Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for April 23, 2008

EU Renewables Plan to Cost £160 per Household

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EU plans call for the UK to increase its use of renewables in the energy mix from the current 5% to 15% by 2020. An independent British government commissioned report for BERR, the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, shows that these plans will cost between EURO 5 and 6 billion annually. On a per household basis, this could increase the average energy bill for every household in Britain by £160 a year — and that’s on top of increases driven by mainstream energy prices, says East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer.

Protesting against the proposals, Helmer argues that in any case many of the renewables initiatives are set to do more harm than good. There is increasing evidence that biofuels save little CO2, but they are driving up world food prices, and putting huge new pressure on rainforests and natural habitats, threatening species with extinction. Wind farms provide limited benefit, especially when placed in peaty heath-land environments. Many of Britain’s new wind-farm development proposals, especially in Scotland, are on soils of this type, where the disturbance of ancient peat deposits for foundations, roads and other infrastructure can release more CO2 than the turbines would save in their lifetimes.

Commenting on the developments, Helmer said “There is no point in agonising over fuel poverty, then agreeing plans which will hugely add to energy costs — especially when those plans will fail to deliver the CO2 reductions envisaged. This is a typical example of EU integration allowing bureaucrats to make mistakes on an heroic scale”.

PRESS RELEASE ENDS

Notes to editors

POYRY REPORT: Poyry is a well-reputed energy research and consultancy company, commissioned by the British government (BERR) to do the cost analysis, which despite their insistence on confidentiality has somehow emerged on the BERR website at http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45238.pdf

ROGER HELMER MEP
www.rogerhelmer.com

“While the US Constitution is chiefly about the rights of the individual, the EU Constitution is chiefly about the power of the state.”

Australia’s Emissions Trading System to Cost Business $22 Billion

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THE Rudd Government’s planned carbon trading system will cost business between $14billion and $22billion a year and will have to be considered in a review of the taxation system.

Taxation Institute director Michael Dirkis yesterday said that the money generated by the emissions trading system would be equivalent to more than 40 per cent of company tax revenue.

“You cannot design a system that impacts on business and brings in that level of government revenue without dealing with tax,” he said.

The Australian: Carbon plan ‘to cost business $22bn’

Of course, the effect on climate will be a big fat zero.

First Australian NASA Astronaut: An Ice Age Cometh

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Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco. He was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut.

Excerpt: The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon. The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth’s climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790. Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon’s Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots. That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern. It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850. There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it. Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases. […] All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead. It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.

The Australian: Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh