Government hypes up failing, poorly-funded and limited-access green grant scheme
The number of government grants made to people who want to fit solar panels or other green energy systems to their homes has halved after the low carbon buildings programme cut the maximum grant on offer from £7,500 to £2,500.
In 2007, 2,339 grants were made nationwide compared with 5,104 the previous year. Britain is the third worst performer in the EU for producing energy from renewable sources—just two per cent of the UK’s energy is produced in this way—and the share has been ordered to increase to 15% by 2020.
‘Government has totally ignored the advice of the renewable energy industry and the blindingly obvious evidence of their own statistics. Making a failing programme fail over a longer period is not a solution,’ said Andrew Cooper of the Renewable Energy Association.
But sit back and marvel at how this government, like so many before it, makes cuts sound progressive…
‘More and more people are applying, in fact last month we saw a total of 293 households successfully applying for a share of £313,000, the largest number since May last year. In total, 71 of these were applications for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on homes, which is around a 100% increase compared to last year’s monthly average,’ said a spokesman for the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
The complete failure to act effectively and decisively and radically is, once again, painted as a grand triumph that will lead to heaven on earth. The problem is, bullshit does nothing to cut CO2 emissions or reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. And never will.
tags: alternative energy, CO2 emissions, environment, fossil fuels, government, grants, green, renewables, solar panels, sustainability
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