Fly Fishing Forum banner

The end of DECC

2K views 22 replies 7 participants last post by  Reg Wyatt 
#1 ·
I used to think the Environment Agency pipped Natural England to the post of being the most useless government department. That was before I met the DECC representatives at the Game Fair and corresponded with them for some weeks after on the subject of hydropower. They knocked those institutionalized morons in DEFRA into a cocked hat for incompetence and lack of any understanding in the effects of the ***** they pedaled so freely. Thank the lord the Department of Energy and Climate Change is no more. Thanks Mrs May. That's a good start.
 
#7 ·
Thank the lord the Department of Energy and Climate Change is no more.
Yup, thank goodness we don't have to worry about climate change any more.

Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy replaces Decc, energy concerns sandwiched between business and industry. Hmmmmm, who says there's going to be a bonfire of environmental legislation?
 
#8 ·
I care about rivers. A battle was fought that ended up facilitating ruinous hydro-power, because DECC were simply more powerful than DEFRA. The types I met and corresponded with from DECC left me in no doubt what they thought about rivers. I'm hoping DEFRA will be quick to support our environment (their job) following the closure of DECC.

---------- Post added at 03:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:05 PM ----------

Yup, thank goodness we don't have to worry about climate change any more.
If you thought these drop-kicks had a handle on CC, then you are delusional.
 
#9 ·
You believe replacing Decc with BEIS is a positive move? I'll park the "delusional" abuse and wonder whether you can explain how an environmentally targeted government department dedicated to reducing CO2 emissions - however fallible it may have been - being replaced by what appears to be a department which subjugates energy to a pawn of business is a Good Thing.
 
#15 · (Edited)
You believe replacing Decc with BEIS is a positive move?
What silly question is that? I'm incredibly glad the fools have no place to gather and impose their ridiculous will from this previous department. They weren't people who understood natural processes, nor the consequences of their actions.

---------- Post added at 08:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:57 AM ----------

dedicated...
:thumbs::eek:mg:

I couldn't be more bored of this. Having looked upon these people in DECC and corresponded with them, about the last thing I want to to do discuss this nonsense anymore. Glad its all over. I sometimes feel its worse having a place for doing good made up of people who don't know where to start, than it is to have nowhere. I see it in every facet of public office but feel it most keenly when it has everything to do with rivers. The real criminals to watercourses aren't the poachers, the polluters or the people who don't use dry flies, it's those who should be helping and aren't. They do the real damage. This was DECC.
 
#10 ·
Let's hope we stop worrying about reducing CO2 and focus on keeping the lights on.

Government priority has to be energy production not CO2 reduction.

Focus on keeping the beauty of our wild places instead of despoiling them with pointless wind turbines.
 
#11 ·
Green energy production was once a priority in the UK, that impetus to change to renewables has decelerated very rapidly due to pressure from the right wing of the political debate, a decision which will impact negatively on our wild places, rivers, lakes and sea and, of course, our fishing.
 
#12 ·
So called green energy has been a licence to take money from consumers and industry to subsidise a pointless and inefficient method of energy production. We have some of the highest energy costs in the world. It is destroying industry and hitting the poorest in our society the hardest.

We sit on huge energy reserves of coal and gas but instead of using it we import coal and put turbines in our most beautiful places. When it's cold and we need energy the turbines are stationary. When it's windy the turbines are stationary. We pay to have them kept stationary pushing up our energy costs.

If all the subsidy paid for this rubbish had been spent on insulation and efficiency we would have energy security and cheap power.

Even if you believe the Emperor's new clothes CO2 myth our contribution to reduction by becoming dependant on Russian Gas, French Nuclear, and imported coal and wood chips, and stationary wind turbines is minuscule.

Miliband that intellectual Pygmy created this situation And DECC did nothing to preserve our rivers or our environment. It made easy money for speculators in renewables and put up our bills. It destroyed steel making in Britain and it ruined our wild places.

Next cold winter the lights go out, ask any one involved in power generation (not the turbine owners).
 
#13 ·
We sit on huge energy reserves of coal and gas but instead of using it we import coal and put turbines in our most beautiful places. When it's cold and we need energy the turbines are stationary. When it's windy the turbines are stationary. We pay to have them kept stationary pushing up our energy costs.
Renewable energy will make the world a better place, we're only just beginning to explore how to make it work, it's a transitional phase. It certainly isn't a perfect situation currently but having burned carbon fuels since the dawn of time we need to pause for thought and reevaluate how we power our lives before we wreck the planet irrevocably.

Living in south Wales as I do we have more than our fair share of wind turbines and I understand how damaging wind farms are to our landscape's heritage but I'm prepared to accept that for a better tomorrow, a vision which received a jolt from this new government, widely regarded as being ideologues who see environmental regulations and targets as impediments to the economy.

Anyway b119, I wouldn't get too het up about the green cr@p, moves like axing Decc are part of the increasingly right wing agenda, from Mary Robinson, UN envoy for climate change remarking on Britain reneging on the Paris Agreement, 2015 -

"They've [the British government] introduced new tax breaks for oil and gas in 2015 that will cost the UK taxpayer billions between 2015 and 2020, and at the same time they've cut support for renewables and for energy efficiency.

"It's regrettable. That's not in the spirit [of Paris]. In many ways, the UK was a real leader [on climate change] and hopefully the UK will become again a real leader. But it's not at the moment."

 
#14 ·
To quote from today's Times, Matt Ridley.

Our current "industrial strategy" for energy - to subsidise offshore wind, solar, biomass and nuclear - is responsible for the fact that domestic electricity prices are the seventh highest of the 29 countries that are members of the International Energy Agency, 21 per cent above the median, while our industrial energy prices are fourth highest and 43 per cent above the median.

