The EU one of the last bastions of Climate Religion sets the example that we were told the rest of the world would follow; the problem is economic suicide is only popular with EU Commissars

The Left have always attached noble and lofty adjectives to their political aims, taking the moral high ground, leading by example are popular chants from the comrades of socialism, environmentalism and the easily manipulated eco sheep of the Occupy movement.

All the talk of moral high ground and leading way to a brave new Green world are just smokescreens to force the environmental legislation through at any price, with the secondary vain hope that there might be other ecomentalist simpletons in power elsewhere who also want to de-industrialise their societies, commit economic suicide and embrace the misery and drudge of the Green Agrarian Society.

All in all, it sounds like political suicide, well it would be if the EU Commissars concerned were elected, but as usual with the EU democracy is not in the loop, so the unelected and unanswerable climate zealots will continue with their Green agenda, that the rest of the world does not want any part of.

So much for leading by example, instead the largely bankrupt EU is on a collision course for a Global Trade War with the rest of the world:

During the past decade, the European Union blazed a green trail with a series of laws mandating a low-carbon economy and promises to set an example for other parts of the world. That now seems like another era.

A succession of economic crises has pushed European governments to pare subsidies to clean-energy sectors like solar power and has undermined initiatives in other areas like energy efficiency, where member states balked at binding targets.

The E.U. Emissions Trading System — the Union’s flagship climate policy, which requires industries to acquire emissions permits — has been battered by extreme volatility, tax fraud, recycling of used credits, suspicions of profiteering and online attacks.

Many factories and utilities also received more free permits than they needed under the system, helping ensure that the price of the permits has never been high enough, for long enough, to push polluters to invest in cleaner alternatives.

The latest complication for Europe’s green agenda is the prospect of trade wars with important partners like the United States and China at a time when the Union can least afford threats to jobs and growth.

The most high-profile dispute focuses on a law requiring all airlines using airports within the Union to join the Emissions Trading System. About 30 governments met in Moscow this week to discuss barring their carriers from participating and other forms of retaliation.

There are other problems brewing for the EU apart from it’s unilateral and illegal Green flying tax, there is the EU self made problem of oil from tar sands.

Any new source of energy that damages the chances of the politically correct wind and solar generation is immediately attacked, vilified and a new Green movie documentary of lies and half truths launched, just look at the hysteria about fracking and the Gasland propaganda movie. The Canadian tar sands have come in for the same treatment of lies and hysteria, warming alarmist scientist James Hansen “When the development of the tar sands continues, then it means “game over for the climate“, this is a view endorsed by another warming alarmist scientist Peter “Fakegate” Gleick.

Something about being judged by the company you keep would seem appropriate.

There was an EU vote today on whether the oil from tar sands should be labelled as excessively polluting:

Darek Urbaniak at Friends of the Earth Europe said: “Some European governments have given in to Canadian and oil lobby pressure, instead of saying no to climate-hostile tar sands. High-polluting sources of fuels, such as tar sands, must be cleaned up or kept out of Europe – they are the dirtiest source of transport fuels, and will undermine Europe’s ability to reach its climate ambitions.”

The vote by officials needed a majority of about three-quarters to pass, which would have led to the proposal passing quickly into law. In the event, there were 89 votes for the proposal, 128 against and 128 abstentions, including the UK. The impasse means the decision will be referred to ministers, who will send a proposal to the European parliament for passing into law

Apart from the typical pointless comments from an unelected Green NGO that amongst others has received millions in funding from the EU, the workings of the EU are priceless. Out of 345 potential votes only 89 are for the stupidity, so Connie Hedegaard will still get the result she and her Green allies want, it will just take a bit longer, and nobody seems at all bothered by this, curious to say the very least.

There are also frictions over fuels with the United States.

Three years ago, the Union imposed duties affecting American biodiesel producers after complaints by European producers that the U.S. government had given production subsidies.

