BBC Announce End Of World – Scottish Councils To Lose Wind Farm Subsidies!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Mark Hodgson
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-33550487
Another woefully one-sided piece of propaganda from the BBC:
Scottish councils may lose out on more than £44m of income over the next 20 years if changes are made to wind farm subsidies, according to a trade body.
The UK government recently announced changes to the way onshore wind energy schemes are supported.
Critics fear this could lead to some proposed schemes getting the axe.
Industry body Scottish Renewables said five Scottish councils could lose out on income if developments they have invested in do not go ahead.
It appears that some Scottish councils have been investing in wind farm projects, hoping to profiteer from electricity bill payers in the rest of the UK. Now they are up in arms that the subsidy tap might be switched off.
Nothing, of course, is stopping the said councils from carrying on with the projects, without any subsidy, and letting their council tax payers foot the bill. But don’t expect the BBC to point this out!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The only thing keeping the councils from continuing without subsidies and letting the customers pay is the desire to keep their office.
Now, if that were here, the BBC would have said, “women and children hurt the most!”
So they won’t be contaminating water supplies any more?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/18/new-evidence-wind-farms-contaminating-water-supply-in-scotland/
While I realize you’re being sarcastic (or I hope so), virtually anything can contaminate water wells. This is as widely abused a claim as climate change causes everything. There is virtually no way to know how contamination occurred unless you hit the well at the exact time the contamination plume starts. Otherwise, it’s just chemicals in the water that are of unknown source.
It is amazing how, in the main the BBC does not hesitate to cast doubt on any information provided by a capitalist enterprise, unless it is a “renewable” energy capitalist enterprise that is.
@ Reality check: the chemicals are not of ‘unknown source’.
As the link above explains:
‘THMs are formed when chlorine, which is added to the water supply, react with organic particles in the water. Anti-wind farm campaigners explain that the construction of wind farms in Scotland tends to involve the disturbance of vast areas of peatlands which dumps huge quantities of carbon into water sources.’
Nice try. However, when I lived in Iowa, the well was contaminated with ecoli after a 6 inch in an hour rain pulled runoff from cattle yards into the water table. E. Coli is an extremely common well contaminate. Companies sell bleach set-ups to control it. This is NOT proof of anything. It’s wild speculation.
The use of the word “carbon” is an indication of the lack of science in this propaganda. What kind of “carbon” is it? Carbon is an element. From what I have read, it’s CO2, with is NOT carbon in peat bogs. (IF it’s actually elemental carbon, it would be labelled as graphite or amorphous carbon.) It’s a carbon compound. The complete and utter lack of science in this is appalling. The word “carbon” is now used for everything with “C” in it.
The article implies that councils have money invested in wind schemes.
44m over 20 years with 5 councils involved is on average 440K per year they each loose out on.
That is chicken feed. If these councils decided to invest in these schemes due to that sort of subsidy they are nuts and deserve everything they get or not get for that matter.
Councils should never invest in commercial enterprise.
If the subsidy is purely to encourage them to look favorably at this sort of investment, pay based on schemes approved, and now that it is going not allowing it any longer, I guess we can conclude that scottish councils are open to London bribery.
Which ever one it is, it does not appear to have anything to do with a real desire to become energy independent, but then it would not with wind and as yet no storage.
“Councils should never invest in commercial enterprise.” generally you are right it’s not their business. Since councils borrow money it is reckless of them to invest some of that borrowed money in projects which may not end up paying back a return than the council pay in interest. That kind of risk should be borne by private investors.
I don’t recall having read a more biased article from the BBC than this one.
Really? Their site is full of nonsense like this.
I think that the use of wind farms is a controversial subject, since the matter was not studied enough. For example, it seems that the offshore wind farms are influencing the climate in some unexpexted ways, as shown here http://oceansgovernclimate.com/weather-blocked-by-north-sea-offshore-wind-farms-soon/ and here: http://climate-ocean.com/2015/K/k-.pdf.
Thanks for posting an article on this subject, Paul. Let’s hope it gets picked up more widely now. It would be nice if the BBC started to regret some of the propaganda they’re putting out!
Reality check: why did you ignore the reference to THMs and talk instead about e-coli which I didn’t specifically mention?
Fine: By products of disinfection common in many, many wells.
http://www.water-research.net/index.php/trihalomethanes-disinfection
From wellowner.org
Are trihalomethanes more prevalent in public water systems than in private settings?
Trihalomethanes are much more prevalent in public water supplies because most use chlorination as a disinfection technology. However, while trihalomethanes are more common in the public water systems, they are a threat to any water supply that uses chlorine—including private water wells.
Again, nothing specific to wind turbines, peat bogs, etc. It is COMMON and means nothing.
Thanks, Paul. I hope this will come true and save the taxpayers some money, the landscape some ugliness, and the lives of some birds and bats.
The BBC has rightly highlighted that the Tory policies will kill-off the Peoples Democratic Kingdom of Britain. As we all now realize this will be the biggest global catastrophe outside of CO2 incinerating the world. Future generations will not know what windfarms are!
/sarcoff
As I’ve said before.
Peak renewables will be when the subsidies run out. ! 🙂
SOON !!!
The BBC are criminally negligent in not explaining where this £44m was coming from.
Under the old subsidy scheme it would come out of the leccy bills of the customers.
– If the councils choose to go ahead with the schemes unsubsidised, then the £44m will come out of the ratepayers pockets.
– So overall there isn’t some magic £44m that the leprechauns provide, in both scenarios it comes out of the public so there hasn’t been a big change.
– If the councils decide to abandon the schemes despite the cash spent so far , then that loss comes out of the councils budget and it’s loss is the fault of the councillers who decided to risk the public money.
This subsidy cut is simply the latest in what will be a long list. George Osborne (For overseas viewers, he’s the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer) has seen right through this green propaganda and the figures scare him to death, hence he’s culling green subsidies everywhere. The Great Retreat is under way.