More green idiocy

Can you imagine what would happen if they ran the country?

Would I be jailed for pruning my apple trees?

Go green

And get this crap. This woman, head of the green party, hadn’t a clue what the costs of her party’s policy on housing entailed.

For once she was asked factual questions and was not let of when she couldn’t answer them.

By all means vote green if you want to be housed. But that means living in an unheated yurt if you do.

Source

Classic watermelon

(Green on the outside, red on the inside)

Here he goes:

I got this in my email, thought I'd share it:
The government is trying to change the law so big energy companies can drill for gas under our homes - without asking us. [1]
A licence to drill in Tonbridge and Malling has already been given to a big energy company. [2] So unless these plans are stopped, gas could be sucked from under your home very soon.
But together, we could do just that. Because to change the law the government needs MPs to vote for it in parliament. And the vote's in just a few weeks. [3] Let's make it clear that backing dirty energy companies over constituents would be a toxic move.

Fair enough, a concerned citizen.

Till we get to here:

The plans - simple changes to existing trespass law - could mean your home surrounded by noisy machines, and your local park turned into a gas field. All without your permission. The process - known as fracking - could also poison our water and produce toxic waste. And it’s known to cause earthquakes. [4]

But where does he get this impartial information from?

Those well known beacons of truth.

Greenpeace, Friends of the earth, 38 degrees,the Guardian, and of course, the BBC.

I replied politely with the facts:

I'll give the case for fracking.

Cuadrilla Resources believes there are 200 trillion cubic feet of "shale" gas in the Bowland basin, which could result in a Lancashire gas boom creating 5,600 jobs at peak production.

Shale is a type of onshore gas common in the US, which is extracted by blasting apart rock in a process called fracking.
More testing is needed, but the estimates suggest Britain could have more shale gas than Poland, which has been considered Europe's biggest holder of probable reserves.

Others have calculated that this could make us gas sufficient for the next 30 years.

A bit of an explanation  on what it is.

Unconventional gas is the collective term used to describe tight gas, shale gas and/or coal bed methane (CBM). While conventional gas resources can be developed and produced without any special well completions, most unconventional gas production requires the rock to be fractured (“fracked”) or stimulated to allow gas to escape from the tight rock and flow through the wellbore to the surface. These special well completions made drilling for unconventional gas uneconomical for many years.

Toward the end of the 20th century, the combination of two existing technologies – horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – shifted unconventional gas production into the main stream. The potential of shale gas, tight gas and CBM has been known for centuries, with the first shale gas wells drilled in the 1820s. However, it is only with recent technological improvements that extracting the resources has become an economically viable option.

Currently, natural gas has approximately 60 years of proven reserves at current demand levels, but according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), this rises to more than 250 years if the unconventional gas potential is added. Clearly, unconventional gas may play a large part in ensuring the security of global energy supply for years to come.

If only we could make our Politicians see sense. I’m all for conservation, but how do we do that if we bankrupt ourselves on the Altar of green crap?

I wonder if he’ll reply?

They don’t muck around.

The Spanish navy that is……

The film is about how the Spanish navy weren’t going to put up with any shit from Greenpiss who were going to board an oil drilling ship.

The Spanish Defense Ministry has justified the actions of the country’s navy, which rammed into a Greenpeace boat, injuring activists. The ministry believes the Navy had no other choice as they were preventing an act of “piracy.”

The Navy “did what it had to do” to prevent the environmentalist group from committing a “crime of piracy,” the Defense Ministry told Europa Press on Monday.

And well done too. It might make them realise that they’re not all powerful, and can do what they want without consequences. They were warned.

The Navy argues the Greenpeace boats ignored several warnings urging them not to enter the so-called exclusion zone around the oil drilling ship, which extends for one maritime mile.

Antarctic sea Ice has gone.

Oh no it hasn’t. It’s only just breaking on the BBC news of the fact that a Russian ship chartered by a group of Global warming enthusiasts, has been stuck in the ice off Antarctica.

This vid is the true story which the MSM won’t show you.

