Thursday 26 September 2013

A comment on energy policy...

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We're still being peddled the myth that, in the medium term at least, promoting renewable energy will result in lower bills. It may be the case that in fifty years technology and ubiquity will make those renewable sources produce cheaper energy than burning fossil fuels (or running nuclear reactors) but right now they are significantly more expensive.

It may well be that it's right to prioritise renewables development - there's still a strong argument for this (although I am less convinced by it these days) given the scale of climate change's down side risks. But this means that for the sake of "the planet", this generation has to put up with higher bills in the hope that this will bring forward the technology and ubiquity of renewable energy needed.

In simple terms - although to listen to Ed Miliband and Ed Davey let alone the greens you wouldn't believe this - we have a choice between "decarbonising" energy production and lower prices. Pretending otherwise is both dangerous and deluded.

So folks your choice is between cheap energy and the planet! You can start fracking, stop the closure of coal fired power stations, scrap the green levy and abolish cross-subsidy of renewables - and get lower fuel bills for voters. Or you can carry on as we are and see those fuel bills rise.

I know which choice I'd make right now.

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1 comment:

Radical Rodent said...

One thing about renewables is that they are anything but; the installation of a wind turbine cost more in terms of energy than can be gained throughout its life (and its real life is often considerably less than its projected life of 25 years). Many people seem to think that all that is required is to plant a pole in the ground and stick a fan at the top – few seems to be aware of the hundreds of tons of cement required for the foundation (and the commensurate irreparable damage to the subsoil – be it farmland or moor).

PV cells are even more contentious, and considerably more expensive; while wind turbine electricity is about twice as much as conventional, PV cells are 8 times more so.

Fracking has been practiced in this country for over 50 years – including over 2 decades in an RSPB reserve (and they still clamber aboard the bandwagon) – and over a century world-wide. To the best of my knowledge, there has been none of the claimed disasters (sinkholes, earthquakes, flaming water, etc.) associated with them, yet turbines decimate birds, and PV cells poison the land.