Wind or Hot Air

Photovoltaic cells top left at our house 

Read an article in the Financial Times weekend edition about electricity generation from wind power and nuclear subsidies, keeping lights on etc. That offshore wind is horrendously expensive to build and unreliable is well known. Of course our government is allowing our beloved power companies to spend vast amounts on this so it must be worthwhile after all. This article was good at condemning this misuse of resources but also breathtakingly absurd because it called for the construction of nuclear power to be subsidised instead, forgetting that it already would be if any private companies could bother to build any plants. However they will never do so because they realise that no subsidy could ever be high enough for them to make money considering the risks involved and the extremely long time they would last. They would much prefer taxpayers to finance all of this construction, safety, de commissioning etc; all they want is to sell us the electricity at inflated prices. Nuclear energy is safe enough, only as long as no one makes a mistake, there are no floods, earthquakes, terrorists etc.

The author chose to ignore completely that the cheapest and most effective way to keep the lights on etc is not to use energy in the first place. He indignantly announces that electricity in Denmark for example is 4 times more expensive than here because of the proportion of renewable energy in it but forgets conveniently that the average new house in Denmark in 1983 was already as efficient as 2002 new build standards in the UK. Builders here will happily state that it is impossible to build a well insulated efficient home for a reasonable price, preferring to use building methods unchanged since the reign of Victoria. If they took the trouble to look at modern construction techniques they might realise buildings could be made many times as energy efficient for little extra cost. Our energy crisis might be solved almost at a stroke, particularly if government committed enough funding along the lines of a Marshall Plan for energy efficiency. The economy would boom while buildings were retrofitted and people would never again die of cold in badly built houses in our relatively mild winters.

Nor do energy companies rejoice in the fact that people who generate their own electricity or use less of it (or less gas or heating oil etc) are less dependent on them and will not be swelling their subsidy gorged coffers. These big companies do not like this and nor do I suspect do our governing classes who would much prefer to see people depending on their chums in finance, energy etc who in turn donate large sums to their parties. There is more hot air in wind power than meets the eye. I would urge people to free themselves from energy tyranny or vote for governments who would make this happen.