KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON

Tim Yeo, Conservative chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, has said this today:

If we want to keep the lights on and create an energy system fit for the future then new rules are needed to fast track energy projects through the UK's notoriously glacial planning system.

If these new policy statements don't put the cleanest forms of energy at the top of the agenda they will leave us dangerously dependent on fossil fuels.

The UK's energy security and our prospects for creating a successful low-carbon economy depend on the Government kick-starting a dash for low-carbon technology, not a new dash for gas.

Tough words. But they echo recent developments at the European level. In the past few days (while the nimbies have been hiding from Councillors visiting the site of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm), over 200 businesses, politicians and organisations have signed up to a declaration calling for the EU to achieve 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2050.

That would be a massive, fantastic commitment, achievable and necessary. It would mean that Europe really had taken the lead in moving towards a global sustainable economy.

At present, every citizen in the EU pays about 700 euros a year towards foreign fuel imports. While the nimbies are making up stories about excessive subsidies for renewables, the real problem is that each of us is paying far too much for dirty coal, oil and gas, brought in from abroad. A concerted, Europe-wide move towards renewables would obviate the need to buy gas from Russia, for example. We'd have clean, green energy, with no dependency on unreliable foreign governments.

To see the European declaration, which is gathering more support by the day, go to:

http://www.100percentrenewables.eu/

So - Europe is beginning to recognise the need for 100% of its energy to come from renewables. The coalition government now recognises that nimbies holding up the planning system are wreaking havoc on our national energy policy.

And now, we hear that a national journalist has started investigating the notorious Windfarm Working Party, that colossal abuse of local democracy driven by the nasty nimbies of Church Lench. Keep watching this space.

So - with twenty-four hours or so to go before the Wychavon decision on the district's first wind farm, lots of news out there. And none of it is very good for the Luddites of VVASP.