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The Guardian (both in its home territory, the UK and in its doppelganger Australian version) is the ecofacists’ megaphone – and is duly lapped up with relish by the intellectual pygmies of the hard-‘green’-left or – as James Delingpole aptly dubbed them; “greentards”.

Both here and in the UK, The Guardian has been the preferred platform for the wind industry, its parasites and paid spruikers to run an endless stream of drivel propounding the magical properties of giant fans – you know, the usual twaddle about wind power being a serious alternative to conventional generation – despite the fact it can only be delivered at crazy, random intervals (see our post here); powering millions of homes around the clock for “free” (see our posts here and here); never harming so much as a bird’s feather (see our post here); and providing such a soothing and peaceful environment for humans that they – like our feathered friends – can’t help but flock towards the nearest wind farm to set up homes and raise their families (see our posts here and here).

No, The Guardian will never be among those accused of helping to bring the great wind power fraud to its inevitable end.

In the UK, The Guardian was caught out pumping clearly misleading and deceptive advertising, for yet another wind power fraud, profiteer – Dale Vince and his wind power outfit, the lamely tagged, “Ecotricity” – dropping all pretence of objective journalism in its quest to profit from spruiking wind industry propaganda:

The Guardian Caught Out Pumping Dale Vince’s Bogus Wind Power Propaganda

Now, The Guardian has stepped in again, in an effort to forestall the inevitable demise of the wind industry, in the face of David Cameron’s clear-as-crystal election pledge to bring the great wind power fraud to and end (see our posts here and here).

UK renewable energy industry warns of legal action over subsidies
The Guardian
Adam Vaughan
2 June 2015

Closing scheme a year earlier than due would amount to ‘wilful destruction’ by the government, climate secretary told

The UK renewable energy industry has warned the government’s new climate secretary that she will face a legal challenge if she oversees the “wilful destruction” of the industry by retrospectively curtailing subsidies.

Later this week, the Department of Energy and Climate Change will announce that the existing subsidy scheme for onshore wind power will be closed a year earlier than it was due to, according to a source close to the process.

Such a move would be a major blow to the industry and go further than the Conservative party had pledged in its manifesto. It had said that it would “end any new public subsidy” in a bid to “halt the spread of onshore windfarms”.

But writing in the Guardian on Monday, a lawyer for the trade body RenewableUK called on Amber Rudd to reconsider – or face legal challenges.

“Minister, please talk to us before you act. We recognise the pressures on you. There are solutions which need not damage confidence in the UK or in your government as one for all of us and not just for a few dangerous, ill-informed and visibly rabid party members,” wrote Marcus Trinick QC, a barrister for law firm Partner Eversheds LLP.

“Please be aware of the dangers of [EU] state aid discrimination and look at what is happening in international energy arbitration across Europe. In such a position we could not afford not to fight, especially if action is taken to interfere retrospectively,” he added.

If the Renewable Obligation (RO) subsidy scheme closes in April 2016 rather than April 2017, as is now expected, onshore windfarms will have to bid for public subsidy under a new subsidy regime known as Contracts for Difference (CfD).

But it is not yet clear if they will even be eligible for the CfD scheme, and Bloomberg Energy Finance has estimated that if onshore wind was not eligible then less than half the capacity of projects in advanced stages of planning would get subsidies.

Maf Smith, deputy chief executive of RenewableUK, vowed to fight the move which he said would appear to contradict the Tory pledge that cuts would only be to new, not existing, subsidies.

“The industry will fight against any attempts to bring in drastic and unfair changes utilising the full range of options open, including legal means if appropriate,” he said.

Ian Marchant, chairman of Infinis Energy Plc and former chief executive of Big Six energy company SSE, warned that closing the subsidy scheme early for onshore wind would have wider ramifications: “If the RO is terminated early without reasonable grace periods in place, not a single energy or large scale infrastructure project in the UK will be safe going forward.”

Dr Rob Gross, an energy expert at Imperial College, said that it was not fair to suggest the RO was hugely over-rewarding onshore wind with too much public subsidy.

