Green is the new red.
“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (The Godfather of global warming alarmism and former NASA climate chief)
“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
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IN AUSTRALIA, where the Liberal party, the Labor opposition and the Greens have all embraced massive renewable energy targets, we have some of the most expensive electricity anywhere in the world, South Australia officially the highest.
THE massive subsidies tipped into the renewable unreliable energy sector makes it unprofitable for 24/7/365 base-load power solutions (coal, hydrocarbons) to operate when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
JUST as socialist central planning failed miserably before it was replaced by free market economies, green central planning will have to be discarded before Australia will be able to see a return to energy security and erase its name from the unenviable title of having the “highest power prices in the world.”
UNTIL big government backs off, taxpayers and businesses will continue to pay billions of dollars more for the most important utility they need to sustain life and prosperity – cheap, abundant and reliable electricity.
FINALLY the green madness that’s threatening our ability to turn on the lights and air conditioners is being exposed as a socialist policy-driven, big government debacle…
Australia’s poor left powerless by soaring prices and green energy
IT’S 100 years ago next month that Lenin forced communism on to Russia, sending armed thugs to storm the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.
Yet even though he, Stalin, Mao and Castro then put their people in chains and kept them poor, faith in Big Government is miraculously on the rise again in Australia.
See, green is the new red. Global warming is the excuse that has brought back the commissars who love ordering people how to live, even down to the things they make and the prices they charge.
All big parties share the blame. Even the Turnbull Government forces us with its renewable energy targets to use more electricity from the wind and solar plants it subsidises.
True, this green power is expensive, unreliable and driving cheap coal-fired power stations out of business, leaving us dangerously short of electricity for summer.
But the government now has an equally crazy $30 million scheme to fix that, too: it will bribe Australians with movie tickets and $25 vouchers to turn off their electricity when they most need it — like during a heatwave, when a million air conditioners are switched on.
Movie tickets are a bribe only the poor would take.
That’s a bribe only the poor will take. Would Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull really turn off the switches at his Point Piper mansion for two free tickets to Hoyts?
And with power prices so high, the very poor would have little real choice. Conclusion: the poor will sweat so the rich may have air con.
But it was actually Greens leader Richard Di Natale who last week took out the Lenin Prize for useful idiocy.
Asked on the ABC about our soaring gas prices, Di Natale suggested a solution once found in a Soviet Five Year Plan: “The simple way of dealing with the problem … is government has got to step in and regulate prices.”
Same deal with electricity prices, which Greens MP Adam Bandt has urged be “capped”.
“Governments absolutely need to step in,” insisted Di Natale.
“They can regulate prices. We’ve got a plan … We build battery storage technology. We get more solar and wind in the system …
“It’s good for prices, it’s good for jobs and most of all, it’s good for the planet.”
All lies, of course. Look at South Australia: the state with the most wind power has the world’s most expensive electricity and Australia’s worst unemployment.
Adelaide’s Salamon family reading by candle and torch light during South Australia’s frequent blackouts.
And it’s all for nothing, because our emissions are just too tiny.
As Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has admitted, even if Australia ended all emissions from cars, power stations, factories and cows, the difference to the climate would be “virtually nothing”. But the difference to the economy would be devastating.
To Commissar Di Natale, it all sounds simple: just force business to charge less for the product they risked a fortune to find, extract, market and transport. But which business would risk a dollar to find more gas if they were then forced to charge prices so low that they’d lose their shirts?
Already, Labor and the Greens have frightened off investment in new coal-fired power stations or even in big upgrades to existing ones, which is why we now face summer blackouts.
That’s dragged even the Turnbull Government into considering whether to itself finance a new coal-fired plant, just as Lenin would have done and as Nationals MPs now demand.
But Labor last Saturday proposed its own Big Government fix. In a speech in South Australia, federal leader Bill Shorten actually praised the state government for having “climate-proofed” the electricity supply.
Adelaide Hills pharmacist Kirrily Chambers forced to throw out medicine from the fridge after a blackout. Picture: Kelly Barnes/The Australian
Never mind that it’s left the state with power prices so high that businesses have been driven broke.
Shorten on Saturday promised South Australia relief, but not by dropping his own lunatic promise to force all Australia by 2030 to take 50 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy.
No, he simply promised more subsidies — a $1 billion Australian Manufacturing Future Fund to hand out cheap business loans no bank would risk.
Shorten said this new fund for manufacturers would be like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which hands out cheap government loans for the kind of renewable energy schemes that have helped to destroy our electricity system.
The circle is complete: Labor in effect promises to subsidise business to survive the electricity crisis caused by subsidising green power, while the Liberals subsidise the poor not to use it at all. Meanwhile, we all pay. And all for nothing.
Only Big Government could cause such a dog-chases-tail circus. We didn’t learn from Lenin, did we?
(Climatism bolds)
Ref.: https://climatism.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/unreliable-energy-wind-and-solar-a-climate-of-communism/
Related
The true cost of wind power
By Paul Homewood
Booker has a short piece in his newly shrunken column about offshore wind costs:
MPs arriving at Westminster Tube station have lately been presented with a huge advertisement claiming that the cost of electricity from offshore wind farms has been cut by “50 per cent over the past five years”. Despite the fact that this was paid for by various green lobbyists, including Greenpeace, the WWF and foreign-based owners of offshore wind farms, it seems from comments by MPs, the BBC, journalists and even our energy minister Claire Perry, that they all believe this boast.
