With thanks from Steve Hunter.

US Government has declared war on efficient energy. Just like an enemy in wartime the US capacity to produce cheap reliable energy is being destroyed while the nation is cluttered with expensive energy failures like wind and solar.

Mike Fox summarises the gathering disaster of wind energy. “Windmills are too intermittent, too undependable, too unreliable and far too costly. “ And most turbines probably “can never generate enough energy during its lifetime to manufacture the windmill”.

See: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/fox-economic-suicide-for-the-us-july-2010.pdf [PDF, 47 KB]

See also:

http://carbon-sense.com/2011/10/21/wind-power-fails-britain/

http://carbon-sense.com/2011/02/08/why-wind-wont-work/

http://carbon-sense.com/2011/12/01/miller-to-salmond-letter/

“I firmly believe that there are few if any scientists in southern Africa who have a wider, longer, and more scientific experience in the interfaces between the climatological, hydrological, environmental and sociological sciences than I have. Equally, I believe that this whole global warming/climate change issue is no more than a monumental scam perpetrated by the affluent nations to protect their economic supremacy, regardless of the effects on the many millions of poor and disadvantaged populations of Africa and elsewhere.

“I do not for one moment believe that the nations of the world will abide by the nebulous decisions reached by COP17 in Durban, with legal ratification by 2015, and implementation by 2020. It is not going to happen.”

Will Alexander

Professor Emeritus Department of Civil Engineering, University of Pretoria.

Prof Alexander has spent a lifetime in hydrological research and water supply management. He has studied flood frequency analyses, water resource development and climate change His research demonstrates that there are fundamental shortcomings in current climate change science. He shows strong evidence of a causal and predictable linkage between variations in solar activity and climatic responses, specifically rainfall and river flow.

The first climate scare was man-made “global warming”.

But the warming refused to appear as fast as the models predicted, so it became “climate change”.

But people were not stupid and soon were saying “but climate always changes”.

So now the climate scare industry is focussing on “extreme weather events”, and naturally they still claim these are caused by man-made carbon dioxide.

Timed beautifully for the meeting of the climatists in Durban, the UN IPCC has outdone themselves in forecasting extreme weather events – “weather on steroids”. Determined to scare up a consensus in Durban, this weather scare is sprinkled with warnings of “diluvian rains”, and droughts, cyclones, heat-waves of such magnitude or frequency that “settlement in some areas could be wiped out” and “some areas will become increasingly marginal as places to live” and “it is possible that many residents will have to relocate.”

Source (With thanks to CCNet):
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/un-scientists-forecast-more-severe-droughts-cyclones-and-floods-
20111113-1ndu0.html

Maybe they should be reminded that extreme weather events have been occurring as far back as earth history has been recorded. Here is a listing of “extreme events” over 1900 years, prepared by James Marusek:

Check them out here: http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Weather.pdf

Here is another list of droughts, fires, floods and disappearing or growing ice. It starts with a record of sea floods that drowned 100,000 people in Holland in 1481.

See: http://www.c3headlines.com/bad-stuff-happens.html

Maybe “extreme weather events” are “normal” here on earth and man has very little to do with most of them. Someone needs to tell the pampered pontificators of the IPCC: “Bad Stuff Happens – get used to it, make appropriate preparations – you are not going to stop it.”

More:

• A comment on extreme weather from the Soviet era
• Back to the Dark Ages
• The March of the Triffids
• Exposing the Global Warming Lies
• Wind Energy Ghosts
• The Scientific Scandal of our Generation
• How to Get Expelled from School
• The Turd in the Swimming Pool
• Feedback from a Supporter
• The Road Ahead

See: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/bad-stuff-happens.pdf [PDF, 76 KB]

Reproduced with thanks from Andy Semple at www.andysrant.com

From: Sir Donald Miller. F Eng. FRSE.
Chairman, Scottish Power 1982-92.

