As we squeak and gibber about the distant danger of terrorism, this country stands on the brink of a real threat to its economy, its daily life and its order...
PETER HITCHENS: Warmists armed with windmills are the REAL threat to Britain
By Peter Hitchens for The Mail on Sunday
8 November 2015
Daily Mail
As we squeak and gibber about the distant danger of terrorism, this country stands on the brink of a real threat to its economy, its daily life and its order.
It is a threat we have brought on ourselves by embracing an obsessive, pseudo-scientific dogma, a dogma that is also destroying irreplaceable industries and jobs week by week.
Last week we came within inches of major power blackouts, though official spokesmen claim unconvincingly that all was well.
Forests of hideous, useless, vastly subsidised windmills predictably failed to help – because there was no wind
Experts on the grid have for some time predicted a crisis of this sort, but had not expected it anything like so soon, or in such warm weather conditions. It is the fact that they were taken by surprise that warns us there may be worse to come.
Though Wednesday was mild for the time of year, the National Grid had to resort to emergency measures to keep Britain’s lights on.
These included paying industries to reduce their power consumption and giving electricity generators up to 50 times the normal wholesale price to produce additional supplies – plainly emergency measures.
Forests of hideous, useless, vastly subsidised windmills predictably failed to help – because there was no wind. Acres of hideous, useless, vastly subsidised solar panels predictably failed to help, because it was dark.
Several perfectly good coal-fired power stations failed to help because we recently shut them down and blew them up. We did this in obedience to European Union regulations that prevent Britain from generating power from coal.
Meanwhile, China builds a new coal-fired power station every few WEEKS and fills the atmosphere with soot and carbon dioxide. If man-made CO2 really does cause global warming, then this policy of destroying Britain’s coal-fired power stations is not affecting that.
Even on its own terms, the action is mad.
Craziest fact of all: if things get really desperate, the Grid will resort to banks of back-up diesel generators, perhaps the least green form of energy there is. And if they can’t cope, a country almost wholly dependent on electrically powered computers will go dark and silent, as our competitors laugh.
China builds a new coal-fired power station every few weeks and fills the atmosphere with carbon dioxide
You will not be comforted to know that two more perfectly good coal-fired British power stations are already doomed by Euro-decree.
They will be shut and irrevocably destroyed in the next six months.
And our last deep coal mine, at Kellingley, North Yorkshire, sitting on a huge reserve of high-quality coal, is to be shut for ever.
The UK’s exceptionally high electricity prices, forced up by green taxes to pay for useless windmills and solar panels, are destroying manufacturing industry. Having closed much of what remains of our steel industry, high power charges last week claimed their latest victim, the Michelin tyre plant in Ballymena, Northern Ireland.
As I have pointed out here in the past, the world has seen this sort of madness before, when dogma has been allowed to veto common sense.
This is what happened to the Soviet Union, which destroyed its economy and its society by trying to create Utopia. As usual, the result was hell.
The inflexible, intolerant cause of Warmism is not as bad as Leninism. There is no Gulag, only a lot of self-righteous spite for any who dare to dissent. And who cannot sympathise with those who genuinely think they are saving the planet? But they aren’t.
Do they really think, once the free Western countries sink into decay thanks to their policies, that a mighty China will pay any attention to their cries of protest?
They are just hustling us into the Third World, while saving nothing at all.
PETER HITCHENS: Warmists armed with windmills are the REAL threat to Britain
By Peter Hitchens for The Mail on Sunday
8 November 2015
Daily Mail
As we squeak and gibber about the distant danger of terrorism, this country stands on the brink of a real threat to its economy, its daily life and its order.
It is a threat we have brought on ourselves by embracing an obsessive, pseudo-scientific dogma, a dogma that is also destroying irreplaceable industries and jobs week by week.
Last week we came within inches of major power blackouts, though official spokesmen claim unconvincingly that all was well.
Forests of hideous, useless, vastly subsidised windmills predictably failed to help – because there was no wind
Experts on the grid have for some time predicted a crisis of this sort, but had not expected it anything like so soon, or in such warm weather conditions. It is the fact that they were taken by surprise that warns us there may be worse to come.
Though Wednesday was mild for the time of year, the National Grid had to resort to emergency measures to keep Britain’s lights on.
These included paying industries to reduce their power consumption and giving electricity generators up to 50 times the normal wholesale price to produce additional supplies – plainly emergency measures.
Forests of hideous, useless, vastly subsidised windmills predictably failed to help – because there was no wind. Acres of hideous, useless, vastly subsidised solar panels predictably failed to help, because it was dark.
Several perfectly good coal-fired power stations failed to help because we recently shut them down and blew them up. We did this in obedience to European Union regulations that prevent Britain from generating power from coal.
Meanwhile, China builds a new coal-fired power station every few WEEKS and fills the atmosphere with soot and carbon dioxide. If man-made CO2 really does cause global warming, then this policy of destroying Britain’s coal-fired power stations is not affecting that.
Even on its own terms, the action is mad.
Craziest fact of all: if things get really desperate, the Grid will resort to banks of back-up diesel generators, perhaps the least green form of energy there is. And if they can’t cope, a country almost wholly dependent on electrically powered computers will go dark and silent, as our competitors laugh.
China builds a new coal-fired power station every few weeks and fills the atmosphere with carbon dioxide
You will not be comforted to know that two more perfectly good coal-fired British power stations are already doomed by Euro-decree.
They will be shut and irrevocably destroyed in the next six months.
And our last deep coal mine, at Kellingley, North Yorkshire, sitting on a huge reserve of high-quality coal, is to be shut for ever.
The UK’s exceptionally high electricity prices, forced up by green taxes to pay for useless windmills and solar panels, are destroying manufacturing industry. Having closed much of what remains of our steel industry, high power charges last week claimed their latest victim, the Michelin tyre plant in Ballymena, Northern Ireland.
As I have pointed out here in the past, the world has seen this sort of madness before, when dogma has been allowed to veto common sense.
This is what happened to the Soviet Union, which destroyed its economy and its society by trying to create Utopia. As usual, the result was hell.
The inflexible, intolerant cause of Warmism is not as bad as Leninism. There is no Gulag, only a lot of self-righteous spite for any who dare to dissent. And who cannot sympathise with those who genuinely think they are saving the planet? But they aren’t.
Do they really think, once the free Western countries sink into decay thanks to their policies, that a mighty China will pay any attention to their cries of protest?
They are just hustling us into the Third World, while saving nothing at all.