Don’t worry I’m sure it will all pan out safely.

Greentards.

They should have thought about the consequences first. But then green idealists think that everyone lives in the same fluffy bunny world as them.

Greenpeace crew members detained in Russian jails for two months over their open-sea protest against Arctic oil drilling are "close to shock" over their conditions, a rights activist said Tuesday.

And poor dears.

The activists have complained of cold cells and a lack of suitable clothing and food, said Irina Paikacheva, the head of a state-connected regional prisoners' rights watchdog.

And as a smoker that is being denormalised by the state I laughed till I was nearly too out of breath to have a smoke.

Several non-smoking activists also complain of being placed in cells with chain-smokers.

But more crap here.

A young Finnish female activist is a vegan and unable to eat prison food, Paikacheva said, adding that prison officials had denied her request for vitamins to be delivered to her.

Being a vegan is a choice not a necessity in life

Under Russian law, prisoners have to hand in their watches and wear shoes without laces. The Finnish activist lacks a thyroid gland and needs to take medicine regularly -- hard to do without a watch.

Utter bollocks. My son has no thyroid. He just has to take one tablet in the morning, and one in the evening.
Pampered twats, the lot of them. The rest of us live in the real world,

Save me from these green luddites.

I was watching the BBC news tonight and strayed into BBC south east.

Half way through the news came an interview with a citizen of the leafy village of Balcombe. Why am I writing about this Sussex paradise you might ask?

This is a village that is sitting on potentially vast resources of natural gas and permission has been given for an exploratory drilling to see it’s potential.

Now as I’ve posted before, the method of extraction is a game changer for our energy supply. Since 2005 we’ve seen an increase in cost of natural gas in this country, of an eye watering 35%. It makes sense to utilise a cheap form of energy to fuel our economy out of recession.

Not so for the hardened green ecotwatess..

This so called “Spokesperson” ranted on about every ridiculous scare story that you could think of. Here’s a sample:

Ground water will be contaminated. (How come if the drilling is thousands of  feet below)

Local wild life will die.

Earthquakes will devastate the area. (The earthquakes in the Fylde area were only picked up on seismometers)

All the horned toads will be eradicated. (Insert your protected species of choice).

We have to have renewable energy.

I hate with a passion these idiots who haven’t a scientific bone in their body who are so gullible that they’ll leave reason behind.

The green bubble

Interesting video in a meaured way explaining why renewable energy will wreck the Australian economy.

Tim Le Roy's Overview

Current

• General Manager Vic/SA/NZ at Scottish Pacific Debtor Finance

Past

• Regional Manager Victoria - Business Banking at St.George Bank Ltd
• Business Banking Manager at ANZ
• BDM at Scottish Pacific Business Finance

Education

• St. John's College, Johannesburg

Serves you bloody right.

People living in a multi-million pound ‘homes of the future’ project in Bradford are up in arms over the sky-high electricity bills they have racked up.

I have no sympathy for people who are enticed into buying over hyped homes like this. These are usually the technically illiterate who don’t bother themselves to look into the running costs of the relatively new and unproven  green technology.

The remainder were constructed to a slightly lower energy efficiency level, but were also equipped with air heat pumps, solar panels and rainwater harvesters.   

As an engineer the moment I hear the word “pump” I can just see kWh’s spinning before my eyes. Pumps use a large amount of energy in pushing fluids around, especially if  it has to go uphill. Ie, to upper floors.

It looks like these folks have bought a complete pigs ear of a property. Mind you I’m suspicious to say the least when they say the following:

Raquel and Sunny Tanday, both 23, and the parents of two young children, say their power bills come to about £500 a quarter since December 2011.

Maybe they are being misquoted by the paper, because a summer month quarter will use less energy than a winter quarter. (Unless they have air conditioning for the summer months, which would explain the high usage).

Anyway lets settle on £2,000 per year. Unbelievable.

