Chris Huhne Anyone?

Chris Huhne is the Climate Change and Energy Secretary, he is a Lib Dem and he is a little undecided as to whether he likes the media. His ambivalence towards the media is the result of the conflicting needs he has, firstly to proselytise for his Green religion and then again to avoid questions about his alleged attempt to avoid a speeding fine. It is said he got his wife to say she was driving when the camera flashed, though she has publicly stated she was not.

The police and the CPS needless to say, in such a complicated case are still, after some months, considering the evidence. Just like when Prescott was filmed assaulting a member of the public, the forces of law and order become strangely inert and confused when presented with criminal activity by a Member of Parliament, (though of course when instructed by a left wing government to arrest a Conservative MP, they were straight in, despite no evidence and ignoring rules themselves).

Huhne though has told some rather more important and damaging lies. These are related to the Climate Change bit of his job role, he is a little hazy about what the Energy bit means. He thinks windmills will save the planet. That is pretty much it. Also that they magically appear if he summons them. Instead, they actually use rather a lot of energy to produce and install.

Once in they ruin the landscape, kill birds and bats and the noise of the blades is also an irritant to people and animals nearby. And then there is the energy deficit. Apart from some nasty metals, dragged around the world to produce the magnets in a turbine, and overlooking the energy involved in getting the materials for construction to the areas of natural beauty that Chris Huhne particularly likes to despoil for his projects, we have the foundation materials.

According to a US paper of 2004 (Brookhaven National Laboratory), a 1.3MW onshore wind turbine needs about 240 cubic metres of concrete (108 tonnes) for its foundation and about ten tonnes of steel. Both are energy intensive products to manufacture, the steel here producing something like 5 tonnes of CO2. Concrete generates 1 tonne of CO2 for each tonne of material, giving 108 tonnes of CO2. So this one turbine has a deficit, before a blade turns of something like 113 tonnes of CO2. Cement production is responsible, apparently for 8% of all CO2 produced by Man.

To put that in perspective, (and to show a fairness that AGW religionists will not) a single 747 flying from London to New York will emit something like 52 tonnes of CO2 by my reckoning. And the trails they leave act like clouds, so have a real and immediate effect, unlike the guesswork on 'greenhouse gases' by the 'experts'.

But back to windmills. Huhne believes they will meet our target commitment to the EU on using renewables. Maybe they will (if we were building at a rate that no one can manage and we aren't even attempting), but they won't achieve any CO2 target. For each of these ridiculous and pointless towers produces risible amounts of electricity and then only intermittently. So there must be a power station, of more conventional means, running all the time waiting to take over when the wind drops (or gets too high, or we don't need the extra electricity).

This alone renders the windmill pointless. The industry knows this as do government, which is why subsidies were introduced to build them and the power companies are forced to buy the expensive electricity they produce (or compensate them when they don't buy due to a lack of demand). It is a licence to print money and nothing else. You have been scammed and the rise in electricity bills is almost entirely due to windmills and Huhne's policy (most of the rest is due to the lack of control over energy companies, by, er Chris Huhne).

So, is Chris Huhne the stupidest person in this country?