Opinion – To the Commissioner for Energy | EU to Do 2015-19 – Bruegel – John Gelmini

Drax Power Station

Drax Power Station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like Dr Alf, I can broadly relate to the Bruegel article but I cannot “buy” the argument about the need to “insure against Climate Change”.

Currently, Germany will have problems with energy supply because of a refusal to build nuclear power stations and the UK, since the recent fire at Didcot power station, is now just a heartbeat away from blackouts, as we have now been run down to just 2% spare generating capacity, with winter less than 5 weeks away.

There is no security of energy supply and Europe’s economy is stagnating.

Even if there was some sort of recovery from the “flat-lining patient”, which seems unlikely, there would not be enough generating capacity to power the factories and produce a sustained recovery.

Closing down coal fired power stations may save pollution but when China is opening up 7 of these every week, all we are doing is putting more people out of work.

It gets increasingly barmy because now Ed Davey, the UK Minister for Energy and Climate Change, has decided that Drax power station, in Yorkshire, UK, will burn wooden pellets from the Carolinas in America. Of course, these pellets are shipped by sea, using diesel ships and presumably diesel powered lorries or trains to actually get the pellets to the power station and from their American forests to the freighters in America, prior to their 4,000 mile journey in the first place. This “so-called2 UK Government Minister, also likes wind-farms which are subsidized at the rate of £2,500 gbp per turbine and which between them all only produce 14% of our electrical power requirements. In addition, he wants to put smart meters into houses and envisages switching off people’s refrigerators at 3.00 AM, whilst people are asleep and then switching them back on again at say 5.30 am, whilst people are still asleep in order to save energy. I have this first hand, from one of his Civil Servants whom I met at the University of East Anglia. She expressed surprise when I asked what the Department’s approach would be to the personal representatives of a pensioner suing the Department in the event of food poisoning caused by such a switch-off of power causing food such as fish to go off.

Clearly Europe is full of “Ed Davey” lookalikes, devoid of commonsense, devoid of any concept of consequences and devoid of any concept on how a modern economy is supposed to work.

Without people working and paying taxes, there are no revenues to sustain a Government or Ministerial Department, let alone provide public services so perhaps the objective is to de-industrialize to the point where no-one works all but a few people die off and society as we know it changes to a feudal economy, whereby a few people live in moated castles, robots do all the menial work and no-one else is left?

I exaggerate to make the point but left unchecked this is the ultimate endgame if there is no change of direction.

John Gelmini