By Viv Forbes

Solar energy is very dilute, so solar collectors usually cover huge areas of flat arable land, stealing farmland, starving wild herbs and grasses of sunlight and creating “Solar Deserts”.

A Solar Desert expanding at Gannawarra in Victoria, Australia. Picture Credit ARENA

Wind turbines steal energy from winds which often bring moisture from the ocean. These walls of turbines then create rain shadows, producing more rain near the turbines and more droughts down-wind. Turbines work best along ridge lines where eagles also seek thermals, so birds and bats get chopped up by these whirling scythes. They also annoy neighbours with noise and increase bushfire risk. (more…)

By Howard “Cork” Hayden

Dr. Howard Hayden is Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut. He is the editor of “The Energy Advocate” a pro-energy, pro-science, and pro-technology newsletter. www.energyadvocate.com

We have about a dozen pumped-hydro plants in the US. In some places (that’s why they’re not abundant) it is economically feasible to store energy by pumping water uphill to a higher reservoir, and then release it when demand is high.

Hydro has the advantage of being a system that can turn on or off in a hurry. Typically, a dam has a lot of independent water turbines. So you can turn on (say) 50 MW, 100 MW, and so on.

Greenies look at storage systems as their salvation. (Indeed, solar and wind are nearly worthless without back-up.) What they fail to realize is that back-up is far better used with conventional power.

If a back-up system (of whatever type you care to mention) is used with wind or solar, it has to have enough storage to last for days — possibly even weeks — to keep the grid from going down.

Now look what happens in you increase conventional baseload power (the cheapest, most reliable) beyond the actual baseload demand. During times of low demand, you store the excess energy, and then release it during times of high demand. The upshot is that you need to store only something like 20% of one day’s energy rather than 100% energy for many days. (Even a greenie ought to be able to see that 3 or 4 or 5 or … is greater than 0.2.

As to the Australian Snowy 2.0 project, I have no idea whether it makes any sense or not. But if it does, it makes far more sense for conventional power than wind and solar.

Germany’s Energiewende – Lessons for Australia from Germany

In March 2017, the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy published a brochure announcing that the Energiewende, its renewable energy revolution, was ‘a success story’.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Energiewende (Grand Plan) has the goal of making Germany independent of fossil fuels in the long term. Coal, oil and gas were to be phased out, allowing drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. However, these goals have not even begun to be achieved.

The Energiewende was only driven forward in the electricity sector, which, accounts for only one-fifth of energy consumption. There were hardly any successes in the heating/cooling and transport sectors.

And so carbon dioxide emissions in Germany have been rising since 2009, even though well over a hundred billion euros have been spent on the expansion of solar and wind energy over the same period. The financial obligations undertaken in the process will continue to burden taxpayers for another two decades and will end up costing German consumers a total sum of around 550 billion euros.

Despite this enormous effort, security of supply is increasingly under threat. At the same time, people and the biosphere are suffering; wildlife protection has become subordinated to climate mitigation, even though the possibility of achieving the goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is becoming increasingly distant and the measures for the energy transition seem to become more and more questionable from a constitutional point of view.

800 regional associations in Germany commissioned a report on the achievements of the Grand Plan, supported by 24 German experts in all relevant fields.

“In this review we would like to inform a public debate and set out a reasonable course for energy policy in Germany.”

It details stark lessons for Australia. They have produced a very clear readable summary of all aspects of the German electricity disaster.

Read more: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/1-6-_kompendium-der-energiewende_englisch_1.pdf [PDF, 2.7 MB]

Source: https://www.vernunftkraft.de/

Two messages for Canberra:

Firstly, Australia does not have a problem with too much carbon dioxide going to the sky – we have a problem storing enough of the water coming from the sky.

Secondly, Australia does not have a shortage of wind and solar “farms” – we have a shortage of water, stock feed and low-cost electricity on real farms.

Politicians fritter our money on dubious “research”, climate propaganda, foreign adventures and handouts for trendy, vote-seeking green causes. But they have not built a serious water supply dam since the 1980’s, and the last big coal-fired power station was opened 11 years ago. For a country with a growing population, abundant supplies of coal and uranium, and a history of severe droughts, these are serious omissions.

The Snowy Mountain Scheme (opened nearly 50 years ago) was a visionary project that produced large volumes of low-cost water for irrigation plus reliable hydro-power for industry.

The new Snowy 2.0 Scheme is a fraud – it will produce no extra water and will be a net consumer of power. Its sole purpose is to try to plug the holes and fluctuations in electricity supply caused by a bi-partisan love affair with expensive green energy toys producing unreliable, intermittent electricity.

Cease this baseless war on carbon fuels. Carbon dioxide does not drive global warming – it is driven out of sea water by ocean warming.

Australia should cancel Snowy 2.0, withdraw from all Paris and Kyoto Climate Treaty obligations, dump the NEG “plans”, remove all green energy subsidies and start building some real power stations and real water supply dams and pipelines.

No matter what the weather does, we will need more cheap, reliable water and electricity.

[Compiled by Mike Williamson from Australian Government Statistics.]

More:

How to Drought Proof a Dry Continent:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/build-more-dams.pdf

Reliable Infrastructure before Green Grandstanding:
https://carbon-sense.com/2018/08/20/reliable-infrastructure-before-green-grandstanding/

The Idiocy of the Turnbull Energy Policy:
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2018/08/18/turnbulls-new-approach-to-electricity-smoke-and-mirrors/

Time to Drain the Energy Swamp:
https://carbon-sense.com/2018/08/01/drain-the-swamp/

The Real Snowy Mountain Scheme:
https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/our-energy/hydro/the-scheme/

A Nosedive in dry Australia’s dam water capacity per head of population:
http://theconversation.com/dam-hard-water-storage-is-a-historic-headache-for-australia-33397

HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER, PUMP STORAGE AND BATTERY STORAGE.

Terence Cardwell

TUMUT 1 HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER STATION.

There has been so much talk and false information about Hydro Electric Power Stations, pump storage and System battery storage that I felt it was time to put the facts straight.

Some of the most incorrect and misleading information is from self appoint university experts who have made all sorts of ridiculous statements. As well as from some politicians who either live in fairy land or are deliberately lying. You decide.

Do I know what I’m taking about; I was with the Electricity Commission of N.S.W. for 26 years in a number of positions including the commissioning and in charge of the Coal Fired Thermal Generators at Tallawarra, Wallerawang and Munmorah Power Stations.
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Lights Out

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

Daring to Doubt by Tony Abbott:

Climate change is by no means the sole or even the most significant
symptom of the changing interests and values of the West. Still, only
societies with high levels of cultural amnesia could have made such a religion
out of it. Beware the pronouncement, “the science is settled”. It’s the spirit of
the Inquisition, the thought-police down the ages. Almost as bad is the claim
that “99 per cent of scientists believe” as if scientific truth is determined by
votes rather than facts.

– Tony Abbott, 2017 Annual GWPF Lecture, London 9 October 2017

https://www.thegwpf.org/tony-abbott-daring-to-doubt
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/10/dangerous-abbott-unleashed-speaks-the-truth-critics-froth-and-flounder/

Escaping the Renewable Energy Trap
by Alan Moran:
https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/09/escaping-the-renewable-energy-subsidy-trap/

The Paris Agreement
by President Donald Trump
What he really said.
https://www.thegwpf.com/reminder-what-president-trump-really-said-about-the-paris-agreement/

Serious Defects in Australia’s Energy Policies
A group of retired senior engineers challenge Australia’s bi-partisan energy
foolishness. See:
https://carbon-sense.com/2017/10/13/open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-of-australia/

Personal
Thanks to all of those who sent well-wishes on our moving adventure and downsizing of our lives. Some even sent contributions to the depleted Carbon Sense cause.
We are making progress on the shift. As an experienced shifter predicted, we have reached the “where did we put that” stage.
Next we will be saying – “why did we keep that stuff”.
But our office is now working and more Carbon Sense will flow again. Thanks for your support.

