As a result of a post on NALOPKT about wind price hikes I wrote to Claire Perry, the Minister responsible to get her thoughts. As, at time of writing, I cannot reproduce these letters on NALOPKT, I hope Paul will not mind if I park them here for now.

I first wrote:

Dear Ms Perry,

I have supported the Conservative party since I was able to vote more than
50 years ago. I have not missed any vote, local or national in all those
years. But oh boy! How the party has changed in that time.

Once upon a time we could depend on MPs who had a broad experience of
business in general and specific expertise in arts and sciences. But now, I
am hard-pressed to find anyone who has the technical competence to hold a
discussion on, say ‘Climate Change', or offer their thoughts on pricing
strategies in goods and commodities.

This is all the more apparent when one looks at the insane (I can think of
no other word to describe it) plans to actually prevent the UK population
accessing cheap electricity while forcing them to pay three times the best
price for another form of electricity generated by windmills (ok, only when
the wind blows).

If you ran a car dealership you would not survive in business very long if
you told customers that they could only buy the most inefficient, expensive
gas-guzzlers rather than the cheap, reliable, sustainable runabouts that are
still available – but which you plan to scrap.

There is a very good saying which is beginning to gain traction with people:
“It has been said that regulating carbon dioxide emissions will make the
United Kingdom the cleanest Third World country on Earth."

It is even more apt when one considers that if the UK sacrificed everything
in the pursuit of a zero-carbon (dioxide) goal for 'clean' energy it would
have absolutely no discernible effect on global temperatures and would
merely serve to beggar our country and impoverish its energy users.

It needs someone with a clear-headed open mindedness to grasp this nettle,
ignore the mad proselytising of the Green lobby and bring back solid,
functional and cheap power generation. But I don't think you are brave
enough to be that person: you've been kidnapped by the green blob.

Please, I beg you to spend the very few minutes it takes to read the
argument being made at the following website. Do not, please, allow your
minders to divert you from it. If you read it from the point of view of a
consumer then perhaps, as Minister responsible, you might think that
something needs to be done. I hope you can figure out just what that is. I
assure you that ramping up the cost of electricity more and more is not the
answer.

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/uk-wind-capacity-is-increasing-but-at-what-cost/

Thank you so much for your letter dated 1 March 2018, on behalf of your constituent concerning electricity prices.

The UK is a world leader in cutting emissions while growing the economy. Provisional statistics indicate that UK emissions in 2016 were 42 per cent lower than in 1990 and 6 per cent below those in 2015. At the same time, the UK's GDP has increased by 67 per cent since 1990 showing that a strong, growing economy can go hand in hand with reduced emissions.

The global transition to a low carbon economy offers huge growth opportunities which the UK is well placed to take advantage of as a core element of our lndustrial Strategy. Our low carbon sector already employs over 230,000 people directly and another 200,000 through supply chains. Analysis for the Committee on Climate Change estimated that the low carbon economy has the potential to grow 11 per cent per year between 2015 and 2030 - four times faster than the rest of the economy.

I would like to thank your constituent for including the article which I read with interest. Offshore wind can play an important role in the energy mix alongside new nuclear and new gas into the next decade and beyond. Offshore wind costs continue to fall faster than anyone could have predicted. The dramatic reduction in the cost of offshore wind is an example of how business innovation can be supported through effective market design. The Government will continue to work closely with the offshore wind industry to further drive down the costs of
clean power, while building UK supply chains.

I would like to assure your constituent that the Government does recognise concerns over bills. Her Majesty's Government (HMG) is taking action to control electricity prices using the energy review, so that the Government and regulators can continue to deliver secure, affordable power, while ensuring the UK meets íts domestic and international climate targets.

Thank you again for taking the time to write. I hope you and your constituent find this information useful.

THE RT HON CLAIRE PERRY MP
Minister of State

Dear Ms Perry,

Thank you for your letter of the 19th March. I note your comments. Be assured I shall
not make a habit of writing to you, not least because I’m sure you are extremely busy
and I now realise that (even for this Tory voter) it would be a waste of time to think
that I could ever, as a simple voter, have any influence on you in regard to the sheer
folly that is perpetrated in the name of the Global Warming/Climate Change.

By the way, can it really be true that your contemporary, George Monbiot once said of
you:

“[she is] a firebrand who wanted to nationalise the banks and overthrow
capitalism “? (Wiki)

If he did, based on the responses in your letter to me, I can see that you and he are
really kindred spirits and you are well on the way to achieving your ambitions. And seeing
how he has turned out I guess he is right behind you.

In your letter you say:

“The global transition to a low carbon economy offers huge growth opportunities
which the UK is well placed to take advantage of as a core element of our
lndustrial Strategy. Our low carbon sector already employs over 230,000 people
directly and another 200,000 through supply chains. Analysis for the Committee
on Climate Change estimated that the low carbon economy has the potential to
grow 11 per cent per year between 2015 and 2030 - four times faster than the
rest of the economy.”

