I said a while back that it's virtually impossible for the unwashed, unenlightened public to make any sense of anyone's claim to have the best idea about what to do for the best, because the clever buggers all have letters after their name (some even have letters before their name), all seem to have written books, and all seem to have got it wrong.

I was advised by a LOT of people on here to read (I actually bought it) MacKay's seminal book and found it a) easy to read as a layman, b) easy to accept his basic premise, which seemed simple enough for anybody to grasp, that it all has to add up.

My problem with some of you guys is that you're like a pefectionist having a great time on the lake, sun shining, beautiful female companion lounging back to get the sun on her face and bare shoulders... and then you notice that a plank in the bottom of the boat has a knot in it that spoils the run of the grain. You can't have THAT. "Where's me penknife?"

It's only a bloody forum. Chill Winstons!

sorry, the rant wasn't aimed at you personally, I'd no idea what your take on without hot air was, but it just pissed me off that the major flaws in that document weren't addressed before basically being allowed to be turned into government policy, and that the viewpoints of people with vastly more experience in the field were specifically excluded from the decision making process.

I'm also a bit narked at myself for not making more of an effort to actually point these flaws out to Prof mackay directly when he published his first draft online. Thing is though that it really didn't seem that important back then, just another interesting take on things from an interesting perspective that had some relatively minor looking flaws. I also presumed someone else would point this out to him, as they ought to have done had he had his work properly peer reviewed, but I believe he skipped that process.

The problem occurs when these flaws go uncorrected into government policy, then gradually people in government realise the fundamental truth that we could have spent billions replacing condensing gas boilers (which the government had previously grant funded many of) with air source heat pumps and have had no net carbon benefit, and potentially even a negative carbon and energy impact. It actually amazes me that this has been spotted prior to the billions being spent (if indeed this is the reason for the delays), as it implies someone at DECC actually has a clue, it's just incredibly annoying that it's also resulted in such long delays for any funding for solar water heating to materialise (beyond the laughable £300 piss takes).

I'm not sure Prof McKay had much to do with FITs, as I don't think he arrived at the dept in time: the basic policy was already set. (I admit that I'm too lazy to try and find the dates that would confirm/deny this proposition right now).

And in fact the FIT policy is generally sensible apart from a) the MCS link, which seems very unlikely to be McKay's fault, b) the lack of requirement for other meaningful measures first (now about to be fixed) c) the initial 2-yrs-at-same-rate period. I'd argue for a more sensible gneration/export price split too.

JSH: prices have come down 30%-40% in a little over 2 years, not 30%-50% in one year.

To fill in some of wookey's missing dates.

FiTs has been on the cards since around 2007, when the first draft of the Energy Act 2008 (which is the legislation that enables it) appeared. But the details were not fleshed out until the second half of 2009.

Prof. MacKay started work as DECC’s Chief Scientific Advisor on 1st October 2009.

I don't think he was responsible for any of the primary failings of the FiTs scheme that wookey has listed. The DECC Science Advisory Group only held its first meeting in July 2010. The first item on their agenda was 'Lunch' and the last item was 'Dinner'.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/about-us/science/2094-decc-sag-meeting-minutes-220710-.pdf

'Dancing Girls' in between?