Domestic electricity bills are a higher proportion of household budgets for the poor than for the rich, so this policy is regressive; doubly so, because the wind and solar subsidies mostly go to the rich. High industrial electricity bills are a big part of the cost of aluminium, steel and other blue-collar industries, and bear a heavy responsibility for the painful closures at Lynemouth and Redcar. The policy has been tough for blue-collar workers and poorer people.
 
#16 ·
Warren, if the tone your correspondence with Decc was anything like as belligerent as your replies to my posts - someone who's basically on the same side and expressing a a mildly different point of view to your own - then I'm hardly surprised that your experience of them was negative. "Delusional", "silly", "nonsense" - hardly persuasive terms.

If you post a strong view on a public forum you should expect people to hold different views to your own, being bad mannered to someone who takes the time to discuss an issue does you a disservice. Decc's demise concerns me, I'm rather passionate about rivers too and see this move away from a department concentrating on the links between energy production and climate change to be regressive.

Decc, you say, was a place for doing good staffed by people who found the territory difficult, perhaps it would have been better to have been critically supportive rather than publicly denouncing them and rejoicing at their demise.

Departments like NRW, the EA, Decc (deceased) work for whichever government is in power, it's the government who are the problem, not Decc, May's decision to axe Decc speaks volumes.

b119, re the Times quote, this is more of a reflection about the way that investment in green energy's managed and how the monopolies of energy providers work in Britain rather than a criticism of green energy.

Rather than encouraging community investment in renewables we've allowed corporations to build our wind farms taking wealth away from the regions which produce the energy. Take the Varteg wind farm in the Tawe Valley, a multinational's developing the site, likewise the Pen y Cymoedd Wind Energy Project - 76 turbines - at the head of the Rhondda and Afan valleys is being built with Chinese steel ( ironically 'scuse the pun) by Vattenfall, another multinational, they're working in the shadow of the Port Talbot steelworks.

Energy production in the UK is driven by ideology, as a nation we're being let down by the terrible decisions made by successive governments who've sold out to foreign interests rather than investing in our future, our high energy costs reflect that. Have you noticed the minute decrease in energy bills when the oil prices plummeted and the immediate price rises which accompany any minor upward trend in oil? That's how the energy market works, we get exploited while the multinationals get rich, they have got us over an oil barrel now and will screw us for our wind which turns their turbines in the future.

Green energy should threaten these monopolies, it moves energy generation into the hands of the householders with solar panels, villages with their own wind turbines and towns with wind farms or at least it does in Germany, not here of course.

Check this article, some interesting stuff on how far green energy has moved on in countries which support it.
 
#19 ·
We aren't on the same side. This is a single issue thread about the demise of DECC and how I think it is a good thing. You do not. We are on the opposite side. You are not privy to the content and tone of my correspondence or conversations with DECC.

I was told by six separate sources that the HP issue was a war between DEFRA, who could see the harm HP was doing to rivers, and DECC who wanted to push through renewable power at any cost. Even down to FISH TECH level, the EA were told to facilitate HP. This gave developers the upper hand. DECC confirmed this to me. They were the enemy of rivers. I'm glad they are finished.
 
#17 ·
I work for a public body, and they do have their own cultures; as do government departments. One of the things I've found is that it takes a considerable amount of time for new bodies and departments to "learn" about their job. These bodies have a corporate memory about where to find expertise, who to engage with and how to respond to feedback.

Maybe DECC never had enough time to learn, before it was closed for government efficiency?
 
#20 ·
We certainly aren't on the same side when it comes to hydropwer, I've been fighting it for years.

From Haddon Hall estate press release -

The scheme was designed and implemented by local firm Derwent Hydro, working with the Haddon Estate's maintenance team. The Estate's river-keeper, Warren Slaney, manages the trout and coarse fishing in the Lathkill valley and has been fully involved in the design and implementation of the project. Bearing in mind the growing threat to the natural environment posed by climate change, he is delighted to see the project proceed and sees no conflict in generating renewable energy from the river whilst maintaining an excellent habitat for the flora and fauna.
 
#21 · (Edited by Moderator)
What a man you are...:eek:mg:

My motivation for taking the pains I do against HP comes from being a river keeper on a river that was the first to receive a micro-hydrogeneration plant in the Peak District. I was willing to support it at first, even being quoted in the press and using it as a work based portfolio in a Surveying HND through Reading Uni.

We also stock one of the rivers I look after.
 
#22 ·
DECC or not, its hard to see how having non-environmentalists Andrea Leadsom and Therese Coffey running environment is a step forward:confused: Environment was already slipping down Defra's agenda pre referendum, now not only is it presided over by ministers with even less interest in the subject, but its also pushed even further down by Brexit issues. It must be somewhere right near the bottom of "things to do" now, and likely to stay there for some time. That is certainly the general opinion in the sector of environmental management that I work in.
 
#23 ·
What a man you are...:eek:mg:

My motivation for taking the pains I do against HP comes from being a river keeper on a river that was the first to receive a micro-hydrogeneration plant in the Peak District. I was willing to support it at first, even being quoted in the press and using it as a work based portfolio in a Surveying HND through Reading Uni.

We also stock one of the rivers I look after.

Now, you've got nothing on me you little ****.
We all make mistakes and bad judgement calls Warren but the important thing is to be prepared to admit to it and show at least a minuscule amount of humility. None of us are perfect, opinions change with time and experience and as the old keepers always say - let the rivers teach us.

Reg Wyatt
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top