Wind Economics

It's GREED NOT GREEN !

We would prefer if politicians were guided by the ‘science’ of climate change rather than the religion of anthropogenic global warming but we are not climate scientists and haven’t a clue whether the globe is warming or cooling and whether man can significantly influence it or not and  will leave that to the 'warmists' and 'sceptics' to argue about.

We are nevertheless concerned about the economic issues around climate change and their effect on our lives and the life of this nation.

What we can be categorical about is that windpower does not help save the world,  indeed, through its many inefficiencies, it is costing this country dear. 

At a time when the government is trying to reduce the deficit, it pumps over £1 billion p.a. into renewable obligation certificate (ROC) subsidies going into landowner's and developer's pockets.  The subsequent increase in electricity prices to pay for these subsidises pushes further households into fuel poverty while 1) increasing costs to business and industry thereby losing jobs in the wealth creating sector of the economy and 2) standing no chance of altering atmospheric CO2 concentrations, still less of deflecting climate change..  

The windfarm lobby argues that the windfarm industry is a new UK job creator. Don't trust the developers, the facts are rather different.

For example, the 100 turbine Thanet wind farm (owned by a Swedish company)  created a total of 21 new UK permanent jobs.  It will receive £1.2 billion in subsidies i.e. £57m for every job created, over the next 20 years.

Windfarm inefficiency is legendary. The same £1.2 billion invested in a single nuclear power station could yield a staggering 13 times more electricity, with much greater reliability.

Read more in this Telegraph article...  

Around 80% of the investment that goes into building new UK wind farms is spent abroad (manufacturing etc). The vast majority of jobs supported by these subsidises are outside the UK

Spain, who has created a large wind industry (Nick Clegg's (LibDem leader) wife is a director of a major Spanish windfarm company), also made the mistake of subsidising wind.  It is reported that independant economists calculate that, for every ‘green’ job created in Spain, 2.2 jobs in the ordinary economy have been destroyed (see video). Why should the UK be any different? Spain has now cut its subsidies by 35%. The UK should follow this cut and help the national deficit.

ASWAR knows that the last Government in their 2008 Climate Change Act, that has placed the burden of £18 billion pa (Govt figures) on the UK economy in order to stay in line with EU renewable policy, does not allow the local government planning process to take any heed of the economics or inefficiency of windfarms in their determination as to whether planning permission should be granted. 

In our submission to the planning committee  who will determine if permission is given, we therefore will have to rely on arguments that are allowed within the planning rules (which expressed simply, have to be NIMBY ones) and luckily still we have an overwhelmingly good case.

Nevertheless we beleive, what could be summarised as the 'Windfarm Scam', should be made clear to the general public so political pressure is applied at higher levels to attempt to change this government policy of wasting money.