The wind has been knocked out of the sails of the wind farm eco-con, finally exposed as a load of hot air. A sales gimmick to puff up eco-credentials and make a fat profit from taxpayer-funded government subsidies. What's the point of subsidy-guzzling wind farms? The answer isn't blowing in the wind.
"Spring is here. Sure fire proof of global warming," waffled the slick eco-salesman. "Every little helps," he added, turning on the charm and turning up the heat, with a sales pitch to save the planet - and trouser a fat government subsidy on the back of the multi billion pound carbon trading scam.
Wind-swept Blighty is going wind farm crazy, over-run with thousands of the noisy brutes, with 245 wind farms built to date. But all is not what it seems in the land of greenwash.
The Sunday Times reports the first detailed study of the country’s onshore wind farms, revealing that more than 20 produce less than a fifth of their potential 'maximum power output' with landscapes paying a high price for the small price of 'green' energy.
Blustery Blyth Harbour, Northumberland, is thought to be the worst in the country, operating at just 7.9% 'maximum capacity'. Chelker reservoir, North Yorkshire managed a feeble 8.7%. Even the big newer sites fared badly, according to 2008 data released by energy regulator Ofgem.
Time and again theoretical 'maximum figures' are trotted out, claiming levels of power output that has never been achieved, to dupe planning authorities. Figures from Neta, which provides data from the wholesale electricity market, show the piddling amount produced by onshore wind farm sites.
The Orange Party is bemused by wind turbines, fluttering in the breeze with little power generated. Are they having a laugh?
Figures have to be treated with caution say 'experts'. Output can vary sharply because of factors such as "breakdowns". But what's the point of having a turbine if it keeps breaking down?
What does it cost to build and maintain them? How long will a wind farm need to operate to repay the capital cost? And how much energy is produced that can be realistically called 'green', when huge amounts of energy and industrial pollution have gone into digging up the metal to produce the damn things in the first place?
Revelations come as no surprise to a long-suffering public forced to put up with the monsters on their doorstep or a landscape blighted in the greedy, green gold rush.
A booming industry has sprung up on the back of the scam of a “renewable obligation” subsidy, with consumers paying roughly double the normal price for energy from wind and a subsidy sham encouraging the construction of wind farms.
Wind industry drum-beaters say the country’s "ambitious targets for clean power" mean the country needs “every bit of green energy it could generate”. Pull the other one. Would any be built without the taxpayer subsidy to developers, making profits from the taxpayer and not from wind energy?
Greed not green has fuelled the wind farm con. But compared to solar power, onshore wind is just a bad smell. Even green eco-giant, Monbiot, has waded in, warning of the “great green rip-off” of solar panels and the feed-in tariff. Solar panels may be middle-class status symbols but they are “perfectly useless”, writes Monbiot.
As the Orange Party has noted before, green is the new gold. But a greenwashed weary public can look on the bright side, with spanking new energy-efficient light bulbs.
More than 142 million were shipped out 'free' by energy companies to save the planet and profits. But there is no such thing as a free lunch or a free 'lightbulb'.
According to a Which? energy supplier investigation, customers have been forced to fork out £45 on top of their energy bills to pay for the privilege of falling down the stairs with a useless 'light' bulb, to help energy suppliers avoid fines.
All to prop up the government's flagship Carbon Emissions Reductions Target (CERT). The Orange Party take a very dim view of that.
Consumers, industry and the countryside are paying a high price for useless "green" electricity and stealth "green" taxes. Wind farms full of hot air. Eco-warriors taking the shine off solar panels. All on the back of a man-made global warming con, washed down with the bitter taste of greenwash.
Top pictures: From members of the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW). Cartoon: Matt, Telegraph.
2 comments:
Everyone these days goes on about being green. Every company is trying to be seen as eco-friendly spinning out the right lines and trying to cut carbon emmissions. Do they ever think about how much of their green activity is helping and not hindering. The energy saving lightbulb con is just an example of a front to being green. Think of all the packagin and carbon emmissions that were emmitted during the delivery of this useless product.
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