Green energy will cost us a lot more
THE time is long past for the public to be told the whole truth regarding how much we are paying for the generation of Green energy.
The public in the main is in the dark when it comes to payments made to wind and solar energy producers.
Wind energy is heavily subsidised which must tell you that all is not well. Since 2003 Huddersfield planning department has processed in the region of 112 turbine applications. The annual figure has been increasing year on year.
This figure does not take into account those people who reside in Huddersfield but have applied to Barnsley council for planning approval.
The British public have been duped into the effectiveness of these monstrous beasts which are springing up faster than weeds. The energy companies will not tell you how effective they are at energy generation as you would be amazed at how inefficient they are. There is also that age old saying that turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Well, the energy generating companies are not voting to have wind energy take over from them as main suppliers.
The USA has been scrapping their wind energy programme as they found out that the cost far outweighs the principle of keeping them. Our politicians and scientists still subscribe to the claim that these renewable forms of energy are the way forward. The scientist are still banging the gong with global warming which, in my opinion, has been shown to be a lie with figures supporting the fact that the earth has cooled in the last decade. But you do not hear or see them telling the public of this occurrence.
Year in year out elderly people die through cold caused by energy poverty. Recently we have had a government minister saying that it is time to cut the benefits of the old. Winter fuel payments, TV licence and bus passes are on his agenda.
To give someone a winter fuel payment must tell even a politician that energy pricing is too high. Will this problem of high energy costs ever be curtailed? Probably not. The only way for that to happen would be for our government to be extremely tough with the energy producers (that’s a no then) or return the utilities to public ownership (that’s another no).
Renewable energy is not the way forward. It is helping to make the rich even richer. They get large subsidies for energy production while at the same time they push our energy bills even higher. The public is still fed on the myth that renewable energy is the way forward. If it is so good why do we pay out huge subsidies? Do you honestly think that the people who are getting rich off the backs of our energy bills care about the environment and saving the planet? They are in it for the money.
Every day I look at a monstrous edifice of mankind which is some 300 metres from our home. Every rotation spells higher energy bills for us and at the same time every rotation makes the farmer richer buy the day at our cost. The irony of this is that these objects are wholly supported by the Green party (see how many they have supported through planning). Another irony is the very fact that the Lib/Dems also think that these are a vote winner. Not in our house they aren’t.
The coalition energy minister Lib/Dem Ed Davey calls projections suggesting that his latest energy proposals could increase bills by as much as £180 "nonsense figures".
"The impact on bills is that the costs will rise from today’s 2% figure on average bills, roughly £20, so that by the end of the decade it will gradually rise to 7% on average bills – just under £100."
Davey goes on to say: "I have never hidden that this will have an impact. It’s what we have said will happen for many years.
"But equally, if you look at all our green policies, the help on fuel poverty and green efficiency, our estimate is that by 2020 the average bill will be 7% lower than it would have otherwise been – in today’s prices, £94. If we do the energy efficiency, this can be afforded."
Now I don’t know about you but I have not seen any signs that energy bills are being reduced through green energy policies. Facts show that they have increased and are going to continue so. Most if not all government predicted figures have in the past been a figment of the proposers’ imagination and I cannot for the life of me see this statement being any different. Why must we always wait a decade or more to see some change? When the time eventually comes round we have usually forgotten what it was all about anyway or those who made the prediction are no longer in office. And those who have taken office come out with the usual "Oh, that was that other lot."
The bottom line is they mess up, we pay. As usual, nothing changes.
R J Bray
Shelley
No peace for Palestine
THE Gaza ceasefire is a welcome respite from the horror of the Israeli attacks but until there is justice and a genuine political settlement there can be no peace either in Palestine or across much of the Middle East.
The Palestinians have been under occupation for 45 years. Many of their population have spent their lives in refugee camps. The land they once shared in peace, Arab and Jew, is now a mere 22% of what it was in 1948.
Gaza is an open prison with no real concessions coming from this latest ceasefire. It is densely populated and very poor but the spirit of resistance is strong. There is very little left in this thin strip of land with no infrastructure from which to develop normal life.
No government who claims to believe in democracy, human rights and justice can possibly stand by knowing that this can happen over and over again. But they do! They choose instead to bolster the lie that this is an equal struggle. The language of the media is riddled with bias.
The most heartening thing in Britain were the demonstrations of solidarity with Gaza. In Huddersfield over 200 people assembled at the Market Cross. On Saturday 15,000 people demonstrated in London including several people from Huddersfield.
June Jones
Huddersfield Stop the War Coalition
Flash cash cow
IT appears that the ‘Cash Cow’ speed camera at Alpine Corner in Honley has now been wired up.
Should any of the anti-speeding campaigners refute the description ‘Cash Cow’, perhaps they would tell us why a camera warning sign triggered by speeding traffic has not been installed at the same time.
C R Atkinson
Honley
Leaving land of the free
SOMEONE actually wants to leave the land of the free? I suggest Lizzy Thornton tries to live in the USA.
S K Makin
Outlane.
