David Cameron – Mythmonger
EnergyDavid Cameron’s remarks yesterday to the liaison committee of MPs about renewable energy might just play a big part in his downfall at the general election.
His comments were contradictory at best, they laid bare once again the monumental lie that was his promise to lead the greenest government ever, and – perhaps more importantly – ignored a growing tide of feeling in Britain that we need to properly tackle climate change and embrace renewable energy.
Cameron is really out of step with the country on green issues.
This is the year in which membership of the Green Party has doubled; the year in which the IPCC made it clearer than ever that we have to completely give up fossil fuels by 2050 or face catastrophic climate consequences; the year in which climate change made itself more than evident as temperatures in Europe hit their highest since the 1500s. (more…)
Renewable Energy Strategy – actions speak louder than words!
EnergyThe Government’s ‘Renewable Energy Strategy’ comes out tomorrow. Some details leaked in the G this weekend. “Revealed: UK’s blueprint for a green revolution”
The UK have had big plans before, though not this big – what we’ve always been missing is the guts to make them happen, to drive the change needed. That’s why we’ve missed targets before and why we’ll miss them again. Talk is one thing (and we’ve had plenty of it, low carbon economy this, climate change biggest threat that……. and so on) what we need is action. (more…)
Part two of Feed In Tariffs – Do they work at Home?
EnergyThis is a follow-on post from my ‘What’s Wrong With Feed-in Tariffs’ posting earlier.
It’s not un-common to hear people say ‘We need Feed in Tariffs in the UK, like they have in Germany – they’ve got umpteen Gigawatts of renewables from it’. And fair enough they do. It’s important not to confuse large scale FITs with micro though.
The problem for onshore wind (large scale) in the UK is planning not financial and therefore FITs just can’t help. We need German planning laws to emulate German success, in large scale wind.
But what about micro generation; Are feed in tariffs the answer to better deliver this? (more…)
Onshore wind: Planning or Building, which one is the real problem?
EnergyThis was inspired by some stats that Stuart put in a comment on my blog post about Shell pulling out of offshore. Stuart, on the question of what the real problem for onshore wind is – you threw me for a day or so with your statistics from the BWEA, good source, hard to argue with. But on closer examination I think you’ve perhaps not read them quite right. (more…)
Hoodie Hugger meets Tree Hugger
EnergyI met the man himself last week, in Reading at our Green Park wind turbine – David Cameron was in the ‘hood’ doing local political stuff and asked to have a closer look at our mill – so I showed him round. I’m glad I did.
We talked about the 1,000 homes the turbine can power every year and other bits and pieces (more…)
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