Windmill subsidies to be reduced by 10%

The British government is knocking 10% off the taxpayer subsidy for windmills, citing increased efficiency with the technology as a major reason for doing so.

In 2008 the windmill industry was forced to admit that they had overstated the efficiency of their cash cows by about 100% but the subsidies continued regardless and nobody was prosecuted for their misleading adverts or obtaining taxpayers' money by deception.

UKIP MEP, Paul Nuttall, says that the 10% cut is laughable and that subsidies for windmills should be scrapped altogether. I can't find fault with that argument.  The subsidies are paid (in part) by a "green" tax applied to every gas and electricity bill.  Whether you're a millionaire or one of the thousands of elderly and vulnerable people who die every winter as a result of fuel poverty, we all pay the windmill tax so that multi-national corporations and rich landowners can blight the landscape with their inefficient, ineffective windmills. It's immoral.

Windmills have a place in micro-generation where householders and companies erect very small windmills in their gardens or at their premises to produce a small amount of electricity for their own consumption.  For community groups or organisations like the Scouts who have buildings that are empty for days on end, producing and storing a small amount of electricity for personal consumption makes sense provided that the necessary equipment can be purchased and maintained at a low enough cost not to require a taxpayer subsidy to pay for it.

Where windmills don't have a place is the national grid.  They are hugely expensive to make, they are hugely expensive to erect, they are hugely expensive to connect to the national grid and they are hugely expensive to maintain.  The huge expense wouldn't be a problem if they produced enough electricity to cover these costs, let alone make a profit, but they are a financial black hole that will swallow up taxpayers' money from the day they are made to the day they are decommissioned.  I was in Abergele at the weekend and saw the multitude of windmills that have been thrown up in the bay at Pensarn - every single one of them motionless, producing zero electricity but burning taxpayers money.  This is the future of electricity production in the UK unless the global warming scam is stopped in its tracks.

Conservation and common sense environmentalism make perfect sense but the organisations that used to lead in that field have willingly allowed the global warming con merchants to take over their cause.  When the global warming gravy train is finally derailed they will all suffer long term pain for their short term gain.