Here's An Idea

Global Warming as caused by Man is a crock. We shouldn't use a recession to back away from the idiot measures being introduced to fight it. I'm not sure if we are supposed to see ourselves as Cnut or Icarus, but either way the Sun is having a laugh at our expense.

So, we can get rid of the subsidy towers, which I think are referred to as wind turbines and all the green taxes. That will help the economy quite a bit (and do no harm). We should then ignore all the demands to shut down power stations and do what we need to. That keeps the lights on and industry working.

The carbon levy, by which they tax the entirely different substance carbon dioxide, can be binned helping the economy even more. This is going well. But.....

We really should, as intelligent, inventive animals be doing something about our pollution. Not for the empty headed reasons that Lib Dems espouse and all other stuck-in-adolescence lefties, but because we should be able to do better. The emissions do have some effect, but even if it isn't significant at all, it isn't beneficial either. Wouldn't it be better to design things with a goal from the outset of 'first, do no harm'.

The sole reason a wind turbine gets erected is because there is an incentive. The incentive is money, but somehow the turbine doesn't actually have to be any use to get the money. I think the wind farm companies are probably trying to refine their pitch to government so that they don't have to actually build anything, but still get the money. No one is disturbed by a wind turbine, no birds or bats get murdered and it produces exactly as much utility as if it was physically there.

Let us hope our politicians don't go that far, though  the evidence to date isn't encouraging. No, what I think we should do is actually incentivise people to come up with technologies that don't pollute. For no other reason than pollution isn't nice and we should be able to invent something better.

Everything we do comes down to energy. An apple contains a static energy equivalent to a million tons of TNT. Energy isn't the problem, it is our ability to make use of it that is. And the real problem is, government isn't pushing this as an agenda. Think how rich the UK could be if we took the lead in advances in this area, just because we set off down the road first!

But we are saddled with navel-gazing politicians of no ability whatsoever. Scoring points off other politicians is their entire goal. Big new technological leaps, now! Let's start with the internal combustion engine. (And that doesn't mean stupid battery cars).

EDF - A Brown Company

With startling predictability the energy utility company EDF has announced profits of almost £1.6 billion. The company is French owned and employs, for media relations Andrew Brown, brother of the economically illiterate Gordon. Somehow you knew someone like that would have their hand in a company making pots of money, through government complicit chicanery.

What? Are they up to no good? Well, obviously that is the outcome, but to get there they don't need to break the law, the door is opened for them by very helpful politicians, who sometimes are relations. Companies like EDF have virtual monopoly status and are pretty much left alone to get on with it. The quango set up to monitor energy and protect the consumer, feel much more comfortable getting friendly with the outfits they are paid to watch. They all do.

It is the complete absence of protection for consumers that attracts overseas companies to buy these monopolistic ultilities; they are virtually all foreign owned. Often, their own countries don't allow the kind of operation they routinely run here, because the governments there feel a need to protect consumers. For vital, national infrastructure such as energy, so should we.

I am no great believer in nationalised industries, but some things are for the overall national benefit and the utilities might just be better under a public umbrella. Obviously not run by Unions or their puppy dog, the Labour Party. We were quite happy to take over Northern Rock, casually forgetting the shareholders, so how about we take over EDF Energy with a similar lack of care. It would certainly make other companies think twice about arriving in Britain to rob us blind.

The Mail, as we have discussed before a terrible rag that has no value, helpfully points out that the profit EDF has made amounts to £427 per household. Think what percentage of your annual bill that represents. That is the extent of the duplicity with which our supine government and watchdogs operate. It smacks of too many friends in too many places. All we need now is Dave Hartnett to arrive at the most expensive restaurant local to EDF HQ and suddenly discover that £1.6 billion is such a tiny sum that they shouldn't have to pay tax at all.

