Before our last Party Conference, UKIP carefully considered all the ways in which Britain might want to use the (potentially large) proceeds and revenues from shale gas. Eventually we decided that the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund (along the same lines as that created by Norway with the proceeds of North Sea Oil) would be in the best long-term interests of all the British people.
I say we considered all the ways in which the proceeds might be used. But there was one way of using – or wasting – the proceeds of this energy windfall that we never considered. It never even crossed our radar. Because it was so blindingly stupid. Yet that (you guessed it) is exactly what the Coalition government seems to be doing.
Besides the direct economic benefits of shale gas, there is the additional indirect benefit that shale gas would allow us to discontinue our disastrous experiment with renewables (while at the same time reducing emissions of CO2, as they have in the US, if you think that CO2 emissions matter). Not only the profits from shale gas, but a vast saving on wasteful green subsidies which are undermining competitiveness and driving businesses offshore.
So what does the government propose to do? It wants to spend the proceeds of shale on green subsidies! It wants to pour good money down a black green hole. The sheer perversity of it is breath-taking.
I understand the pressure they’re under. Labour’s superficial and disastrous proposal for an energy price freeze has unfortunately struck a chord with voters, who don’t seem to have grasped the likely consequences. So this perhaps looks like a way to counter the Labour offer. But shale gas is our get-out-of-jail card. It can free us from the blind alley of renewables. But like those prisoners with the Stockholm syndrome, we’re not making a bid for freedom. We’ve been given the key to the door, but it seems we just want to lock it tighter.
Today, Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund is worth around US$750 billion, or about 150% of Norway’s GDP. This is a massive asset which will stand Norway and its citizens in good stead for generations to come. We are in a position to do the same.
So the choice is: UKIP’s offer of a British Sovereign Wealth Fund. Or the Coalition’s plan to squander the windfall on worthless and damaging green projects. Take your pick.
Roger Helmer MEP 
The more things I read coming from UKIP people, the more I fear that you’re all in danger of talking too much common bloody sense.
Haven’t any of you realised by now how awfully unfashionable this is?
It’s even worse than that.
Mr Cameron is the Prime Minister who actually lost an election to Gordon Brown. How did he manage it? Now, having driven off his followers, he is about to lose the next election and let the Labour in.
With articles like this from UKIP, and an excellent local MP (Steven Barclay) and Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell and John Redwood in the Conservatives, where the hell am I going to put my little cross in 2015?
If only someone would bang a few heads together!
For a start forget Redwood, Carswell and Hannan, they are in awe of Cameron and are only concerned with getting the conservatives re elected. After that they will be bystanders as Cameron pulls the rug on all promises, and signs us up completely like the lying social democrat that he is.
… never considered …….. because it was so blindingly stupid … That sums it up, really, and I’m still shaking my head from when I first read of the “use” of this godsend. Perhaps it shows how intelligent people can never underestimate the utter imbecility of “the ruling class.” I want to say more, but I’m lost for words.
Letter: Published: i Newspaper:: 8 October
Editor
Your correspondent (Letter: 7 October ‘Fracking profits will go abroad’,) is just one other reason for voting UKIP. Pace Balcombe and UKIP Annual Conference on 21 September on a motion from UKIP Wells Constituency Association it was resolved and unanimously carried.
“UKIP supports fracking, provided a comprehensive independent inspectorate is appointed similar to the former Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) to oversee all design, construction, operation and rehabilitation of the biosphere. Processes, procedures and local public approval shall follow an approach to licensing similar, if not more detailed, to that regulated by the former NII”.
Already in policy is the creation of a ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund’ by which the proceeds of the fracking industry can be safely allocated for use by the UK & the UK alone.
Graham E Livings, Lilliput, Upper Milton, Wells. BA5 3AH
I do agree about a Sovereign Wealth fund……. except that all you need is one Gordon Brown further into the future, and he would squander the lot.
There couldnt be two of em, could there?
Shudders!
This obviously a ‘wind-fool’ tax Roger. Otherwise known as a politicians cock-up tax.
It’s too easy to blame the Liberal (non-)Dems for such dopey-ness, but it’s also a terrible indictment of the “Conservative” Party leadership, who seem in their opinions and priorities to be (closet) Liberals, by their choice.
(Hope you’ll have a UKIP candidate in Perthshire, or I’ll have to omit to vote at a General Election.)
Its difficult to believe that they would do this with the windfall, as they are such bright, extremely well educated men & women, of sound character & mind, (alledgedly)
I assume the thinking is that it is easier to steal money from us when it is a new system we have never had in our pockets. Nonetheless taxpayer funded state subsidies to slightly reduce the cost of state enforced inefficiency……..
I am not that happy with a sovereign wealth fund since I fear that in the real world, after inflation and government repudiation of debts, we will not get our money back.
I would put it into space X-prizes (also some non-space ones but if we are looking at enhancing national assets nothing beats having the first manned space ship to the asteroid belt and beyond). But then I would, wouldn’t I.
I’m with the Sovereign fund 100%. Norway has shown the way to go, and U.K.I.P. has thankfully taken this great common sense policy on board!
