Guest post by Mike Jonas
From the UK’s BBC comes this news item:
Trillion-euro shortfall facing EU energy sector – Lords Committee
Under the obligatory photo of chimneys spewing steam, is a totally uncritical article on the final report from an eight-month inquiry by the UK’s House of Lords into the EU power sector.
The report accuses the EU of having a muddled energy policy, but the horribly disturbing aspect of this report is that their lordships are the ones that are muddled. For example, they say that a muddled Brussels energy policy is putting off big investors. Well, they really got that wrong. Brussels’ policy is very clear, and is specifically designed to put off big investors.
The report says that a trillion euros will need to be spent on infrastructure for low carbon, interconnected and innovative energy systems. Their lordships do not seem to have noticed that the EU is already equipped with a complete energy infrastructure.
All they need are adequate efficient power stations to feed it. Germany has at last recognised this, and is building coal-fired power stations again. Mind you, that wasn’t the result of clear thinking, it resulted from a knee-jerk reaction to Fukushima including the muddled idea that coal is “cleaner” than nuclear.
Their lordships said “This should be a great time to invest in long-term assets such as energy, but clear policy is needed in order to release it” and then go on to promote the most muddled policy possible. Reacting to the collapse of the ETS “carbon” price, they advocate taking steps to increase it. How muddled can you get? The collapse of the carbon price will make it more attractive for big investors to build the coal-fired power stations that the EU so desperately needs. In fact, removal of the ETS altogether would provide even more encouragement, as it would deliver certainty that there would not be penalties on CO2 emissions. So now Germany will reap the benefits of increasing coal power, while the UK and the rest of Europe sink further behind.
According to their lordships, a target for the proportion of renewables in the energy mix up to 2030 is rapidly required. Have they not noticed that the energy shambles in the UK and Europe (and Australia too for that matter) is caused by the push into renewables? If you go to the coast of Norfolk, for example, and look out over the North Sea, there are massive windfarms stretching as far as the eye can see. A breath-taking amount of money has been wasted on ugly inefficient intermittent grid-stressing expensive wind energy. Now their lordships are bemoaning the fact that even more breath-taking amounts of money will be needed to be spent on the same mistakes in future. That is indeed muddled thinking. If something is causing a problem, the solution is to do something else, not to do more of the same. Blind Freddie can see that, why can’t their lordships?
Please, please, all you UK citizens and residents that read WUWT, write to the members of your houses of parliament, phone them, pester them, do whatever it takes to un-muddle their thinking for them. Tell them the UK is rapidly nearing an energy tipping-point (they should understand that bit) after which the country descends irretrievably into frosty darkness.
PS. Maybe the real cause of all this is the replacement of hereditary peers by party political hacks. Ordinary people, regardless of who their parents are, can sometimes see things more clearly than those who have been cocooned in politics all their lives.
Radical Rodent:
Since you query the matter, the correct version is, “Hear! Hear!”
It is an abbreviated form of “Hear him! Hear him!” which was popular around the time of the Civil War.
Richard
Apropos all the speculation as to why the EU wants to waste a trillion euro and the US a trillion dollars – on climate change boils down to this: not only do the world’s fat cats like Gore, Immelt, Buffett and Soros expect to get richer from CO2 controls, off the backs of the middle class and the poor, they and the academic exponents of AGW really do want to see the middle class destroyed – eliminated – and poor people made to suffer, because that will satisfy their lust for power.
If the UK doesn’t want to be reduced to third-world status it had better give up on CO2 sequestration, refit its coal generation and frack, frack, frack, and lose no time doing it. As for us in the US – hopefully, there are signs the AGW crusade may be faltering, but we need to fight hard for fracking here, for the Keystone pipeline, for new coal mine permits, and oil and gas drilling permits on federal land.
The Obama video showing all the Republican skeptics was a mistake on the zealots’ part – it proves the lie of their claim of “consensus” as well as anything could – but given how lacking in intelligent thinking these people are, it comes as no surprise.
I’d love to be able to question Steven Chu on what benefits he thinks his propsal to double gasoline prices (to EU levels) will ptovide for middle-class and poor people here in the US. I can just see the exchange going like this:
WOZNIAK: Mr. Secretary, how will your proposal to raise gasoline prices to $10 a gallon benefit low-income Americans?
CHU: It will save the planet for their grandchildren.
WOZNUAK: But Mr. Secretary, a lot of low-income people are raising their grandchildren right now and just barely getting by. If these grandparents have to pay more for gasoline, how will they be able to afford to feed their granchildren and heat and light their homes?
CHU: Uh, the price of eggs in China is the important issue here. It’s been going up because of global warming.
WOZNIAK: Mr. Secretary, please answer the question.
CHU: I did, and you are out of order.
/sarc
The only way such blattantly destructive policies are recommended cannot be stupidity: someone has to reap huge amounts off this. It is deliberate.
john robertson says:
May 3, 2013 at 12:06 pm
In government how does one distinguish between systemic incompetence and systemic corruption?
As a taxpayer, is there any difference?
Systemic incompetence will not regularly enrich a specific few or class. It will occasionally stumble into correct answers, and the ideology will not show a consistent plan.
Systemic corruption will fight correct answers (indicating it recognizes them) and will act to consistently enrich a few or class. It will never accidentally have a correct answer, and the ideology will show a strong consistent plan (and resist strongly efforts to change it).