Last year, after complaints by ePure, a European industry association, the commission started two new inquiries into the way the United States supports its bioethanol industry. A decision on provisional duties is expected in August.

One of the most explosive issues Europe may soon face is whether to protect its solar industry from Chinese manufacturers.

The EU is isolating itself economically from the rest of the world at time when it can ill afford to do so in the increasingly vain belief that the rest of the world still believes in the ManBearPig religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

The EU produces just 11% of emissions of a harmless trace gas, CO2,  any climate ambitions the unelected Green marxists of the EU have are erroneous; any savings made will be immediately swamped by increasing emissions from China, India and Brazil.

China will not only swap emissions it will also produce components for wind and solar far cheaper than the EU can, the EU’s response will be to put increased taxes on components made outside of the EU and at this point the Global Trade War will seriously erupt, the only loser an isolated and increasingly economically irrelevant Europe.

Germany 600,000 households have had their power cut off for being unable to pay their energy bills

Germany is counting the cost of its desire to be Green, the €100 billion wasted on solar, the post Fukushima hysteria where for no good reason, but Green hysteria, Germany shutdown their nuclear power stations only to have to bring them back on-line to meet the demand for energy caused by the very cold winter this year.

The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) have produced a report by Dr Guenter Keil warning of the impending doom to the German economy from the money pit of Green renewable energy.

A German consumer watchdog has found that because of the sudden increases in energy bills caused by the Green taxation that solar and wind need to survive, fuel poverty and fuel debt are becoming serious social issues:

Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark.

The sharp price increases for electricity and gas is leading to serious payment problems for more and more consumers – even to dark apartments. Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010, said the consumer watch dog Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen which is based in Düsseldorf. This estimate is based on a survey of local energy providers in Germany’s most populous state.

“Price increases of around 15 percent for electricity and gas in the past two years have made energy for many households unaffordable”, said CEO Klaus Mueller. The increasing fuel poverty is alarming. What is more, ever tighter household budgets and regularly lacking competence in keeping personal finances in check are turning claims arising from unpaid energy bills quickly into an insurmountable cost trap.

Three-quarters of the 58 companies that responded to questions from the NRW consumer group reported growing problems related to energy debt and power outages. In 2010, the surveyed utilities in North Rhine-Westphalia alone sent out three million reminders for unpaid electricity bill. They issued 340,000 blocking threats and cut off power to 62,000 customers.

According to extrapolations by consumer protection groups, power has been cut off to about 120,000 households in NRW alone and to about 600,000 households nationwide

A similar story to Britain where there are now 6 million households in fuel poverty, in Britain just like Germany the Green subsidies for wind and solar have added 15% to energy bills according to the Coalition Government.

Environmentalist hopes that the Green Investment Bank would be a cash cow for every Green energy folly have been dashed.

The Green Investment Bank will not be the bottomless pit of money for every new Green fad that the ecomentalists and Greens were hoping for, instead it will be a properly run commercial institution with a profit motive and a share holder, The Treasury, that expects dividends every year.

There was no doubt that once Chris Huhne was gone the Greenest Government Ever mantra would be quietly swept under the carpet, the clearest indication of that was Huhne’s replacement, the man with the charisma bypass operation Ed Davey. Apart from having a brother who is an eco lawyer, Davey is every bit the idiot that Chris Huhne is it’s just Davey is, as Douglas Adams put it “mostly harmless“.

Hopes that the £3 billion Green Investment Bank will encourage development of early stage renewable technologies have been dashed by the man picked to oversee it.

Sir Adrian Montague warned green companies not to expect handouts. The City grandee heading the much-vaunted bank told The Times that it would act like a commercial lender and would not risk taxpayers’ cash investing in areas that the private sector refused to back.

His comments signal a victory over the Department of Energy and Climate Change by the Treasury. Chris Huhne, until recently the Energy Secretary and one of the bank’s most ardent supporters, had been pushing for it to be allowed to make riskier investments. This would have enabled the bank to back a wider range of projects, such as experimental solar schemes, that are a long way from being profitable.

