German wind power company gone bust

So what should be done?

a



The audience is small, but I don't think it is too small minded for a discussion of quite complicated issues.

I think the views of many who take seriously such issues as climate change etc. are anathema to the banner headline views of the 'green movement'. Mine frequently are. But 'placard waving' movements have always been prone to a simplistic take on a subject. Its always easier to be against something, and therefore be adamant that 'something else' must be better, than it is to think more deeply about things. Esp. if that helps you to feel more righteous. Which is not to diss. the intentions of many who would call themselves 'green', I just wish the debate was less shallow than it frequently is. For everyones sake.

Back to the subjuct of lending to wind turbines. I am not a huge fan of covering the country in turbines, let alone massive off shore windfarms, on quite a few grounds. However wind power probably has some role to pay as part of a policy of diversified energy sources. Regardless, if I'm forced to pay out for them from one hand and pretty much a guarantee that they will get built because of the subsidies, then I'm comfortable with trying to recoup some of that back from the other hand. Indeed adamant that I should recoup, given that I don't full heartedly support the existing green energy subsidy regime.

I don't think a future UK govt. is going to retrospectively change the subsidy regime for existing/committed. You can never say never, but meeting its current (right or wrong) international obligations will be hard enough. And the only thing worse than putting large number of WTs in inappropriate places because of an artificially skewed market would be to have them still there but sitting permanently idle because the operator has gone bust due to a changed subsidy regime.

P.S. I would add that the threat of a changed future subsidy regime - indeed my expectation of one at some point - would make me very cautious of lending to a company who's business was supplying the market. but that is an entirely different story.

Dear Chielmangus

So what then?
energy efficiency - yes I assume (or do I?)
nuclear ? yes/no/sort of?
gas?
coal?
solar?
wind - no obviously
tidal?
biomass?
geothermal?
I'm only doing this off the top of my head, so I've probably forgotten several, and yes this discussion could go elesewhere, but I think you owe it to us to at least state which way you think we should be heading given that you've declared the current path all wrong.

You read some half remembered thing in a waiting room and now you're going to write a book about it!

Try out your arguments on a small subset of the population first is my recommendation. 

My guess is you're not going to propose a single source, like 'just burn coal'. So it must be some kind of mixture. Is it  'Ukip mix', {coal oil gas, nuke} or green mix minus wind? Or some balance between? Do tell!

"There is something underlying many world problems which nobody wants to think about. "

Think I've got it. Its People !

What we need is a wwide pandemic of something like Ebola or Marburg. That would sort that problem out. Especially if it establishes itself long enough in human hosts for it mutate to an airborne form.

But of course that would never happen, as the Western world has had decades to think about the consequences of combining international air travel with increasing urbanisation of African populations. They and the WHO are bound to have rock solid contingency plans in their back pockets for when the inevitable happens and an outbreak fails to burn itself out in some poor isolated rural community as its always done before. So will have to find another solution.

Well Nostrodamus, you started by telling us that wind energy was a bad deal for consumers, I asked you what alternative you favoured, and you won't say, on the grounds that an energy policy is not the answer to all the world's problems.  This discussion is indeed fruitless.