As a taxpayer, incompetence makes things cost about twice as much; while corruption has no upper bound on costs…
I’ll comment anyway but your last paragraph is what I was thinking all the way through. If you’re born a Lord it doesn’t mean you’re born smart, with no apologies to all the Lords and Ladies. However if you are born a Lord you probably grow up expecting to have some inside knowledge on things that will make you some money but when cold hard reality gets in the way you really get to feel anxious and stressed. And confused. Welcome to the world that the rest of us live in.
@Tom Rude –
It’s called crony capitalism, and the Soroses, Gores, Immelts, and Buffetts of this world have been bathing their toady in the White House with campaign contributions in return for which he is implementing policies that are meant to make them richer, from their uneconomic investments in green energy. He jacks up the cost of fossil fuel power generation from 7 cents to 40 cents a kWh, with his war on coal and his obstruction of oil and gas drilling, and suddenly your wind investment can claim to be competitive. The billionaires get richer while middle-class and poor people struggle to make ends meet – and if they own businesses, to pay their energy costs. That’s what “redistributing wealth” is REALLY about – taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Just look at all the socialist kleptocracies in Africa which, judging by the toady’s telling people in Ghana to stay with their bounteous biomass resources (animal, but also human excrement, for cooking their food), is presumably his vision of the future for America..
It is the socialists (progressives) who support and push green policies. And as those policies create more and more hardship for the average person they will blame all ensuing troubles on “the greedy rich”! They want to have it both ways — they want to destroy capitalism and they want capitalists to take the blame for the ensuing economic chaos — which socialists will have caused..
Eugene WR Gallun.
Eugene WR Gallun:
re your post at May 4, 2013 at 12:51 am
Um, No! e.g. David Cameron is not a socialist.
Richard
As noted by others above, writing to ones MP is pointless. I wrote to mine (George Osborne) and received a standard letter which totally failed to acknowledge any of the points I raised ( I know that it was a standard response when someone on WUWT published an identically worded letter which he got from his (different) MP).When I complained about the boiler plate response I got a slightly more personal reply which still missed the point of my original letter.
I gave up trying to influence existing political parties and now support UKIP, which has a realistic approach to climate policy.
Our House of Lords is a hotbed of Liberal activist Lords of the Realm. The Liberal Democrat party is the one that wants us all to live in caves, except them of course. Davey is a LibDem. Says it all really.
Mike Alexander says:
May 3, 2013 at 9:38 am
“Considering much of the European Union is severely in debt and Germany is the only country with enough cash on hand to bail them out…. I can’t wait for their answer when they are told they will have to fork out the One Trillion Euros to pay this bill.”
What cash? The German state has a 85% debt to GDP ratio.We are nearly insolvent while the PIIGS are already insolvent. Only newly generated cash, given to the Eurozone states by the central bank in exchange for more public debt could pay it; or alternatively, more expropriation of taxpayers.
In a new poll 70% of the polled in Germany have expressed their desire for tax hikes after the election; the socialists and Greens are running on a class warfare / tax the rich to the hilt ticket. If you are lucky the Germans will be stupid enough to tax themselves into oblivion. But the money would still not be there.
richardscourtney says:
May 4, 2013 at 1:15 am
“Um, No! e.g. David Cameron is not a socialist.”
Can we settle on “communitarians”, Richard?
DirkH:
At May 4, 2013 at 4:38 am you ask me about all who promote AGW and David Cameron in particular.
Well, looked up ‘communitarians’ and found this
Definitions of ‘communitarians’ [kuh-myoo-ni-tair-ee-uhn]
Dictionary.com – (Showing 1 definitions)
(noun)
1. member of a communistic community
2. advocate of such a community
So, no. We cannot settle on that.
David Cameron PM is Leader of the right-of-center Conservative Party.
It is a laughable suggestion that he is a communist or he promotes communism.
AGW is promoted by totalitarians, and they exist across the entire political spectrum from far left to far right, but they are most often found near the extremes.
Richard
Richard, see here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism
dictionary.com might have missed that one. The movement operates stealthily yet globally, much like the Fabians, and is usually recognizable only by its use of keywords like “stakeholder”. I’m sure Schellnhuber is one of them.
Like Phillip Bratby I also have written to my MP who happens to be a Minister in the Government and got a similar response. However yesterday UKIP became the official opposition on the County Council and have pledged to oppose any more wind farms, of which we have plenty. I suspect though that the three other parties will gang up against them.
For this to make any sense at all, it has to have some alternative reason..
The elites are worried that their position in society is being threatened by their very own policies..
Multiculturalism has brought huge numbers of Asians to the west.. These Asians will look to their own home countries India, China, ect and their own home grown elite class to set the tone of whats what in the future..
It stands to reason that they will have all the wealth and the elite power that goes along with it..
The only way our western elites can maintain their politics and power is to convince the Asians to go home by making life so expensive and unpleasant that they will do so on their own free will..
Killing our economies / societies so their grandchildren get to be elites too..
Break the back of their people so they can maintain their position of power and wealth..
This is the only thing that makes sense.. Elite political ethnic cleansing via environmentalism..
Its not like whites can move to China..eh
I forgot – a hat tippo to Janice Moore for giving me the idea for my “interview” with Styeven Chu.