More and more, I wonder what the actual goal of the Net Zero climate bollocks is. Because if the aim was actually net zero, then we would be investing heavily in carbon free power generation that could actually match the requirements of the country.
The few nuclear power stations we have in the country are consistently producing baseband power for the country, consistently producing between 10-20% of total energy demand.
Strangely, Biomass has taken the place of coal and is producing just a bit less than nuclear. Of course we can't have coal anymore, we now have to burn the wood before it becomes coal, by clearing massive areas of forest to supply the demand. Yes they get replanted, but it can take decades to regrow. What happens to the wildlife in those areas of forest that is stripped of trees to fuel the Biomass plants?
You see the question I have, is if the environmentalists don't like nuclear because of the waste issue, then why not have tidal power? If their objection to tidal power is the devastation of habitat for wading birds, then why don't they have the same objection to the devastation of wildlife caused by hacking down forests?
Why don't they have an objection to wind turbines that hack birds out of the air? Or the issues around disposal of wind turbine blades?
To me, there is the whiff of hypocrisy around the whole climate cause. IF the objective was the reduction of CO2, we wouldn't be burning billions of tons of natural gas every year. IF the reduction of CO2 was so essential and so desperate, then there would be a worldwide efforts to eliminate CO2 production TODAY. The United Nations would be putting huge pressure on countries like China to close their coal fired power plants.
IF the reduction was so essential and so desperate, we would be offered carrots to convert. There would be subsidies at the point of use to modify houses so that they were suitable for heat pumps. There would be huge subsidies for people to buy and run electric cars. There would be a huge nationally owned company upgrading the electricity grid and installing a substantial charging network.
Instead the subsidies go to the electricity generators. We are paying extra on top of the price of the energy in green levies. But hang on, that was only supposed to kick-start the green industry because 15 YEARS AGO WHEN THE GREEN LEVIES WERE INTROCUCED, the technology was expensive and not mature enough to produce energy cheap enough.
Back in the Blair and Brown days, over 14 years ago, the green tariffs were introduced to help the fledgling renewable energy production industry. That's a long time ago.
But now, 15 years later, haven't enough renewable wind turbines been installed to provide reductions thanks to economies of scale? Surely after 15 years of continuous energy generation the technology must be cheap enough to be able to be profitable without subsidies?
Surely, after 15 years, if the technology isn't mature enough, or cheap enough to stand on it's own feet and not require subsidies, then it's not a suitable technology? How much longer must we keep paying extra for our energy? If it doesn't need subsidies any more, why are we still paying them and who is the money going to?
If we are still paying subsidies, if the climate lobby are picking and choosing which environments they are happy to destroy, if certain technologies are favoured as opposed to other similar technologies, if governments are happy for us to continue producing CO2 but pay a fine, if Western governments are happy for China to keep building coal-fired power stations, that to me smells of political ideology , political activism, instead of actual environmental concerns.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment