Britain faces a power crisis of unimaginable proportions. Our generating capacity is degrading at a rapid pace, and according to energy minister Chris Huhne, we face power blackouts in a few years.
Indeed, we are looking at a shortfall of at least 40 per cent as our elderly nuclear and conventional gas, coal and oil power stations reach their dotage. As they close, the spectre of fuel poverty will continue to raise its head.
During last winter, that coldest of cold snaps, according to official statistics, thousands of pensioners died because they were unable to afford to heat their homes. Sadly this is just the beginning.
Our economy runs on power. After wages, the biggest cost to most businesses is energy. We have all seen domestic bills soar in recent years, cutting into our disposable income and making life much less pleasant. How can this be?
It is not as if we don't know that we need power, it is not as if siren voices haven't been warning us for at least a decade that unless we seriously invest in energy generation we will be back to candles and watermills.
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Only last week, Mr Huhne was bobbing self-importantly around in the midst of the Great Thanet wind farm. He, too, is worried about the shortfall in our energy supply, and he, like so many of our political and social elite, sees developments like the Swedish Vattenfall's wind farm as the only way forward. It isn't, and here is why.
They need back-up power (read conventional power stations - the ones that are closing down) running continuously in case the wind stops blowing. Even if they did work as we are told, to supply the UK's energy needs of 78GW we would require at least 78,000 5MW turbines.
The Government boasts that we have 4,500 of them. They are not self-funding like other kinds of power, and can only survive with subsidies such as the upwards of 14 per cent secretly added to everybody's electricity bill to pay for our EU-inspired Renewable Energy Obligation.
And you thought the wind was free? They are unreliable and the power from them is unpredictable. The Government talks about full capacity - at best they run at 26 per cent, which means you can only expect to get 1MW from a 4MW turbine.
They fail to provide jobs. Vattenfall boasts that East Kent will get 21 jobs in Ramsgate, but the company will get £1.2 billion in subsidy over the next 20 years, if they last that long. We have no idea how much maintenance will cost. Anybody who lives near the sea will tell you about the ability of salt to gum up the works. These precision instruments will break down.
If we are worried about power then sadly these ornaments, these vanity projects will never provide the power we need. According to figures released this week by the Government's own UK Energy Research Centre, the energy produced at Thanet over the projected 25 year lifespan of the farm, measured in megawatt hours, is expected to be £149 a pop. That compares with £80 for coal and gas, and £97 for nuclear power. Costs have increased for all generation, but offshore wind farms are way the most expensive.
This is, of course, madness but it is the collective lunacy of our political class. Two years ago, Parliament near unanimously supported the Climate Change Act. This forces us to cut our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, at a cost of up to £18 billion a year, or £734 billion in total. They have done this to apply EU rules.
What they don't tell you is that they are slowly seeing through the climate scam themselves. Only in June at the Bilderburg conference of world leaders the agenda read: "The conference will deal mainly with financial reform, security, cyber technology, energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, world food problem, global cooling, social networking, medical science, EU-US relations."
Did you see that? "Global Cooling". They know they are defrauding us. What Kent needs, what Britain needs is Dungeness C.
• Nigel Farage is a Ukip South East MEP, and lives in Westerham
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