Thursday
Oct162014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day, joined up policy edition
Oct 16, 2014 Climate: Parliament Energy: grid An energy policy that has the Hinkley Point C contract and off-shore wind as its two flagship achievements must eventually collapse under the weight of its own idiocy.
The capital markets consider energy policy after Paterson's speech.
Reader Comments (20)
Peter Atherton is one of the few sensible commentators in a sea of mediocrity. The current policy is doomed to failure. It is only a matter of when.
As of 9:35 am in New York, the NYT did not have a report on Owen Paterson's speech. Not surprising.
It is only a matter of when. Agreed, and we can only hope that the collapse comes sooner and with less deaths among the poor and elderly than seems likely.
Hats off to Owen Paterson for raising the issue of the Climate Change Act.
It might only be on the kitchen table but until now, the idea had never been voiced
by any credible speaker.
I think that it will gain tractio:, the sooner the better..
In defence of civil servants, at least the act appears to have been written such that any government is allowed to change the targets, or so I understand. Thus the act can be rendered impotent. They should do so.
But it would still leave an act on the statute books that could be arbitrarily invoked by another politician with little regard to the facts. I want to be rid of this diseased piece of legislation.
michael hart, indeed in defence of civil servants, who are not always as maleovolent or stupid as people think.
In practice, it could be stopped in its tracks or even reversed by regulation. But it is quite right to say that it should be repealed, and not just for symbolic reasons. If some similar measure was proposed, they would have to start all over again, not just press a button on existing legislation.
I might add, I would be very surprised if bureaucrats all over Whitehall were thrilled about this legislation. Many of them would have been (rightly) appalled. Slipping in the Ministerial discretion to set targets is a classic trick to ameliorate the effects of temporary enthusiasms.
Does that count for much ? ..Cos I'm sure you can find a "financial expert" who will tell us what a great investment green-loony schemes are aswell ..there's a lot of commission to be made pushing green-hedgefunds
Did the BBC give fair exposure to the Paterson speech?
I listened but heard zilch, but then I do not listen to the BBC all of the time, otherwise my knowledge of these matters would also be zilch.
That idiot Davey has just preened about the new interconnectors to France, Norway (longest in the world - see how that holds up!) et al.
7.5 GW
Enough to power 15 million homes. (and dear Emily Gosden says it twice - and she's the Energy Editor).
½ kW/home, by my arithmetic.
Talk about freezing in the dark!
"An Energy Policy"
How about "wish list", "guess list", "keep the ecoloonies from biting our ankles", or "makes us look good at the UN/IPCC" policy? When are the idiot politicians in Westminster/ Brussels/ UN going to wake up to the fact that they've f**ked big time?
Perhaps I look at it - the CCA 2008 the wrong way round.
If perchance the CCA - it was a deliberate design and planned to end manufacturing and all heavy industrial processes in Britain.
If the CCA was deliberately drawn up to cause maximum misery to domestic energy consumers, loading a severely regressive form of taxation upon those least able to pay.........
If the CCA was the method to cripple British industry while augmenting by remitting vast sums to such economies as China, Norway, France, Sweden and Denmark.......
If it was the blueprint to turn the lights off in Britain...........
It that was the plan all along - then the green medicine is working just fine!!
And the CCA, goes from strength to strength - like a blood sucking parasite - leeching the nation dry - it grows fat while the country wastes away to nothing - that's the green eco-architecture.
I'm waiting for DECC to announce the interconnector to the coal fired power stations of India and China.
H2O,
Or even the coal-fired power stations in Germany.
H2O/ivan:
The Brit-Ned connector effectively taps into the coal fired Maasvlakte power stations, adjacent to its landfall.
Denier:
Of course the fact that the power has to be bought and then the transmission cost paid for on top - probably more than doubling the landed cost for a link like Norway, where we will also be in competition with the Germans (whose link via Denmark is much cheaper, being mainly over land) is conveniently forgotten. How much power surplus will Norway have to export anyway?
Oct 16, 2014 at 7:44 PM | Unregistered CommenterDenier: "That idiot Davey has just preened about the new interconnectors to France, Norway (longest in the world - see how that holds up!) et al."
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The French President (Hollande) is seeking to scrap nuclear power and replace it with renewables such as wind. This is complete madness since France has the lowest CO2 per capita in the developed Western World entirely because of its nuclear power generation. The replacement of reliable base load by intermitent fill in, beggars belief.
But this will have a knock on effect on the UK. If Hollande puts his plans into action, it will mean that the interconnect with France will rarely be useful. In most circumstances, France will have no spare capacity to provide anyone, and will be a nother country that will have to go bowl in hand begging power from others.
RV
Relax. Hollande is doomed to everlasting oblivion at the next election. Even if the tax hikes, broken promises and general incompetence wasn't enough, Valerie Trierweiler has now exposed his hypocrisy; he doesn't just hate the rich, but the poor as well.
JamesG
You have reason to think Sarkozy or Juppé or (may the Lord preserve us) Le Pen will be any better?
This idiocy will have to play out and my experience is that sooner or later the "useful idiots" will wake up to exactly what the "green blob" cult has been up to but as with most cults that there is no way of short-circuiting the process.
Another small, but significant, blow to this so-called "energy policy" occurred on Wednesday afternoon when Shropshire Council's south planning committee turned down proposals for a 54-acre solar farm at Acton Scott and a second 43-acre farm near Ludlow.
interconnector update : Today the Denmark to Boston Lincoln link was discussed on BBC Radio Lincs with the National Grid PR woman. She said they are still doing research but the plan is to bring into a Bicker Fen in 2020. A new substation would be built. However Local Paper in September said locals are already angry about the new windfarm connectors , saying the area is being industrialised.
- That cable is to be 650Km, to me that is nowhere near as realistic as the existing Netherlands and France interconnectors & the new Chunnel connector which has already been approved.
(We already had a discussion on Untreaded on 18 Oct 2014 )
- Last weeks interconnector news from OFGEM ..(Hyped by Ed Davey in the Telegraph)
- Denmark Viking Link on NG website