By Craig Rucker

So-called “renewable energy” is not clean, renewable, reliable, affordable or sustainable.

“Renewable energy” is a sexy term used to drive public policies and spending The Obama Administration and like-minded Green zealots have said repeatedly that they are waging a “war on coal,” intend to bankrupt coal-based power plants, and delay or block oil, natural gas and nuclear projects – while fast-tracking and subsidizing ethanol, wind and solar programs

Another apostle of the renewable energy, anti-hydrocarbon movement is Senator Harry Reid. The chief organizer of and keynote speaker at this week’s falsely named National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Reid is a true believer in destroying conventional energy through subsidies, regulations and strong-arm tactics. He even wants to shut down every coal power plant in Nevada.

Senator Reid may believe that compelling and subsidizing increased renewable energy use, while undermining and even outlawing conventional energy, is the way to economic growth and energy independence. In reality, this reckless scheme could easily cause the collapse of our energy grid, job creation, economy and living standards, just as it is already doing in Europe.

Unfortunately, Reid and his allies could get away with it, because “renewable” confers an almost Holy Grail status that ensures widespread political, media, public and corporate support (for a lot of wrong reasons). That lofty status, however, ignores two fundamental facts:
(more…)

There is a persistent green myth that coal-fired power generation causes city smogs. It does not.

City air pollution is nothing new. King Edward I complained about London pollution in 1306, as did Queen Elizabeth I in 1578, long before the first steam engine operated.

Let’s look at the causes of some famous smogs – London/Pittsburgh, Los Angeles/Santiago, the Dust Bowls and the Asian Smogs.

The London smogs were caused by open-air combustion of newspapers, wood and cheap high-sulphur unwashed coal in domestic fires, stoves and boilers; by coal-burning blacksmiths, brewers and ironworkers in smoky forges, furnaces and coke plants; and by many smoky steam locomotives; all with inefficient combustion and no pollution controls. The smog was slowly eliminated by clean air regulations and by changing to “clean coal by pipe” (town gas) and “clean coal by wire” (electricity).

The Los Angeles smogs were caused mainly by backyard incinerators, vehicle exhausts and natural air inversions. They were reduced by using cleaner fuels, better engines and compulsory pollution-control equipment. Santiago has undergone a similar clean-up.

The Dust Bowl conditions of the Great Plains in USA were caused by drought and wind erosion of newly cultivated soils. Gobi Desert storms produced the Yellow River and the Yellow Sea and contribute to the Asian Brown Cloud today.

Today’s Asian smogs have many sources – forest fires in Indonesia; open air cremations in India; dust from volcanic eruptions and desert storms; soot, ash and other pollutants from millions of domestic rubbish fires, mosquito fires, cooking fires and heaters using anything combustible – cow dung, wood, paper, cardboard, plastic or cheap unwashed coal; and soot and unburnt hydro-carbons from millions of vehicles, many with engines needing maintenance and no pollution controls. Beijing today combines the 1950’s problems of both London and Los Angeles.

The Asian smog is NOT caused by producing electricity in modern power stations with closed boilers, pollution controls and using high-quality washed coal such as exported by Australia to Asia. The “power station pollution” pictured so eagerly in ABC and Green propaganda is actually steam from the cooling towers.

The main products released by modern coal-fired power stations are water vapour and carbon dioxide – both are essential life supporters. Neither one is dangerous. Both make our climate more liveable, but the contribution of carbon dioxide to climate is tiny. And the carbon dioxide produced by burning coal has done more to encourage the growth of plants and the greening of planet Earth than Greenpeace will ever do.

“Clean coal by wire” into every home is the one thing that could solve much of the Asian air pollution.

Disclosure: Viv Forbes has a science degree and long experience in Australia’s primary industries. He is self-employed, owns a farm and holds shares in a small Australian coal explorer which will benefit when Asia decides to solve their energy and pollution problems using “clean coal by wire”.

Further reading:

Gobi Desert Dust Storms: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-track-asian-du

Desert Dust, Dust Storms and Climate: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/miller_01/

Is Coal Dirty? http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/is-coal-dirty.pdf

Coal combustion products: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/coal-combustion.pdf

Carbon & Carbon dioxide – Clearing up the Confusion: http://carbon-sense.com/2011/05/02/carbon-dioxide-confusion/

The Carbon Sense Coalition today came out in support of “lights out” during Earth Hour (Saturday 29th) but claimed the time should be renamed “Dark Hour” and suggested that consumers should also forgo the consumption of gasoline and diesel during this period.

The chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, claimed that consumers should spend the hour they sit in the dark with no transport, air conditioning or hot coffee, remembering the contribution that carbon fuels have made to modern society.
(more…)

The recent Earth Hour advertisements exhorted us to turn off the lights in the evening and enjoy a “candle-lit dinner” instead.

This crystallised in my mind the idiocy of this event – everyone knows candles produce more CO2 per lumen than the incandescent bulb, and lots more than a fluorescent bulb.

This is symbolic of the retreat from reason that is Earth Hour – not one single coal-powered station in the country will shut down for earth hour, so no power will be saved, it will instead be wasted.

The fact that “2,848 cities, towns and municipalities in 84 countries have already committed to Vote Earth for Earth Hour 2009” is evidence of nothing but a form of mass hysteria.

The fact that China, India and emerging countries lead the call for action on climate change is a cynical act of hypocrisy, given that they are calling for action by everyone else but China, India and emerging countries.

These countries are themselves the fastest growing “polluters” in the world – China now exceeds the carbon footprint of the USA, and India is not far behind.

The Vote Earth movement seems to me to be a rejection of the Age of Enlightenment in favour of a return to the dim glow of medieval ignorance, where modern-day peasants will sit smugly in the dark as a form of Mother Nature worship.

As Earth Hour asks us to symbolically turn off the light of reason, I have decided to Vote Human instead and turn every light in the house on tomorrow night – I encourage you all to do the same.

In the immortal words of Dylan Thomas: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”

ALLEN HORRELL
Oatlands
8th April 2009

See also:

http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/earthhour.pdf
http://www.briansussman.com/environment/more-green-stupidity-earth-hour/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/miloyiannopoulos/9307847/Earth_Hour_is_stupid_and_pointless_Leave_the_blasted_lights_on/

Earth has only three significant sources of energy.

First is geothermal energy from Earth’s molten core and decaying radioactive minerals in Earth’s crust. This energy moves continents, powers volcanoes and its heat migrates towards the crust, warming the lithosphere and the deep oceans. It can be harvested successfully in favourable locations, and radioactive minerals can be extracted to provide large amounts of reliable heat for power generation.

Second is energy stored in combustible hydrocarbon minerals such as coal, oil, gas, tar sands and oil shale. These all store solar and geothermal energy collected eons ago and they are the primary energy sources supporting the modern world and its large and growing populations.

Third are radiation and gravitational energies from the Sun and Moon which are captured by the biosphere as heat, winds, tides, rain, rivers and in biomass such as forests, crops and animals. These are the natural “Green” energies that support all processes of life and still support a peasant existence for some peoples.

Green zealots believe that we can and should run modern societies exclusively on “Green” energies, and they have embarked on a war on hydrocarbons. They need to be told that their green energy favourites are just stealing from the biosphere – they are not as green as they claim.
(more…)

From http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/

By Richard Treadgold

Len Mills sends us a study of wind farms reported in the Daily Mail. It emerges that their real production history falls a long way short of the breathless claims some make for them.

I too wish to save the world, but not by using wind turbines, because they’ll ruin us first. They’re expensive, ugly, short-lived, noisy to the point of ill-health, ugly, kill bats and birds, they stop generating if there’s too little or too much wind, they demand lots of rare metals and they’re ugly.

Incidentally, if you actually want to contaminate a dependable schedule with a wind turbine’s unpredictable variability, a wind farm needs instant, reliable backup (meaning fossil-fuelled spinning reserve), meaning you greatly increase your establishment costs, about double your operating costs and your CO2 emissions are not reduced by a jot or tittle. I ought to mention they brutalise the landscape.

More: http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2014/11/wind-alone-cannot-keep-the-lights-on/

What Happens during a Blackout – an assessment of the consequences of a prolonged and wide-ranging Power Outage in Germany

Infrastructures such as a reliable energy supply, functioning water-supply and wastewater-disposal systems, efficient modes of transport and transport routes and also information technology and telecommunications technology that can be accessed at all times represent the lifeblood of high-technology industrialised nations. The Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment therefore commissioned the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) to investigate the possible effects of a prolonged and widespread power blackout on highly critical infrastructures such as drinking water, wastewater, information and communications systems, financial services and health services, especially against a backdrop where the blackout has a cascading effect spanning state and national boundaries.

In Germany, several recent natural disasters and technical malfunctions (Elbe and Oder floods in 2002/2005, power blackout in the Münsterland in 2005, the Kyrill storm in 2007) have highlighted the population’s dependence on such (critical) infrastructures. