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Having both emissions trading and feed-in tariffs is a waste of time
Dan Box
12th March, 2010
The new feed-in tariffs are nothing if not controversial, but they also run the risk of conflicting with other, international, climate change policies
Government climate change champion Ed Miliband calls it a 'local energy revolution'; the Independent 'a real green money-spinner' that will 'ease your eco-guilt'.
What are they talking about? None other than the new ‘feed-in tariffs’, which mean that, from April 1st, power companies will pay you to generate electricity from solar panels or wind turbines on your roof.
Now, I like free money as much as the next man, and my eyes lit up when I first heard of this idea. Only on closer inspection did I establish the problem; that in terms of fighting climate change, feed-in tariffs are a nonsense.
One issue very well-rehearsed is that the Government’s plans will literally throw billions at promoting solar panels, which are a stupid way to generate electricity in this dark but windy country. Solar panels allow you to ease your eco-guilt expensively - they are effectively a fashion accessory, or eco-bling (there has been a fair ding-dong over this in the pages of the national press).
Another fault is that forcing power companies to pay person X for his solar power will provoke them to put up all our bills in return – Miliband estimates by about £50 a year, though expect it to be more – creating a merry money-go-round where we pay with one hand and take with another (or, worse, where person X gets paid by person Y, who can’t afford any eco-bling herself).
But, most seriously, feed-in tariffs simply don’t add up, for one good reason – the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Under the ETS, carbon reductions in one industry can be traded against increases elsewhere. The British launch lags an identical decision by the German government in 2000, a report on which published in the journal Energy Policy says feed-in tariffs 'do not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ETS alone'.
Either have feed-in tariffs, or emissions trading. Having both is a waste of time. Miliband’s revolution may be a votewinner, but in terms of cutting Britain’s carbon emissions, it looks dangerously like multi-billion pound coup de theatre, nothing else.
Agree? Disagree? Leave your comment below...
Is Adair Turner this blog’s Favourite Person™?
With the end of the financial year fast approaching – the time when these things are totted up – Lord Turner of Ecchinswell is certainly making a storming run for the title.
This, after all, is the man who, as chairman of City watchdog the Financial Services Authority, said British banks engaged in 'socially useless' activity. The FSA itself, formerly dismissed by Private Eye as the Fundamentally Supine Authority, has also started to show some bite, trebling the fines it can levy on businesses and businessmen, and securing a conviction in the largest case of insider trading it has ever brought – of a former executive from Cazenove, the Queen’s stockbroker, no less.
Turner also chairs the Government’s influential Committee on Climate Change, and has used his seats on high to talk up both a carbon tax on imports and a Tobin tax on financial transactions to help the poor.
Other nominations for the Favourite Person™ award are welcome (winners receive a total of no prize money, prestige or worldly fame), but a word to those hoping to make the inside track: it’s going to be hard to elbow out the good Lord T.
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Re: Having both emissions trading and feed-in tariffs is a waste of timeI feel sickened that yet again VIABLE alternatives to fossil fuel and nuclear electricity generation are being ignored. Ones that could seriously replace it rather than replace a few percent of it by 2020. I mean come on! Modern day Renewables are not a viable replacement as can be seen by the figures and they are a red herring designed to placate the mass call for us all to go green whilst actually maintaining the centralised generation and control of energy keeping people dependant.
Have you ever wondered why if we now know that at the most fundamental level; everything in the universe is just energy, then why are we short of useable forms of electric energy on this planet? It boils down to control of the population and stimulation of the blind growth economies of the world both of which ultimately serve the banks , big business and governments (who are in bed with both) and ultimately rapes the planet. In 1895 Tesla & Westinghouse switched on the worlds first power station producing Alternating Current. Tesla soon realised the potential health problems associated with EMF (electromagnetic frequencies) and resolved to find a viable alternative without these health implications, which he did. The biggest coverup of viable technology that could still replace modern electricity generation, distribution and control started in 1912 when Nikola Tesla (who discovered AC electricity generation and pioneered its introduction to the world) demonstrated a "free energy" device, which would allow every building and housedhold to provide its own electric energy, FREE OF COST, and withough hazard to human health. His invention was promptly suppressed by the banker J.P Morgan, who had invested heavily in the conventional electric-energy generation system, whereby every home and building is linked to a meter and must pay for every minute of power. Most of Tesla's papers were (for obvious reasons) confiscated after his death and this secret lay dormant.
There is at present right now a company in Ireland called STEORN (www.steorn.com) who have invented a similar machine but who are not claiming to understand why it works only that it does. This has allowed them to set up an online community of people who are experimenting with different ways to make this technology commercially viable and available over the next few years. It threatens to rock a lot of boats. Firstly it would make all of fossil fuel and nuclear electricity generation obsolete as well as the distribution networks. Also it would make modern day so-called renewables obsolete. It would also threaten the control of big business and governments over the average person because they would be more independant and less controllable. In fact individuals could become much more sustainable.
You mention this to most environmentalists (and I am one of them) and they don't want to know because they fear the continued overexploitation of our planets finite resources and secretly are quite pleased that fossil fuels are running out and could slow this process down. You mention it to a scientist and they don't believe you because understanding how this technology works would rock the existing scientific paradigms to the core. You mention it to Joe Public and they simply don't believe you because we are all so brainwashed into thinking that usable electric energy (in fact everything) is so scarce (and scarcity pushes up the price). The Public have to beleive this or they wouldn't be paying through the nose for energy and working all those extra hours to earn the money to pay the bills.
It is all about control of the population so they are willingly milked for the benefit of those in control and to the detriment of the majority of people and the planets ecosystems.
We are now at a point in time when it is criticl even for the survival of humanity that we stop being controlled by big business, banks and governments. They have clearly demonstrated they no longer serve the people but that it is the people who serve them.
A word of caution, however, and possibly a big part of the reason why even eco-people don't want to accept this alternative power source and that is that we could then use it to plunder the earth even easier and cheaper than we did before. We obviously need a much less selfish mindset to handle this power. It would , however, allow people to become less dependant, less controlled and ultimately they would have more time and incentive (ie not having to work long hours to pay their energy bills) to discover their inner compassionate nature and have the time and inclination to nurture this creative mindset. It is well established that by keeping people in the mindset of fear they become more controllable by those who promise to keep them safe from the perceived causes of this fear. It is, however, a self fulfilling prophecy that if you keep people fearful, it is more likely that they will submit to their lower nature as witnessed all over the world today. To ignore such technology because of the possibility of it being misused to hasten ecosystem decline and destruction is missing the opportunity to embrace it and use it appropriately, in harmony with Nature so that it establishes a mutually beneficial relationship for all the interrelated systems on this Earth. The Economist should be shouting about this technology from the rooftops and not be fooled by the red-herring of so-called Renewables. | |
Re: Having both emissions trading and feed-in tariffs is a waste of timeI meant to say the Ecologist! | |
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