A Plan to Stop CO2 Emissions in 10 Years...

19th January 2007

See the previous article for the response I'm replying to...

Hi Derek,

I'm not sure why you keep telling me that we must fund fusion research - as if I have suggested otherwise - I have agreed with that consistently... Derek, I agree - we should fund research into fusion and other clean energies!

While I completely agree that there should be ongoing funding for nuclear fusion, as well as any other potentially clean energy technologies, that is not one bit relevant to the problem in-hand - which is how to stop CO2 emissions as quickly as possible.

You must see the irony in your stance of pinning your hopes on a vastly complicated and unproven technology (i.e. fusion) while questioning our technical ability to provide the relatively simple technology of converting electricity from one form to another so it can be sold back to the grid, and providing storage and capacitance within the grid itself. The science of which is well understood, and (some) products are already available to do it.

Plans to combat the energy crisis...

We need to have a plan to combat CO2 emissions. From what you've said it seems to me that your plan is to:

1. Fund a new generation of fission reactors
2. Fund research into fusion in the hope it'll help at some point in the future

...I'm not sure I can glean any more from what you have said - is this correct or are there other policies you would like to see included?

With all due respect, this simply will not work. Plainly.

My plan is this:

1. Remove as many taxes & regulations from the renewable energy industry as possible. (VAT, Corp Tax, Employers Nat. Ins.... there are plenty) It must be made to be really profitable. (Freeing up the market on turning used veg oil into biodiesel alone would cut diesel consumption massively!)
2. Tax aircraft fuel at the same rate as petrol, and use the money raised to build a renewable energy infrastructure - including building storage into the grid, tidal lagoons...
3. Remove the charge & minimum allowed to sell back to the grid
4. Require that all new electricity meters must be two-way, and any customer requesting a replacement can have one fitted within 3 months at the company's expense.
5. Require that all new property developments must include renewable energy sources providing at least 50% of the projected usage, wired to go back into the grid if unused.
6. Don't build any fission reactors because they only reduce CO2 emissions by 4% and are a completely unacceptable security risk.

I would bet my house that if this was implemented, in 10 years 95% of our energy will come from renewables.

Subsidies are not the same as no tax

You seem to confuse the concept of removing taxes with the concept of subsidies. These are completely different approaches and to be frank I would expect you to know the difference.

Dropping taxes is far more effective way to stimulate an activity than government subsidies, and it only takes a few seconds of thought to see why...

1. To pay a subsidy the govt has to take the money from another area - more tax = less active economy
2. Paying subsidies involves a huge bureaucracy (look at the current fiasco over farm subsidies). Removing taxes reduces bureaucracy (no tax - no need to administer it).
3. Subsidies are usually paid in arrears, so smaller businesses would struggle to find startup cash. Removing taxes would mean the business was immediately profitable.

Yep, Wind-Farms have been Over-Egged...

Derek, if you actually read my previous emails, you would have noticed that I also agreed with you about wind-generators, yet from somewhere you seem to have got the idea that I wanted to install "an average of four wind generators for every sqare mile of the United Kingdom".

That was not my stance, and I would respectfully ask you to re-read what I have written, and give it due consideration. It seems you have missed or misunderstood a number of my points.

Hoping for the best...?

Finally, you say: "Let us hope that the right decisions will be made to ensure that future generations inherit a world where the air is clean and forests, plains and deserts provide a viable living to all the creatures that exist on our planet at the present time."

Well, to be honest, I find that a bit of a cop-out, because going by all the evidence so far, the chances of the existing establishment making the 'right decisions' are zero, hoping won't work, and it's down to people like you and I to make enough of a fuss to force them to make the right decisions. Grass roots action is the only way that positive change ever seems to happen in our society.

If people like you and I are going to be able to make enough of a fuss to get noticed, and hence make any difference, then we need, not just to have opinions, but we have to make sure those opinions are firmly based in reality.

There may be a million opinions out there on how to solve any particular problem, but there is only ever at most a handful of good solutions, and facts are always facts. I believe that in the case of the energy issue, the facts speak for themselves, and far too many people have opinions not based on the best data that is currently available, but rather on a personal prejudice.

I believe - as I have said before - that a cost-benefit anaysis of the different approaches should be done - officially. The government doesn't like those however - as they have refused to do one over the EU for over 30 years...

I recently wrote to my local MP - Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) about the EU, I have copied it below FYI...

I hope we can continue our discussion...

(Click here to read my letter (rant) to Jonathan Djanogly about the EU - 18 Jan 2007)

Reply From Derek

Pending...

Next Installment

AGW as Political Leverage...

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