Old friend and Member of the European Parliament Roger Helmer
(UK) passes along this letter he just sent to his own
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, a cabinet
position in the Cameron-led coalition government. It makes some
useful reading for our own largely, if not exclusively, weak-kneed
would-be appeasers who see a president in the mirror when they
shave:
The Rt. Hon Chris Huhne MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
19th July 2011
Dear Chris,
I am sure you will have seen the
article in the Sunday Telegraph of July 17th by
Andrew Gilligan entitled “Jobs gone with the wind”. He raises
some important points on which I should be grateful to have your
views.
With your panoply of green initiatives — the EU ETS [NB:
cap-n-trade], a carbon floor price, Renewable Obligation
Certificates [NB: RPS or RES, here], feed-in tariffs [NB: solar
scheme] — plus the exorbitant cost of electricity from wind
turbines, you are set to give Britain the most expensive
electricity in Europe, and thus probably the most expensive
electricity in the world. This will devastate the
competitiveness of our economy, and will drive jobs, industry,
production, and investment out of the UK (and maybe out of the EU
altogether). This is gesture politics on a grand scale.
It will impoverish our children while doing nothing for the
climate. We may claim to lead, but no one will follow.
In all probability companies will relocate to jurisdictions with
lower environmental standards, and may thus produce
more emissions, not less. Already
the chlorine plant in Runcorn and the Lynemouth aluminium plant
have been mentioned. In my East Midlands constituency, the
cement industry will be affected. All energy intensive
industries will face similar problems, including metals, chemicals,
glass, paper and wood processing, and so on. I have just made
a visit to the Jaguar plant at Castle Bromwich, and although Jaguar
personnel scrupulously declined to comment on the location of
Tata/Jaguar’s proposed new engine plant, you have given them a huge
incentive to choose India over the UK.
You will have noted that the EU’s ETS gave Tata Steel a massive
incentive to close their Teesside plant, rather than any overseas
plant, since this gave them a windfall of ETS carbon credits.
It is estimated that 225,000 jobs are under threat from your
green policies, and all the evidence from many countries is that
the creation of “green jobs” actually destroys far more real jobs
in the real economy than are created in “green” industries.
Last year, says Gilligan, a further 700,000 UK homes were driven
into fuel poverty, and on some estimates half of all UK homes will
be fuel-poor by 2020. As a politician, I cannot support
policies leading to such an outcome.
New research by the Renewable Energy Foundation shows that if
all the costs of wind energy are accounted for (including the
essential conventional back-up, and the hugely expensive
adjustments to the National Grid to accommodate distributed
generation) then on-shore wind will be three times the cost of
nuclear electricity, and off-shore wind four times as
expensive.
Stan Higgins, Chief Executive of the Northeast Process Industry
Cluster, describes these new costs as “suicidal”. Industry
analysts have pointed out that as a method of reducing emissions,
wind turbines are just about the least cost-effective approach —
yet you have made wind your primary strategy.
I appeal to you to reconsider this disastrous course of action
before more damage is done, more pensioners die of cold, more jobs
are lost, more businesses relocate off-shore, and more inward
investment is lost to the UK.
ROGER HELMER MEP
www.rogerhelmer.com
CC: Greg Barker MP, Charles Hendry MP.
