Who is to blame?

thor

Kohoutek wrote: »

Don't worry, Gordon Brown is paying £100 billion to some German and Japanese companies to build some wind turbines in the North Sea. Gordon's right about everything isn't he? I'm sure this will be as successful as his masterful handling of the public finances as Chancellor...

Well we will eventually need energy from non fossil fuels. Do you really think it will last forever? Being forced into buying from rogue unstable nations and hence being held to ransom is not something that is to be desired.
Renewables maybe inconsistent and not available all the time but surely it will reduce the amount of oil or gas we need.
From the reports I have seen about the dwindling number and size of new oil fields being discovered I have come to the conclusion that in a few years solar, wind, wave etc will be increased vastly out of neccessity.

Kohoutek

I don't disagree with you that we desperately need to diversify from fossil fuels, but wind power is not a good solution, because it's extremely expensive to set up and maintain but mainly because it's intermittent (i.e. it doesn't keep the lights on). In Denmark, the world's largest producer of wind energy, wind power hasn't reduced their dependence on fossil fuel energy one bit.

But because Labour have allocated such an enormous amount to wind energy, they have left little left for other more promising energy projects - like wave and biomass. For example, a tidal project on the river Severn could produce 5% of the UK's energy. The operators of the Drax coal plant, which generates 7% of the UK electricity invested money into converting the plant to biomass, but they've abandoned it because the government refuses to offer a subsidy, despite the fact it offers huge subsidises to wind power.

There are also more advanced nuclear power technologies, such as breeder reactors that generate their own fuel which are being developed right now. They're all much better technologies than wind in terms reliability and cost per unit of energy produced. But Gordon Brown has decided to spend £100 billion on wind, and obviously he is a man that believes he is never wrong.