Wednesday
Aug032011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Manifestations of the madness
Today there are new manifestations of the madness that is gripping the UK.
The Telegraph (H/T GWPF) reports that UK manufacturers want hefty subsidies to compensate them for the green taxes that are hitting them so hard.
Meanwhile, I tried to buy some firewood for the winter yesterday. The first supplier I called said they could no longer supply hardwood because they had been priced out of the market by electricity generators. The second wasn't answering the phone.
When will Atlas Shrug?
Reader Comments (27)
I really hope we have a mild winter loads of warming, because less people die .
It stops being funny when the death rate because of all this stupid 'energy/greenery policy' ?? stuff ,goes up ! mind I will no doubt the media will have another death flu story so they can avoid the 'excess winter mortality' figures which are truly awful !
What did your firewood supplier mean by being 'priced out by the electricity generators'? The price of electric is rising (fairly rapidly) so how is that pricing him out? Or does he mean that the electric generating companies are buying up all the surplus timber (in the form of woodchips) to mix in with their coal and thus gain renewable energy brownie points? And they are paying more for the timber than he can? A tree surgeon friend of mine generates loads of woodchips through his business and it all gets sent off to a nearby powerstation. But he still cuts the bigger stuff up into firewood and sells it to people for their log burners.
[BH adds: Yes, that's what they were suggesting - the power generators can afford to buy up everything at prices that people don't want to pay fuel a log fire.]
Well, the solution is OBVIOUS! Just ask Zed. She will tell you to install solar panels and a large wind turbine. What do you need firewood for? I mean, it is the 21st century and we are well beyond burning wood to keep warm like the Neanderthals.
U lost me when referring to that mad book. Otherwise, I feel your pain.
Bish, like Luis I cannot see the connection to the book but I haven't read it so maybe that's the problem.
Have seen a reference elsewhere to the problems individuals are having getting firewood, that apparently is going to power stations, but cannot remember where.
For Luis and John,
In Atlas Shrugged, the productive people began dropping out. Atlas became weary of supporting the world, and shrugged.
Right then - I am a domestic user of electricity, retired, living on a pension, and I demand a rebate to compensate me for the cost of all these loony 'green' tariffs added to my electricity bill.
And the difference is..??
Footnote: Current contribution of wind to electricity demand: 0.2%. The government seems to think that wind is a viable method of generating electricity, and should be subsidised and have a nice fat 'feed-in tariff'. You couldn't make it up...
If, like last winter, we have another very cold spell and the windmills do not turn and demand for electricity exceeds supply resulting in power cuts and death amongst our elderely through hypothermia then who shall we call to account? It is not as though we do not have the ability/technology to ensure adequate power supplies but governments, both past and present, have not directed sensible action to meet the energy crisis that we and the governments new was approaching. And by sensible action I do not mean investing in windmills which are, for all intents and purposes, useless.
Seeing the way our energy policy is being run and the way our winters have been going, I bought a wood burning stove............and I also bought a wood.
It's interesting.
On the one hand we must all pay more for fuel to lower the amount we use.
On the other hand, the poor and old suffer "fuel poverty" and must be given handouts so that they are not hit by higher costs. And soon industry will not be penalised, for to do so would cause them to limit output or offshore production both of which will cost jobs, and consequently will not happen.
Thus crony capitalist and client groups will not be affected by legislation that effect the rest of us. So remind me why that book is mad?
Chipboard manufacturers are unable to buy wood chips because the chips have more value as a source of renewable energy than as a resource for furniture manufacture. What a mad world we live in.
I have plenty of my own wood fortunately.
I found this;
http://energy.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2252910/?UserKey=#ixzz1NRZeXSDH
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=28907
Putin suggests Germans replace nuclear with firewood
Quote:
01 December 2010
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has told German businessmen that they may have to rely on Russian firewood for heating if they do not want to construct new nuclear power plants or bring in Russian gas supplies. At a business conference organized in Berlin by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Putin recognised that "the German public does not like the nuclear power industry for some reason." He continued: "But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating. You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?" Putin then noted, "You will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there," as Europeans "do not even have firewood."
I see you read the Telegraph, then you will know that you are mistaken, apparently they attribute the increases in wood theft to the middle class installing more wood burning stoves.
Sue Holden, CEO of the Woodland Trust, was on the radio earlier this year, recommending that we double woodland cover in the UK, one reason for this being "the production of a carbon-neutral fuel, which is a huge part of reducing climate change."
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20110520_r4
By there way, there are some great pictures on the internet, of how Britain, Germany and other northern European countries will look, circa 2020, once we have given up coal and nuclear power, and rely on carbon-neutral biomass to keep us warm during the freezing, snowy winters that are, of course, consistent with man-made global warming. Here's one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Breughel_der_aeltere_heimkehr_der_jaeger.jpg?uselang=en-gb
Time to return to the feudal system. Everyone send the Bishop a bundle of faggots.
