Fuelling the argument for a more balanced energy policy

From: Richard Wood, Farnley Tyas, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

THE letters from Ron Firth, Philip Wilks and Dr Bev Wilkinson (Yorkshire Post, June 13) are excellent contributions and state the exact situation over the energy situation in this country.

Recent letters in the Yorkshire Post have also reflected the same opinion, so why don’t the politicians listen and implement the common sense of a balanced energy policy of the past when coal, gas and nuclear were equal suppliers, but also included 10 per cent green energy, which is a developing industry but which cannot yet pay for itself?

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Why are we subsidising unpopular wind farms etc at the cost of the other basics in life – reductions in the police force, NHS and education – to pay for all this greenery?

Coal is currently providing 40 per cent of unsubsidised electricity but the Government has been running its Clean Coal Competition for seven years, with no conclusion and ignored the Don Valley Power Project, which had £400m of EU subsidies plus the support of Siemens and was a new start UK company. But the 4.5 billion tonnes of our coal reserves are black, not green.

Currently coal is producing 40 per cent of electricity because it is cheap and the generators are running their coal stations harder than forecast and because the EU has given them a limited number of hours to run before they shut. What will fill the gap?

The prospect of subsidised wind and other intermittent green energy being the main source of our energy, supported by bio-mass and volatile-priced gas, can only increase fuel poverty, as the cost of electricity to the consumer is 50 per cent and the other 50 per cent is green tax, social support and transmission costs. We haven’t even got started on replacement nuclear yet. The current Energy Bill enshrines in law that all off-shore wind will be subsidised by three times the current electricity market price!

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In 1913 the country burnt an unabated 237 million tons of coal, so if it’s such a dirty fuel, how come we are still here? When the Government looks around after spending all this money and reduced our 1.6 per cent contribution to global climate change, we may find we are on our own, in the EU and the world.

From: D M Loxley, Pinewood View, Hartoft, Pickering, North Yorkshire.

IN the glowing article “this green energy for the masses should be welcomed”, Blackfriar (Yorkshire Post, June 13) painted a picture rosy to the point of utopian.

It is the information which was not given which is of interest. In order for this scheme to be “carbon neutral” there will have to be 1,046 square miles of well managed mature woodland uniquely dedicated to the project for the whole of its life.

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By comparison Dorothy Thompson said that some 1,600 trucks would be needed to transport 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of fuel from Scotland.

If Drax continued to burn coal and did not take wood pellets then ‘carbon neutrality’ could be ensured by uniquely dedicating 976 square miles of “well managed mature woodland” Thus leaving about 70 square miles for other ‘carbon offsetting’ schemes.