“We are not trying to give soft loans and grants,” Sir Adrian said. “We are not looking to give grants and support in areas where the private sector would not give support. We are looking at the technologies which need the leg-up to be commercial.”

The news was greeted with dismay by the Green subsidy junkies at Business Green:

But the scale of the ambition, compared to the original plans for the bank, is starting to look pretty woeful.

Imagine a Green Investment Bank that could offer Green Bonds to individuals and businesses, providing solid if unspectacular returns while allowing interested parties to play a proactive role in the UK’s low-carbon economy. Yes, accounting rules may mean that it would end up adding to the deficit in the short term, but the boost in terms of jobs, tax receipts and low-carbon growth could be immense.

Adding to the defect in the short term while still pushing the tired old Green lie of lasting Green jobs, affordable energy and economic prosperity, the blinkered Green dream world really has no connection with economic reality, or any other reality come to that.

At this point it is worth looking at the supporters of the Green bank, as usual a picture is worth a 1000 words.

Imagine a Green Investment Bank that could take a punt on early-stage clean-tech projects currently unable to secure commercial financing. Yes, some money would be lost on failed projects, but such a move could also secure the UK’s leadership in areas such as marine energy, carbon capture and storage, and offshore wind.

Business Green and their Green propagandist friends at the Guardian are always condemning bankers for bad investments and the banking crisis, yet with the same dependable hypocrisy that the Greens turn a blind eye to raptors being killed by wind turbines, they now turn a blind eye to bad banking practice, but only as long as it is in support of Green ideals.

Tidal Turbine effectively an underwater wind turbine and like wind power it requires huge Green taxation to exist and produces expensive electricty

The Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECC) have just released a report on Marine Renewables which claims, wait for it, that Britain could become a leading exporter of tidal power and expertise if billions in Green taxation are used to support yet another economically unviable Green energy source folly.

Tidal Power comes in 3 forms:

Tidal Fences which are a continuous line of underwater tidal current turbines, installed in a way which forces as much flow to go through the turbines as possible.

Barrage Tidal Plants these are the most common form, using narrow water channels with gates and turbines, opening the gates causes water to flow which in turn spins the turbines.

Tidal Turbines which work like an underwater wind turbine using the tides to turn the turbine.

But the report warns that an overly cautious approach to deployment may allow other less risk-averse countries to steal the UK’s lead.

Industry players are concerned that government proposals for subsidies for marine and tidal only extend to 2017, leaving a question mark over the sector’s long-term future.

The ECC report will issue a series of recommendations designed to ensure the UK retains its leading position, including clarifying how much revenue support marine power can expect to receive beyond 2017 as soon as possible.

This is a renewables project so venture capitalism is naturally not on the event horizon, just like wind and solar, tidal cannot exist without the oxygen of Green taxation and increased energy bills.

According to the Carbon Trust, the first wave farms are likely to cost 38-48p/kWh and the first tidal farms 29-33p/kWh, although developers remain confident costs will fall as technologies mature.

Good to see the Greens recycling the propaganda for wind, just a simple edit and replace action using “tidal” to replace “wind”.

“Britannia really could rule the waves when it comes to marine renewable energy,” said committee chairman Tim Yeo. “We are extremely well placed to lead the world in wave and tidal technologies, which could potentially bring significant benefits in manufacturing and jobs, as well an abundant supply of reliable low-carbon electricity.”

In Tim Yeo’s Green dream world the Chinese will ignore tidal, and not produce tidal technology far cheaper than Britain, the EU and the US can, in the same way that China builds wind turbines and solar panels far cheaper than any other country can.

The report was welcomed by green groups and renewable trade associations, including the UK’s leading marine power trade body Renewable UK.