I live in a three story house built in 1903. I have sash windows (Although 2/3 have been replaced with double glazed units), no cavity walls, and a non condensing boiler. I do have modern heating controls, that time the on and off of the heating for various times of day, and a modern room thermostat. I also have radiator thermostats that I can turn down for rooms that are not in use.

There is something seriously wrong with the cost they are paying. I pay about £1,400 for the whole year. Of course I have set my thermostat to 20 deg C and timed the system to come on only when needed. I’d like to know what these residents had set their systems for.

But this next piece from the council is interesting.

“We are confident that when these problems have been resolved, residents at Pavilion Gardens will benefit from lower bills in the future. We want to reassure residents that they will be reimbursed for any usage above the standard charge for their household.”

But earlier in the article their energy supplier had stated  that the standard charge , based on a national average is, (Wait for it) £1261.

WTF.

They’ve bought a so called,  energy efficient home, and are paying almost £750 a year more than the standard tariff.

(If I was the council I’d be sending in the drug squad to ascertain if this was a cannabis growing operation).

And of course the council will attempt to get of the hook.

The Council stressed that it will charge the original building contractor for any costs incurred in reimbursing residents.

Good luck with that West Bowling.

These stories make you want to smoke, drink, eat, and generally abuse your body.

As I’ve said before “I give up”.  (None of the just above).

Your house must be green. Or else.

The Scenario. It’s the dead of winter and your old central heating boiler breaks down and cannot be repaired. In the normal scheme of things, you’d get a couple of quotes and give the job of replacing it to the company who could carry out the replacement, quickest and cheapest.

Whilst you sit shivering, you are informed by the winner that you will have to wait to be assessed by the council to see if your house comes up to a standard of insulation.

The new regulations, which will apply to specified home improvements including loft and garage conversions, conservatory extensions, and boiler or window replacements, could come into effect as early as October when the Green Deal is set to be officially launched.

Well I for one will tell the contractor to either get round sharpish or bugger off or I will employ someone else.

As far as I’m concerned it is nothing to do with government how I run my home. It’s my bought and paid for abode to do with as I choose. If I want to be less green than Caroline Lucas, then it’s up to me.

I have a nagging suspicion the government is trying to cover up the fact that this government and the last have realised that there is going to be an energy shortage in the next few years. I think it may have settled into their brains (small) that all this green investment in bird mincers and photovoltaic panels, will leave us set for blackouts in the not so distant future.

In the dash for green they haven't stopped to realise that we need new power stations that can back up supply when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun shines. And they have to be ordered years ahead.

Electric cars.

Thinking of buying an electric car and saving the planet?

If you look at the diagram above (Sorry for the poor quality), you’ll see what is required to get the power for the car battery from the source.

Lets look at the efficiencies of the various parts of the diagram, starting with the generating station first. Even a non CO2 emitting nuclear plant is at best 30% efficient due to the lower steam temperatures employed. That’s a start down the slope.

Next comes the step up transformer. Ever wondered why they have to be oil cooled? Using a step up transformer to increase the voltage does not give you something for nothing. As the voltage goes up, the current goes down by the same proportion. The power equation shows that the overall power remains the same.

P=V x I  Power = Voltage x Current

In reality, the power output is always less than the power input because the changing magnetic field in the core creates currents (called eddy currents) which heat the core.  This heat is then lost to the environment, it is wasted energy. It’s actually not too bad at 2%. But 2% never the less.

Now we come to transmission of this power. This is usually transmitted at voltages of around 133kv in the UK for long distances. Here again we lose energy. Estimated at approximately 6%.

Of course we now have to transform it down again to a realistic voltage for consumers to use. Another 2% lost.

Bearing in mind  charging the batteries of your electric car is going to involve turning that AC voltage into a DC voltage and step down to a voltage that will be suitable for your battery, the efficiency falls further. Lets say another 2%.

Overall by my reckoning that makes the whole jiggery pokey to have you on the road is about 58% efficiency overall.

Contrasting that to a modern common rail fuel injected diesel engine at 50% efficiency,  the efficiency is not vastly better.

