Wind of deceit drives Labour’s green energy plan

Blimey, what a hive of activity. In the space of 10 days we are told that wind turbines up to 50ft high are going to be allowed everywhere. We are given streamlined planning rules that will allow nuclear power stations and vast wind farms all over the place. And an energy bill is announced containing a levy that will make us pay more for our electricity to fund clean coal-fired power stations.

This is big stuff. I must tip my hat to that Ed Miliband, climate and energy secretary — he's done more in six months in the job than his predecessors did in 12 years. It does now look as if, just before the Copenhagen climate conference, the government is at last doing something aggressive about climate change. Something that is nearly proportionate to the threat climate change poses. Well, it is doing something aggressive anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I have long thought that if the danger of climate change is real, which overwhelming evidence suggests it is, then we have to fight it like a war. New evidence was published last week showing that over the past century we have seriously damaged the Earth's natural abilities to absorb greenhouse gases. In war, people made sacrifices and Detroit and the Black Country turned their car factories into plants making aeroplanes. In theory, we could use them to make wind turbines and nuclear reactors. Perhaps we will yet.

But if this is war, history also tells us to be wary. We need to ensure that the latest big push is not a distraction from other troubles of the government's own making. We need to be aware that wartime restrictions can erode our freedoms. We need to ascertain that state expenditure will actually enable us to succeed in the task cost-effectively. On all these counts there is reason to be circumspect.

Take the announcement by John Healey, housing minister, that people will be able to put up wind turbines less than 50ft high wherever they like. was the attention-getting part of an otherwise boring package that removes the need for people who want to "green" their homes to apply for planning consent before installing wood-burning boilers and heat pumps. The key difference between a heat pump and a 50ft turbine is that one is largely invisible, the other isn't. A 50ft high turbine is not a 200ft turbine, but it can annoy the neighbours. It still looks pretty awful if you erect it beside Flatford Mill in Constable country or behind Wordsworth's cottage at Grasmere. Opinions differ about the aesthetics of wind turbines. I think they look acceptable in most areas but not on the hills or in wild places, such as the Solway Firth. You cannot have the psalmist's words about lifting one's eyes to the hills without thinking of upland landscapes as sacred. A democratic government should respect opinions with roots as deep as these.

There are also justifiable practical objections to wind turbines. They not only make a noise, they also cause shadow-flicker, which is unpleasant for people living within a turbine's shadow and can induce epileptic fits. So to allow a free-for-all without heed to sensible planning considerations — such as protecting areas of outstanding natural beauty — smacks of desperation or electioneering. And, of course, it is both.

The essential thing to understand about the aggressive way the government is behaving, in its new national policy statements and in setting up the Infrastructure Planning Commission, is that this is the outcome of ignoring Britain's energy needs for so long. Not one brick of a foundation has been laid for the nuclear and clean coal plants which are essential if we are to avoid an 80% reliance on imported gas within a decade. Meanwhile, this government has had an obsession bordering on fantasy with wind power, which is measurably less efficient and, in terms of public subsidy, much harder to justify.

It is important to realise there is a political demonology at work here. The Department of Energy and Climate Change claims that its new dirigiste policies — which will plonk turbines and incinerators in the green belts where even housing is discouraged — are needed because the planning system has failed. The clear inference is that the Tory shires have been blocking wind power applications when, in fact, a lot of wind farms have been approved but need financing. The virtue of talking aggressively about renewables is that it transfers the blame for the government's failure to deliver on its manifesto promises to cut Britain's carbon dioxide emissions by 2010. It becomes the fault of the Tories.

The reality is that the new headline-grabbing wind turbine policy is largely meaningless. Few people are going to want to install wind turbines less than 50ft high because they are expensive and produce little electricity, except in the windiest places. They cost between £11,000 and £42,000 with installation on top and need repairs within 15 years. Healey tells us that this can save a house about £380 a year. You don't have to be Warren Buffett, the US businessman, to work out that this is a rotten investment. The effect on meeting the country's electricity needs will be negligible. But by causing friction in the shires the government distracts attention from its dismal record on energy, so in an election year it is a policy touched with cruel genius.