“The marine energy industry is now on the threshold of commercial viability, and the Committee’s report contains important recommendations which, if implemented, will help push it towards becoming a major part of our electricity generation system,” said RenewableUK director of policy Dr Gordon Edge.

If tidal is on the verge of “commercial viability” why does the industry need a roadmap of Green subsidy beyond 2017?

A report for the WWF about the Severn Barrage indicates that the cost per MwH would be roughly double that of the most other renewable energy sources, now about that “commercial viability“…

The are also a significant number of disadvantages to tidal power, many environmental, you can expect these to be ignored by the Greens who don’t care when wind turbines kill raptors.

* Expensive to construct

* Power is often generated when there is little demand for electricity

* Limited construction locations

* Barrages may block outlets to open water. Although locks can be installed, this is often a slow and expensive process.

* Barrages affect fish migration and other wildlife- many fish like salmon swim up to the barrages and are killed by the spinning turbines. Fish ladders may be used to allow passage for the
fish, but these are never 100% effective. Barrages may also destroy the habitat of the wildlife living near it

* Barrages may affect the tidal level – the change in tidal level may affect navigation, recreation, cause flooding of the shoreline and affect local marine life

Tidal like wind and solar is just another renewable energy source for the sake of it, its economically unviable, and like wind produces electricity when there is no demand for it, so wind farms are paid not to generate electricity, just as night follows days you can count on the tidal power generators being paid not to generate electricity so there is a level playing field for all Green approved energy.

A playing field levelled by still more Green cost increases to  energy bills.

The truth about the real cost of Green taxation for wind and solar on Britain’s energy bills is out, Green subsidy adds 15% to electricity bills.

The Global Trade War over the EU’s Green flying tax took a step closer to reality this week, and out of  the blue Germany is now cutting subsidies earlier than planned for solar; within 5 years the Green taxation for solar will be no more.

The cost of Green subsidy on Britain’s energy bills has been hotly debated with the Greens maintaining that the cost of subsidy is only £20 per year:

Electricity prices are 15 per cent more expensive than they should be because of green policies, Whitehall officials have admitted. Energy costs for hard-pressed consumers have been pushed up by extra charges imposed to help the Government meet pledges to cut carbon emissions.

Projections in Whitehall show that by 2020, the burden for electricity will be an astonishing 27 per cent more than it would otherwise have been. The figure for gas will be 7 per cent higher.

A vastly different scenario from that painted by former Climate Religion Minister Chris Huhne, who repeatedly stated that consumers would be better off by 2020 because of Green taxation subsidised wind farms. That would be the same Chris Huhne who is currently on bail for the serious criminal charge of perverting the course of justice.

The EU imposed its Green flying tax from January 1st 2012, 42 nations condemned the Green tax and threats of a Global Trade war with the EU vs The Rest of the World surfaced.

The war clouds have started gathering and the stage is being set for what could be the first ever Carbon Trade war:

A meeting has been called for next week by the 26 countries that have been fighting to stop Brussels charging airlines flying in or out of the EU for their carbon emissions.

More than 20 countries are sending representatives to the meeting which starts on Tuesday, with the US, India and China expected to play an active role. The US delegation will be led by Julie Oettinger, assistant administrator for policy, international affairs and environment at the Federal Aviation Administration.

A discussion paper prepared for the meeting, and seen by the Financial Times, shows the group will consider 11 retaliatory measures against the EU’s move to include all big airlines in its emissions trading system.

The measures include re-opening existing trade agreements in sectors other than aviation to put “pressure on EU industries”; imposing new charges on European airlines flying into non-EU countries; suspending current and future negotiations about EU airline requests for new routes or airport destinations; and possibly enacting legislation to ban their airlines from complying with the EU law.

The Green marxists at the EU by taking the moral high ground in leading the world in their fight against the CO2 Wolf will end up isolating the EU, and ultimately increasing the cost of living still more.

The German solar industry has been in massive decline for the last year, German solar has proved to be a €100 billion money pit and now the Germans are calling time on Green subsidies.