Of course you have to buy the car first before you can drive an electric vehicle on the open road. Now the agony really becomes real. Even with a generous government subsidy (£5,000), a Nissan Leaf is going to set you back a whopping £25,990.

And for that price you only (On a good day) get a mileage of 109 miles between charges.  

And finally the cost of a replacement battery will set you back over £5,000. (Conservative price. Some sites have reckoned it could be as high as £8,000).

Still want to buy one? Me. I’m sticking to my diesel powered car, which has a range of 350 miles even when my heater is on in the winter. I don’t want to take 3 days to visit my son. (And three days back) After all, who would feed the cats?

I think I’m now officially a troll

I went over to Desmogblog on Friday (I couldn’t resist the challenge. It’s like being hooked on heroin) and posted a comment on their latest self congratulatory drivel about so-called ethical oil.

Now I really shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help posting the following in their comments section. Now I didn’t write this, It’s just copied The link is at the bottom of this post. (I wish I had done a construction that blows apart the green energy principles so well), but I felt that this was something that they should read, and hopefully ponder. Mind you to the mind-set of those who inhabit desmogblog, I should be condemned to the ninth circle of hell. I expect a foam flecked, incoherent reply shortly.

My skin is thick.

Here is my comment:

Does Green thinking need a red light?

Green thinking - more harm than good?

When the climate took a turn for the worse during the so-called Younger Dryas period some 12,000 years ago, our ancestors didn’t don a hair shirt and hope for the best. They innovated. A sharp return to ice age like conditions helped precipitate the development of agriculture in the Levant, a hugely successful innovation that soon diffused to other settled regions. So if contemporary climate change is to be taken as seriously as many Greens urge, our response should also be innovation driven. Why then does much of our current Green thinking focus on environmentally and socially regressive ideas?

While the development of agriculture during the Neolithic revolution was to change the world for the better, the real awakening from millennia of Malthusian stagnation was the industrial revolution. Whether through the far-reaching ideas of the Scottish enlightenment or the innovations of James Watt, it was realised that the future could be radically different from the past.

For example, in the late 19^th century the growing use of steam power enabled energy and labour costs to decouple for the first time in human history. Energy became cheap while prosperity soared, not through crass consumerism, but through badly needed economic growth that provided an escape from agrarian poverty. It is the surplus from that innovation driven growth that now enables the provision of public services such as health and education. Nurses nurse and teachers teach only because someone else is providing their Joules, Calories and other material needs.

While innovation has undeniably delivered immense improvements in the human condition, innovation is also the principal route through which human needs can gradually be decoupled from the environment. Starting in the Elizabethan era, coal from the ground slowly began to replace wood from the land as the primary source of energy, a transition that only peaked in the early 20^th century. In the late 19^th century oil from the ground replaced oil from whales as the primary source of energy for domestic lighting. Coal eventually helped depleted woodland to re-grow, while the oil industry arguably saved the whale.

These slow historical energy transitions were away from diffuse energy sources such as wood and towards fuels of greater energy density, such as coal and much later oil and methane (gas). As noted by Jesse Ausubel at The Rockefeller University, each new fuel contains less carbon and more energy per unit weight, leading to a centuries long decarbonisation of energy production. The latest large-scale energy innovation, nuclear, is of course essentially carbon free. We should remember that these energy transitions did not take place because of concern for the environment, but because lower carbon fuels are more energy dense and so are simply better.

Overall, carbon emissions have of course been growing, a sign that global energy use has risen sharply since the industrial revolution. Growing energy use has been both liberating and civilising. We have used this growth to replace carbohydrate fuelled human labour with hydrocarbon-fuelled machines. But for carbon emissions to peak and then decline, we will need to accelerate our long historical journey towards fuels of greater energy density. Our energy mix therefore needs to transition away from coal, and ultimately oil, and towards methane, uranium and later thorium.