Letter to Alec Salmond
09 March 2011

The Right Hon Alec Salmond
First Minister
Scottish Government

Dear Sir

It is I believe becoming clear to a rapidly increasing number of voters in Scotland that the Scottish Government’s concentration on so called renewable energy sources to the exclusion of more reliable and economic sources , such as nuclear , is little short of disastrous. Let us look at the facts:-

1. No wind or marine energy sources can be relied on to provide power when it is needed- the only time when electricity is of any value.

2. Wind and marine need nearly 100% back up from conventional generators. Therefore any expenditure on these is additional to ‘normal’ capital required to secure our electricity supplies.

3. Output from wind turbines varies rapidly, not just locally but nationally, so that conventional back up generation is required to run inefficiently at part load, incurring further costs for the consumer.

4. Wind and wave are such extremely low density sources of energy that costs will always be high and no amount of development will alter this significantly.

5. The cost of onshore wind to the consumer is some £200/MWhr taking into account the ROC subsidy, back up generation and additional transmission costs. This is over four times the cost of energy from conventional or nuclear sources. The cost of off-shore wind is even higher at over £250/MWhr.

6. The claim that Scotland has vast resources of marine energy is based on a failure to appreciate the physics. The actual potential is readily assessed by normal engineering criteria (as in studies by Consulting Engineers Black and Veatch for The Carbon Trust and Robert Gordons University). These show that the total tidal current resource of UK waters from the Pentland Firth to the Channel Isles, neglecting costs and practical limitations such as interference with shipping and fishing and impossibility of servicing such a plethora of installations, would amount to no more than 2.5% to 5% of UK electricity requirements.

7. The costs of tidal energy to the consumer will be significantly higher than offshore wind, even after taking credit for possible developments. Wave energy will be even more costly.

8. Other low carbon technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage are unproven on the scale envisaged, requiring long term sequestration of some 200millions tons of CO2 per year from the UK alone. Taken together with the 25% loss in efficiency of generation, energy costs would more than double.

9. Ofgem has estimated that the UK Government’s energy policy will result in a doubling of electricity prices to consumers within 15 years. The much higher renewable targets of the Scottish Government would, on a stand alone basis, result in even higher prices.

10. The CEO of National Grid in a lecture to the Royal Academy of Engineering in March 2011 stated that the effect of present energy policies would be that the era of having electricity on demand in the UK was coming to an end. The UK Government estimates there is a high risk of power cuts within five years.

11. High energy prices based on subsidies are certain to have an extremely damaging effect on the Scottish Economy as recently quantified in the Verso Economics Report using the Scottish Governments’ own economic model for the Scottish economy. The loss of jobs will far outweigh the few gains, most of which will be of low to medium quality, from renewable installations.

12. Already there has been very significant damage to Scotland’s environment- the massive installation at Doune dominating the route North from Glasgow is a case in point- with consequent loss to one of its greatest assets, the tourist industry. The value of tourism to the Scottish economy is put at £4.2bn a year, far in excess of the value of all the energy produced from wind farms even with the Scottish 80% target for renewables.

13. Prior to privatisation Scotland, with six commercial reactors, produced over 60% of its electricity from nuclear and had a thriving and profitable export trade to England. As a result Scotland benefited from having one of the lowest electricity prices in Europe and this after proper allowances for all the costs involved including waste disposal and decommissioning. Unlike the present energy regime there was no element of subsidy. As distinct from other low carbon generation, nuclear is a tried and tested technology of which we have had excellent experience now for over 50 years. Supplies of nuclear fuel are secure and the cost of energy to consumers from a new generation of reactors would be less than a quarter of that from wind and marine sources.

14. The well being of a modern economy is based on a reliable and economic supply of electricity and will be even more so in future as transport becomes increasingly electrified. If one wanted to go down in history as the politician who did most to damage Scotland’s economy it would be difficult to think of a more effective route than the present energy policy.

15. It is not too late to have a rational and balanced energy policy- but it soon will be. We have only a small window of opportunity- let us grasp it before it is too late.

Sir Donald Miller. F Eng. FRSE.
Chairman, Scottish Power 1982-92.