BRITAIN'S SHAME

Ireland is about to achieve a historic reversal. Traditionally, the Emerald Isle imported fuel for energy. But the country is now on the verge of becoming an energy exporter.

How has it managed this? By building windfarms.

Like the UK, Ireland gets an awful lot of wind. Unlike the UK, Ireland's government is a major supporter of its burgeoning wind industry. A couple of days ago, the Irish Minister for Energy announced a new support scheme for renewable energy. The Irish Independent newspaper announced that "the proactive and strategic development of wind energy has a clear role to play in Ireland's road to economic recovery and in stimulating employment growth ...

"An opportunity is emerging; we must seize it."

Not quite the message that Britain's dog-eared right-wing press has been broadcasting. Over here, we're expected to believe that wind power doesn't work, that it's too intermittent, too inefficient and completely reliant on subsidies. The rest of the world, meanwhile, is busily striding forwards with renewables, and wind energy is one of the global growth industries. Denmark has just confirmed its commitment to getting 50% of its electricity from wind and other renewables by 2020; Scotland expects to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by then and still to be a net exporter of energy.

Ireland's encouragement of its own wind industry means that the Irish expect to be exporting an annual six billion euros worth of surplus wind energy within the next few years. Most of that will be exported to its nearest neighbour - the UK.

How ironic would it be if the country which likes to kid itself that wind power is useless ends up buying in wind-generated energy from Ireland and Scotland? This, it should be pointed out, is extremely likely in the very near future. Once again, we'll be losing out - paying other countries for the clean, green, cheap-to-produce energy that we couldn't be bothered to develop because we were so busy telling each other nimby lies about wind.

On the subject of cheap energy, an article on CleanTechnica.com presents some interesting facts. The French Court of Auditors recently found that nuclear power costs more to produce than French consumers are paying for it because no one had previously taken all the costs of nuclear into account. For a start, the costs of being nuclear plants has skyrocketed. In 1978, it cost the equivalent of 1.07 million euros per megawatt. By 2002, that had risen to 1.37 million euros per megawatt. Now, in the post-Fukushima world (which has seen Japan shut down all but one of its 56 reactors, with the last one scheduled to be switched off in May), the current costs of constructing a nuclear power station are an estimated 3.7 million euros per megawatt. Construction of the Flamanville nuclear plant began in 2006 - now completion has been put back to 2016 and the costs have gone up by 50%.

What all this means is that nuclear will cost about 102 euros per megawatt hour by 2020. By then, onshore wind will cost about 58 euros per megawatt hour, and offshore wind about 75 euros.

No marks for guessing which is the cheaper option. Or which is the cleaner, safer option. Or which takes the least time to get going. Or which does not leave tens of thousands of years of extremely hazardous waste to be dealt with and doesn't threaten to destroy everything within a radius of many miles.

All the same, we in the UK are continually bombarded by nimby nonsense and false figures produced by lobbyists for the fossil fuels and nuclear industries. We are allowing other countries - including our nearest neighbours - to steal a march on us. They will be the ones producing surplus clean energy, which we will have to pay them for. They will also be providing jobs and economic growth by investing in renewables - wind in particular - while we continue to grouse and gripe and spread silly stories which don't make sense.

Nimbyism is the cause of our growing shame in all this. Residents of fairly ordinary villages try to claim that theirs is a unique habitat which must never be "threatened" by anything as unthreatening as a windfarm. No, they shriek: put all the windfarms offshore!! But then the shore-dwellers kick up an unholy stink about offshore developments, like the breathtaking Atlantic Array in the Bristol Channel or the European Offshore Wind Development Centre, which Donald Trump and his hired gangsters are trying to stop.

So, if we were to listen to the nimby idiots of Middle England we'd get the bizarre impression that nowhere is right for windfarms. They're all so busy passing the buck, pretending to be all in favour of renewables just as long as it's somebody else who has to see them, that no one is allowed to help move Britain into the 21st century. Every single nimby campaign really does seem to imagine that one small group of rural arrivistes can be absolved from playing a necessary (and enjoyable) part in Britain's energy renaissance. It just so happens that wherever these maniacs live is so special, the view so staggeringly remarkable, that they should and must be excused from doing their bit. But what happens is, with everywhere going nimby mental these days, it turns out that everyone's view is more special than anybody else's.

And so they tell lies about wind energy in an attempt to deflect attention from their monstrous selfishness and crazed paranoia.

And those lies are what is holding Britain back. The rest of the world isn't quite so infested with self-centred, irresponsible nimby liars as our little isle. Which seemingly means that we'll all end up paying more for our electricity - expensive nuclear from France, cheaper renewables from Ireland and Scotland - than we need to. Because we were too busy lying about how important the view is: more important than anybody else's; more important than saving the planet.

Nimbies, eh? Traitors all!