The alternative path offered by mainstream Green thinking is the ‘renewables revolution’. But what's being offered is not a revolution, it is a regression to a past of diffuse energy with arguably greater environmental impact. For a movement concerned with efficient resource use, it is remarkable that Greens ignore energy density and the fact that, per unit of energy produced, diffuse and intermittent renewable energy therefore requires vastly more steel, concrete and land than compact gas turbines or nuclear reactors.

And while Greens rightly abhor corporate greed, they seem content to see the pockets of consumers dipped by corporate energy interests to pay for cripplingly expensive offshore wind, or see a regressive transfer of wealth through feed-in tariffs from the energy poor to suburban property owners with the capital to pay for domestic solar energy. Viewed in this light, it’s hard to argue that inefficient and expensive renewable energy is somehow more ethical than compact and efficient thermal energy.

Such is the influence of mainstream Green thinking however that it is now doing real harm. In Germany, Die Grünen manoeuvred Angela Merkel into a nuclear shutdown that will close the single largest source of carbon-free energy in Europe’s largest economy. In France, the Greens have the Socialists over a barrel in the run up to spring elections, extracting a promise to close nuclear plants and ramp up renewables in exchange for votes. The prospect of Greens forcing the closure of yet more carbon-free nuclear plants is truly absurd.

Similar damage also risks being done through blind opposition to shale gas. Through innovations in drilling technology methane can now be extracted from deep shale bedrock. Shale gas production has grown sharply in the US, with this new energy innovation set to diffuse to other regions including the UK. Arguments that renewable energy is required anyway since hydrocarbons are running out look increasingly suspect.

Wonderfully, methane can be burned in compact, ultra-efficient combined cycle gas turbines producing electrical energy with less than half the carbon emissions of coal. The use of methane and nuclear as a replacement for coal, and even eventually oil, follows the long historical trend of decarbonisation through increasing energy density. But horrified at the prospect of many decades worth of low cost, relatively clean energy, Greens have called for an immediate ban on shale gas and insist on a future based almost entirely on diffuse and inefficient renewable energy.

In addition to ignoring energy density, Green thinking often confuses energy efficiency with demand reduction. For example, the replacement of whale oil lamps with kerosene, and their subsequent replacement with electric filaments and now solid-state lighting has delivered huge gains in energy efficiency. These gains enabled a mass democratisation of the use of artificial lighting as costs plummeted and so utilisation soared.

Efficiency is therefore a natural consequence of innovation and leads to a socially progressive growth in consumption of an energy service until demand is saturated, only after which can energy consumption fall. However, while ultra-efficient lighting may take a modest slice out of developed nations energy use, it will be more than compensated for by a badly needed growth in the utilisation of artificial lighting in developing nations as efficiency grows and costs fall.

In contrast, demand reduction is a socially regressive tool, an artificial increase in the price of energy to suppress consumption, the burden of which falls on the energy poor. It is often hard to avoid the conclusion that Greens advocate expensive renewable energy specifically to ensure demand reduction and a future of energy austerity.

The real lack of innovation in Green thinking though can best be seen in arguments against nuclear energy.  For example, a long-standing grumble is that it leaves future generations with a stock of nuclear waste to deal with. Nuclear energy does indeed present an intergenerational transfer, but it’s an overwhelmingly positive one. By constructing compact, nuclear plants with a design life of 60 years we can leave future generations the ability to generate abundant clean, reliable low cost energy towards the end of the century. This compares to renewables which typically have a design life of only 25 years. Growth of nuclear output can accumulate, while renewables will saturate as we begin to re-build existing capacity in less than a generation.

But while Greens only see nuclear waste, innovators see spent fuel, still with copious quantities of energy that needs to be released in so-called fast spectrum reactors rather than buried. Further ahead, thorium offers the prospect of clean energy production into the distant future. Whether nuclear or methane, there is no shortage of clean, high-grade energy to deliver a future of shared prosperity, but only if we have the will and ambition to exploit it. We will need this energy to liberate the poor in the developing world, power rapidly growing global cities and efficiently recycle strategic materials in ways undreamt of at present.

