HOLDING BACK THE TIDE

Wind of Change would like to apologise in advance for any offence this post might cause - unless you're a blinkered anti-wind power fanatic or deluded climate change denying extremist, in which case you deserve to be offended.

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If there's one thing that anyone remembers about Cnut (or 'Canute'), it's that he tried to demonstrate his phenomenal powers as a king by planting his throne on the seashore and commanding the tide not to come in.

The same will be said one day - and not too far in the future - of the duplicitous phoneys of the anti-windfarm nimby movement. Well, we say movement. But these people don't really move. They just stand in the way.

They are, however, desperately trying to hold back the tide. And one of the ways they do this is by deluding themselves, and then anyone else who's foolish enough to listen to them, that windfarms are "unpopular" and that the rest of the world is beginning to have its doubts about wind power.

Challenge them about the "unpopular" claim by pointing out that a whole host of surveys and opinion polls, over a number of years, have consistently shown that the clear majority of Britons are in favour of wind power and even believe that they should be subsidised (which, currently, they're not). What you get in reply is some guff about people not being given the "facts", and when people are given the "facts" they tend to vote against wind energy.

Or rather, when a handful of ego-terrorists decide to tell people a whole pack of lies, nonsense, false claims, unsubstantiated rumours and general gobbledegook - basically, what passes in Nimbyworld for "facts" - some people believe them. Call it the Fox News syndrome. Anyone with a brain can tell that Fox News is an evil right-wing propaganda machine, a sort of Death Star of disinformation. But some people watch it, and those people grow progressively stupider by doing so. And, by the same token, when the manic street preachers and quislings of the nimby brigade evacuate their "facts" all over the public, sadly, some people will grow measureably stupider. It happened here in the Lenches.

You have to remember that anti-wind nimbies (or "aw-nimbies") live in a bubble. Or a cross between a bubble and an echo chamber. They hear only what they want to hear and believe only what they want to believe. This means that they are susceptible to the latest mindless rant from the Delingpole School of Climate Lies, the latest skewed study from the Renewable Energy Foundation. These they add to their mass of "facts" while going out of their way to avoid investigating the reality. And, typical of the bigoted Little Englanders that they are, they haven't the foggiest about what's going on elsewhere in the world, unless it's another nimby lie they've cooked up (like their weird old chestnuts about Denmark's wind industry). This allows them to dream up yet more lies like "The rest of the world is having doubts about wind".

Like in the US, maybe, where last year installed wind capacity overtook nuclear power (incidentally, last year also saw a record number of nuclear power outtages in the States). Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that the average price for utility-scale wind energy equipment fell by another 4% in the second half of last year. Costs are now just three-quarters of what they were in 2009. The price is coming down all the time, not least of all because Chinese manufacturers are competing for orders, especially in the developing markets like Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Australia.

Yes - all those places are investing in wind power. Although China remains the current world leader. But the market pressures on equipment prices now means that wind-generated electricity is as cheap as coal-generated energy - and by 2016 BNEF expects it to be completely cost-competitive with coal without any form of subsidies. Which will be interesting because, as we revealed in a recent post, coal is subsidised. So windfarms, those "subsidy harvesters" of the fevered nimby imagination, will soon be cheaper, even when not subsidised, than the subsidised fossil fuel power sources. Doesn't that just show us how wrong - how jaw-droppingly, brain-numbingly wrong - the nimbies are with their misleading crap about windfarms and subsidies?

Indeed, a report published by the Michigan Public Service Commission has revealed that things are even better than that. Electricity from wind power and other renewables is in fact one-third cheaper than electricity from new coal-fired power stations. ONE-THIRD CHEAPER!

Hardly surprising to find that "fossil fuel-funded 'experts' often exaggerate the cost of electricity generated with wind power", as the American Wind Energy Association noted. No! Really? You mean, not-really-expert "experts" who get money from the fossil fuel industry tell lies about wind power? Surely not!

Well, we know one who does: Lord Lawson.

Coal turns out to be one of the reasons why Nigel Lawson set up his risible "Global Warming Policy Foundation" in order to spew out lies and false claims about climate change. One of his clients runs a gargantuan coal-fired power station in Poland. And, being a not-terribly-good Tory ex-Chancellor, he'd rather try to mislead the British public over the greatest crisis facing humanity than give up a few quid from his CO2-spewing Polish monster. So he set up his British answer to the Heartland Institute in order to brainwash us all, just so he can keep his money. Oh, and his terrifyingly secretive registered charity publishes anti-wind power hogwash. What a Cnut!

Other aw-nimby Cnuts - who stuff their heads full of nonsense from the Telegraph- like to pretend that Spain's impressive wind energy developments have been a disaster for that financially-embarrassed country. Not so. Spain has to import all its oil, and is crippled by the current high oil prices (which, let's face it, are only going to rise). But Spain does have some abundant natural resources - wind and sun. A 2 MW windfarm generates the energy equivalent of 7,000 barrels of oil a year. So, in Spain, wind is the new oil.

Meanwhile, two reports out this week just go to show what a bunch of Cnuts the anti-wind brigade are. First, AF Consult have released the useless report that KPMG refused to release. This idiotically dimwitted "report" concluded that the UK could reach its carbon-emission-reduction targets more cheaply by building new nuclear and gas-fired power stations than by backing renewables.

A child could spot the flaw in that logic. An aw-nimby couldn't. But a child could.

Even the government, in the form of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, has stated that "The report's assumptions are so flawed that the conclusions are near pointless" and that the report (which KPMG didn't want to publish, it was so bad) is a "very, very poor piece of work". Which makes it the perfect sort of aw-nimby propaganda.

More worryingly, a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Guardian to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has revealed something that the government wasn't all that keen on telling us. 12 of the UK's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion caused by climate change.

Another reason why Cnuts like Lawson and Delingpole don't want to you believe in science! It's scary, folks!!

Flooding was what caused several reactors at Fukushima Daichi to meltdown last year. Of course, the kind of maniac who thinks that renewables "don't work" and nuclear is the answer will argue that it couldn't happen here. But then, nuclear accidents couldn't happen anywhere, could they? Until they happen. And then, all you can do is run for the hills and hope for the best.

So - the Cnuts out there want us to believe that wind power is expensive (it's already cheaper than coal, on a par with nuclear and will soon be cheaper than gas, with renewables prices falling all the time). They want us to believe that we should be investing in nuclear (massive delays, budget overruns, sudden power outtages, myriad hazards, not renewable, no long-term hazardous waste disposal plan, and now we hear considerable risks of flooding and/or collapsing) and gas (wholesale prices rising, dependency on Russia, good thinking guys!). They want you to believe that there's no such thing as man-made climate change so that they can continue taking money from shady oil lobbyists, titanic East European coal-fired plants, nuclear spin doctors and really rather tacky "luxury golf resorts" in Scotland.

They want you to believe that nowhere in the world is developing wind energy - when in fact, pretty much everywhere is. They want you to believe that everybody is having second thoughts, when they're not. They want you hear only their "facts" (i.e. lies) rather than find out for yourself. They want to screw Britain, the planet and the future.

That's the sort of cnut who campaigns against windfarms. The sort of cnut who thinks they can hold back the tide by shouting about it.