Australia’s alternative Prime Minister discovers “The Power of Moonbeams”.

By Viv Forbes

By the time solar energy reaches Earth’s surface it is spread very thin – even midday sunshine will not boil the billy or make toast. And solar collectors will only convert about 20% of that weak energy into electricity. Thus thousands of solar panels are needed to collect significant energy, and lots more to charge the expensive batteries needed to maintain electricity supply overnight and during cloudy weather. Despite these disadvantages, force-feeding of “green” energy by all levels of government has given Australia nearly three million solar collectors (mainly imported from China).

It requires scads of land to generate significant electricity from the sun’s weak rays. But even in sunny weather they produce nothing for 16 hours every day. And a sprinkling of dust, pollen, ash or salt, or a few splatters of poop from birds or flying foxes can reduce output by 50%, while night, snow or heavy cloud cover snuffs them out completely. (more…)

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 Sanjeev Sabhlok  Senior leader and overseas coordinator of India’s Swarna Bharat Party

The Modi government has been shovelling scarce taxpayer resources into solar energy, with a further $6.5 billion promised till 2022. This is over and above indirect subsidies that people pay through higher electricity bills because of renewable energy certificates. And while Donald Trump did the right thing by walking out of the Paris Agreement, Mr Modi unthinkingly remains committed to it and Niti Ayog has been touting subsidised electric vehicles.

Our party disagrees with this approach. First, because we oppose subsidies for any industry. But second, because we believe there is a strong case to impose Pigovian taxes on solar energy given the economic and environmental harm it causes.

Solar energy can do a few useful things. It can power a radio in an off-grid location. But it can’t support our day-to-day life.

Read the full article:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/solar-energy-badly-harms-the-environment-it-must-be-taxed-not-subsidised/

Monumental, Unsustainable Environmental Impacts of Green Energy

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy would inflict major land, wildlife, resource damage

By Paul Driessen

Extract from: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/05/monumental-unsustainable-environmental-impacts/

Solar panels on Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base generate 15 megawatts of electricity perhaps 30% of the year from 140 acres. Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear power plant generates 900 times more electricity, from less land, some 95% of the year. Generating Palo Verde’s output via Nellis technology would require land area ten times larger than Washington, DC – and would still provide electricity unpredictably only 30% of the time. Now run those solar numbers for the 3.5 billion megawatt-hours generated nationwide in 2016.

Modern coal or gas-fired power plants use less than 300 acres to generate 600 megawatts 95% of the time. Indiana’s 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind farm covers 50,000 acres and generates electricity about 30% of the year. Calculate the turbine and acreage requirements for 3.5 billion MWH of wind electricity.

Delving more deeply, generating 20% of US electricity with wind power would require up to 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, 19,000 miles of new transmission lines, 18 million acres, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earths – plus fossil-fuel back-up generators for the 75-80% of the year that winds nationwide are barely blowing and the turbines are not producing electricity.

Read more:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/05/monumental-unsustainable-environmental-impacts/

A letter from Pierre Bouteille

Dear friends from the English-speaking world,

Just to keep you abreast of what is going on in France…

You may have heard of the Yellow Vests, who triggered our president Macron into embarking on a “Grand Debate”, mainly on the internet. It is mostly a closed questionnaire with circular arguments on the most surreptitious ways to shoehorn the energy transition, without offering to question its legitimacy in the first place. However, looking closely at the fine print, contributors like associations can still express an open opinion.

On our side Rémy Prud’homme is an emeritus professor of economics, former consultant to the OECD, occasionally to the World Bank, and visiting professor at the MIT. As such he is our chief economist within the steering committee of the French Climato-Réalistes. He came up with the attached “ENERGY TRANSITION IN FRANCE: USELESS, COSTLY, UNFAIR”, initially in French of course. See: https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/energy-transition-in-france.pdf [PDF, 346 KB]

We thought you may like to know that we Froggies are enduring the same attacks as everywhere in the western world and that we like to voice our concern.

Sympathetically yours,

Pierre Bouteille, on behalf of the French Climato-Réalistes

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

Blackouts Stalk Green Energy Utopia

It is 7pm on a cold still night in the city which boasts “100% Green Energy”.

Thousands of electric cars are in their garages plugged into chargers; electric lights,
heaters and TVs are running; electric stoves are cooking dinner, electric trains and lifts
are moving late commuters and early revellers, and the pubs and clubs are busy.

The hills bristle with turbines, but there is no wind and not one is turning. Every roof is
covered with solar panels, but there is no sunshine and the panels are fast asleep. The
green city is facing peak electricity demand… on batteries.

But for several days, clouds have shaded the solar panels and there has been no wind
to turn the turbines – the battalions of batteries are running out of juice. One by one
they drop out. The street lights fade and the city goes dark.

In this green energy utopia all the wicked coal-powered generators have been closed
or demolished, exploration for gas is forbidden, no one dares to mention nuclear, hydro
schemes have gone (replaced by “Wild Rivers”), new hydro developments are stalled
by green lawyers, and diesel generators and petrol cars are banned.