In contrast, Green claims that renewable energy creates more jobs per unit of energy produced than nuclear energy are again regressive. The entire point of economic development is productivity, doing more with less. So if we can generate clean, reliable energy from compact nuclear plants, requiring fewer people than renewables then labour is freed to doing something more useful, such as creating real prosperity and providing public services. Using such regressive Green economics we could in principle create plentiful employment by banning the use of tractors on farms, which is one vision of the future of agriculture in re-localised Green economies.

On agriculture, Green opposition to innovation in GM technology is also telling. While that opposition is often seen as precautionary, the precautionary principle cuts both ways. Mainstream Green thinking now runs the real risk of holding back innovation that can both improve crop resilience in the developing world and deliver increased food production without annexing more land from nature.

Again, Greens insist that innovation is actively suppressed. And if the contention is agri-business corporate antics, why have Greens ripped up field trials of publically funded research that could provide GM technology to the poor patent-free? Let’s also remember that it was through the development of agriculture, and entirely artificial means of organising nature, that our ancestors innovated their way out of climate change in the Younger Dryas period and prospered, rather than merely prevailed.

The greatest danger to humanity is not climate change, nuclear energy or the other calamites that form the cataclysmic imagery of mainstream Green thinking. It is a paralysis of inaction due to risk aversion, coupled with a wider technological pessimism that has robbed us of a coherent vision of a better future. For all these criticisms, Green thinking does of course have a key role in providing the essential checks and balances of a pluralistic society. But its deeper hues ultimately risk being marginalised as conservative, limit-setting views which are increasingly both socially, and environmentally regressive.

First published Caledonian Mercury 22 February 2012

Trolling- an artform.

UPDATE:

The lazy buggers over there don’t work on weekends so it lasted till today. Of course now it has been deleted. At least it might have made some of those not so fanatical to the green “cause”, to at least have a think about what they’re worshipping. I really won’t go there again. Honest.

*fingers crossed behind back*

Bird Mincers fall over

Ever wonder about which bits of a wind turbine fails the most? Well here you are.

What surprised me was that as these are onshore, why should the towers fail? I would have put bearings, gearboxes, and blades first. How can a tower built on land fail? It’s not as we have massive earthquakes every year. I expect it of offshore turbines due to poor grouting and scour of the sea bed around the towers, but not onshore. I wouldn’t want one of those on my doorstep.

And we’re paying a green Tariff for these poorly constructed blots on the landscape. Sheesh.

The graph comes from a source that is from a wind turbine company which I’d rather not mention here. If so my source of information may dry up.

Green job anyone?

Remember our politicians touting that bird mincers wind turbines would enable a plentiful supply of green jobs. Well if you’ve got one, expect to have to find a new one shortly, well away from anything green.

Vestas Wind Systems, the largest manufacturer of wind turbines is now feeling the crunch in the real world of economics.

Last month, the company announced it would lay off 2,335 people and it has already slashed its 2012 earnings forecasts twice.

Then again if you were stupid enough to believe in this scam. Tough. I certainly won’t weep for those who have jumped onto the green gravy train, only to find the wheels have finally fallen off. We all have choices. Some of us see, that If it looks to good to be true, then you can bet your arse that you’re going to lose out. FE’s simple law of life.

Killing two birds with one log

In case you think I’ve got the quote wrong. Tough.

Hopefully I’m upsetting both of the groups below:

The first bird is the Green lobby that rant on about reducing our carbon footprint. (Should I eradicate myself, seeing that I’m a carbon based lifeform?)

Second is my energy supplier which has upped my energy charges by over 20%. (I’m waiting for their pleading letter asking me not to switch energy suppliers, which I’m in the process of doing).

What have I done to upset both groups?

I lit the open fire. (And not using that smokeless crap coal either).

All that carbon and CO2 disappearing up the chimney is visually attractive and a great comfort, in that I upset the greens in the first instance. The second is I diminish the profits of my energy supplier.

There’s nothing more satisfying than throwing another log on the pile and seeing that comforting swirl of sparks and the puff of smoke caused by it.

