Booker: It Is Wind Power That Will Send Our Bills Sky-High

[punter]

It is wind power that will send our bills sky-high

Last week, I returned from a visit to India – which last July suffered the most extensive power cut in history, affecting 600 million people – to find our own energy policy in a worse shambles than ever. Provoked by soaring energy bills, which have recently risen by a further 13 per cent, David Cameron again displayed his astonishing naivety in such matters by promising to force energy companies to charge only the lowest prices for their gas and electricity – just when even Ofgem has been warning us that we too face the prospect of massive power cuts, thanks to the imminent closure of so many of our power stations.

It is more than five years since I began warning here that Britain’s lights were in danger of going out, thanks to the lunacy of successive governments in shutting their eyes to this crisis. Yet Mr Cameron’s only response is to indulge in a political gimmick prompting almost universal howls of derision, and serving only to show that he knows even less about the real world of energy than his technically illiterate Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey.

What Mr Cameron clearly hasn’t realised is that the main reason why our energy companies need to charge us ever more for electricity lies in his own Government’s deluded policies. He and his colleagues prattle on about how, over the next eight years, we need to spend £100 billion on building 30,000 useless, unreliable and grotesquely subsidised wind turbines. They want to see billions more spent on giant pylons and interconnectors, to carry power from the remote onshore and offshore wind farms where it is generated to the places where it is needed. Then, as even Mr Davey has finally admitted, further billions will need to be spent on new gas-fired power stations – not only to fill the gap left by all the coal-fired and nuclear plants that are due to close, but also to provide ever more expensive, “carbon”-emitting back-up for the times when the wind drops and our turbines are scarcely functioning.

For all this it is we who will have to pay through ever-rising energy bills. Isn’t Mr Cameron aware, for instance, that the declared purpose of George Osborne’s “carbon tax” due next April (which alone will eventually double our energy bills) is to make energy from fossil fuels so costly that his beloved wind farms may one day seem competitive, despite our having to pay subsidies of 100 per cent (onshore) and 200 per cent (offshore) for the pitiful amounts of power they produce?

These are the reasons why our energy companies have no alternative but constantly to raise our bills, driving millions more households into fuel poverty. And we are having to pay for all this make-believe in the name of meeting the threat of global warming, at a time when even the Met Office shyly admits that there has been no significant warming of the planet for 15 years; when Antarctic ice has just reached its greatest extent since records began; and when the forecasters tell us that Europe and the US could be in for the fourth freezing winter in a row. Yet those who rule us are so lost in their bubble of fantasy that all Mr Cameron can offer us is a promise to pass a law that will keep our energy bills down.

Such madness makes me almost as angry as the discovery, when I recently paid £244 for my flight ticket to India, that I had to pay £386 on top of that in taxes – most of them designed to save the planet from global warming.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9622068/It-is-wind-power-that-will-send-our-bills-sky-high.html

[Kurt Barlow]

It is wind power that will send our bills sky-high

Last week, I returned from a visit to India – which last July suffered the most extensive power cut in history, affecting 600 million people – to find our own energy policy in a worse shambles than ever. Provoked by soaring energy bills, which have recently risen by a further 13 per cent, David Cameron again displayed his astonishing naivety in such matters by promising to force energy companies to charge only the lowest prices for their gas and electricity – just when even Ofgem has been warning us that we too face the prospect of massive power cuts, thanks to the imminent closure of so many of our power stations.

It is more than five years since I began warning here that Britain’s lights were in danger of going out, thanks to the lunacy of successive governments in shutting their eyes to this crisis. Yet Mr Cameron’s only response is to indulge in a political gimmick prompting almost universal howls of derision, and serving only to show that he knows even less about the real world of energy than his technically illiterate Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey.

What Mr Cameron clearly hasn’t realised is that the main reason why our energy companies need to charge us ever more for electricity lies in his own Government’s deluded policies. He and his colleagues prattle on about how, over the next eight years, we need to spend £100 billion on building 30,000 useless, unreliable and grotesquely subsidised wind turbines. They want to see billions more spent on giant pylons and interconnectors, to carry power from the remote onshore and offshore wind farms where it is generated to the places where it is needed. Then, as even Mr Davey has finally admitted, further billions will need to be spent on new gas-fired power stations – not only to fill the gap left by all the coal-fired and nuclear plants that are due to close, but also to provide ever more expensive, “carbon”-emitting back-up for the times when the wind drops and our turbines are scarcely functioning.

