The Telegraph lays out another problem. On top of the destruction of the UK economy and the immiseration of the citizenry, the UK is handing over one of the most powerful economic, political, and potentially military tools to a potentially hostile power: China.
China has a stranglehold on the "green energy" business, and recent revelations demonstrate how powerful that can be. China has implanted chips in its electric cars and solar panels that "phone home," and likely has the ability to manipulate or shut off these vital tools should it ever wish to.
And it's building all these "green" products using fossil fuel energy, so all the UK is doing is exporting its carbon emissions from its own shores to China, meaning that even if they achieve "NetZero," it's only an accounting trick, not a reduction in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
Standing on the north Kent coast, near Faversham, its hundreds of thousands of panels stretch as far as the eye can see, covering the equivalent of 500 football pitches.
The 370-megawatt scheme is the biggest of its kind in Britain, generating enough power for some 100,000 homes on sunny days.
It is one of a number of mega-projects springing up as part of the push towards net zero, with Quinbrook, the developer, saying it supports “growth, jobs and cheaper power for UK households”.
However, another trend that Cleve Hill typifies is less remarked upon by its owners: the spread of Chinese technology through Britain’s power system.
According to planning documents and photographs, the project’s 550,000 panels were produced in China, by Trina Solar, along with its battery systems and solar inverters (made by CATL and Huawei, respectively).
This is not unusual. China has a vice-like grip on global supply chains, producing almost 90pc of panels and controlling even bigger shares of mid-level manufacturing.
But according to critics, the scheme underlines how Britain’s rush towards clean power risks giving Beijing critical leverage over the UK energy system, because China provides masses of cheap solar panels, minerals, batteries and electric vehicles needed to power it.
Green energy projects were sold as job creators, and indeed they are: jobs in China, not in Western countries. And those jobs are not only a major economic benefit to China. They also give it massive political, economic, and military leverage over countries it is likely to challenge in coming years.
We've done much the same thing with many of our industries. We rely on China for vital goods such as pharmaceutical manufacturing, so-called "rare earth minerals," and a whole host of vital components without which our economy or society could collapse.
China's near monopoly on rare earth minerals is a choice; it's not like we don't have plenty here; it's just that NIMBYism and our willingness to take advantage of China's lower environmental standards and the cost savings that implies has handed a vital industry over to our adversary.
It's a losing proposition on all fronts. China doesn't care about greenhouse gas emissions, whatever they say. Everybody points to their deployment of "green energy" as proof that they do, but a quick glance at its rapid expansion of coal energy and its massive greenhouse gas footprint gives the lie to that claim. It's an advertising expense, not a green energy project.
Meanwhile, the UK is deindustrializing, becoming dependent on foreign and especially Chinese infrastructure, vulnerable to blackmail, and impoverishing its citizenry. All for virtue-signaling points.
It's a phenomenon duplicated almost everywhere in Western countries. Subsidized industries are doing well; politicians point to "clean, cheap" energy that is neither, and the economy is hollowing out.
