Wednesday 20 October 2010

THE NEWS JUST GETS BETTER!

On the day that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the most drastic cuts in government spending since the Second World War, what did we hear?

The government has committed £200 million of NEW money to 'the development of low carbon technologies including offshore wind technology and manufacturing at port sites'.

This was more than campaigners had dared to hope for.

So, at a time when so many public services are being slashed, the coalition government - mainly comprising those Tories whom the nimbies of VVASP were relying on to fight their deluded corner - has revealed its wholehearted commitment to green energy and green jobs.

This comes on top of the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne's announcement that there would be no public money available for building new nuclear power stations. Realistically, that's a huge nail in the nuclear coffin. Nuclear is the most expensive form of electicity generation going, and in these difficult times there aren't many companies prepared to invest the colossal sums involved in new-build nuclear plants.

The nuclear industry has never been able to survive without massive government subsidies. Clearly, the government is - for the meantime, at least - sticking to its forecasts of enormous increases in wind power and renewables and a commensurate decline in nuclear over the next few years.

For many in Britain, today was a very bad day. There will be casualties of the government's sweeping cuts.

But one of the few, the very, very few industries to be promised an impressive increase in public spending is the renewables industry.

Time to face reality - nimbyism, especially where renewables projects and wind power are concerned, is outdated. A thing of the past. Even their supposed friends in government have left them behind.

VVASP is a twentieth century mindset barely even treading water in the 21st century. Their time is gone. They are increasingly irrelevant and out-of-touch.

Apart from which, they've been wrong from the very start. Wrongheaded - and now, wrongfooted.

So, every cloud, eh?

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