OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER, AND TO THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION.

We are a group of retired scientists and engineers in Queensland, and we are alarmed at the direction our country is being taken through your respective policies, which are virtually identical, on renewable energy. Our names are listed here. We have studied this issue for years now, and we have here outlined the serious defects in your energy policy, and asked some questions which have thus far remained unanswered.

Energy Policy. By far the greatest risk to Australia’s electricity supply is the false belief that renewables (wind and solar) can be a like-for-like replacement for dispatchable fossil fuelled generators. They are not, and can never be. A one-MW wind or solar plant does not replace a one-MW coal plant. Not even close. Solar plants will produce electricity on average at 20% of their installed capacity. They produce power for little more than eight hours per day and none at all at night or on rainy days. Wind plants can be expected to produce electricity on average 25% to 30% of installed capacity, but output can be as little as 2% or as much as 70% with little warning.

Media reports in June this year referred to a “wind drought” across Southern Australia resulting in wind production being “40% below the previous corresponding period”. This is a problem but masks an even more intractable false belief; that an energy grid can run on averages. It can’t, because energy consumed has to be generated in real time. Just one example of that wind drought: at 2.20 PM on 5 th May this year, all the wind farms in Australia (4400 MW installed capacity in WA, SA, Vic, Tas and NSW) were producing just 121MW. (That’s 4400 MW capacity generating only 121MW). In fact for May and June this year this was not uncommon. Large high pressure systems over southern Australia meant little or no wind for weeks at a time.

The grid has to meet demand every minute of every day. AEMO can and does order fossil fuelled plants to produce electricity. Clearly it cannot do so for wind or solar. Just imagine Australia with a largely renewable energy system — it is night time so no solar power is being generated, and the whole of Southern Australia is dominated by high pressure systems (this is not unusual) and wind is producing at only 2% of installed capacity! To date dispatchable fossil fuelled generators have been able to shoulder the load but as dispatchable capacity is retired this may no longer be possible, with disastrous consequences.

On the face of it the answer is storage, either battery, pumped hydro or molten salt. This brings us to the next false belief; that storage is some sort of magic pudding. The capacity of current storage technologies is miniscule compared with daily demand. Australian grid demand varies between 18,000 MW minimum and 30,000 MW maximum. Over 24 hours this works out to about 600,000 MWh per day. The Tesla battery being installed in South Australia is said to be the world’s largest and to hold 129 MWh fully charged. This may be enough to support the local grid for a short time until dispatchable capacity can be started, but an unimaginable number of Tesla batteries would be necessary to maintain grid supply for a day or a week, or even longer in the worst case.
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Speech to the Senate
Carbon Farming Initiative Bill
2nd Reading

Parliament House, Canberra
31 October, 2014

Bob Day AO
Senator for South Australia

Thank you Mr President.

This year the world will enjoy its greatest grain crop on record. Let me say that again. This year the world will enjoy its greatest grain crop on record. After the world food security crisis of 2007 which saw civil unrest in some countries, it is fantastic to see that in just 7 years we are producing record amounts of food for a growing world population. The US Department of Agriculture recently raised global crop predictions for corn, soy and wheat. Yet the World Bank indicates that over the last 10 reporting years, the percentage of agricultural land worldwide has not changed.

So what is driving this world food production boom?

Mr President, plants are thriving on the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A recent study showed that climate modellers over-estimated the amount of carbon dioxide that would remain in the atmosphere. Lo and behold, they have now discovered that plants are soaking up the additional carbon dioxide and growing more vigorously. Plants and trees and crops will absorb 130 billion tonnes more carbon dioxide this century than expected. It’s called the ‘carbon dioxide fertilisation effect’. This is not just a benefit to food crops- it is a boon to native vegetation, from the ancient forests to desert scrub that environmental activists have been trying to preserve for decades. Then there is the latest science on how the oceans are absorbing carbon dioxide with plankton growing faster than previously thought.

So why is this Government spending billions of dollars to reduce this airborne saviour of vegetation and food crops?

I am stunned by the number of politicians who are either ignorant or wilfully misleading the public on this topic. A whole political industry has developed around new arcane language to describe what we have known for centuries about producing food and improving our environment. A whole false economy has developed, fuelled by taxpayer funding through an Emissions Reduction Fund, An Emissions Trading Scheme, Renewable Energy Targets, The Renewable Energy Agency, The Climate Change Authority, Climate Change Departments and more. This Bill seeks to subsidise activities because they have so-called ‘co-benefits’ – well, if there are benefits in activities that also arguably help the environment, people should be doing them anyway without massive taxpayer subsidies – just as landfill operators have been doing – and I commend them for doing so over the years – in capturing gas emissions from landfills, until the rent seeking, carpet-bagging, bootlegging crony capitalists jumped on the climate change bandwagon to suck money from the taxpayer.

With the carbon tax, families felt and could clearly see for the first time the direct impact on their personal budgets from spending money to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This Emissions Reduction Fund is no different, but by sleight of hand people will be less able to see how their taxes will need to stay higher than they should be in order to pay for this scheme.

Taking money from low-income families and spending it on dodgy activities with a spurious scientific basis punishes the poor, rewards the rent-seekers and churns money in taxes, grants and rebates.

