Politicians are finally admitting that our 'carbon' targets and our energy needs are incompatible The government was to decrease the subsidy given to onshore wind turbines (currently 100 per cent) to 90 per cent, rather than the 75 per cent the Treasury supposedly wanted. The reports dutifully echoed DECC’s claim that this would bring “£25 billion of investment into the UK
They are under two legal obligations: a commitment to the EU that we will generate 32 per cent of our electricity from “renewables” by 2020; and, under the Climate Change Act, that we will cut our “carbon emissions” by 80 per cent within 40 years
If 3,000-odd turbines produced 2.6 per cent in 2010, then to meet the EU target would require something like the “32,000 turbines” mentioned by Davey’s predecessor Chris Huhne just before he resigned. This would require us to build about 10 giant turbines every day for the next eight years. Regardless of how many billions of pounds of subsidy might be thrown at this, in practical terms it is quite out of the question.
Piping off CO2 from power stations to bury it under the North Sea is just a pipe-dream. It is still an “unproven technology”, as Davey admits, for the simple reason that it can never be made to work.
They are not going to get their “carbon capture” or their 32,000 wind turbines, let alone those “hundreds of thousands of green jobs”. In all directions they are screwed.
One day we will have our shale gas and we will see the Climate Change Act repealed. These things will happen because the penny is finally dropping that the only alternative is economic suicide. But as yet, our politicians are unable to admit openly the enormity of the mess they have landed us in.
