Listeners to the Today programme this morning were treated to the chair of the “Carbon Tracker Initiative” Jeremy Leggett “slamming the meagre investment in renewable energy being made by energy companies. Apparently if they don’t do more, there will be starvation, droughts, floods and other “horrors”…
[gigya src=”https://abfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/swf/audioboom_default_player_v1.swf” style=”background-color:transparent; display:block; max-width: 700px;” flashvars=”image_option=small&imgURL=&link_color=%2358d1eb&mp3Author=acraftyhalf&mp3Duration=131135.0&mp3LinkURL=https%3A%2F%2Faudioboom.com%2Fboos%2F3631372-jeremy-leggett-on-today-programme&mp3Time=09.21am+29+Sep+2015&mp3Title=Jeremy+Leggett+on+Today+Programme&mp3URL=https%3A%2F%2Faudioboom.com%2Fboos%2F3631372-jeremy-leggett-on-today-programme.mp3%3Fsource%3Dwordpress&player_theme=light&rootID=boo_player_1&show_title=true&waveimgURL=https%3A%2F%2Fd15mj6e6qmt1na.cloudfront.net%2Fi%2Fw%2F3445687″ width=”540″ height=”150″ allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent”]
“They’re [the big oil companies] setting up of a study to find out whether you know, we can have 50% renewable in the electricity mix by 2050. Well, you know, that’s completely inadequate. That will give us a world of four degree Celsius, way above the danger ceiling of two degree Celsius for global warming. A world in which you know, we’d be finding it difficult to feed ourselves or have enough drinking water amid all the droughts and floods and wildfires and all the other horrors.”
Oddly, what James Naughtie failed to mention is that Jeremy Leggett is the founder and non-executive chairman of Solarcentury, one of the UK’s largest solar companies. Some sunlight should have been shone on his vested interest…
The CBI have launched an all-out assault on Amber Rudd’s plans to cut green crap this morning, with their director General John Cridland briefing the newspapers that the cuts will send a “worrying signal” to business. He sounds a bit like a Greenpeace spokesman…
“The green economy is an emerging market in its own right, brimming with opportunity… Yet, with the roll-back of renewables policies and the mixed messages on energy efficiency, the government risks sending a worrying signal to businesses… We need all countries to pull in the same direction at the Paris Climate Summit (in November) to give firms the certainty and confidence they need to invest in the green economy for the long run”.
What is it about businesses with guaranteed government backed revenue that the big biz Brexit scaremongers at the CBI like so much?
Amber Rudd has hinted that she may be forced to back-peddle on her excellent plan to slash solar subsidies, telling the Commons today that it was “too early to say what the outcome of the consultation will be” and that she was “determined to identify the right level of solar subsidies to continue growth”. Rudd’s carefully worded caveats were made as she took oral questions for the first time since DECC announced it was consulting on plans to cut solar subsidies by 87%.
Rudd and Minister of State Andrea Leadsom are coming under sustained pressure over their subsidy plans. They faced kickback from all sides of the chamber today, while yesterday they received criticism from Boris. Stick in there Amber…
Fresh from pulling the plug on onshore wind subsidies, the surprisingly sound Amber Rudd is preparing to do the same to small scale solar farms. DECC are consulting on plans that would slash subsidies for new solar projects below 5MW on the grounds that falling costs are causing more solar farms to be built than they have the budget to pay for. At the current rate DECC could be on the hook for £9.2 billion in renewable subsidies by 2021 – £1.5 billion more than they’ve allocated. Turns out taking free cash is popular among landowners…
Rudd took to airwaves this morning to defend her cost cutting:
“We can’t have a situation where industry has a blank cheque, and that cheque is paid for by people’s bills… we can’t have a system, which we’ve had up to now, where there is basically unlimited [subsidy] headroom for new renewables, including solar.”
Even after this cut, the green crap bill is still in the billions…
In what has to be one of the most successful PR stunts in green-wash history, the people representing rap artist Akon have managed to convince half the world’s media that the “Smack That” singer is about to bring solar power to no less than 600 million people in Africa. That would mean bringing power to every single person without power in the whole of Africa..
The PR drive coincides with the launch of the opening by the “Akon Lighting Africa” intiative of a “Solar Academy” in Mali which will train engineers in the skills needed to develop solar power across the African continent. Akon’s solar initiative invests an average of $75,000 to bring solar power to one village. By Gaia’s calculation it would cost around $98,468,250,000 to rollout solar at that cost through the rest of the continent. Gaia wishes “Akon Lighting Africa” the best of luck…
The largest solar panel company in China, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, which lost half of its value last week, might not have even been making solar panels. HTF lost $18.6 billion in frantic trading last Wednesday, burning index-tracking stock funds in its wake and ‘losing’ its chairman and majority chair man Li Hejun $15 billion. Li shorted HTF by 796 million shares two days before the stock crashed…
According to hedge fund manager John Hempton, who visited Hanergy’s main Chinese factory last month, the vast complex appeared to be pretty much empty.
“It was almost entirely silent. There was essentially no production of solar cells at all and the accounts that suggest significant production and sales are entirely fraudulent.”
Brilliantly, the demonstration solar panels set up outside the factory were oriented away from the sun…
