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Miliband plots 15% net zero tax on gas bills Remember that £300 off your energy bills? You might get it in July if your energy bill is currently £4,300 as Ofgem have announced the energy price cap between 1st July and 30th September to be a 6.9% reduction on the April to June cap. Enjoy it while you can as Ed Milipede wants more money for his Net Zero lunacy and Rachel from Accounts won’t give him it. The idea is simple: move the current green levy on electricity (which 100% of people have) to gas (which 80% of people have). Pensioners and households on benefits would get subsidised so it would be everyone else who would see green levies on their gas bill and as there are less people paying they would have to pay 12.5% more. The theory behind this lunacy is that people would then switch from using gas to getting an electric heat pump (cost c. £13,000), the Net Zero technology that has proven to be a hard sell because it does not work for a huge proportion of people and the price is a little prohibitive.
The Renewables Obligation was introduced in 2002 by the Blair/Brown New Labour government. It required electricity suppliers to get part of their supply from Renewables or they got fined. The Renewable Obligations Certificates (ROC) scheme was supposed to eventually fall to zero once targets were met so that costs passed on to consumers would end. It also gave generous subsidies to the Renewables industry. The 2009 EU Renewables Directive saw this cost limitation stopped so that there would be unlimited subsidies. So what has happened to Renewable subsidies since 2002 and 2009? And how long is the consumer going to have to keep picking up the tab for this? Subsidy currently costs £200 per MWh, so it is difficult to see how anybody can claim that Renewables are getting cheaper. That £300 off your energy bills promised by Ed Miliband is never going to happen. The stagnation of British industry under high energy costs and the “cost of living crisis” look set to continue. When your energy supplier offers you a “green tariff” of 100% renewable energy it is a lie. The power cables from your house to the local substation and from the local substation to the energy source are all part of the National Grid. All the electricity is shared by all the companies selling it to consumers. The only way you can have 100% renewable energy is to go off grid and have a wind turbine in your garden and/or solar panels on your roof. When the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, you need batteries or candles.
Don't forget the good old Carbon Offset. Carry on burning your way through fossil fuels just as long as you plant some trees. There are companies that will offer to plant forests for you at a very tidy sum which you can then use to offset your carbon footprint. I may be an old cynic but this has all the hallmarks of a Lustig* scam where you can sell the same tree to an endless supply of suckers and nobody is any the wiser. *Victor Lustig - the con man who became famous for selling the Eiffel Tower twice while posing as a government minister.