Nothing, I say NOTHING, would surprise me, even this stupid. Having listened to Baroness Jones of the Green Part on the Daily Politics earlier today, claiming there will be no energy shortage if we simply increase energy efficiency and renewables. No acknowledgement at all of the need for resilience when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun isn’t shining (at least 2/3 of each day in winter when energy usage is highest). I seriously wondered who elects these idiots, then I realised it’s other idiots gullible enough to swallow the Green guff with unquestioning acceptance. It would be so easy to say they’d get what they deserve when the lights go off but unfortunately it will affect the sensible majority too.
So what is your solution then? And it must be sustainable.
Simple… do what works, a mix of nuclear, gas and clean coal with micro-generation where it’s feasible and appropriate. The Green solution can’t meet our needs for the reasons many have given, incl. wind doesn’t always blow and sun doesn’t always shine and wave is too expensive. One question, why are so-called ‘renewables’ so much more expensive than ‘conventional generation when there is an endless supply of the ‘fuel’? if they are so effective, as Greens argue, why do they need huge subsidies? Greens would have us back living in dark caves in hair shirts living off seaweed sandwiches and berries. They are dangerous, deluded and should, like Islamists who want a 600AD-style Muslim caliphate, go to a place where they can really experience their desired lifestyle and then tell us it’s what they really want.
You have not mentioned solar. There is research going on to make that more efficient and more viable. In few centuries time it may be the only form of reliable energy left.
Sorry I made a comment that doesn’t make much sense as I see the guy did actually mention solar. Please could you delete it? Many thanks, Julia/
The sad state of affairs in British politics is that a large number of politicans have no convictions. Their sole purpose is to get into power and stay there.
The stupidity of Cameron, Davey, Milliband and others, never ceases to amaze me.
Are the lunatics running the asylum? Answers on a postcard please!
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/435107/Millions-of-Britons-face-winter-power-cuts?utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_medium=email&utm_term=VPL+4719+for+List+4297&utm_content=%%%3dRedirectTo(%40Linkraw)%3d%%&utm_campaign=Express_Newsletter
You read my mind Roger. I even commented on that DT thread (as “stinkypoo”) to this effect. The stupidity and irresponsibility of this proposal simply beggars belief, and they have the nerve to call UKIP supporters loons & fruitcakes!
A turbine engineers take on turbines (he undermines himself because he refrains from saying no to all wind, but the points he makes are excellent): http://www.meltontimes.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/readers-views-october-3-1-5552456
Just imagine what he would say if he was making no money from the con!
You have GOT to be kidding me! Un-bloody-believable! The proceeds of oil may all have been spent, but at least we got motorways out of them. This is worthy of “Yes Prime Minister”!
Not so sure about the motorways. It seems to me that oil and gas revenues were squandered on the luxury of unemployment.
Yes, Roger is talking bloody good sense, We will soon have no viable energy policy if we go down the present path.
It should be obvious to anyone with a basic education that the only reliable form of natural energy is gravity, which makes water run downhill and causes the tides, which are predictable. Anything based on meteorological phenomena, such as wind and waves is obviously ridiculous, otherwise why would steamships have been invented? How many socialists does it take to change a light bulb, or Tories, for that matter? Vote any of the present idiots back in and there’ll be no point!
A Sovereign Wealth Fund is eminently obvious, built the presumed income from the shale and other new mining opportunities (potash in the NE for example). What must be safeguarded is the political interference that successive Governments will try to manage – perhaps this Fund could be engineered into a legally tight Trust for the future use of British people only and the management of the Funds and Trust to be guaranteed non-political and totally safe from embezzlement, etc. A lot of basic work is still needed before this becomes a viable electoral issue that UKIP might steal the show from the Tories – forget Labour, they could never convince anyone that the could manage this fund without the Left and the Unions getting control.
How about spending some of it on welding kits for us that dare not turn the heating on because of the rising fuel prices.
Normal fracking – polluted fracking – usually needs millions of gallons of water for each and every frack, and then the highly polluted waste water needs to be disposed of. Since the waste water is usually just dumped, leaving the local community to pick up the costs of disposing of the highly polluted waste water, each frack costs the company less than waterless fracking.
In contrast, waterless fracking uses no water, and gives higher shale gas yields. Waterless fracking also involves far lower infrastructure impact, way fewer lorry trips – around a quarter of the number for polluted fracking – since trucking in all that clean water is no longer needed, and there’s no polluted water to dispose of after each frack.
Compared to the environmental risks that regular polluted fracking has, the risks of environmental damage from waterless fracking are significantly reduced with waterless fracking. There’s more about the benefits at: http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20111104/gasfrac-propane-natural-gas-drilling-hydraulic-fracturing-fracking-drinking-water-marcellus-shale-new-york
Check it out at: http://www.waterlessfrackingcoalition.org/ and http://www.gasfrac.com/
Waterless fracking seems to be a game changer in significantly reducing environmental damage and opposition to the benefits of exploiting shale gas reserves.
In case anyone has not heard, they are also paying turbine owners cash to turn em off when they dont need the juice.
to prove your common sense idea work you have to be able to get into government. the current 3 musketeers lab/lib/con will do anything . yes anything to keep UKIP out of westminster. what the people have todo is very simple just vote UKIP donate to UKIP join UKIP you want to change tehy way westminister works kick the current lot ou and get UKIP in
Yes, yes, yes!