Germany once prided itself on being the ‘photovoltaic world champion’, doling out generous subsidies – totaling more than $130bn, according to research from Germany’s Ruhr University – to citizens to invest in solar energy.

But now the German government is vowing to cut the subsidies sooner than planned, and to phase out support over the next five years. What went wrong?

There is a fundamental problem with subsidising inefficient green technology: it is affordable only if it is done in tiny, tokenistic amounts.

Using the government’s generous subsidies, Germans installed 7.5 gigawatts of photovoltaic (PV) capacity last year, more than double what the government had deemed “acceptable.” It is estimated that this increase alone will lead to a $260 hike in the average consumer’s annual power bill.

According to Der Spiegel, even members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s staff are now describing the policy as a massive money pit. Philipp Rösler, Germany’s minister of economics and technology, has called the spiraling solar subsidies a “threat to the economy”.

So far in Britain solar has proved a relatively less expensive money pit at £7 billion, the Coalition government is trying to cut Green subsidies for solar.

The planned cuts for solar have been stopped by a legal challenge from Green NGOs and those uneconomic businesses that can only survive by Green subsidy taxation.

The tax credit extension for US wind power subsidy has been dropped and a new report says that half of US off shore wind turbines would be destroyed in a hurricane

The global trend in cutting the tax payer funded Green subsidies that allow wind and solar to exist, has arrived in the United States.

In the US wind farms have been subsidised since 1992 by the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), which was usually extended for 1 – 2 year periods; in 2009 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act extended subsidy for wind power until the end of 2012.

An extension of the PTC, the subsidy that allowed wind to be competitive with other forms of energy, has been left out of a payroll tax cut extension currently making its way through the US  House of Representatives, without a change of policy wind subsidy ends in 2012.

The Americans have subsidised wind power for 20 years, and yes, you guessed right without Green taxation the US wind industry is dead.

Kevin Borgia, who heads the Illinois Wind Energy Coalition, said several years of stability for the tax credit helped drive down costs for wind generation. Without the tax credit, the market for wind power generation will grind to a halt, he predicts.

Paul Bowman, vice president of development at wind developer E.ON Climate and Renewables North America, which has its North American headquarters in Chicago, said his company had about $1 billion in construction planned for next year, tied to the tax credit extension.

“If we got an extension in the next couple of months, we’d be able to build some or all of those projects,” Bowman said. “If it gets extended at the end of the year, it is too late.”

The Renewables industry is like a junkie, always needing just one last fix of cash and everything will be just wonderful, when really the truth is, any industry that cannot pay its way after 20 years of Green subsidy  is doomed.

The doom and gloom for the US wind industry continues with a new report from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh which says that 50% of the wind turbines in 4 planned off shore wind farms, will get blown away by hurricanes.

Hurricanes pose a significant risk to wind turbines off the U.S. Gulf and East coasts, even if they are designed to the most stringent current standard,’ the study authors wrote, reported USA Today.

 

The researchers used mathematical models to predict how many towers would buckle in the four considered states, following the U.S. Department of Energy’s 20 per cent target set four years ago.

 

But they have insisted the potential damage could be significantly reduced if the ‘nacelle’ covers, which house the generating components, are better designed to withstand huge amounts of wind.

 

Turbines shut down during high winds, but can still buckle thanks to hurricanes, reported New Scientist. Experts said the Texas site is the most dangerous place out of all four that they studied.

Around three in four Atlantic basin hurricanes stay offshore and do not strike land, a National Hurricane Center spokesman told USA Today. These storms pose the biggest risks to wind farms.

Wind and solar in there current forms will never work, in any country without the huge never ending Green subsidies that kill jobs and drive the cost of living relentlessly upwards.

Wind Turbine at Bogan Green farm, brought to the ground by a controlled collapse after suffering mechanical failure yet again

The wind farm scam has proved a nice earner if you are one of the big energy companies, a foreign company that has moved into wind power or a rich landowner who has the space and capital to hoover up the Green taxation and build your very own wind farm cash cow.

