EU Referendum


Energy: that's enough wind!


31/10/2012



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I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but it looks good – especially as Booker has a piece on it.

He writes: "The significance of yesterday's shock announcement by our Energy Minister John Hayes that the Government plans to put a firm limit on the building of any more onshore windfarms is hard to exaggerate. On the face of it, this promises to be the beginning of an end to one of the greatest and most dangerous political delusions of our time".

However, it is not quite as good as it looks. Hayes frames his announcement in terms of onshore wind giving "offshore wind, solar and tidal power a bad name".  There is no Damascene conversion here: just a political retrenchment to ease a pinch-point in an attempt to recover some of the rural vote.

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However, now the fun starts. A blistering row has broken out inside the Department of Energy and Climate Change says the Guardian after the Liberal Democrat energy secretary, Ed Davey, slapped down his new Conservative minister of state for claiming no more onshore windfarms need be built in Britain.

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And then another one bites the dust. Speaking in Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Cameron denied there had been any change to the government's policy on wind energy. "There has been no change towards renewable energy", he said.


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