Viv Forbes

To view or print the whole newsletter plus images click:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lights-out.pdf

By Keith Orchison

By coincidence I have come across the new “Climate of the Nation” report from the strongly green-leaning Climate Institute on the same day I have been reading the latest Essential Report polling and just after looking at a pre-dawn snapshot of east coast market capacity on a pretty standard winter’s day.

Taking the latter first, at 6.30am today 97.6 per cent of the New South Wales load was being met by black coal generation as the State’s population was getting up and its substantial factory sector was gearing up. If you take NSW, Victoria and Queensland together – they represent 90 per cent of the east coast market – at this point 88.9 per cent of the three-State load was being met by brown and black coal generation with wind power providing 0.4 per cent and solar (naturally as the sun wasn’t yet up) 0.04 per cent.

(Eight hours later, I see, at 2.30pm, black coal generation is still bearing 89.7 per cent of NSW load and coal is accounting for almost 82 per cent of required capacity in the three largest States of the market – with hydro power providing 7.5 per cent and wind/solar 4.3 per cent.)

The question that comes to my mind when I look at data like this is what would be required to replace even half this coal power (let alone all of it) with mostly wind power and solar PVs? What would the total system cost be in a set-up where supply is assured and how would this translate in to retail bills?
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A Diesel in the Shed.

You can have your solar panels
and your turbines on the hills;
You can use the warmth of sunshine
to reduce your heating bills.

You can dream you’re self-sufficient
as you weed your vegie bed;
As long as you make sure to keep
A diesel in the shed.

When I was a kid on a dairy farm in Queensland, we relied on green energy – horses and human muscles provided motive power; fire-wood and beeswax candles supplied heat and light; windmills pumped water and the sun provided solar energy for growing crops, vegies and pastures.Railway Jobs 2017 There were no refrigerators – things were kept cool by evaporation of water in a Coolgardi safe. Cold water for drinks came from a water bag hanging in the shade near the back steps. We had no hot water systems – we bathed one after another in warm water heated in a kettle on the wood stove. The only “non-green” energy used was a bit of kerosene for the kitchen lamp, and petrol for a small Ford utility. We were almost “sustainable” but there was little surplus for others. Labour was cheap and food was expensive.bluestacks for windows 10

Our life changed dramatically when we put a thumping diesel in the dairy shed. This single-cylinder engine drove the milking machines and an electricity generator which charged 16 lead-acid 2 volt batteries sitting on the veranda. This 32 volt DC system powered a modern marvel – bright light, at any time, in every room, at the touch of a switch. This system could also power Mum’s new electric clothes iron as long as someone started the engine for a bit more power.

There were no electric self-starters for diesels in those days – just a heavy crank handle. Here is the exact model which saved us from a life of dairy drudgery, kerosene lights and Mother Potts irons:

See and listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itxY98A8wHQ

But all that effort, noise and fumes were superseded when every house and dairy got connected to clean silent “coal power by wire”, and coal was used to produce coke for the new slow-combustion stoves. Suddenly the trusty “Southern Cross” diesel engines disappeared from Australian sheds and dairies, AGA coke-burning cookers displaced the old smoky wood-burning stoves in the kitchen, and clean-burning coal gas replaced wood stoves and dirty open fires in the cities.
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On Earth Day we should Celebrate The True Green Fuels – Hydrocarbons and Nuclear.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today urged people to celebrate the true green fuels – oil, coal, gas, nuclear and, in places, geothermal and hydro.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that these fuels have reduced man’s pressure on the environment to such an extent that they should be celebrated on “Earth Day”.
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Climate alarmists claim incessantly that all bad weather is caused by man’s use of hydro-carbon fuels – oil, gas and coal.

They insist that man-made carbon dioxide is the trump card in the climate game. Their computerised models of doom assume ever-rising levels of carbon dioxide which will trump all natural climate controllers.

Unfortunately for their credibility, since at least the year 2000 global temperatures have trended level despite significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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