Wind farms are that most unique of endlessly laying Golden geese, they pay well over the odds for the 20% of the time they actually generate electricity and then they pay off again when there is no demand for their erratic power supply.

As usual it is the over taxed population of Britain that are paying for the Green dream:

Around £110 billion of the Green taxation might stay in Britain, over £700 billion is flowing out of the country into foreign owned and operated corporations who will benefit from the massive increases in company and household energy bills.

The full extent of lobbying by Britain’s wind industry to preserve subsidies while getting thousands of new turbines built can be revealed.

The intensive lobbying – both to construct wind farms and to maintain generous subsidies – comes amid growing unease over an industry adding to the burden on household electricity bills.

Analysis of UK wind farms shows that the 15 biggest owners will between them receive almost £850 million in subsidies that are added on to household electricity bills.

It comes after the disclosure last week that 101 Tory backbench MPs had written a letter to David Cameron demanding he slash the subsidies.

An investigation shows how the wind energy industry has:

* employed lobbying firms to fight against Government plans to cut a near £1 billion a year subsidy

* drafted in eco-activists to drum up support for wind farm projects in the face of local opposition

* defeated a Tory election pledge that could have triggered local referendums on wind farms before they are built

A separate study by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), a think tank opposed to onshore wind farms, shows that 7,000 turbines are on course to be built onshore across the UK by 2020, helped by a 70 per cent success rate on wind farm planning applications.

REF expects the total consumer subsidy paid out by 2030 to amount to a staggering £130 billion.

The more wind turbines they build the more Green subsidy is grabbed and the more household energy bills will rise.

In a normal commercial environment the more of a unit that is built, the cheaper that unit becomes, the whole renewables industry, and wind in particular must be the only industries in the free world where to date mass production increases cost to the end user, not decreases it.

The £850 million subsidy is the tip of the iceberg really, it does not include the other wind farms of between 1 and 5 turbines who are also grabbing the Green taxation for all they are worth.

Regular users of the M4 motorway will be familiar with the wind turbine at Junction 11, this particular golden goose generated £100 thousand worth of electricty, and received £130 thousand in Green subsidy.

This same scenario is repeated at countless other wind farms across the country, it is time the politicians blamed the other lot and put a stop to this insanity.

The wishful thinking of Green jobs creation, here the results of Obamas green jobs plan

One of the frequently repeated mantras of the warming alarmists is that Green energy creates a thriving Green economy and Green jobs, the global evidence tells a different story, but then the facts and warming alarmism have never been the best of friends.

A report by the US House of Representatives in September last year concluded that the so called Green jobs revolution had failed globally and there were no such things as long term Green jobs.

Spain was an early player in Green energy and has paid a heavy price for believing in the Green Dream, 2.2 jobs killed in conventional industries, for each Green job created.

In the US Barry Obama had high hopes for Green jobs:

As part of the Obama green energy program, the goal was to train 124,893 people, and place 79,854 (64%) in new green jobs. After 17 months, the results of the green jobs program indicate that only 52,762 were trained, and only 8,035 got green jobs – each job costs tax payers about $62,000.

A report by the American Enterprise Institue “The Myth of Green Energy Jobs: The European Experience” analyzes the cost and impact of the failed Green dream.

The findings on the impact of Green energy for Britain are in line with the rest of the world, though the jobs lost through the Green revolution in conventional industries at 3.7 is signficantly higher (2.2) than Spain.

“The report’s key finding is that for every job created in the UK in renewable energy, 3.7 jobs are lost. In Scotland there is no net benefit from government support for the sector, and probably a small net loss of jobs.”

“The main policy tool used to promote renewable energy generation is the Renewables Obligation, which effectively raises the market price paid for electricity from renewable sources. This scheme cost electricity consumers £1.1 [billion] in the UK and around £100 [million] in Scotland in 2009/10.”

