EU Referendum

I was talking to a power supply engineer the other day, and asked him whether it was worth getting a back-up generator to protect against the possibility of power cuts. The answer was a most emphatic "yes", and he is by no means the only one who has given that answer.

But what is just as worrying is that the likelihood of anything intelligent being done about the problem has just receded. According to a Eurobarometer poll released yesterday, only 20 percent of those polled throughout the EU are in favour of nuclear energy, 80 percent back solar energy and 71 percent are in favour of wind energy. Which just goes to prove that the majority can be wrong (and most often is).

But with that level of hostility towards nuclear, and those sort of percentages in favour of renewables, the chances of any politicians (apart from the French, who don't give a damn) making the "tough decision" and going hard for nuclear are extremely slight.

The poll itself has been published as a curtain-raiser to the publication of the EU's strategic energy review, copies of which have already been leaked. But first sight indicates that it is not going to become a runaway best seller.

In fact, a study of the document simply affirms that the EU is not in control and the key decisions – as always – are going to have to be made by member states. And they, it would appear, can be as bad as the EU when it comes to making the right decisions.

That generator is looking more and more like an essential as days pass.

COMMENT THREAD

Like the tower blocks before them, the wind towers are another mass delusion. A letter in The Telegraph tells us why:

Sir – Once again the public are being misled by the wind industry. These windfarms, which are going to cover over 100 square miles of the approaches to the Thames Estuary, will never power one third of London homes.

If as suggested the installed capacity of the 400-plus turbines is 1.3 Gw (1300Mw) then even with a generous load factor of 30 per cent the average output will only be 390Mw. This would in fact be enough to provide 5Kw to 78,000 homes, about enough to power an electric kettle and a toaster. If, as there frequently is, a high pressure system is sitting over south-east England, then there will be zero output from these windfarms. The claims about carbon dioxide savings are equally dishonest. Using widely accepted data the annual, theoretical savings of CO2 for these turbines would be approximately 1.46 Mt and would reduce global levels by a farcical 0.005 per cent.

What your readers really need to know is that these windfarms will receive approximately £160 million per year in subsidies, paid for by them. This windfarm scandal has gone on long enough and needs to be exposed for what is. We are destroying our landscapes and now our seascapes for nothing more than green tokenism, and are being expected to pay for it as well.

Bob Graham, Chairman, Highlands Against Windfarms, Orton, Moray