Mr President, Australia can not afford this Emissions Reduction Fund during what the Government has told us is a budget emergency.

While many families struggle with the cost of living, while mums and dads struggle to find jobs to make ends meet, the Government spends their money appeasing high-income elites enthralled by this latest cause and championed by celebrities, self-promoting ‘experts’ and certain elements of the media.

Rent-seekers like wind tower companies and solar panel manufacturers get paid handsomely and advocates in the climate change industry are living very nicely off the system flying around in private jets irrespective of whether these schemes improve the environment or human living conditions.

$2.5bn of taxpayers money spent on reducing carbon dioxide to stop so-called global warming while Arctic and Antarctic sea ice is growing. Growing, not shrinking. It’s bizarre!

I am dismayed that honest, intelligent people in this place can sit mute and watch this blatant trashing of both science and economics.

Mr President, I have a science background but any high school student can tell you that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. CO2 in the atmosphere is not pollution!

Now I know there are colleagues in this chamber who agree with me on all this but feel they must toe a party line but I for one am not so constrained and perhaps I speak for them also in saying that I will not sit mute and support this nonsense.

Minister Cormann told this place just two days ago, and I quote:

“Coal is good. Coal is good. It is at the heart of our economic prosperity here in Australia and around the world. It has helped lift living standards for people right across the world. It will continue to help lift living standards around the world.”

If that is so, if colleagues believe in all good conscience that this Bill is wrong, then I urge them to speak up – don’t be scientific girly men!

I oppose the Bill.

Climate Alarmists Rebuffed in Australian Election

The climate alarmists and carbon taxers have suffered a body blow in the recent Australian elections – it was a turning point in the war on carbon.

The victorious leader, Tony Abbott, had made it absolutely clear throughout the campaign and in the days immediately after his victory, that abolishing the carbon tax is one of his immediate priorities. Many factors played a part in his victory, but his outspoken and steadfast opposition to the carbon tax was an important one.

Thank you to our supporters for all the congratulatory comments about the role of “Carbon Sense” in preparing the way for this public revolt. Here are a couple:

Well Done Oz, well done Carbon Sense.
I congratulate Australia for chucking out those who were destroying your country, and congratulate you and “Carbon Sense” for the unyielding, persistent stream of useful scientific and logical argument against the climate lobby. Your message has been so powerful and so well presented for so long, surely it played a significant part in keeping the majority on the side of reason?
M.R.

I have followed your crusade and cheered for you. After all, your personal energy and determination must have had an important role in reminding your fellow Australians that the scare tactics and policies of climate change fanaticism are nothing more than a scheme of the political left. I am amazed by your lasting commitment to defend the professional and scientific truth about carbon, and challenge the claims and lies of demagogic politicians and opportunistic “scientists”. I must thank you for your efforts and would be honoured if we could maintain our professional link and friendship.
M.M.

And a General Comment:

Maybe you should change your name from “Carbon Sense” to simply “good sense”.
Even though I think you’re stark raving mad sometimes – other times I think you’re maybe the only sane one left! You remind me of Sisyphus at times!! Keep up the battle.
K.C.

There was good news and bad news in the election.

The good news was that the Labor/Green/Independent coalition that had led Australia into the unwinnable war on carbon was decisively rejected. The Labor vote fell to its lowest level for a century, the Green vote fell 3% and the independents who helped create and support this destructive green coalition are no longer in Parliament.

The other feature of this campaign was the high public interest in the election and the big dissatisfaction with all major parties. Lots of small single-issue parties were formed and contested the election. Most of these small parties were also opposed to the carbon tax.

And a few of them were smart enough to maintain strict discipline among themselves on how preference votes were directed, ensuring that some of them were elected to the Senate.

There was one bad note in the election. Two prominent new small parties, the Palmer United Party (PUP) and the Katter Australia Party (KAP) foolishly directed significant preferences to the ALP and/or Greens ahead of the Liberal/Nationals. This was done partly out of spite, but mainly in a big gamble that did not always pay off.

Bob Katter’s largely conservative supporters reacted badly to him “assisting the enemy” and his primary vote fell dramatically. His hold on his own electorate has become marginal. Clive Palmer’s pact with the Greens got less publicity before the election and he did surprisingly well all over Australia. He probably got one Senator elected because of his shady deal with the green devils, but then in another state a Green Senator will probably be elected on Palmer preferences. So we may be stuck for six years with at least one Green senator who should not have been elected.

Another feature of the election was the minimal support for the anti-coal-seam-gas party.

Now we need to make sure the new government dismantles the whole climate industry.

Stop Press: Germany’s conservatives also just won a massive victory in their latest election. Greens lost heavily, their vote falling from 16% in polls early in the year to 8% now (from 11% last election). More:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-wins-third-term-in-general-election-a-923755.html

More, as well as:

• How to Untangle the Climate Bureaucracy: Last In, First Out
• Abolish the Unreliable Energy Targets
• Arctic Ice Confounds Costly Computers
• Taxing Air
• We Have a New Consensus: 99% of Climate Models Overestimated Global warming
• The Last Word

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/carbon-quake.pdf [PDF, 101kB]

Keywords: Australian Election, Green vote falls, dismantling the climate bureaucracy, renewable energy targets, Arctic ice, taxing air, climate models fail.