Energy Minister Signals Wind Farms Are A Dead End
Prime Minister Calls For New Debate About Wind Energy
Prime Minister Calls For New Debate About Wind Energy
Young families in Britain face the toughest winter since the 1850s, an expert warned yesterday. Millions will be plunged into the kind of fuel poverty last seen in Dickensian times because of the relentless rise in energy bills, it is feared. Financial commentator Jasmine Birtles said: “A quarter of young households will significantly struggle to make ends meet over the coming months.” --Western Daily Press, 30 October 2012
Britain’s Energy Minister John Hayes said policy should not be based on some ‘bourgeois left article of faith.’ --James Chapman and Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 31 October 2012
Britain’s Energy Minister John Hayes said policy should not be based on some ‘bourgeois left article of faith.’ --James Chapman and Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 31 October 2012
The relentless march of onshore wind farms is at an end, a minister declared last night. Insisting ‘enough is enough’, John Hayes said turbines had been ‘peppered around the country’ with little or no regard for local opinion. He said existing sites and those in the pipeline would be enough to meet green commitments with no need for more. The intervention by Mr Hayes, who became energy minister in last month’s reshuffle, will delight 100-plus fellow Tory MPs who have urged David Cameron to take a more sceptical approach to onshore wind power. Mr Hayes said policy should not be based on some ‘bourgeois left article of faith’. --James Chapman and Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 31 October 2012
Former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lawson said: ‘I would welcome the minister’s statements. I would hope they would translate into a moratorium. An additional problem is that wind power is one of the most expensive forms of generating electricity there is. ‘At a time when there is so much concern both from households and industry about the cost of energy, that too should be a decisive argument against going this way.’ -- James Chapman and Matt Chorley, Daily Mail, 31 October 2012
The significance of yesterday’s shock announcement by our Energy Minister John Hayes that the Government plans to put a firm limit on the building of any more onshore windfarms is hard to exaggerate. On the face of it, this promises to be the beginning of an end to one of the greatest and most dangerous political delusions of our time. Nowhere will this announcement be greeted with more delirious surprise than in all those hundreds of communities across the land where outraged local protest groups have formed in ever greater numbers to fight the onward march of what they see as the greatest threat to Britain’s countryside for centuries. Until our politicians finally have the courage of their newfound convictions and halt this madness, too, one of the most bizarre follies of our age will not have been finally chucked where it belongs — firmly into the rubbish bin of history. –Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, 31 October 2012
Sir Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's former press secretary, and now secretary of the pressure group Supporters of Nuclear Energy, said: "Reality is dawning. This was always a dead end and a very destructive and expensive dead end, both on-shore and off-shore." –ITV News, 31 October 2012
British Prime Minister David Cameron has said there needs to be a “debate” about wind farms, after one of his Tory ministers claimed there are too many turbines “peppering” the countryside. The Prime Minister said there is “no change towards renewable energy”, despite John Hayes’s promise to call a halt to the march of wind farms because “enough is enough”. However, he hinted the number of wind farms could be reviewed after the UK meets targets set by the European Union, which dictate that Britain must get 15 per cent of its energy from renewables by 2020. --Rowena Mason, The Daily Telegraph, 31 October 2012
The main question is whether this [anti-wind] determination is shared by any of Hayes’ colleagues — the Tory leadership, perhaps? After all, George Osborne has been fighting for cuts to those subsidies applied to renewable energy sources. And that attitude has been reflected in several recent appointments: Mr Hayes’s own switch to the energy department; Owen Paterson as the Secretary of State in charge of the environment brief; and Peter Lilley’s ascension, last week, to the Commons’ energy and climate change select committee. Indeed, you might almost think that Mr Hayes had been put up to this sort of thing. At the very least, the idea’s not too fanciful. --Peter Hoskin, Conservative Home, 31 October 2012
British Prime Minister David Cameron has said there needs to be a “debate” about wind farms, after one of his Tory ministers claimed there are too many turbines “peppering” the countryside. The Prime Minister said there is “no change towards renewable energy”, despite John Hayes’s promise to call a halt to the march of wind farms because “enough is enough”. However, he hinted the number of wind farms could be reviewed after the UK meets targets set by the European Union, which dictate that Britain must get 15 per cent of its energy from renewables by 2020. --Rowena Mason, The Daily Telegraph, 31 October 2012
The main question is whether this [anti-wind] determination is shared by any of Hayes’ colleagues — the Tory leadership, perhaps? After all, George Osborne has been fighting for cuts to those subsidies applied to renewable energy sources. And that attitude has been reflected in several recent appointments: Mr Hayes’s own switch to the energy department; Owen Paterson as the Secretary of State in charge of the environment brief; and Peter Lilley’s ascension, last week, to the Commons’ energy and climate change select committee. Indeed, you might almost think that Mr Hayes had been put up to this sort of thing. At the very least, the idea’s not too fanciful. --Peter Hoskin, Conservative Home, 31 October 2012
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