. The BBC is always enthusiastic to put across ONE side of the environmental debate. If you check out this latest news item concerning the announcement by UK PM Gordon Brown that thousands of new wind turbines could be built across the UK over the coming decade as part of a £100bn plan to boost renewable energy you only get to read one side of the issue. Brown warns that this surge in wind power would not come from “business as usual” and he called for a national debate on achieving the UK’s target of 15% renewable energy by 2020. But where is the debate folks? The article provides us with several sources all trying to outdo each other as to just how great windpower will be but there is NO balance of this kind for example..
Professor David J C MacKay of the Cambridge University Physics Department has some fascinating conclusions on renewables. “MacKay offers maps and figures indicating the staggering scale of the engineering. Britain would be literally covered with — and girdled by — massive wind farms, tidal barriers and wave barrages, and every sizeable body of water in the land would rise and fall to the strange new tides of the national grid. We would have literally rebuilt the British Isles as a single mighty renewable generator, pouring concrete and erecting steel on a scale so far matched only by human habitation — industrialising the land and sea in a way that would make intensive agribusiness look like a wildlife refuge. And still we’d be importing power.” How about the BBC does what their master Brown asks and gives us a debate – not a one-sided litany?
How many coal powered power stations do the Chinese buil every week?
Communists = good. Capitalists = bad. Simple.
Why do the econuts call themselves “Greens” when they are unable to see some unspoiled countryside without wanting to cover it with machinery?
You forgot to mention that this and the plan to encourage homeowners to put solar panels on their roofs (the mind boggles) is also supposed to increase everyone’s energy bills by 30%. Presumably they adjusted the higher number down to account for future inflation so it doesn’t give everyone a heart attack. Or, I suppose Gordon’s crew could have just made it up, knowing that the state broadcaster would parrot it unquestioningly.
The BBC is a bit vague on when this increase will happen, just that it will be “later in the next decade”.
The Times reports that Hutton said the increases “would lead to five years of gas and electricity bills from about 2015.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article4215085.ece
Sounds a lot more relevant when they use an actual year, as opposed to the BBC’s soft focus approach. Surely they’re not trying to play it down, are they?
But the BBC tries to assuage fears even more by getting a mindless quote from one of their own:
BBC environment and science correspondent David Shukman said that savings from improved insulation and energy efficiency should bring that figure down.
Sure, if you live in a new house, and if they modernize all the wiring and pipes in the country. But what about people who live in the real world? Or does the BBC actually expect that the housing market isn’t so bad, and will go back on an upswing, so that most everyone will have bought one of those cookie-cutter suburban jobs that are a blot on the landscape in all parts of the country? And everyone will be able to afford to replace all their appliances with new ones with that sticker on them, I suppose.
One finds BBC optimism in the strangest places.
while the government over here seems to be gripped in a sort of collective madness, i am heartened to see that some sanity has arrived in the U.S.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D91HS2EO0&show_article=1
the U.S supreme court has voted 5/4 in favour of gun rights.
The BBC Ten O’Clock news provided an equally simpering one-sided slant. We’re all green now. The horrific vision espoused by Brown, egged on the eco-wackos – is being sanitised by the BBC and retailed to us a brave new windmill dominated world. God help us all if these wackos prevail and turn Britain into that which Professor MacKay details.
“Communists = good. Capitalists = bad. Simple”
I wonder, why you are still here mate, and not in the North Korea or Cuba – both are Commy paradises
The watermelons,or greens,green on the outside red on the inside,neglect to point out that insulation may keep heat in,but it also keeps heat out.The result interiors often have to be heated even in summer.
On the subject of windmills.Of course the beeboids don;t care about the despoilation of Britain,the will be living in France.
It would be funny if they worked out that the number of wind and wave farms needed to realistically supply all of our needs would be so great that they would actually affect wind and sea currents to the point where another whole new area of “climate change” was caused. Any of the environ-mentalists thinking about that one?
Christopher Booker calls it:
‘ the great wind farm scam .’
His article is entitled:-
” A load of Hot Air:
“Why spending £100 bn on windfarms to please the EU is Labour’s greatest act of lunacy”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1029551/A-load-hot-air-Why-spending-100bn-windfarms-EU-Labours-greatest-act-lunacy.html
Peter | 26.06.08 – 11:01 pm |
The watermelons,or greens,green on the outside red on the inside…
That’s great! The perfect metaphor for what so many of us have been saying. And many of them are very seedy….
I vote that this becomes standard terminology here.
watermelons,
perfect!
NuLab are going to rename the country as well by replacing “great” with “green” The United Kingdom of Green Britain
The BBC’s coverage of the decision to waste billions on windfarms quoted at length eco-loonies such as the Greens and Friends of the Earth. It totally ignored a report published yesterday by the Centre for Policy Studies written by Tony Lodge, an energy expert. He concluded:
The problems with wind are that:
It is unreliable. Wind energy must be backed up by other baseload sources.
It is expensive. The Royal Academy of Engineering has calculated that wind energy is two and a half times more expensive than other forms of (non-oil and gas) electricity generation in the UK. A Government-sponsored report has calculated that the cost of meeting the 2020 renewable energy target will be between £1,900 and £3,000 a household. The leaked strategy paper estimates the cost at £100 billion (or over £4,000 a household). Leading industry figures have estimated that it might be as much as £4,700 a household.
It is overambitious. The Government proposals imply an increase in wind production of over 20 times (from 4,225 GWh in 2006 GWh to 87,000 GWh in 2020).
