Friday 24 July 2015

Amber Rudd Update: Cutting the (Green) Crap

Quelque-chose pour le weekendthe Grauniad kindly summarises for us the progress of the Rudd-Osborne crap-cleansing operation so far.   9 victims are identified:
  • onshore wind
  • solar
  • biomass
  • Green Deal
  • Green Investment Bank
  • VED on car emissions 
  • zero carbon homes
  • 'green tax target'
  • SSSI's for fracking
They are wondering about the Lagoon, but they reckon offshore wind & new nukes are safe.  (It's silly of them, BTW, to list the Green Investment Bank - which is merely being part-sold.)

It would appear Osborne is fairly well committed to putting the economy above empty green gestures.  As always:  GDP trumps GHG.  Have a nice weekend!

ND

7 comments:

John miller said...

I'm having a Victor Meldrew moment...

Nick Drew said...

mind the upholstery, then

lilith said...

The fabulous Green Deal! £60 million spent and 10,000 homes insulated. Marvellous.

rwendland said...

"offshore wind & new nukes are safe" (and maybe the lagoon)

So the most expensive green power is being kept, and the cheaper ones abandoned. That's competence in action! (Or responding to the richest/loudest lobbies.)

Graeme said...

Re offshore wind, are they playing a long game? I would guess that an offshore windmill might last 3 years without maintenance. So no power generated after 3 years means no more subsidies.

Nick Drew said...

an interesting thought, Graeme

I have been beating the 'maintenenace' drum for ages, being an old North Sea hand and knowing full well that the over-the-horizon turbines won't get maintained in winter, so those big far-offshore arrays will suffer ever-reducing capacity - but I'm guessing that will be by way of a tailing-off, not a sudden collapse

I'm more inclined to think the offshore wind enthuiasm is to bolster the otherwise fast-declining UK offshore installation industry

(actually, what they should be banking on is the burgeoning offshore decommissioning sector)

Sniper said...

The Swansea Pool of Narcissus needs to be on that list.