YOU may have read about Greta Thunberg’s arrest last week at a demonstration in Germany against a new lignite mine which will obliterate a village and a wind farm.
Irritated that by suggestions that the scene involving their golden girl was stage-managed, the BBC rushed out a report by ‘climate disinformation reporter’ Merlyn Thomas: ‘German police have denied being “extras for Greta Thunberg” after false claims that her detainment at a protest in western Germany was staged. “We would never give ourselves to make such recordings,” a spokesperson for local police told the BBC, denying allegations that Ms Thunberg’s detainment was fake.’
So who to believe – the BBC or your lying eyes?
The original BBC article on the arrest included a video which showed 20-year-old Ms Thunberg being carried away by two police officers – see here.
For some reason the BBC did not want viewers to see the whole of the video, which is here.
This features her laughing and chatting with police, while a photographer who conveniently happens to be on the scene takes several close-ups before St Greta is ‘marched away’. It is transparently obvious that the whole thing was a stunt in which the police were complicit.
And the arrest? The BBC report said that Greta had been briefly detained and would not be charged.
How convenient!
Starmer vows to ban new North Sea oil investment
SIR Keir Starmer has vowed to ban all new investment in North Sea oil and gas and to stop any new fields from being opened. It is telling that he made this announcement on the stage at the WEF in Davos last week, in front of his globalist masters, instead of having the courage to tell the British public to their face.
According to the Telegraph, the Labour leader said: ‘What we’ve said about oil and gas is that there does need to be a transition. Obviously it will play its part during that transition but not new investment, not new fields up in the North Sea, because we need to go towards Net Zero, we need to ensure that renewable energy is where we go next.’
He claimed that this would bring down energy bills. He plainly does not understand the laws of supply and demand! We will still need oil and gas for many years to come, and the only way to bring prices down is to expand output and invest in new fields.
If the West follows through on Starmer’s crazy policy of shutting down fossil fuels, the oil and gas market will get ever tighter, our reliance on OPEC ever greater, and prices ever higher. Worse still, declining output will inevitably cause massive economic shocks on a global scale. Remember the 1970s and multiply that tenfold.
Labour’s plan is, of course, to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power. But our current energy mix shows that even if we quadruple renewable energy, it will barely make a dent in overall energy consumption, with wind and solar currently only supplying less than 4 per cent of our needs.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/digest-of-uk-energy-statistics-dukes-2022
There is no evidence, either, that renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. Even at currently high prices, the wholesale cost of gas is about £75/MWh against electricity at £220/MWh. Natural gas remains the cheapest way of heating a home.
Meanwhile, because of high electricity prices electric cars cost more to run than a diesel model, once the cost of fuel duty is excluded.
On top of all this, Starmer’s promise will leave a black hole in public finances. Over the next five years, North Sea taxation is forecast to bring £32billion into the public coffers. This does not include the £34billion projected from windfall taxes.
Once Starmer gets his way, that revenue will quickly dry up.
Office for Budget Responsibility November 2022 Economic & Fiscal Outlook
When will this madness end?
Running out of electricity
THIS week the National Grid introduced its Demand Flexibility Service as cold weather boosted demand and reduced wind power generation. This fancy title is really nothing more than energy rationing. The service pays customers who cut electricity usage during peak hours, and it was triggered on Monday and Tuesday evenings this week, when demand threatened to outstrip supply.
Yet the weather this week has not been particularly cold, and wind power was running at over 4 GW during those periods. It often drops below 1 GW for days on end during most winters. To be so short of power in these circumstances is an indictment of the criminally negligent climate policies which have brought us to this debacle.
Let us be very clear. What the National Grid is doing is a sticking plaster job. It may be able to fill the gap between supply and demand at these peak periods, but in the not-too-distant future we will be short of power for days on end, not just an odd hour in the evening.
On Monday evening, for instance, CCGT gas power was operating pretty much flat out, supplying 53 per cent of our electricity. Coal power stations, which are all due for closure next year, were contributing another gigawatt. By 2035 the government plans on shutting all the gas power plants too. In a few years, heat pumps and electric cars will push demand for power much higher than it is now.
And for how much longer will we able to depend on importing electricity from Europe? This week, for example, Germany’s wind farms have been similarly affected by anti-cyclonic weather, producing at only 4 per cent of capacity on Tuesday.
I suggest we all stock up on candles now!