Moonbats Blowing in the Wind

Shell Oil is withdrawing from a wind power project in the UK and the moonbats are angry. Additionally, by running this article the BBC editors once again document their own stupidity about economics.

A plan to build the world's largest wind farm in the Thames Estuary looks uncertain after Shell said it wants to pull out of the project.

Shell wants to sell its stake in the London Array scheme and said it planned to focus on wind power in the US.

It said that US government incentives offered Shell "competitive returns".

Of course the environuts are furious.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth said that Shell's decision to pull out left "a key clean energy project high and dry".

"Shell announced a 12% profit rise to £3.92bn," the group's energy campaigner Nick Rau said.

"It should be investing those profits in renewable energy projects, not focusing its efforts on making money from sucking fossil fuels out of the ground and contributing to climate change."

Here are a few clues for Rau and the BBC editors.

* Shell has no obligation to you or anybody else but their stockholders. Shell's obligation to the stockholders is to maximize the ROR on the stock, end of story. If you put down Das Kapital for a few minutes and tried taking an Econ 101 class you might have a chance of grasping that reality.

* Neither Mr. Rau or the BBC editors are on Shell's Board of Directors, so what you think they "should be investing" in is meaningless.

* If this wind farm is such a good idea, I suggest that Mr. Rau and the BBC should feel free to go take out a bunch of loans, liquidate all your assets and put every dime you have into this project. I won't stop you. But you have no business telling anybody else what they should be doing with their money.

So what is the downside of the windfarm project?

The chief executive of E.On UK, Paul Golby, said he was disappointed by Shell's decision.

"While we remain committed to the scheme, Shell has introduced a new element of risk into the project which will need to be assessed."

"The current economics of the project are marginal at best - with rising steel prices, bottlenecks in turbine supply and competition from the rest of the world all moving against us."

So, there is a lot of avoidable risk to this project such as marginal economics, competition, and rising costs. Shell did not introduce these risks to the project. They existed already and Shell just decided (correctly, in my opinion) to avoid them.

So if this is such a great investment, I invite the BBC to put all their assets into it immediately.

Otherwise, mind your own business.