Green Energy is Part of the Past, not Fuel for the Future

The growing failure of green energy in Europe should warn Australia to abandon bi-partisan policies dictating targets, mandates and subsidies for “green” energy.

I grew up at the end of the last green energy era – solar energy powered our growing crops and dried the washing, but it was weak in winter and ceased under clouds and at night; wind energy pumped water, but only when the wind blew; draft horses powered farm machinery, but they had to be fed whether they were working or not; wood gave us home heating and cooking, but it consumed energy to collect and chop it up; kids walked to school or rode bikes or ponies and ladies took the horse and sulky.

Our only help from carbon energy was kerosene for the kitchen lamp and coke used to smelt and forge the metals for farm tools and machinery.

We also practiced “sustainability” – we purchased little, and most of the farm produce was consumed on the farm by family, farm labourers and draft horses.

We were rescued from this life of sustained labour by carbon energy – a kerosene-powered tractor, a petrol-powered truck, and coal-powered electricity for lighting, heating, cooking, refrigeration, milking machines and pumps. The horses and farm labour were no longer needed and, for once, the farm produced a decent surplus of food for the growing cities.

Wind, solar, wood and muscle power are tools of the past and they work no better now than they did then. Forcing people to use these ancient technologies will just return us to laborious poverty on the farms and hunger in the cities.

Green energy should not be forced on consumers – those who want it should pay for it.

Green energy will eventually be abandoned, but the cost rises for each day’s delay.

For those who would like to read more about the green energy disaster in Europe:

http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=4a8f8201ec&e=e1638e04a2
http://www.cfact.org/2013/08/13/europeans-learning-the-hard-truth-about-wind-and-solar-energy/

More, as well as:

• Green Energy Twins are Parasitic Power Producers
• Abolish Renewable Energy Targets
• “The Oceans Ate my Global Warming”
• Election Day – “Put every Labor/Green candidate last”

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/green-energy-folly.pdf [PDF, 48kB]

Keywords: Green energy, wind power, solar power, renewable energy targets, global warming, computer model failures, oceans warming, election advice, how-to-vote, Labor, Greens, LNP, no-carbon-tax-party.

The proceedings of the second International Conference on Climate Change in New York will become available here: http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/proceedings.html.

Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus’ speech is on-line here:
http://www.klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=oWwyM2CjH0OG

A PDF version is here. [101 KB].

Several people have reports on the event:

Maggie Thauerskold: http://www.theclimatescam.com

Bob Carter: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/03/bob-carter-at-heartland-2

Jennifer Marohasy: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/

The weather at any spot is usually defined by max/min temperatures, humidity, precipitation and wind strength/direction. Weather varies hourly, daily, season-to-season and place-to- place. These weather measurements at any place can be averaged over various time periods.

Climate is defined as the average of thirty years of weather.

[We and the cartoon creator, Steve Hunter, have full rights to this cartoon, and grant permission for anyone to reproduce it in any media as long as the Steve Hunter signature remains on it. For electronic media, the source link should also be displayed.]

Weather statistics can be averaged over larger areas, such as by region, state, continent or the globe. This is a mathematical abstraction, becoming less accurate and less meaningful as the time or area covered increases. A global average annual temperature which (after debatable adjustments) includes winter in the Antarctic and summer in the Sahara is irrelevant. No one lives in the global average temperature. Weather and climate have been so politicised that most commentaries are now merely propaganda.

In the Brave New World of global warming alarmists, a long frigid winter is “just weather”, but one stinking hot summer day is “clear evidence of dangerous man-made climate change”.

And despite an un-predicted 17 years of stable global temperature trends, their prophets still chant their doleful dirge: “Unless we have a carbon tax, extreme weather disasters are coming your way soon”.

If you would like to comment on the above article go to: http://pickeringpost.com/story/weather-vs-climate/3140

More, as well as:

• Modelling Madness
• Clive Palmer’s Climate Gift Horse
• Aliens Cause Global Warming?
• Budget Should Cut Climatism Costs
• New Book from Ian Plimer: “Not for Greens”
• Believe it or Not – Al Gore Grilled at Last

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/weather-vs-climate.pdf [PDF, 109KB]

Keywords: Weather, climate, models, forecasts, Clive Palmer, Budget, climate spending, Ian Plimer, Al Gore.

By Martin Durkin

Poor Al Gore. Global warming is fast turning into a joke. From the jolly Hockey Stick (remember that one) to the topsy-turvy ice core data (what a howler), from the laughable computer models, to the dodgy temperature records … not a single scrap of global warming garbage has escaped the blistering, excoriating scrutiny of McIntyre, Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Singer, Carter & Co. The awkward-squad army of sceptics have kicked and trampled this theory to death, not once, but a hundred times over.

And yet, for all the onslaught of reasoned, scientific argument, the global warming beast refuses to lie down. Like some beleagured, maniac cyborg from the future, it just goes on and on. We all know the reason. The edifice of global warming is built not on science, but politics.

But what kind of politics? This is the first in a series of blog pieces to explore the green politics behind global warming …..

A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO POSH ANTI-CAPITALISM

The next time you’re forced to attend a dinner party, keep an eye out for the global warmer. Then ask him what he thinks about supermarkets (wicked), ‘consumer society’ (soulless), world trade (cruel) and government regulation (more needed). Global warmers are, in short, anti-capitalist. But – and here’s the really important thing to understand – it’s a very specific form of anti-capitalism. We might call it posh anti-capitalism.

In the old days, when there was less swearing on TV and kids were scared of policemen, anti-capitalism was coloured Red. The Reds complained that capitalism would cause the ‘immiseration’ of the workers, and they dreamed of giant socialist factories, out-producing the West.

The tragedy (for the Reds) was that capitalism didn’t play ball. Instead of getting poorer, ordinary folk got richer – much, much richer. For the simple reason that capitalist mass production must necessarily go hand in hand with mass consumption. What the new-leftists call ‘consumer society’.

But these days, anti-capitalists are coloured Green. They campaign not in the name of the working class, but of ‘Earth’. Instead of giant factories, they dream of little handicraft workshops and organic peasant farms. They complain not that capitalism will impoverish the workers, but, on the contrary, that capitalism has made them too rich. It is the very success of capitalism that seems to upset them.

Source: http://www.martindurkin.com/blogs/secret-global-warming-posh-anti-capitalism

For a print ready pdf of the full article see: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/durkin-posh-anti-capitalism.pdf [PDF, 42 KB]

Martin Durkin is a documentary film director and TV producer. Of the various prizes for his wonderful films, the one he is most proud of is the Free Enterprise Award, given him recently by the Institute of Economic Affairs. Previous winners include F.A. Hayek and Margaret Thatcher. He is currently directing on a feature-length film on Margaret Thatcher for Channel Four Television. One of his masterpieces is the film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.

He is founder and managing director of Wag TV, which was listed among Britain’s top ten TV production companies in an industry poll conducted by REAL SCREEN magazine. He has served on the steering committees of the World Congress of Science Producers and lives in London with his wife and their four children.

Alarmists see a man-made calamity in every change in the Antarctic ice cap.

There is nothing unusual about ice caps melting, ice sheets splitting, icebergs calving or glaciers advancing or retreating. This has been happening naturally for eons.

[We and the cartoon creator, Steve Hunter, have full rights to this cartoon, and grant permission for anyone to reproduce it in any media as long as the Steve Hunter signature remains on it. For electronic media, the source link should also be displayed.]

Gullible Green Sailors trapped in Arctic sea ice:
http://www.cfact.org/2013/09/19/gullible-green-sailors-trapped-in-the-arctic/

Gullible Green Scientists trapped in Antarctic sea ice:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531159/Antarctic-crew-build-ice-helipad-help-rescuers.html

In 1513, a Turkish sea captain, Piri Reis, using ancient maps, produced an accurate chart of the coastline of Antarctica which is now covered by a kilometre of ice. Geological evidence suggests it was ice-free just 6,000 years ago. Several past eras of icing and melting follow the natural cycles of the solar system, totally ignoring man’s puny activities.

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It is not surprising that most glaciers and ice sheets show melting and calving while snow is being added at their source. If this did not occur, much of Earth’s water would eventually become tied up in the ever-growing ice sheets, as happened in the Ice Ages. And when land-based ice caps melt during periodic warm eras, the sea level inevitably rises and all life-forms must adapt to the new shoreline.

More, as well as:

• Repeal the Renewable Energy Target, Now
• Poison Propaganda – the Mercury Scares
• Believe it or Not – Al Gore Grilled at Last – Retraction

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/false-alarms-frigid-zone.pdf [PDF, 463KB]

Keywords: Antarctica, Arctic, undersea volcanoes, RET, mercury.

The Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, today claimed that the plan by Australian PM Rudd to cull one million camels may have unexpected carbon tax consequences.

Forbes explains:
“PM Rudd proposes to spend $19 million shooting one million wild camels.

“A big camel probably weighs about a tonne, so Mr Rudd is going to let a million tonnes of valuable meat rot under the Centralian sun.

“Each camel probably has about 190 kg of carbon sequestered in its body. As it rots and absorbs oxygen, this carbon will increase into about 700 kg of carbon dioxide which will then dissipate into the atmosphere.

“If the Australian Senate is silly enough to pass the Wong carbon dioxide Ration-n-Tax Scheme this shootout will thus trigger a huge carbon tax liability.

“At a carbon emission price of say $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide, the carbon tax on one million rotting camels would be about $28 million.

“If we add to that the actual cull costs of about $19 million and the carbon tax due on helicopter emissions and other activities, the total cost of the cull is about $50 million.

“This illustrates the dangers of costly unexpected consequences resulting from complex poorly designed bills being rushed through both Australian and US Legislatures by Mr Rudd and his buddy Mr Obama. Luckily Senators in both countries will probably reject this nonsense.
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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/

By Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

Australian electricity consumers can look forward to soaring charges for electricity and blackouts if state and federal politicians continue to undermine the power grid by mandating and subsidising solar power generation.

Solar power can never produce continuous, predictable low cost power. It must always be supported by expensive power storage systems or by reliable power sources such as coal, gas, hydro or nuclear.

No matter how many millions of taxpayer money is poured into “research”, it can never solve the two fatal flaws of solar power.
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Media Statement by Viv Forbes

Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

Any quotes taken directly from this statement may be attributed to Mr Forbes

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the federal government to reduce the burden of the Climate Industry on all taxpayers and consumers.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the biggest national scandal today was how the whole government apparatus, including the nationalised research and media industries and parts of the opposition, was totally captive to a religious belief that a destructive war on carbon energy will somehow provide benefits to some future generation of Australians by cooling the climate and preventing extreme weather events.

“This is a delusion.”

Quote:

It was the great Milton Friedman who said “There is only one tax on the people and that is government spending”.

Cutting expenditure, not re-arranging expenditure, must be the total focus of this budget.

And the first candidate for spending cuts must be the totally useless Climate Change Industry.

Every department, program, research grant, travel grant or salary with climate, warming, carbon, sustainability, renewable, sequestration, clean coal, ethanol or IPCC in its title or mission statement should be abolished forthwith together with its staffing. This list must include but not be restricted to:

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) and its dependants, saving about $3.2 billion.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, saving about $10 billion.

The Emerging Renewables Program, saving about $126 million.

The Clean Technology Innovation Program, saving about $200 million.

Subsidies to Coal-fired electricity generators, saving about $5.5 billion. (This has to be the ultimate madness – the government levies a crippling carbon tax on coal-fired electricity generation to force them to close and then pays huge subsidies to the same generators to delay their closure).

All Climate Change “Research” focussed on carbon dioxide, saving about $300 million.

“Contracts for Closure” – payments to ensure closure of some electricity generators (unbelievable – surely the carbon tax will do this).

The Coal Sector Jobs Package – payments to coal mines to offset the cost of the carbon tax- just abolish the tax.

Coal Sector Assistance Package – Subsidies to some Coal Mines (another stupidity – repaying some of the carbon tax they took in the first place).

Everything funded under the Clean Energy Future Plan.

All renewable energy subsidies.

The Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund.

The Ethanol Production Grants Program – a subsidy per litre of ethanol produced.

All climate change officials, lawyers, inspectors and auditors everywhere, maybe 13,000 of them saving, say, $2 billion per year.

The offices of the Climate Commissioner and the Clean Energy Regulator – whatever they cost is wasted money.

The whole Carbon Capture and Storage empire – The National Low Emissions Coal Initiative, the CCS Flagships Program, the National Carbon Dioxide Infrastructure Plan, and the Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

Support for all the International Climate Forums and Conferences via APEC, CEM, G20, IEA, IEF, IPEEC, IRENA, IPCC and all the travel costs associated with attendance.

All handouts under the Green Precincts Fund – $15M spent to date.

All government advertising, market research, media monitoring, media advisers and logo designers promoting the carbon tax, the Department of Climate Change, smart meters or other climate and green energy initiatives.

Donations to Green Friends such as the Climate Institute, the Australian Conservation Council, Climate Works Australia, Green Cross Australia, and the ACTU – $3 million spent already.

To “balance” all of these reduced expenditures the government must also abolish the carbon tax and all fuel taxes not related directly to public road usage and applied to road construction and maintenance.