For all this it is we who will have to pay through ever-rising energy bills. Isn’t Mr Cameron aware, for instance, that the declared purpose of George Osborne’s “carbon tax” due next April (which alone will eventually double our energy bills) is to make energy from fossil fuels so costly that his beloved wind farms may one day seem competitive, despite our having to pay subsidies of 100 per cent (onshore) and 200 per cent (offshore) for the pitiful amounts of power they produce?

These are the reasons why our energy companies have no alternative but constantly to raise our bills, driving millions more households into fuel poverty. And we are having to pay for all this make-believe in the name of meeting the threat of global warming, at a time when even the Met Office shyly admits that there has been no significant warming of the planet for 15 years; when Antarctic ice has just reached its greatest extent since records began; and when the forecasters tell us that Europe and the US could be in for the fourth freezing winter in a row. Yet those who rule us are so lost in their bubble of fantasy that all Mr Cameron can offer us is a promise to pass a law that will keep our energy bills down.

Such madness makes me almost as angry as the discovery, when I recently paid £244 for my flight ticket to India, that I had to pay £386 on top of that in taxes – most of them designed to save the planet from global warming.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9622068/It-is-wind-power-that-will-send-our-bills-sky-high.html

Booker produces enough hot air to replace the output of several large power stations.

[@contradevian]

Booker produces enough hot air to replace the output of several large power stations.

I agree. He lost the plot a long time ago about wind farms.

I think he's just cross he hasn't got the land to put them on.

[Kurt Barlow]

I agree. He lost the plot a long time ago about wind farms.

I think he's just cross he hasn't got the land to put them on.

I first encountered Booker when he ran a hate campaign through the Torygraph that targetted Local Government EHO's. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health objectively investigated his numerous claims and found all but one to be complete fabrications and the one that wasn't was heavily embelished.

[SleepyHead]

Wrong. QE is sending our bills sky high.

[Goat]

I first encountered Booker when he ran a hate campaign through the Torygraph that targetted Local Government EHO's. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health objectively investigated his numerous claims and found all but one to be complete fabrications and the one that wasn't was heavily embelished.

So the CIEH investigated the claims about its members and found that its members were all perfect.

"There will be no whitewash at the Whitehouse"

[Kurt Barlow]

So the CIEH investigated the claims about its members and found that its members were all perfect.

"There will be no whitewash at the Whitehouse"

Along with the independent and Guardian plus the LGO etc etc

[Goat]

Along with the independent and Guardian plus the LGO etc etc

Linky?

[interestrateripoff]

Wrong. QE is sending our bills sky high.

Well the energy companies also like to say that govt green policies are causing prices to go up.

Trouble is this will impact on growth eventually.

However QE certainly isn't helping and nor are the large investment banks pushing up prices for easy profit.

[sossij]

Booker produces enough hot air to replace the output of several large power stations.

Agreed. He's an idiot. We've got fat chance of staying under 2 degrees average increase above pre-industrial temperatures as it is without him joining in.

[punter]

There is no doubt that QE and its associated devaluing of the currency has lead to price increases in energy and almost everything else.

The official liars in the government claim inflation is <2% but as most people can see with price increases in general this is false.

However, Booker is right to point out that the lunatic green agenda over the last few years including the Climate Change Act, the carbon tax regime from Osbourne and the onerous regulations from the EU responsible for shutting down power plants along with the failure of government policy to plan for new nuclear facilities will result in a devastating loss of power to the nation grid which simply can't be made up by fantasies of wind power that generate pitiful amounts of energy and at a much higher cost.

This will undoubtedly lead to bills increasing far more and far quicker by 2020, infact they should at least double if some analysts are proved right

Pensioners and the poorest are going to be hit the hardest, it's a shameful, deliberate and stupid policy.

Edited October 26, 2012 by punter

[zugzwang]

UK energy prices are at a record high because the moving averages of wholesale gas and oil prices are at or near record highs, simple as.

And Booker's belief that £244 is sufficient to fly him profitably to India is risible. £244 + taxes is the true cost of the fare.

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=crude-oil-brent&months=120¤cy=gbp

Edited October 26, 2012 by zugzwang

[Kurt Barlow]

Linky?

Pre tinterweb - 1992-94

Booker has also been running a campaign about the benign nature of asbestos based on his fantasies and a few cranks via the portal of the Torygraph and in typical style fabricates and misquotes a variety of organisations. The HSE on numerous occasions have written to the Torygraph to try and get corrections based on known facts but have probably given up.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Kurt Barlow

[Kurt Barlow]

Annual cost of renewables subsidy (all not just wind) per household is £103

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/renewable_energy_bills_environment_cost-3187

[(Blizzard)]

Annual cost of renewables subsidy (all not just wind) per household is £103

http://fullfact.org/...nment_cost-3187

Isn't that £103 for the 10 year period 2002-2012? (So £10/year)

Given this information, the total cost per household of renewable technologies since 2002 is actually only £103.3, not the £320 the Daily Express claimed.

Maybe I have misread the report, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, the cost of the nuclear decommissioning authority alone is about £84/household per year.

[Kurt Barlow]

Isn't that £103 for the 10 year period 2002-2012? (So £10/year)

Maybe I have misread the report, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, the cost of the nuclear decommissioning authority alone is about £84/household per year.

Well spotted - £103 per household to date so like you say approx £10 per household per year.

[@contradevian]

Well spotted - £103 per household to date so like you say approx £10 per household per year.

I'd say renewables/wind were a bargain then. Even £103 oer year per household would be a bargain if it it ensured a reliable power grid in the future. Without power we are back to stone age living.

[Kurt Barlow]

I'd say renewables/wind were a bargain then. Even £103 oer year per household would be a bargain if it it ensured a reliable power grid in the future. Without power we are back to stone age living.

Quite and at least with renewables they are not likely to be subject to embargoes or price distortions. The UK also needs a new fleet of nuclear reactors which will require even more subsidy than renewables. Will Booker and Co be so vocal about that?

[jaspers]

The only damage windfarms do to the environment is to the view of a small number of country landowners.

[aa3]

The voters demanded Wind and solar power. And now they got it, along with rising electric bills to pay for it.

Petard hoisted ones own.

[punter]

there should be no subsidies period for any energy source. nuclear plants have been built in other countries without subsidies.

As for wind and solar being reliable additions to the grid, that is pure fantasy, they dont provide us with any meaningful output and is inherently unreliable (the wind doesn't always blow) plus much more expensive form of energy. The notion renewable can replace the nuclear and coal fired plants that are closing down is pure madness. We will be relying on imports to make up the short fall which means higher prices.

Edited October 27, 2012 by punter

[punter]

The only damage windfarms do to the environment is to the view of a small number of country landowners.

landowners are becoming very wealthy thanks to the absurd nature of our energy policy.

That's right, poor pensioners are paying more for their heating and the money is being given to wealthy landowners in the form of subsidies for erecting those eyesores called wind turbines that produce no meaningful output in energy.

It is theft on a grand scale and the real reason why the political class are pushing it, another way to loot the people.

[Damik]

Isn't that £103 for the 10 year period 2002-2012? (So £10/year)

Maybe I have misread the report, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, the cost of the nuclear decommissioning authority alone is about £84/household per year.

let's check what Germans (the world leaders in wind energy) are saying:

original:

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/energie/article110067621/Die-krassen-Fehlprognosen-beim-Oekostrom.html

translation:

http://www.thegwpf.org/lies-damn-lies-and-green-statistics/

How could Merkel be so wrong?

Now, however, the cost burden is rising by 50 percent – to 5.3 cents per kilowatt hour. German citizens have to support renewable energy by more than EUR 20 billion – instead of 14 billion Euros. How could Merkel be so wrong?

[jaspers]

landowners are becoming very wealthy thanks to the absurd nature of our energy policy.

That's right, poor pensioners are paying more for their heating and the money is being given to wealthy landowners in the form of subsidies for erecting those eyesores called wind turbines that produce no meaningful output in energy.

It is theft on a grand scale and the real reason why the political class are pushing it, another way to loot the people.

Pensioners have had the biggest real increase in incomes over the past 35yrs. They can afford to pay for a few chuffing windmills.

Wouldn't give the landowners a penny either. But to answer why and how means going over the whole land value tax arguement again.

[(Blizzard)]

let's check what Germans (the world leaders in wind energy) are saying:

original:

http://www.welt.de/w...-Oekostrom.html

translation:

http://www.thegwpf.o...een-statistics/

How could Merkel be so wrong?

Now, however, the cost burden is rising by 50 percent – to 5.3 cents per kilowatt hour. German citizens have to support renewable energy by more than EUR 20 billion – instead of 14 billion Euros. How could Merkel be so wrong?

I wasn't posting an opinion. I was posting (what I think) are the government statistics on wind subsidies in the UK taken from an earlier post.

I may have misread, as I said, but it seems that the UK government subsides wind in the UK by £10/family/year.

What the Germans think about what their government spend isn't really relevant to that specific point.

EDIT: I am actually surprised it is so low, so I'm not convinced I have interpreted that correctly.

Edited October 27, 2012 by (Blizzard)