This cartoon may be used with acknowledgement to www.carbon-sense.com

There is only one problem with this green perfection.

When the city wakes to another cloudy windless day, where will its electricity come
from?

And when all the stoves and fridges, computers and TV’s, lifts and trains, traffic lights
and water pumps, checkouts and ATM’s, heaters and coolers – – – all stop working,
there will soon be an angry mob seeking the nearest politician to punish.

Further Reading:

The Blackout Next Time:
https://townhall.com/columnists/FrankGaffney/2017/09/12/the-blackout-next-time-n2379923

Ecocity madness:
http://www.cfact.org/2017/07/12/al-gore-praised-australian-state-plagued-by-blackouts-for-leading-the-world-in-green-energy/

A Looming Disaster in Energy Security:
http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2017/06/looming-disaster-energy-security/

Keep a diesel in the Shed:
http://carbon-sense.com/2017/04/20/diesel-in-shed/

Rolling Blackouts Loom in Britain:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rolling-blackouts-loom-after-coalition-energy-chaos-9vs7fh3phxk

Green Germany facing power blackouts:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/9609777/Germany-facing-power-blackouts.html

Wind Turbines are neither clean nor green and provide zero global energy:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/wind-turbines-are-neither-clean-nor-green-and-they-provide-zero-global-energy/

South Australia (the green energy state) copes by shutting industries:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/02/aemo-plant-closures-helping-to-stabilise-south-australias-green-electricity-grid/
http://canadafreepress.com/article/electricity-prices-in-south-australia-skyrocket

Is the Green Energy Story Sustainable?:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/03/revisiting-wind-turbine-impacts-erroneous-recent-calculation-highlights-need-to-assess-renewable-energy-sustainability-claims/

While the Babblers Bleat about Global Warming, our Huge Heater in the Heavens gets Weaker:
http://notrickszone.com/2017/08/23/solar-cycle-continues-to-be-the-weakest-in-2-centuries/

Gore’s Latest Alarmist Movie Flops:

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Sequel:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/22/climate-scientist-rebuts-al-gore-film-bad-science/

Phony Sequel Rejected:
http://www.wnd.com/2017/07/10-reasons-to-reject-al-gores-phony-sequel/

Gore Debunked:
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/09/06/al-gore-inconvenient-sequel-climate-change-debunked-scientist-roy-spencer

Trump on the Paris Agreement:
https://www.thegwpf.com/reminder-what-president-trump-really-said-about-the-paris-agreement/

How They Pulled Off the Great Global Warming Conspiracy (Satire):
http://www.theonion.com/video/climate-change-researcher-describes-challenge-pull-56872

Wind Farms killing Whales now?
https://wcfn.org/2017/05/23/windfarms-whale-beachings/

A Personal Explanation

We received the note below recently, and there have been several others asking similar questions:

Hi Viv

Haven’t heard from you for a while.
I hope you have not resigned from the “Cause” out of disgust.
The man-made energy crisis is a disgrace and the political class worse.
If only we could delete all reference to emissions from the Black Board of Climate.
I still have a hope that Trump will do what he promised in election-speak.
Any chance you could be induced to consider a political role?
The money is unbelievably good.
Best Wishes
Howard

The Explanation: After 27 years at “Sherana” at Rosevale, Judy and I decided it was time to downsize. It is 9 months since that decisive decision, but at last we have almost achieved it. We went from 700 acres to 40 acres and sold all of our cattle, 70% of our sheep, had a huge clearing sale of machinery, tools, stock equipment, office furniture and assorted stuff. Prior to that we had to empty 16X4 drawer filing cabinets of a lifetime of work and political agitation as well as a hay shed full of boxes of files and paper. (I even found my letter of resignation from the Liberal Party in 1974. What I said to them then still applies now, only more so.) I threw out files on Workers Party, Progress Party, The Foundation for Economic Education, Tax Payers United, The Council of Resources and Energy, the Grasslands Protection Society, Common Sense and thousands of words in speeches, letters and articles. Also threw out a life- time of working files starting with my first job on the public payroll at the Geological Survey of Queensland to my last job as a non-executive director of Stanmore Coal Ltd. We now have no regular income apart from savings, but we do produce our own lamb, eggs, dairy products and citrus and will work on a garden.

The whole long arduous process felt like I was throwing our life away, but we could store it no longer. Yesterday I got my new office working at the new place, so now am preparing more “Carbon Sense”.

And, if our patient supporters return, we will continue the fight for Carbon Sense, Clexit, and sensible energy policies.

Viv Forbes

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.
(more…)

The problem with wind power is that electric utilities have to be prepared at any time for their power production to just stop on short notice. So they must keep fossil fuel plants on hot standby, meaning they are basically burning fuel but not producing any power.tutuapp android Storage technologies and the use of relatively fast-start plants like gas turbines mitigates this problem a bit but does not come close to eliminating it. This is why wind power simply as a source contributing to the grid makes very little sense.

Read More:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2017/04/why-wind-power-does-not-greatly-reduce-fossil-fuel-use.html

https://www.masterresource.org/hawkins-kent/wind-solar-systems-i/