Just pray for more Junk Mail, & use that instead.
Send e-mail requests for catalogues, brochures, leaflets etc. Fuel is then delivered free-of-charge to your door.
Visit your local Argos stores daily (& in rotation)
Subscribe to all the local free-sheets & trade-magazines.
Do you realise how many Joules there are in a copy of the Catholic Herald?
Yeah Gary, I know what Atlas Shrugged is about. A mad raving lunacy by a mad raving lunatic. My comment still stands.
I have even heard of brash being carted away from woods as fuel, normally it would be left to rot and I daresay give cover and feed to various diverse organisms in the process. Must confess though I have 25 acres of coppice willow due for its first harvest this year, it has given homes to a lot of wildlife since it went in 4 years ago, when the field was still officially set aside and growing something other than weeds seemed an excellent idea. It formally grew malting barley.
As for hardwood logs, the firewood processors machines will take up to a 18" log generally, the massive trunks of trees are difficult to deal with, don't fit any machines and can only be won by chain sawing down and splitting with wedges and axes in the old fasioned way. Good honest exercise!
It is remarkable such a high result occurs, as this is quite a strong question. A lesser one is whether they exaggerate or are selective in the use of data. Take a short trend, be slightly out over modelling that trend, and then project over a long period, and you get totally false results.
Anyone encountered Tamino of "Open Mind"? He did this to try to debunk an article on Australian Sea level rise. Extrapolate his "model" of sea level acceleration and those sea levels will eventually reach the sun.
http://manicbeancounter.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/tamino-on-australian-sea-levels/
"a bundle of faggots"
Is that the collective noun, then? :-)
Is that the collective noun, then? :-)
You wouldn't just send him one faggot (bundle of sticks) would you?
You meany!
Good pick up of that enormity, I'm getting old and sloppy.
How large is your woodburner Bish? Surely Chris Huhne can be described as biomass? All we would need to do is disguise him as a log (a not impossible deception in my opinion) and deliver him to your highland retreat. Transport might be a problem but I believe his ex wife might be persuaded to drive.
Today there are new manifestations of the madness that is gripping the UK.
There is a phrase that many of us use in this blog, "you couldnt make it up". This phrase signifies the inability of a logical mind to comprehend the stuff that is being shovelled by our government. The Conservative party was once regarded (rightly imo) as the party of pragmatism, today I am not convinced they could spell it. They do not seem to be able to see the wood for the trees (I hope that allows this post to be regarded as on topic hehe).
When Cameron was elected he took great pride in announcing that there would indeed be no 3rd runway at Heathrow. As far as I know the proposed extra runway would not involve any government money being spent. The reasons for this decision were environmental; noise polution and the destruction of a number of picturesque English villages. There was no argument that the extra runway would benefit the UK economically.
Hello folks we will spend £36 Billion on a highspeed rail link from London to Birmingham and beyond and this will benefit the UK economy. No it really does not matter that we are bulldozing a lot of villages and running a railway through some living rooms.
Hello again folks and did you know that the previous government left us with a £36 Billion hole in the defence budget? Do not despair, we will fix this black hole by reducing our defence forces to the level that will allow Argentina to take the inconvenient Falklands off our hands. £36 Billion, hmmmm where have I heard that figure before.
People should not seek honors or fame. People ought to enjoy the company of like minded souls, preferring bon homme to conflict and strife. Galts Gulch in Atlas? It is also Epicurus philosophy - the villain of Roman Stoic patriots because suspiciously individualistic.
Strange comments. Atlas Shrugged is one of the best best books I have read.
I guess the classics are classics because they seem as relevant today as they were when they were written. Rand somehow manages to draw parallels and associations with politics and ideology that are timeless in their attraction and continually contemporary... From the ridiculous interventionist policies that restricted free markets, innovation, creativity and competition, that stifled Dagny's, Hank's and Wyatt's enterprises, to the daft consensus of the Science Society that claimed Reardon's metal was immoral, because it was too good. There's a banquet of similarities for today's energy debate, and even reference to the shale oil Wyatt was hoping was going to provide the "second renaissance", but was unable to realise due to the governments unfair legislation that provided advantage to poor quality, inefficient state-run competitors. It's all there in spades. And what a heroine is Dagny Taggart.
I suggest that Atlas Shrugged itself is having a second renaissance, and I for one recommend it anyone to wants a deep and challenging, relevant and philosophical read, and not be put off by negative comments.
Money quote from the Press and Journal article linked above: