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Writer's pictureCaroline Stephens

Full of Hot Air!!

The Club of Rome

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome.

In 2013, Doris said that wind turbines failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding. He went on to say – ‘we now have the opportunity to get shale gas – let’s look at it’.

Of course, Doris is full of hot air! Now you might be forgiven for thinking that I’m talking about Parliament but I’m talking about Doris’ announcement to provide energy to every house in UK using wind power. America is full of abandoned wind turbines decaying in the wind and rain.

The Crown Estate is the manager of the seabed around Wales, England and Northern Ireland.

Notification 19 August 2020

Strong prospects for offshore wind in Wales: Rights awarded for two new projects, including Wales’s first ever floating turbines.

Welsh waters are on track to play a growing role in the UK’s Net Zero transition and have already awarded seabed rights to developers Blue Gem Wind, for a propose floating wind demonstration project, in the Welsh waters of the Celtic Sea, approximately 44km from shore.

Now according to the Independent in March 2020, Theresa May’s outgoing commitment to take the UK to net zero carbon by 2050 necessitated a U-turn on wind turbines and according to the paper, the move for the government is both politically, as well as environmentally, astute. That’s the spin anyway.

Fast forward to the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday Mr Johnson said he wanted to make the UK what he described as “the Saudi Arabia of wind”, and said the sector would provide “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs.”

Mr Johnson said: “I can today announce that the UK government has decided to become the world leader in low-cost clean power generation — cheaper than coal and gas — and we believe that in 10 years’ time offshore wind will be powering every home in the country, with our target rising from 30 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts.”

The government said the £160m investment “will see around 2,000 construction jobs rapidly created and will enable the sector to support up to 60,000 jobs directly and indirectly by 2030 in ports, factories and the supply chains, manufacturing the next-generation of offshore wind turbines and delivering clean energy to the UK.”

Well the truth is that the Tories avoided pushing wind turbines in 2015 prior to the General Election because of the threat of UKIP. Now that that the threat has long passed and UK government’s commitment to zero carbon emissions by 2050 (though this won’t stop the elites flying around the globe you understand). The number of jobs to be created are very small in the big scheme of things and if we are removing other forms of energy, there will be further losses there too. This is simply an additional form of taxation and the beneficiaries will be the Crown Corporation and wealthy landowners. Yes, a few thousand jobs may be created (not the vast numbers spoken of in his speech) but the numbers lost in other parts of the industry will far outweigh the numbers gained.

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