Now It's Not So Good To Be Green

Hi Linda, I'm only getting dribs and drabs at the moment, but I do follow a guy called David Lenigas on Twitter He's the chairman of Rare Earth Minerals Plc and numerous other companies including UKOG and has a huge cult following among investors and makes them a lot of money. He has no problem conversing with plebs like me on Twitter, so you should be OK if you were to drop him a question. Once the price of oil plummeted, that's where I stuck all my money because there was only one way it could go, which was up. But getting involved with that kind of led me to Rare Earth Minerals which mines for lithium and other resources, lithium is what they are after though and Tesla is where a lot of the technology is coming from. Because I haven't got anything tied up with the battery front, though I may in the future as this market is moving at an incredible speed now, I cannot be of any more help than that....

Reading the article, it looks like it's more of a case of politics and red tape rather than a black and white decision:

However Dave Sowden of the Sustainable Energy Association, which represents companies that install and manufacture energy-saving products, said he believed HMRC could preserve most of the reduced rates if it simply justified them on different grounds.

The current reduced rate that has been ruled illegal had been justified by the UK government as fulfilling a social policy objective. HMRC could instead apply to offer the reduced rate through an exemption allowed for home renovation or refurbishment, he said.

So it's the way the current reduced VAT has been classed in EU land. A wrong tick box on the red tape EU form which looks like it can be amended. No doubt this will happen behind the scenes, and they could have discussed this and resolved it privately, but no doubt it wouldn't sell as many headlines or give any political cross party sabre rattling.

Interesting take though looking at the total cost, using the scaffolding analogy, which is charged at 20%. Guess it's going to be harder to police if rebates are only given for renewable work. If you need scaffolding for to fix a chimney, but claim that a solar panel needs a clean while they up are there, would that then save 15% if they brought in for related subbies and services?

Make all house building/maintenance 5%. Then I suppose where does that stop? paint, wall paper, toilet roll? 

All very confusing 

Originally Posted by Barney

“Hi Linda, I'm only getting dribs and drabs at the moment, but I do follow a guy called David Lenigas on Twitter He's the chairman of Rare Earth Minerals Plc and numerous other companies including UKOG and has a huge cult following among investors and makes them a lot of money. He has no problem conversing with plebs like me on Twitter, so you should be OK if you were to drop him a question. Once the price of oil plummeted, that's where I stuck all my money because there was only one way it could go, which was up. But getting involved with that kind of led me to Rare Earth Minerals which mines for lithium and other resources, lithium is what they are after though and Tesla is where a lot of the technology is coming from. Because I haven't got anything tied up with the battery front, though I may in the future as this market is moving at an incredible speed now, I cannot be of any more help than that....”

Do you think Nanotechnology is the way forward for energy storage? I recently studied it as part of my degree and it is fascinating stuff!  

Been pondering over this and the answer is no, the vat rate would be 20% as you would be doing maintenance and not an installation. On an existing property the vat charged for the installation and supply of solar panels would be 5%, so the solar panels, solar pump, pipe work and all other components required to install it and make it work would be 5% vat rated. The labour cost elements and any equipment required to carry out the installation would be 20% vat rated. If you were to visit a plumbers merchant and purchase the solar panels so you could fit them yourself you would be charged 20% as the merchant would not be doing the installation. 

This is one I done 5 or 6 years ago for a school, each panel believe it or not cost £10k to purchase. The order was placed with a British boiler manufacturing company, who got a Chinese company to make it, who put it on a container ship to the USA where the hot water calorifiers were made, it then set sail for Harwich....... Where it was then impounded for a week by customs.........Now if you read all the data plates attached to all the components on this installation, you'd honestly believe that it was British.....

Well it didn't take long for the EU ruling to have an effect Reduction of boiler installations

This is really depressing! I am great believer in buying British but it's really not that straight forward is it?

also just heard the government is backtracking on a year of subsidies causing mayhem to the building of new wind farms on and off shore , although at least those that already have planning permission will carry on ... Really sad day for the UK 

Trouble is we're not really really green, we like to think we're green and we like to convince others that we're changing our ways. There is a saying, that is bull***t baffles, it's a prolific feature amongst salesmen and politicians. One of the UK's biggest and best scams is our carbon offset programmes, which in a nutshell allows us to carry on polluting the planet on condition we plant tree saplings in say a third world country. We also sell or exchange our carbon footprint as a commodity to other countries.

No one will ever convince me that solar panels are green, firstly you need to extract the raw materials from the earth to manufacture a panel, so your going to need oil, gas, diesel, copper, rubber, plastic, stainless steel. To make glass, you need lots of heat, so you need lots of gas the same applies to the production of all the other materials. Uk company's want the manufacture done cheaply, so this done predominantly in China. The UK company's couldn't careless whether the Chinese manufacturers are green or not, they just want mass, cheap production lines. Basically it works on the same principle as our clothing industry does, that is by having sweatshops in third world countries. The fact is, we are only playing at being green and we do so at the expense of others.

From my reckoning only a very few people are truly green on this planet and generally they are nomadic / indigenous people. Besides this country is about to go on an oil boom up and down the length of the UK, which only means one thing MONEY and money is what makes our little ears prick up. And like most hypocrites if your sitting on top of 3.5 billion gallons of oil, which will produce untold wealth, clear all national debt overnight. The argument for having a solar panel on the roof and a windmill in the back garden to save the planet are going to be long forgotten.... We will be fracking in a place near you soon As it happens there is now a newer technology to extract oil without the need for fracking, but this is still in it's trial status...  

Sorry, It's around 400billion gallons of oil & gas we're sitting on...