Note: The above list probably includes errors, double counting and omissions, but such is the confusion and proliferation of the alphabet soup of what poses as “Climate Policy” that it is doubtful if anyone could prepare an accurate and comprehensive list. The only feasible solution is to start cutting, biggest first. None of them will be missed, except with relief by taxpayers and consumers.

Viv Forbes,
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition
www.carbon-sense.com
Rosewood Qld Australia
forbes@carbon-sense.com

Ocean acidification is like the Castle Ghost – everyone is scared of it but no one has seen it.

Dozens of learned articles and millions of media words tell us that ocean acidity has increased alarmingly since man started using carbon fuels. The worry is that the carbon dioxide being generated by man’s industry is dissolving in the ocean thus creating acidic water. And the computer models forecast that, by some future date, sea shells and corals will be dissolved or killed by the acidic ocean and/or the associated global warming.

However a close look at the chemistry of the oceans and the evidence provided by past records and present observations reveals that the open ocean is alkaline and never acidic, except locally near active submarine volcanic vents. It is deceptive to suggest that sea life is threatened by “the rising acidity of the oceans”. The oceans are still quite alkaline. Nothing unusual or abnormal has yet been detected. Other conclusions are:

• The pH of the oceans varies naturally from place to place and time to time, depending on temperatures and the activities of plant and animal life. It is impossible to determine a meaningful figure for “average” ocean acidity (pH). It is also impossible to say with any certainty that average ocean pH has changed because of man’s use of carbon fuels. Such “measurements” are an exercise in guided guess-work. (“What would you like the answer to be?”)
• It is a myth that acidic waters necessarily kill aquatic life. Rain water is slightly acidic and many fresh water lagoons, swamps and reed beds are also acidic. Nevertheless, aquatic life flourishes in these wetlands.
• The oceans have a huge capacity resist being destabilised by changes in temperature or composition of the atmosphere. Whenever there is a change, the reactions of other chemicals or life in the sea act to moderate and even reverse those changes. Oceans cover about 71% of the Earth’s surface and the hydrosphere contains over 300 times the mass of gases in the atmosphere. The oceans thus have a huge capacity to buffer any variations in heat content or gas content emanating from the thin veil of atmospheric gases. The effect of man’s supposed 3% contribution to the tiny 0.039% of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s thin atmosphere would not register a long-term effect in the massive oceans.
• Cold ocean currents from the deep ocean periodically up-well to the surface. These currents are rich in dissolved carbon dioxide and other chemicals and decayed organic matter. Where this cold nutrient-rich water surfaces, there is a staggering profusion of aquatic life.
• Oceans have an unlimited ability to remove carbon dioxide from their waters and store it in thick beds of shells and corals, limestone, chalk, dolomite, magnesite, siderite, marls, methane hydrate and oil shales. Fresh water swamps and lakes on land have also laid down massive deposits of coal and lignite formed from carbon dioxide extracted from the atmosphere. Many of these deposits were laid down when the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was far higher than it is today.
• Carbon dioxide present in the oceans is essential to plant life and current very low levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the ocean are limiting plant growth. All animal life depends on these plants. Man’s mining and industrial activities are harmlessly recycling some of this valuable carbon dioxide from natural limestones and hydrocarbons buried in the dead lithosphere, back to the living biosphere.
• Corals are hardy and adaptable and have survived for 500 million years. During that time they have had to cope with warm eras, ice ages, extinction events, eras of massive volcanic activity, dramatic rising and lowering in sea levels and eons of time when levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide were far higher than today.
• A very recent extensive study of the Great Barrier Reef concluded that the changes forecast under the “business as usual greenhouse gas emissions” were unlikely to cause great harm to the reef.
• Any change in global temperature or the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere will cause life on land and in the ocean to adjust and adapt. However, on balance, a warmer world with more plant food in the atmosphere and a more vigorous water cycle is very beneficial for the biosphere. The killer climates are associated with ice ages when the atmosphere is cold and dry, the sea levels are much lower and much of Earth’s fresh water is locked up in vast lifeless sheets of ice.
• There is no justification to use the baseless fear of “acidification of the oceans” as an excuse for a massive dislocation of our transport, food and energy industries. We should instead be focussing on real pollution problems (such as man’s rubbish floating in the oceans) and/or on preparing to cope with real and likely natural disasters (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods, fires, cyclones and droughts).

To see a full report on “The Acid Ocean Bogey Man” by Viv Forbes with illustrations and explanations see: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/acid-ocean-bogeyman.pdf [PDF, 1.2 MB]

Further reading: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/25/ocean-acidification-natural-cycles-and-ubiquitous-uncertainties/