“This report uses the Scottish Government’s own macroeconomic model for Scotland to assess the impact of identified costs on jobs. A similar model was used by the Scottish Government to measure the opportunity cost of the cut in [the value-added tax] implemented in 2008-09. Based on this, policy to promote renewable energy in the UK has an opportunity cost of 10,000 direct jobs in 2009/10 and 1,200 jobs in Scotland.”

“In conclusion, policy to promote the renewable electricity sector in both Scotland and the UK is economically damaging. Government should not see this as an economic opportunity, therefore, but should focus debate instead on whether these costs, and the damage done to the environment, are worth the candle in terms of climate change mitigation.”[25]

Economically damaging, again and again that sentiment is echoed, here are the findings for the German economy:

In conclusion, government policy has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into Germany’s energy portfolio. To the contrary, Germany’s principal mechanism of supporting renewable technologies through feed-in tariffs imposes high costs without any of the alleged positive impacts on emissions reductions, employment, energy security, or technological innovation. Policymakers should thus scrutinize Germany’s experience, including in the US, where there are currently nearly 400 federal and state programs in place that provide financial incentives for renewable energy. Although Germany’s promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in the media as setting a “shining example in providing a harvest for the world” (The Guardian 2007), we would instead regard the country’s experience as a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits.

Denmark made wind power crucial to its energy policy:

Denmark’s electricity prices are the highest in the entire European Union. And the greenhouse gas reduction benefits? Slim to none, since the exported wind power replaces hydro power, which does not produce significant greenhouse gas emissions. The wind power consumed in Denmark does displace some fossil-fuel emissions, but at some cost: $124 per ton, nearly six times the price on the European Trading System.

Regarding green jobs, CEPOS found “that the effect of the government subsidy has been to shift employment from more productive employment in other sectors to less productive employment in the wind industry. As a consequence, Danish GDP is approximately 1.8 billion DKK ($270 million) lower than it would have been if the wind sector work force was employed elsewhere.”

Resistance to wind power is growing in Denmark with consumers fed up with artificially high energy prices caused by Green taxation and having their countryside despoiled by bird choppers.

In Spain the damage caused by the Green economy is continuing:

Since 2000, Spain spent 571,138 euros on each green job, including subsidies of more than 1 million euros per job in the wind industry.
The programs creating those jobs destroyed nearly 110,500 jobs elsewhere in the economy (2.2 jobs destroyed for every green job created).
The high cost of electricity mainly affects production costs and levels of employment in metallurgy, nonmetallic mining and food processing, and beverage and tobacco industries.
Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs elsewhere in the economy on average.
These costs do not reflect Spain’s particular approach but rather the nature of schemes to promote renewable energy sources.

Spain has found its foray into renewable energy to be unsustainable. Bloomberg reports that Spain slashed subsidies for new solar power plants.

You can read the full report here, it is worth taking the time to read it, as the same experience is repeated in country after country, the message Green isn’t working.

The National Trust is now "deeply sceptical" of wind power

The National Trust has joined the rebellion against the menace of bird choppers, the symbol of Green renewable energy is deeply hated for a whole range of reasons, from despoiling the countryside to the huge amounts of Green taxation and increases to the energy bills via Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC), wind turbines cause.

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore had this to say “The industry is a destroyer of wealth and negative to the economy”, Moore now refers to himself as a “sensible environmentalist“.

For years the conservation charity has been a supporter of renewable energy, including wind, to reduce carbon emissions and help fight global warming.

But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Sir Simon Jenkins warned that wind was the “least efficient” form of green power, and risked blighting the British landscape.

He said “not a week goes by” without the charity having to fight plans for wind farms that threaten the more than 700 miles of coastline, 28,500 acres of countryside and more than 500 properties owned by the Trust.

“Broadly speaking the National Trust is deeply sceptical of this form of renewable energy,” he said.

