|
|
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 319
| The Tories' plans to cut off finance for wind turbines if they win the next election is a worry. I think on shore wind could be ready to manage without subsidy soon but not quite yet and meanwhile fracking and other fossil fuels seem to be getting tax breaks and more financial support than renewables.
The New Economics Foundation Newsletter comments
'The Tories’ announcement last week that a future Conservative government would cut off all further funding for onshore wind was a sure sign of low politics undermining sensible energy policy. Energy Minister Michael Fallon’s apparent rationale for the decision is that the 11-13GW of onshore wind projects already completed or in the pipeline is enough to meet Britain’s 2020 commitments. But his words ring hollow when you consider warnings from the government’s independent advisor, the Committee on Climate Change, showing that Britain will need over twice this amount (25GW) of onshore wind by 2030 in order to meet our longer term goals. Perhaps the prospect of electoral defeat by anti-wind UKIP at the European elections is a more plausible motivation for the Conservative’s move?'
This website is also good.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/04/cutting-emissions-without-o... |
|
| |
|
Veteran
Posts: 275
| The strike price for onshore wind under the new "Contracts for Difference" regime will be about the same as for nuclear, which suggests it's quite a way from managing without subsidy,particularly when you bear in mind wind also needs additional infrastructure to compensate for intermittency (and nuclear also requires similar infrastructure to compensate for the difficulty of varying output).
But really the whole "subsidy" issue is looking at things back to front, there should be an appropriate tax levied on fossil fuel use to compensate for the damage it does, that would be a much better way of balancing things out. |
|
| |
|
Regular
Posts: 85
| I will plan to vote for any party which will tax fossil fuels--that seems to be the only sensible way to go |
|
| |
|
Veteran
Posts: 275
| Interesting to see the IMF is now recommending taxes on fossil fuels, see http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/31/us-imf-energy-taxes-idUKKB...
Edited by Martin 2014-08-11 11:06
|
|
| |
How do we cut carbon emissions cheaply?