You do not reference the ‘Analysis for the Committee on Climate Change’ but if, as I
suspect you are still referring to the 2006 report by Lord Stern, I think you will find
that this has been rebutted by many other economists and climate scientists. Even if
you still believe it, Stern came up with a figure of $4 Trillion needed to overcome the
‘problem’. That’s a lot of taxes for somebody.

However, with great respect, you are advocating the ‘Broken Window Fallacy’
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window): If you closed down,
say, JCB on the principle that the emissions from its products cause climate change (as
they will do according to your science advisors – and Monbiot) you could claim that
issuing shovels to thousands of labourers would create employment for hundreds of
thousands of unemployed navvies. But you know that that is nonsense. As you would also
know that for every Green job ‘created’ there are three that are lost to the real
economy. See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/31/green-energy-may-have-justcost-
britain-40000-jobs/ and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/21/green-war-onjobs-
britains-last-deep-coal-mine-closes/ for examples of this phenomenon (there are
many, many more).

You will also know that when you say:

“[...]wind can play an important role in the energy mix alongside new nuclear and
new gas into the next decade and beyond. Offshore wind costs continue to fall
faster than anyone could have predicted.”

That is not strictly true and it was the subject of the letter I wrote to you. You claim to
have read the reference I provided yet you completely ignore it in your response to me.

Wind is not a predictable energy supplier and is not capable of providing base load nor
will it allow black start to the grid. On the other hand, nuclear is virtually CO2-free (if
that is truly a problem you want to fix). It is also the case, no matter your protests,
that wind is far more expensive than coal or gas and is planned to be three times the
cost in the next few years (and don’t even mention the hugely expensive Swansea Tidal
Lagoon project). Quite frankly, if you really wanted to reduce carbon (sic) emissions and
keep the lights on in the UK you would get this country exploiting the benefits of shale
gas, as the USA has done – reducing CO2 (sorry, carbon) emissions by a huge amount).

It is quite obvious to me the only way you can claim there will be a:

“dramatic reduction in the cost of offshore wind”

is if – as the government does – you load the cheaper means of power generation with
RoCs and subsidies for Green energy, raising the cheaper price to match the
unsustainable high price of ‘green’ energy. You also allow wind and solar to be a primary
supplier even though it is more expensive than gas (say), and you let these suppliers get
away without having to pay for and support their own back-up power generation. You
should not be taken in by the Green mantra that ‘wind is free’. By the same token, so is
shale gas: they both need to be harvested, developed and exploited – which costs money

In a nutshell, if you wanted to destroy capitalism as Monbiot claimed, you would continue
doing what you are doing: destroy the means of providing cheap, reliable and easily
available energy. It’s what the Third World is crying out for: I did not expect my
government to bring the UK down to Third World levels as a means of achieving it. There
is an old joke where a young child asks his Grandfather: ‘What did you use before
candles, granddad?’ ‘Electricity’, came the old man’s sad reply.

In closing, I would accept that I am not about to change your mind or the direction that
your (my) government intends to take. The Climate Change Act was an aberrant episode
in the history of the HoC; it is a reflection on the groupthink that MPs have been taken
in by Bryony Worthington’s report (a classic case of an activist – she was a member of
FoE – influencing major policy more than she had a right to). Anything you enact as a
means of lowering the global temperature is Quixotic at best, insane, at worst (what
arrogance it is to think that politicians or their advisors KNOW what the ideal global
temperature of this planet ought to be). And I tend to think the latter. Even if you
reduce UK’s emissions to zero it will have no marked effect on global temperatures but
will destroy this country in the process.

Finally, as we are bound to suffer the imposition of white elephants which carpetbaggers
like to call ‘Solar Farms’ and ‘Wind Farms’ may I make a serious suggestion? Near to
where I live there is a huge solar farm. I drive by it regularly two or three times a week.
At night, it is obviously not generating anything; nor is it doing so on cloudy days etc. In
fact, according to statistics it is quite likely, that on average, it will only produce 11% of
its nameplate capability.

Here’s the idea: by law, all petrol stations I visit have to have a large, illuminated sign on
their approach which tells me the price of the fuel (energy) I am about to buy (if I want
to). My suggestion is that wind and solar farms should also have a sign, one that displays
to the passing public just how much energy they are producing at that time (as a % of
total possible) and a total produced (as a %) in the last year to date, say. You could even
emulate the petrol stations’ signs by including the price per kWhr of any power being
generated. Of course, that would give the public too much information about the scam
they are having to pay for, so you wouldn’t do it. I mean, you would not be happy to find
yourself running out of petrol only to find the petrol station you are approaching is
arbitrarily closed – and never available at night – or the price they wanted to charge you
was far in excess of what you could get elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Update: As Perry did not leave any references for her claims I googled the 42% drop in emissions and found this document put out by BEIS. (2016 UK GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, PROVISIONAL FIGURES). Seems I have some reading to do....sigh

And, as the document points out, the numbers are 'estimates'. Take from that what you will.

But a 42% decrease in 28 years is nearly half. I wish I'd had the foresight to ask Perry when the changes in temperature will come as a result of the drop. And what the change will be.