Actor Peter Capaldi at Westminster tube station where Greenpeace, WWF and the Marine Conservation Society have launched a new campaign supporting offshore wind Credit: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire
But The Global Warming Policy Foundation has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that the poster could hardly be more outrageously misleading. It is based only on figures relating to two offshore wind farms that haven’t even been built yet and possibly never will be.
The official data, expertly analysed by Paul Homewood on his blog, Notalotofpeopleknowthat, show that last year we were all paying for offshore electricity through our household bills at nearly three times the going market rate, including subsidies of £1.4 billion. And this is still soaring so fast that, by 2021, we will be paying £3.1 billion a year for offshore wind energy, equating to £115 for every household in the land.
The Government may be babbling on about putting “a cap” on electricity bills. But nothing is pushing up those bills faster than its own ever-more-insane “green” energy policies.
That people are allowed to hide this from us – and delude those gullible MPs into the bargain – is indeed outrageous.
Ref.: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/the-true-cost-of-wind-power/
‘Lights Out’ – an illustrated poem on green energy
By Viv Forbes (words) and Steve Hunter (illustrations)
For yonks they waged a war on coal
And painted miners black;
They threw explorers on the dole
And shut the gates outback.
The land was closed to oil and gas
And nukes were always banned;
While wind and sun got all the brass
And uglified the land.
Poles and turbines all in ranks
Sprouted on the hills;
The carbon credits pleased the banks
And households got the bills.
Then all the factories fled offshore
As puny power flickered;
More jobs were lost for evermore
As politicians dickered.
Then one still night the lights went out
And blackouts stalked the land;
The pollies quickly turned about
And Greens were spurned and banned.
To view or print the whole newsletter plus images click:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lights-out.pdf
To visit the website for the Carbon Sense Coalition: http://carbon-sense.com/
Ref.: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/14/lights-out-an-illustrated-poem-on-green-energy/
S&P Backs Renewables: “The Tide has Turned”
by Eric Worrall
Standard & Poor, the credit rating agency which in 2015 paid $1.4 billion to regulators to settle legal action related to its role in the 2008 subprime mortgage fiasco, now thinks that renewable power is the future.
‘Tide has turned’: Global rating agency says climate economics trump politics
Peter Hannam
OCTOBER 14 2017The global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy will continue regardless of political action such as President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement or outbursts from ex-Australian prime ministers, a senior ratings analyst says.
“The tide has turned,” said Michael Wilkins, the head of climate and environmental risks at Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings, adding the transition meant the economic viability of assets such as coal mines and coal-fired power stations would be “vastly impaired”.
Mr Wilkins’ comments come as new S&P research points to deep falls in the costs of renewable energy as other groups report important shifts by corporations at home and abroad on climate risks.
The risks include challenges their businesses will face in a carbon-constrained world but also the physical damage posed by more extreme weather events as the planet heats up.
…
Solar photovoltaic costs, which have halved in the last few years, will fall another 35 per cent by 2020, Mr Wilkins predicted.
“You could argue we’ve reached a tipping point,” he said, adding that with falling storage prices, intermittent energy sources could soon compete with traditional fossil-fuels on dispatchability grounds alone even without including their environmental advantages.
…
Frankly I’m shocked that an organisation which prides itself on prudential advice would take such a position.
Mr Wilkins by his own statements is talking about events which haven’t happened yet. He thinks renewables “could” soon be competitive with dispatchable fossil fuels, because of falling prices. He believes falls in the price of renewable generation and energy storage costs will continue.
Mr Wilkins might be right – if generation and storage prices fall sufficiently, if the wild superstorms predicted by alarmists start to manifest, renewables might start to look good. But claiming “the tide has turned” on the basis of a chain of unsubstantiated maybes is a ridiculous position for an agency which prides itself on its prudence.
You would think a ratings agency like S&P would have learned a little caution about hyping speculative future profits, given how they recently got their fingers badly burned because of their over-optimistic assessments of the value of subprime mortgage bonds which subsequently collapsed.
Ref.: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/14/sp-backs-renewables-the-tide-has-turned/
CHEAP ENERGY – Australia’s Greatest Economic Advantage Sacrificed At The Altar Of Climate Change
“Cheap coal and cheap electricity provided us with our greatest economic advantage. That has now been sacrificed at the altar of climate change.” Cory Bernardi
CORY Bernardi is a conservative senator from South Australia who stands up for common sense and the silent majority.
BERNARDI has been a Senator representing the state of South Australia in the Australian Senate since 2006 and is the leader of the Australian Conservatives, a new political party he founded in 2017.