Popular posts

This blog has mixture of the serious, fun, and the odd bit of titillation.

However it is the articles that I write in my fight against wind turbines and other Ecoloon fuckwittery that sees my stats soar. On the back of that, my conclusion is that there’s  a very large portion of the population, (Home and abroad) that are coming around to the fact that they are being conned. ( I’ve yet to have an adverse comment).

I truly believe that the green agenda is an evil by a small powerful  minority, that have an almost religious belief that is so deluded, that they make Islam seem benign. (If I don’t post tomorrow it’s because I’ve been arrested for a religious hate crime).

One of the sites in question is Campaign against Climate change. (They send me an Email every day warning me of evil denier articles)

Here is a small part of one of their posts.

The streets of London rang to the sound of chants for "Climate Justice" on the Global Day of Action for the climate on Saturday 3rd December.  Marchers had gathered at the North end of Blackfriars Bridge where they were joined by a group from Christian Ecology Link coming from a Prayer meeting at St Mary le Bowe, a group of Buddhists coming from a meditation session at the tate Modern  - and a substantial contingent coming via a 'Walk of Shame' through the City from a Climate 'teach in' at the Occupy camp at St Paul's.  Placards demanding 'climate Justice' and dispaying  '7%' as a way of expressing the inequity of business as usal on climate change  (see below) peppered the crowd as it moved slowly down embankment before turning right down Horseguards Avenue into Whitehall.

Says it all really.

Unfortunately we have a government that believes this quackery so maybe us climate realists are in for the long slog.

Maybe I should be posting on health instead? After all, I wrote this post in a haze of tobacco smoke and at least two three four units of alcohol.

Green Jobs explained

 

Or not.

A greedy greenie

You have to admire this man for finding  a way to tap into man’s fears off the unknown.

Dale Vince, the founder and sole shareholder of Britain's largest green energy company, is a one-time hippie dropout whose business nous has impressed the Prime Minister. (That I can believe. Cameron is easily conned by anything that will give him good publicity).

However, he doesn’t seem to think that other peoples ideas should be different from his slavish beliefs. Which to me makes him an enemy of the ordinary people.

But Vince's aim to improve the world by putting up wind turbines has produced opposition from vocal, ad hoc groups of residents who come together, as often as not, to protest against his plans. Most of their objections are invalid, Vince says. 'Putting up a turbine doesn't affect house prices or kill birds. The only valid point is that you can see a turbine. But what is overlooked is that it can be screened.

And there he is wrong in his impertinence and failure to research the facts, so convinced of his own Righteousness.

There are numerous cases by the week of houses being blighted  with reduced price when the householder has to accept a lower price for their property.

Yes they do kill birds. There are well documented pictures of birds being killed.

“Screen a wind turbine”. With what can you screen a 150 feet bird mincer?

And of course it is you and me that are paying for his company to survive.

Remember this.

The 280ft turbine situated in a business park near the M4 in Reading operated at just 15 per cent of its capacity year, meaning it generated £100,000 of energy, despite attracting subsidies of £130,000 from the Government.

Since 2005, when it began producing energy, the turbine has been subsidised with £600,000 of public money but has run at an average of 17 per cent of its capacity.

One man’s green is another man’s greed.

Dale. A question for you. Is it morally wrong to impoverish the low paid and the elderly by the extra taxation caused by feed in tariffs? If so why not?

Electric cars

It would seem that our American cousins like to throw money down the drain faster than us

The federal government has figured out how to save $116,000 per year … and it only costs $4 million to do it! The pilot program in San Diego and four other American cities will take no more than, oh, 39 years for the savings to pay back the cost of the vehicles:

San Diego will be one of five cities in which the federal workers will test plug-in cars for government use.

The General Services Administration said Tuesday it plans to buy 116 plug-in electric vehicles, including 101 Chevrolet Volts and 10 Nissan Leafs.