You And Tangled Webs

It is usual to find the Left supporting entirely contradictory positions, as putting ideology before reality as they do is a recipe for disaster. Some birds take a while longer to come home to roost. The Global Warming religion was useful for the Left as it simultaneously addressed a desire to hate ourselves as over mighty Man and to also believe that Man, in the form of clever Lefties would resolve the problem. This resolution was their second desire; to shut down Western civilisation and its economic roots.

This is why 'the debate is settled', the BBC should not allow debate on air and opposition to Global Warming must see you classed as a nutter. But as bills go up it has become personal and the electorate are getting restless. They are asking questions, the questions that the Left have outlawed. The people can see how shallow and unsubstantiated arguments of the Left are, when the best they are able to say is 'it is, because I say it is' and 'you cannot oppose us'.

So, Cameron, in thrall to Green policies as much as any other who skips thinking, trots along to accuse the energy companies of charging too much. That they are is also due to government not being bothered to do its job properly, but Cameron is not looking to blame himself and the companies are hardly likely to say that they do it because he doesn't control them well enough.

No they are arguing the highly plausible and partly correct point that it is green taxes and costs that are driving bills up. Cameron didn't want that in the light of day either and Chris Huhne will be livid. Something he is responsible for being questioned, how dare they! Obviously no sane person would put up a wind turbine unless someone guaranteed to pay for it and its operating costs, making it a money tree rather than a business proposition.

So we all pay vastly increased bills, to suit Cameron's and Huhne's version of politics, which is based on lies and a false premise. All of these costs could be taken off our shoulders at the stroke of a pen and have no consequences whatsoever. But none of this explains the enhanced profits these foreign owned, energy companies are making. (Interestingly, many of these companies come to Britain to buy such infrastructure organisations, as in their own countries they are more closely controlled and profits commensurately less).

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

All Hail Shale!

The discovery of enormous amounts of 'shale gas' in the North West is brilliant news, for reality based people. This naturally excludes Chris Huhne the Energy Secretary. Chris, who is probably just a pretty straight kinda guy, doesn't have much interest in energy, or in fact climate change which is the other part of his important title. No, he is interested in ideology, more specifically Man Made Global Warming ideology.

In this he seeks to put everything behind his certain knowledge that CO2 in the atmosphere is deadly and will cook us all, or freeze us. But it will definitely be our fault. You see the climate probably is changing, it always has so it seems a pretty safe premise and until fairly recently it was in an upward, hotter direction. Then, rather inconveniently it stopped warming. So those tied to the ideology decided to ignore this new data (or 'hide' it, see 'Climategate') much as they had also had to ignore the Mediaeval Warm Period.

It is truly brilliant now that science has been released from the bonds of being, well, an exact science. And this is Chris Huhne's world, that is Chris Huhne the politician who is in a position to do an awful lot of harm. He isn't insisting on building and subsidising wind farms to cure a problem, he is doing so because his ideology says he must. So fuel bills sky rocket whilst absolutely pointless turbines go up, that are making some people rich, like the Prime Minister's father-in-law, but don't actually have a purpose.

Even when the blasted thing is met with the most favourable conditions and it is outputting at its maximum, a conventional power station has to be 'turning and burning' just in case the wind drops (or increases), thus negating the whole reason for the existence of the Quixotic devices. To believe otherwise you have to lack reason and logic.

Which brings us back to shale gas. If it turns out that there is anything like the amount we think there is, it will be ground breaking for the UK (no pun intended). It will mean cheap fuel for the rest of our and our children's lives, at least. It will remove at a stroke the need to rely on Russia for gas and it will help stabilise our economy. But with ideology led Chris Huhne anywhere near the controls, we run the risk of this bounty being ignored.

Though wind turbines are entirely pointless, they are the prescribed saviour mechanism and therefore, as with all religious scripture cannot be denied. Shale gas ticks all the boxes if you live in the real world, but we have a madman in charge of policy (apparently), so we must be prepared for trouble. Soon, the articles will doubtless start appearing on the BBC and in the Guardian saying that to use shale gas we would have to first sell our souls to the Devil and that anyone who supports it eats babies. These are the people, don't forget, who really do have the funds to pay for propaganda.