Dear Editor,
When I read your recent article “Renewable electricity – are we being conned?”, I was sadly disappointed in your deputy editor’s ability to research his subject properly or even his discernment of publicity material from truth. For the briefest moment I thought he might come to his senses when Mr. Smith mentioned the link between whichgreen.org and Ecotricity saying it made him “loath to believe anything the site had to say”. But sadly, he went on to give credence to the site’s cunning manoeuvre in elevating the status of generation ownership far above the many other essential elements that go into promoting a renewable energy future.
The suggestion that because one company owns generation assets their contribution to the growth of renewables is any more relevant than another company which stimulates the use of renewables through market growth, is patently absurd. It is an argument that might be expected to persuade the extremely literal-minded or childlike amongst us, but should carry no water for anyone with the common sense or patience to think it through.
I’d like to try to clarify the case for anyone that was duped by these arguments. Building renewable generators, like wind turbines, is a good thing – true. But because it really is more expensive or just more trouble, it doesn’t happen, except in response to a market demand. So if there’s no one ready to buy green energy not many turbines will get built. Hence, as more consumers and businesses sign up for truly 100% green tariffs market pressure stimulates more building of generators and the owners of generators are rewarded for the risks they took to build them in the first place. The contribution of an organisation that increases demand is at least as great as one that built the generator. But both need one another and must recognise that symbiosis. The devious owners of the whichgreen.org website (who refuse to openly declare their affiliation on the site) are trying to bite the hand that feeds them and usurp greater market share with a completely false assertion.
I’m shocked that your magazine printed this article without even speaking to representatives of one of the companies whose excellent work was so roundly slighted – Good Energy or Green Energy UK. And I’m saddened at what amounts to internal squabbling when all eco-minded people and companies need to pull together to fight the deeply entrenched interests of fossil fuels in order to stop climate change and ecological destruction around the world.
I truly hope the Ecologist is able to retract this shameful article that damages the whole of the UK’s green energy efforts, and find a way to put it right.
Paulo Nery
London
PS: I suggest equal page space be given to Green Energy UK and Good Energy to square the inequity dealt to both of these companies who do good work increasing the demand for renewable power in the UK.
