable energy is the best thing to come along in many years. The only political party actively against renewable energy policies and the EU is the UK Independence Party, and they aren’t big enough or well funded enough to have many candidates.
Sabotaging ones’ own country used to be called treason. Now it’s called “saving the planet”. Go figure.
Well, here in Southern Ontario, we now have a maximum wind turbine capacity of approximately 1,600 MW from 1,339 wind turbines. When the Government of Ontario first released plans for their ‘Green Energy Act’, I believe I heard the developers talk of the monsters operating at an average 40% ‘capacity factor’ which one assumes means that they will put out 40% of their rated kWh….sometime shortly thereafter, this strangely was dropped to 25%. I’ve been watching this website almost daily for updates as to what the makeup of electrical energy supply is in the province http://media.cns-snc.ca/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html It’s great because one can see the data on an hour by hour basis for a moving 48 hour window. Over the past month, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen the total wind generated power exceed 500 MW….most of the time it is in the 150 MW range once I saw it drop to 5 MW. Our wonderful premier seems to have a target in mind of at least 3,500 MW generated by wind power because this then looks like it will replace coal. Not too many people seem to know this but a wind turbine that is not running not only isn’t producing electrical energy, it’s sucking it off the grid as there are several systems that need to be kept operating i.e. think oil lubrication temperatures, lights, control systems, heat tracing lines etc. So with this in mind and thinking about a recent event when we hit 5 MW, how many of these will need to be built to replace coal? If the theory is that the ‘wind is always blowing somewhere’, a province full of them with one on every rural intersection won’t be adequate to meet supply.
Incidentally, we just had a significantly windy day and I believe that a new capacity record of 1,286 MW was set….. however, a few hours earlier, the entire Ontario wind turbine network was producing a measly 89 MW. So, am I sceptical of the power schemes for this province? Someone here has talked about the looters….. it’s a good Ayn Rand term and quite apropos to the current times. Frankly, it really is the time to do whatever is possible to get off-grid.
Finally i have found intelligence in the universe,great discussion folks.The problem we have in Canada is that the last 30 years has seen our manufacturing sector decimated,this last generation coming through has never manufactured ANYTHING,they have NO working knowledge to see a wind turbine scam if the tower fell on their head.GOOGLE top hits are from wind turbine sales people and others looking to get into the fraud.Our teachers that are in love with these wind turbines couldn`t thread a bolt into a nut…hardly the folks to recognize or understand a mechanical disaster,they get their info from the infomercial “news” sector.And we wonder why we have a so called “green” crowd that represents ignorance.