CLIMATISM.com receives Cory’s weekly newsletter Your weekly dose of common sense. And this weeks newsletter is a must read for a common-sense break down of Australia’s ongoing, 100% man-made, electricity energy crisis…
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Just when I thought politics couldn’t disappoint any further, I see more half-baked proposals to fix our broken electricity system. The system was broken by the actions of the very same politicians who now claim they can fix it. Such was the hysteria about ‘needing to do something about climate change’, successive governments and their collaborators in the opposition have done incredible damage to our economic prospects. For decades, Australians benefited from cheap and reliable electricity fuelled by the bountiful supply of coal. This cheap coal and cheap electricity provided us with our greatest economic advantage. That has now been sacrificed at the altar of climate change. In South Australia, where the Labor party, the Liberal opposition and the Xenophons have all embraced massive renewable energy targets, we have the most expensive electricity anywhere in the world. The subsidies tipped into the renewable energy sector makes it unprofitable for 24-7, 365 day base load power solutions to operate when the sun shines and the wind blows. You can’t turn a coal fired generator on and off to cater to the whims of wind and sunbeams, leaving gas as the only real alternative. Unfortunately, these same politicians have limited the exploration of gas and other fuels to accommodate more green lunacy – meaning our gas supplies are limited and the price has risen accordingly. After trashing our energy market and economy, the powers-that-be are now doubling the bet and gambling your future – again. SA Labor are spending $100 million on diesel generators for a couple of summers and another $50 million on a battery that will basically power the state for a few minutes. Not to be outbid in this energy roulette, the SA Liberal opposition have just announced $100 million on subsidising batteries in homes. The simple maths is that (depending on the battery itself) it costs more for battery storage power than buying it off the grid. This makes the Weatherill and Marshall energy bids just more political and uneconomic boondoggles, shepherded into public acceptance with the unaccountable snake-oil promise of ‘lower power prices’. If you then add the limited lifespan, disposal issues and the explosive potential of lithium-ion batteries, it becomes a heady mix of political froth and waste – at your expense. But if you think this foolishness is limited to the State arena you will need to think again. This morning The Australian newspaper speculates that the Federal government is set to announce they will pay you not to use electricity. This is a very special approach….if special means unbelievably dumb! Now I am not one of them, but some readers really have bought into the man-made climate change myth and the associated falsehoods. They want to see us meet the carbon dioxide reductions demanded by the Paris agreement and agreed to by the Turnbull government. Amazingly, these same people aren’t all that enthusiastic about the zero emissions solution provided by the nuclear option which suggests emissions reductions aren’t really their end goal. It seems the blind pursuit of ideology is what it is all about. But here is another option. Over a twenty year period, Australian taxpayers will be slugged $60 billion to subsidise the unreliable and intermittent renewable energy sector. This method of wasting money has zero prospect of meeting the Paris accord demands. However, if we spent that money building twenty-five 800MwH new-generation HELO coal fired power stations, not only would we meet our emissions reduction targets – we would have baseload, affordable energy to boot. Even better, if we provided contractual and operational certainty to private enterprise, they would build them without the government borrowing any more money. Surely that is a better way! Until next week, Cory Bernardi P.S – My friend Professor Ian Plimer has just written an excellent book entitled THE CLIMATE CHANGE DELUSION & THE GREAT ELECTRICITY RIPOFF which I launched last week. It is an excellent read and you can purchase the book HERE. |
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Australian Energy Crisis Related :
- THE Insane Result Of The Mad Switch To Costly, Symbolic, Unreliable Energy – Wind and Solar | Climatism
- A Totally Idiot Made Electricity Disaster | Climatism
- Australian Summer Forecast: More Blackouts & Rocketing Power Prices | Climatism
- IT’S OFFICIAL : South Australia Has The World’s Highest Power Prices! | Climatism
- POLITICIANS Mad With Global Warming Theory Are Destroying The Economy And Hurting The Poor | Climatism
- DIESEL – Keeping South Australia’s Lights On Til The Next Election! | Climatism
- LIFE In A Fossil-Fuel-Free Utopia | Climatism
- THE Twisted Irony of Deep-Green Energy Policy (RET) | Climatism
- Simon Holmes à Court – Wind Weasel | Climatism
World Coal-Fired Power Surge Related :
- GREEN ENERGY FAIL – World Coal Power Development Up 43% | Climatism
- Japan Infuriating Enviros By Building 45 New Coal Power Plants | Climatism
- $7.5bn worth of coal-fired power plants planned for Vietnam | Climatism
- Coal To Remain India’s Main Energy Source For At Least 30 Years, Govt Confirms | Climatism
- China’s Production Of Electricity From Coal Surges To Record Levels | Climatism
Unreliable Energy Related :
- China Counts the Staggering Cost of its Wind Power Experiment | Climatism
- Renewables Retreat: China Slaps Ban on New Wind Power Projects | Climatism
- Germany’s €Trillion Euro Disaster: Wind Power ‘Transition’ Destroys its Industrial Heartland | Climatism
- Adding More Solar And Wind Power ‘Doubles’ CO2 Emissions | Climatism
- Is The Energiewende Running Out Of Steam? | Climatism
- Germany’s Energiewende Nightmare: Grid Collapse Looms Due to Erratic Wind & Solar | Climatism
Ref.: https://climatism.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/cheap-energy-australias-greatest-economic-advantage-sacrificed-at-the-altar-of-climate-change/