At the moment the Trust is fighting against at least half a dozen plans to build wind farms or turbines that could damage the view from a stately home or stretch of countryside, including a massive offshore farm in the Bristol Channel and plans by the Duke of Gloucester to install a wind farm on his property.

Louise Mensch, the Tory MP and author, is backing the fight against turbines near Lyveden New Bield, Northants which she fears could “destroy one of the finest examples of Elizabethan gardens in England”

In the past the Trust, that now has four million members, fought plans for one of Europe’s largest wind farms in mid Wales and the National Trust for Scotland has spoken out against turbines marching over the hills.

The official position is to support renewable energy, including wind, although only in places where the turbine will produce the maximum amount of energy and “with regard to the full range of environmental considerations”.

It is a shame that other NGOs cannot follow the lead of the National Trust, and abandon their religious crusade for Green Energy at any price be it, money or environmental impact, for no price is too high to build another bird chopper.

There are just 400 California Condors, but its OK if they are wiped out by Green renewable energy, more breathtaking Green hypocrisy

Wind turbines are not called bird choppers for nothing, they indiscriminately kill birds and bats between 6 – 18 million a year in Spain alone.

The Golden Eagle is being decimated and could well be extinct, still with the usual breathtaking hypocrisy that so typifies the Green Environmentalists across the world, Golden Eagles are expendable, just so much collateral damage in a brave new Green world.

In both the US and Britain Green ecofacists and the NGOs that are supposed to be about protecting birds brazenly say its OK to kill birds to meet CO2 targets, Green energy targets and to appease Gaia.

Save the Eagles International who produced the report on the slaughter of birds by Spanish wind farms has just issued a biodiversity warning for the remaining 400 California Condors:

Save the Eagles International (STEI) issues a biodiversity warning concerning the California Condor. Having spent tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to recuperate the species, politicians are now allowing its habitat to be invaded by hundreds of wind turbines, of the kind that are killing 2,000 vultures a year in Spain (1). But if Spain has a population of 40,000 vultures, there are only 400 California condors, most of them likely to have close encounters with Kern County’s projected wind turbines at some point in their long lives – unless the birds are kept captive, as many presently are. The North-American Platform against Windpower (NA-PAW) and the World Council for Nature (WCFN) hereby join STEI in this warning.

“Condors can travel 200 miles in a day”, said Jesse Grantham, the California condor coordinator for the Fish & Wildlife Service, “as the bird forages for food or takes a road trip on a whim to satisfy its curiosity. The condor has evolved to be attracted to novel objects and activity as it must constantly scour vast landscapes for its dinner” (2). Adds Mark Duchamp, president of STEI: “in view of this, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict they will be attracted to wind turbines, and die in their arms as do golden eagles. Dead birds under the turbines will be another fatal attraction.

Vultures and other raptors do perch on wind turbines, even when the blades are moving claims Duchamp: “we have pictures and a video documenting the fact. Condors will be likely to perch as well, and accidents will inevitably happen. Even if they did not attempt to perch, they are likely to get struck while looking down for food: a world-famous video shows a griffon vulture being hit by a blade while circling above a wind farm in Greece.” (3)

You can read the rest of STEI report Here (PDF)

The Greens and Ecomentalists are really being split over the issue of wind farms, one hand you have the Green ecofacists like the Green Party, Greenpeace, WWF, FoE and RSPB who have lost touch with everything they once stood for, all in the pursuit of their global ecomarxist state, and on the other hand the few remaining people who really do care, like Save the Eagles International.

The real extent of the double standards that the Greens and Environmentalists adhere to, is best illustrated by the witch hunts against fossil fuel generators, power line companies and anything not approved by the Church of Climatology, should any of these entities cause the death of a bird of prey then the offender must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but never mind if it’s a wind turbine or solar panel array.

Green is already a byword for junk science and fraud, hypocrisy can now be safely added to the list.