Essay by Eric Worrall
Obviously the illusion that renewables drive up prices is caused by greedy green energy developers, right?
Climate change: State-owned wind farm ‘could cut bills’
By Sarah DickinsEconomics correspondent, BBC Wales
Plans for a publicly owned energy company could see bills reduced and renewable supplies directly benefit communities, a minister has said.
The proposal is for a joint venture between the Welsh government and developers.
Profits would be used to construct wind turbine sites owned by communities.
Climate Change Minister Julie James says “it sticks in my craw” that foreign governments get profits from wind farms in Wales.
Ms James said communities would benefit from either owning turbines, getting homes fitted to save energy or from lower bills .
“This will be a company that brings more of the profits back to the people of Wales directly, in the form of a state developer, but we will have to do that in a joint venture partnership with a range of other providers,” she said.
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I enjoyed my time living in Cardiff, Welsh people are very friendly and welcoming, once you get past the initial reserve. But it was obvious even in my short stay that something was very wrong.
Wales in my opinion is one of the most over governed places in the world, more so even than Northern Ireland and Scotland. Nothing moves in Wales without government funding, largely supplied by English taxpayers. My impression, pretty much the first thing anyone does when trying to set up a new business in Wales is apply for a government grant, otherwise they can’t compete against everyone else whose businesses are backed by the government.
This deluge of government cash has led to significant levels of fraud.
So it comes as no surprise that Wales would attempt to point the government money hose at renewable energy.
I would like to say the Welsh Government are about to discover the hard way that renewables drive up energy bills because they are really expensive to build and operate. But this new Welsh wind project will be buoyed up by so much government money, it won’t take much fancy accounting to present it as a win, rather than the money haemorrhage it would be if it wasn’t for all the government support.
There are plenty of better things Wales could spend taxpayer’s money on.
One of the people I worked with in Wales was heavily involved in a charity which helped the young adult children of multi-generation drug addict families. She painted a horrifying description – kids who had grown up in such neglect, they didn’t know how to speak or wash themselves, let alone read and write.
Wales has a huge problem with alcohol and drug abuse. A few times I came face to face with Wales’ drug problems. After a particularly bad confrontation with a bunch of thugs who came to collect from someone who lived upstairs, one of the police officers who attended gave me his card, so if I got into another confrontation he could put in a good word for me.
Of course, this all happened over 20 years ago. If someone confronted a bunch of Welsh drug dealers today, they would probably be shot with an East European manufactured handgun. In Britain, only criminals get to bear arms.