It is impractical. The UK does not have the capability to build the 3,000 new offshore wind farms that are proposed; nor can the national grid handle the enormous new strains that will be imposed on it.
This matters. The increase in consumers’ electricity prices, required to pay for and maintain expensive wind energy will contribute to the difficulties faced by the 6 million households facing fuel poverty.
It is also politically foolish. New polling conducted for this report shows that this policy is also deeply unpopular. Only 3% of people say that they are very willing to pay higher electricity bills if the extra money funds renewable power sources such as wind, with another 12% saying that they are willing. The figures for “very unwilling” and “fairly unwilling” are 37% and 24% respectively.
Lodge also shows in his paper that the experience of Denmark • often hailed for its pioneering development of wind farms • is that wind energy is expensive, inefficient and not even particularly “green”. There are also signs that other countries are losing some of their enthusiasm for wind power.
Lodge concludes that the UK must indeed now develop its nuclear, clean coal (including coal gasification) and other renewable supplies of energy (particularly tidal). But wind energy, in contrast, should only play a negligible role in plugging Britain’s looming energy gap.
None of this damning evidence was even mentioned by the BBC, either through quoting the CPS paper itself or through other experts who are less persuaded about the merits of so-called’green measures.
In fact, David Shukman on the 10o’clock news was ejaculatory in his praise for wind energy, with not a negative word about it, other than that the monstrous turbines sometimes met with planning objections. The tone was that those who don’t like them will have to lump them.
Shamefully bad reporting, even allowing for the fact that the Conservatives are as blinkered and idiotic as Labour in their embracing of eco-loonery.
part of a £100bn plan to boost renewable energy
Oh sure. For a start, multiply that number by at least 5.
I was watching BBC 24 around April, and they had some dopey reporter in a boat floating around an offshore windfarm, reporting on how some firm was pulling out because it just found out windpower was UNVIABLE economically.
The funny thing is… in the Close Up of one of the hideous turbines and him, the blade was turning ever so slowly.
However, in the next wide shot of about 20 of these behemoths, not one blade was turning.
Mmmm… I wonder how many nuclear power stations you can build for 100 billion, ands IO wonder by how much they would outperform “”wind” in producing cheap electricity.
Anyone mention on the BBC that those who pay the TV Tax will also be the ones paying the £100 billion on a social experiment?
You know that the Oil Companies have a fully functioning wind powered car right now, but they’ve killed it?
What the BBC seems to forget is that increasing the number of windfarms does NOT mean there will be less conventional power stations, on the contrary there will have to be more conventional power plants to provide a safe base load because wind power becomes more unstable the more tubine units are used. This means that even those farms that do work may well have to be taken off line to stabilize the national grid current.
Wind turbines are a massive mistake and it will be the taxpayer who funds this white elephant disaster! What the BBC seems to forget is that with £100 billion we could reactivate dozens of coal mines and build dozens of clean and cheap coal fired stations that would enhance our energy suecurity. In fact the BBC seem to miss out on lots of information that runs contrary to its party line I think?
who funds this white elephant disaster!
Cass — perhaps Wind Elephant Disaster would be better?
In the linked BBC article there is but one tiny blink-and-you-will-miss-it parenthetical mention of the EU.
The BBC is shilling for the EU. It’s as simple as that.
“This matters. The increase in consumers’ electricity prices, required to pay for and maintain expensive wind energy will contribute to the difficulties faced by the 6 million households facing fuel poverty.”
It doesn’t matter to our lords and masters.This isn’t socialism,communism or even fascism at work this is feudalism.Our ruler is granting monopolies to other feudal barons to tax the peasants.
What counts isn’t the windfarms but the Renewable Obligations Certificate which allows power companies to charge more for “green” electricity.
What will happen is that as companies clear their profits there will be no incentive to keep turbines in working order.
Big machinery takes big maintenance,turbines at sea will be subject to enormous depredations from the elements.
My prediction 10/20 years we will be looking at acres of derelict wind farms and facing a vast decommissioning bill.
The current government of halfwits will be long gone,burrowing into another sinecure.
Brown goes in for ecowhackery on windfarms.
Cameron says he has stolen his policies late in the day and he hasn’t gone far enough.
Clegg says Cameron is right but he way hasn’t gone far enough.
Whose in charge of the assylum again…?
Anyone ever seen this video of a Danish windmill substantially reducing its carbon footprint?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09vkAIJBXQ
Robin | 27.06.08 – 9:28 am |
In fact, David Shukman on the 10o’clock news was ejaculatory in his praise for wind energy, with not a negative word about it, other than that the monstrous turbines sometimes met with planning objections. The tone was that those who don’t like them will have to lump them.
Shamefully bad reporting, even allowing for the fact that the Conservatives are as blinkered and idiotic as Labour in their embracing of eco-loonery.
They showed Shukman’s segment last night on Matt Frei’s Propaganda Puppet Show in the US. He was behaving as if no one had ever really thought about how great wind power was before. It also seemed that, like a typical Beeboid, he was more enthusiastic about the story of this “revolution” than was appropriate for an impartial reporter. He’s supposed to be a science editor or whatever, and he was plainly giving an endorsement rather than a report.
He repeated the canard that the rise in people’s costs would be alleviated by improved insulation and better efficiency. As if most everyone was going to live in a new house, or had the money to completely redo their old one. Nobody will live in drafty council estates or those ugly gray apartment buildings built in the ’70s. And all the wiring is redone, and everyone has bought new appliances.
“Communists = good. Capitalists = bad. Simple.”
Well there is another way to look at it, just check coverage of India.
non-white capitalists = good.
white capitalists = bad.