Brits energiebeleid: toppunt van waanzin!

Met de regelmaat van een klok leeft de Britse wetenschapsjournalist Christopher Booker zich uit op het Britse energiebeleid, dat hij – m.i. terecht – als het toppunt van waanzin kwalificeert.

Dat is opmerkelijk want de Britten zijn toch over het algemeen een intelligent en nuchter volkje. Maar ze hebben zich dusdanig laten meeslepen door de klimaathysterie dat er geen terugweg meer mogelijk lijkt voor het geldverslindende energiebeleid van de regering, dat vele Britse burgers tot de energiebedelstaf ('energy poverty') veroordeelt en vele Britse bedrijven zal doen besluiten elders in de wereld hun tenten op te slaan. Daarbij geeft Booker de BBC, als fanatiek verkondiger van het broeikasevangelie, een flinke veeg uit de pan.

Onder de titel, 'The BBC steadfastly avoids the facts about the wind farm scam', schreef hij in de Britse 'Telegraph':

David Shukman's reports on energy policy for the BBC failed to explain the true lunacy of the Government's plans.

What is the maddest thing going on in Britain today? There may be many competitors for that title, but a front-runner must be what the Government has made the centrepiece of its energy policy, to ensure that our lights stay on and that our now largely computer-dependent economy remains functioning. Last week, the BBC ran a series of reports by its science correspondent, David Shukman, on the Government’s plan to ring our coasts with vast offshore wind farms. The nearest thing allowed to criticism of this policy came in an interview with the Oxford academic Dieter Helm, who we were told had “done the sums”.

What, Shukman asked, had he come up with? The only figures Helm gave were that the Government’s offshore wind farm plans would, by 2020, cost £100 billion – scarcely a state secret, since the Government itself announced this three years ago – plus £40 billion more to connect these windmills to the grid, a figure given us by the National Grid last year. Helm did not tell us that this £140 billion equates to £5,600 for every household in the country. But he did admit that the plan was “staggeringly expensive”, and that, given the current extent of “fuel poverty” and the state of our economy, he doubted “if it can in fact be afforded”.

Even shorter on hard facts, however, was Shukman’s report on a monster new wind farm off the coast of Cumbria, where a Swedish firm, Vattenfall, has spent £500 million on building 30 five?megawatt turbines with a total “capacity” of 150MW. What Shukman did not tell us, because the BBC never does, is that, thanks to the vagaries of the wind, these machines will only produce a fraction of their capacity (30 per cent was the offshore average in the past two years). So their actual output is only likely to average 45MW, or £11 million per MW. Compare this with the figures for Britain’s newest gas-fired power station, recently opened in Plymouth. This is capable of generating 882MW at a capital cost of £400 million – just £500,000 for each megawatt. Thus the wind farm is 22 times more expensive, and could only be built because its owners will receive a 200 per cent subsidy: £40 million a year, on top of the £20 million they will get for the electricity itself.

This we will all have to pay for through our electricity bills, whereas the unsubsidised cost of power from the gas plant, even including the price of the gas, will be a third as much.

It is on the basis of such utterly crazy sums – which neither the Government nor the BBC ever mention – that our politicians intend us to pay for dozens of huge offshore wind farms. 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.

En zo gaat Booker nog een tijdje door.

Het blijkt dat misleiding door het achterhouden van cruciale informatie tot het vaste repertoire van de windmolenlobby behoort - overigens niet alleen in Engeland, maar ook elders, inclusief Nederland.  

Lees verder hier.

En wie profiteren zoal van dit soort economische waanzin? Het blijkt dat de Britse aristocratie daar een flink graantje van meepikt. Onder de titel, 'The aristocrats cashing in on Britain's wind farm subsidies', schrijven Robert Mendick and Edward Malnick in de 'Telegraph':

Growing numbers of the nobility are being tempted to build giant wind farms on their estates by the promise of tens of millions of pounds being offered green energy developers. 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 to build giant wind farms on their estates.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph reveals how generous subsidies – that are added to consumer energy bills – are encouraging hereditary landowners to build turbines up to 410ft tall on their land.

With controversy over onshore wind farms growing, the role of the landed establishment in fuelling the 'scramble for wind' will alarm opponents. They claim wind farms are blighting the countryside while failing to deliver a reliable supply of electricity despite the cost.

Lees verder hier

In het licht van deze felle oppositie rijst de vraag of de Brits energieTitanic niet uiteindelijk toch op een ijsberg van maatschappelijk verzet zal stuklopen.

Zouden ze bij ons ministerie van economische zaken, landbouw en innovatie eigenlijk wel dit soort artikelen lezen? En zo ja, wat voor conclusies zouden zij daar dan uit trekken?