In reply to Andy O’Brien’s letter praising the kids who bunked off school (now twice) and went on the man made global warming, now called Anthropological Global Warming (AGW), protest.

I suggest these kids knuckle down pass their exams get qualified, in what ever field, get out into the real world, which will come as a shock to many and after 20 years out there they may have a different view.

Another item in Andy’s letter is that he states that 'wind energy is now the cheapest’ which is not true, I expect he has been listening to the BBC.

Before I retired I was an engineering analyst, every day of my working life was spent dealing with facts, numbers and math so lets put some factual figures to my view, which I can fully reference, also part of my remit was to audit technical reports. They tell us that the strike price for wind energy is £55/MWh, the cheapest, BUT this includes a subsidy of £74/MWh, paid for by me and you - a Green Blob Tax, giving an average total price of £129/MWh, much higher than nuclear or fossil fuels.

Wind and solar cannot ever provide the electricity base load this has to be borne by fossil fuel and nuclear, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun shine doesn’t always reach us.

A case in point - that two weeks before Christmas last we had a high pressure system over the UK, no wind but cloud (which occurs with high pressure in winter), wind was then producing less than 1 per cent of demand. The national grid had to ask for two coal fired power stations to be ‘flashed up’ (the nearest to us was Aberthaw just west of Cardiff) to stop the lights going out. The owners of these power stations charged the grid £950/MWh, they certainly made hay(money) while the sun didn’t shine or the wind didn’t blow!

We’ll have to have gas and coal for sometime to come, there are means to “scrub’ the flue gases making them more environmentally acceptable but the on going research in to this was cancelled by one David Cameron.

But if the Green Blobs get their way the lights will go out! It nearly happened last December! They will have power over you by rationing your electricity. Is this what smart meters are all about? S

So kids, if this AGW nonsense continues, when you are grown up major power blackouts will be a regular feature of your daily lives. A future situation that’s never been explained to them by their teachers or the BBC.

But if we solve the fission problem, we’ll probably be OK, which will use sea water. Then I expect the Green Blobs will say “you can’t use the sea water - what about the fish?”

Michael Boulton

Thornbury