A fair wind blows yet again over Pall Mall

David Wighton: Business Editor’s Commentary

Energy from the wind and the tide is as free as the air and the waves. Or so you might think.
The chaps at the Crown Estate have other ideas. Rubbing their hands with glee, the rent collectors of Pall Mall were trumpeting the third round of licensing for offshore wind turbines.
The Crown Estate owns most of Britain’s foreshore and the seabed extending out 12 nautical miles.
Renewable energy brought in just £1 million last year, but it is a taster of what could be to come if the Government’s plans to build marine windmills on every coastal horizon come to fruition. The Crown Estate will get a bit less than 1 per cent from the value of every kilowatt produced offshore and rent from every inch of cable.

Thanks to the brilliant deal parliament did with George III, these wind tithes go straight into Treasury coffers, which may help to explain the Government’s infatuation with this expensive and unreliable source of energy.