It will put 13 Volts and four Leafs with San Diego workers, and will also install charging stations to serve them. The cars will go to workers with the Navy, the Marine Corps, Veterans Affiars and the Department of Transportation. …

The purchases announced Tuesday are expected to cut gas usage by almost 29,000 gallons a year, saving taxpayer an estimated $116,000 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 257 metric tons, said GSA administrator Martha Johnson.

I’ll give the financial analysis a whirl:

101 Volts at $38,500 equals $3,888,500. Add to that 10 Leafs costing $33,000 and you get $4,218,500. Now add 5 EV’s at $32,500 and the grand total is $4,508,500. At a savings of only $116,000 a year in petrol it would take 39 years to offset the costs of the cars.¹

Doesn’t make much sense to me? The battery life of these cars will not last more than ten years (And that’s a conservative estimate. There are some quotes of only half that.), the last time I checked.So the costs of buying new “green” cars will never be offset.

Oh and not withstanding the cost  of all those charging points they are going to install.

Makes you wonder what world those people live on.

¹ I’d convert to sterling if I could be bothered. But I’m sure you’ll get the picture.

Green Portugal. Bust.

Many should know that Portugal is seeking a rescue package. The reason for the bailout? Strange as it may seem: a green economy that has gotten dark, so much darker... Portugal will be the ONLY country in the World, according to the IMF  that will have a GDP negative growth in 2012. José Sócrates, Environment Minister between 1999 and 2002, and Prime Minister since 2005, is the person behind this tragedy. His green vision has brought Portugal some recognition amongst greenies, but mainly a dark future.
Almost everything imaginable in this Green promise has gone wrong. Murphy's law at its best:

Portugal was the first country with wave power in the world, at Aguçadoura; it broke down only two months later. (Take note those of you advocating it. FE knows how corrosive sea water is) Portugal has one of the biggest solar photovoltaic power stations in the World, at Amareleja, owned by Acciona, a Spanish company. The huge feed-in tariffs being paid for this solar energy is being sent to their neighbours.

Wind power has been a big bet. Big promises included green jobs, but the truth is that they are only a few thousands... The reality is that the more the wind blows, the poorer they get. This is true because wind feed-in tariffs are much higher than energy prices in the spot market.
With such a high share of wind energy, dam construction has started, so that they can be used for energy storage. A double cost, which would not be needed, if wind energy was not so big. But it doesn't stop there: Gas power stations had to be paid for being in standby, raising even more the indirect costs of wind power.

Portugal has boasted that it exported electricity energy for the first time in 2010. The truth is that most of that energy was exported at zero cost, a strange concept with an easy explanation: when wind blows, especially at night, energy consumption is low; the same does occur also in Spain, so they don't need the energy. Spain exports it through France, and gets the excess energy for free. Once again, Portuguese consumers and taxpayers are subsidizing other richer countries.

It isn't any surprise that electricity prices are very high in Portugal. Despite slightly above the European mean value, the low income means that energy is comparably much more expensive in Portugal. And this is only half of the picture, as the KWh energy price accounts for only about 40% of the electricity bill, the rest being taxes and subsidies.

Petrol and Diesel also have very high prices in Portugal, amongst the highest in the World. The reason: multiple taxes and subsidies paid at the  pump. All this has a great impact on the Economy, and is the main reason behind fuel tourism to Spain, where prices are much lower. In fact, they are so much lower, that near the border, people drive 50Km or more just to fill the tank!

Lately, things have got even worse. Sócrates is pushing for electric cars, but nothing in those cars is being made in Portugal. Once again, they are effectively paying for R&D being made somewhere else, without any advantage for the country. Despite being one of the countries with the highest lithium reserves in the World, no value is added in Portugal.

Portugal also has some well proven gas reserves. Despite that, they are not being explored, with tourism fears being invoked. It is viewed that Sócrates wouldn't go this way, as it is not green... And despite potential shale gas reserves being pointed out, no one talks about it in Portugal!

Talk about CO2 compensations sent to other countries, projects involving offshore wind or even more expensive solar energy. The truth is that the green promise has brought them a dark future.

Remember this, our politicians are trying to sell us the same green economy lunacy.