Monbiot talking sense! A Great Green ripoff.
Discussion
As someone who likes to have a read of the latest Monbiot rant, his latest effort is..........
correct. Do I need help if I agree with him?
Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives and no one notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%(1). Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded.
On April 1st the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers, in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn’t know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient.
The people who sell solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and micro wind turbines in the UK insist that they represent a good investment. The arguments I have had with them have been long and bitter(2,3). But the debate has now been brought to an end with the publication of the government’s table of tariffs: the rewards people will receive for installing different kinds of generators(4). The government wants everyone to get the same rate of return. So while the electricity you might generate from large wind turbines and hydro plants will earn you 4.5p per kilowatt hour, mini wind turbines get 34p, and solar panels get 41p. In other words, the government acknowledges that micro-wind and solar PV in the UK are between seven and nine times less cost-effective than the alternatives.
Full article:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/01/a-great...
correct. Do I need help if I agree with him?
Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives and no one notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%(1). Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded.
On April 1st the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers, in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn’t know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient.
The people who sell solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and micro wind turbines in the UK insist that they represent a good investment. The arguments I have had with them have been long and bitter(2,3). But the debate has now been brought to an end with the publication of the government’s table of tariffs: the rewards people will receive for installing different kinds of generators(4). The government wants everyone to get the same rate of return. So while the electricity you might generate from large wind turbines and hydro plants will earn you 4.5p per kilowatt hour, mini wind turbines get 34p, and solar panels get 41p. In other words, the government acknowledges that micro-wind and solar PV in the UK are between seven and nine times less cost-effective than the alternatives.
Full article:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/01/a-great...
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