“I think this is mainly about the manifesto commitment and being seen to do something to curtail the development of onshore wind. It’s primarily a politically-motivated change,” he told the Guardian.

Rudd said in statement that: “We promised people clean, affordable and secure energy supplies and that’s what I’m going to deliver. We’ll focus support on renewables when they’re starting up – getting a good deal for billpayers is the top priority.” A Decc spokeswoman added: “It’s premature to talk about retrospective changes [to subsidy regimes].”

The government has already laid out the other part of its crackdown on onshore windfarms, using the Queen’s speech to announce that the energy bill will give local communities an effective veto over new ones. Onshore wind is considered by most authorities to be the cheapest form of renewable power in the UK.
The Guardian

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The one thing the wind industry will never be pinned for is “consistency”.

Where The Guardian – parroting on behalf of its benefactors – chirps about “wind power being the cheapest form of renewable power available in the UK”, there are plenty from the wind industry’s more deluded fringes that run the claim that wind power is (now) actually cheaper than coal-fired power – see this piece of twaddle from ruin-economy, for example.

Way back in 1984, Christopher Flavin, the President emeritus of the Worldwatch Institute, ran a pitch that in a few years’ time wind energy would not need to be subsidised.

Over 30 years later, and the wind industry the world over still keeps talking itself into circles: one minute it’s ready to take on conventional generators head-to-head; the next it’s wailing about the need to keep the subsidy gravy train running just that little bit longer. The guff from The Guardian entirely true to that insipid form.

In Australia, the wind industry spin-cycle is just the same.

Here, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers – like The Climate Speculator’s, Tristan Edis (see our post here) – keep telling us, over and over again, how cheap wind power is by comparison with conventional power sources – a story pitched up in order to counter the recent challenge to the Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target and its insane cost to power consumers.

The wind industry’s standard pitch is, however, found to be tinged with a teeny, weeny little internal inconsistency.

Having boasted about the wonders of their product – and its ability to “compete” with the big boys – in the very next breath, these subsidy leeches start wailing – like crazed little brats – at the prospect of there being so much as the slightest interference with a stream of subsidies, so massive that their scale makes Croesus look like a penny-pinching pauper.

Either wind power is economically viable, or it isn’t? If the former, then there’s no need for mandated subsidies and/or massive penalties, at all.

Call us a tad cynical, but STT thinks it all boils down to the quality of the “product” on offer. Break down the terms on which wind power is “supplied”, and the “deal” reduces to this:

• we (“the wind power generator”) will supply and you (“the hopeful punter at the end of the line”) will take every single watt we produce, whenever that might be;
• except that this will occur less than 30% of the time; and, no, we can’t tell you when that might be – although it will probably be in the middle of the night when you don’t need it;
• around 70% of the time – when the wind stops blowing altogether – we won’t be supplying anything at all;
• in which event, it’s a case of “tough luck” sucker, you’re on your own, but you can try your luck with dreaded coal or gas-fired generators, they’re burning mountains of coal and gas anyway to cover our little daily output “hiccups” – so they’ll probably help you keep your home and business running; and
• the price for the pleasure of our chaotic, unpredictable power “supply” will be fixed for 25 years at 4 times the price charged by those “evil” fossil fuel generators.

It’s little wonder that – in the absence of fines and penalties that force retailers to sign up to take wind power (see our post here) and/or massive subsidies (see our post here) – no retailer would ever bother to purchase wind power on the standard “irresistible” terms above.

There is NO market for electricity that cannot be delivered on demand – wind power has NO commercial value for that very obvious reason. The “demand” that exists is nothing more than legislated policy artifice – in the absence of mandated fines, penalties and/or endless subsidies the wind industry would have never got going at all.

Any policy that is unsustainable will either fail under its own steam; or its creators will eventually be forced to scrap it. Endless streams of massive subsidies for a meaningless power source fits the “unsustainable” tag to a T.

The wind industry has been telling the world it’s almost ready to stand on its own two feet for over 30 years (see our post here). Now, in Britain, David Cameron, Amber Rudd & Co will give it the chance to do so. We wish it the best of luck.