Green Energy is a Scam...

British taxpayers pay Scottish Wind Farms NOT to generate Electricty.

My American ex-pat bud in Watford, England told me about this yesterday, and he was incensed.

By the way, contrary to the assertion made by the screaming doofus quoted in the article, there is no such thing as a 'storage facility' for electricity; it's an on-demand commodity, and if you produce more than you use, the excess is wasted. It cannot be 'stored' like grain, water, or winter clothing.

But here's yet one more reason to finally come to the conclusion that Green Energy is a scam; the wind farm gets paid when it produces, but it also gets paid -- 20 times more-- to shut down, and I can promise you that all those windmills were paid for by a government subsidy (i.e. paid for by taxpayer money, with the taxpayer having no say in how the funds were spent).

Here's how the Green Energy Scam works:

Some douchebag screams about Greenhouse gasses and Global Warming and impending environmental doom.

Then some bigger douchebag, usually with a title like 'Minister of Parliament' or 'Congressman' figures there's some money to made here, or at least votes, and the possibility of getting some good PR.

The MP and the Congressroach get their rich buddies together (I think they call them 'constituents') and they craft a Green Energy Policy, a dire necessity if we're all to avoid dying of a really nasty sunburn or melting ice caps, and since the Private Sector -- i.e. people with brains who put them to use so as to make themselves rich -- won't invest in it (the return ain't worth it), then the Government simply must, as a last resort. It's the duty of the government to 'protect' it's citizens against the possibility of changing climate, you see, while neglecting to tell them that the same government can do jack shit if a comet were to be on collision course with the planet, every volcano on Earth blew at the same time, or some virus evolved into a Super-Bug that gave us all polka-dotted skin and jock itch before killing us, but no matter.

The 'Government', usually via closed-door session, or by the clever alternative of slipping a provision at the last minute into a absolutely humongous bill that no one ever bothers to read before voting on it, grabs billions in taxpayer funds to subsidize Green Energy Companies. Green Energy Companies, by the way, which the MP's or Congresscritter's friends, start -- at least on paper -- in expectation of a massive government grant.

The MP's and Congressdouche's friends might build a few windmills, shuffle some official papers about, and go through the motions of appearing to be a real company providing a real service to real customers, all the while reaping huge benefits in terms of further subsidies, grants, tax benefits, and the extraordinarily-and-purposely vague and ridiculous terms of contracts written with government aid that still allow them to get paid -- by the taxpayer -- handsomely whether they actually produce anything, or not.

In a few years, when the REAL energy companies (utilities, oil companies, etc)  get...ahem...wind...of how lucrative this windfarm scheme is, they simply make a takeover bid for the comeptition, and more cash changes hands, The instigators of the scam have gotten paid fifty times over, the public gets the shaft (because even if Exxon-Mobil now owns the windfarm, it's operating it under the same conditions as the previous owner -- i.e. get paid, no matter what), and your MP or Congressfucker gets a little on the side because they were the first people called when the IPO hits the market, and the first to know when the takeover offer is made so that they can get in and out of the stock at just the right time as to make a fortune.

The downside is that your electric bills go up, the government passes more regulations to screw your life up in order to protect what they have created, and your taxes continue to rise. Your life isn;t improved in any meaningful way, and guess what? All the talk about saving the environment was just that; talk. Because the people who can be counted upon to make the loudest noises about being Green are the people who usually know the absolute least...about everything.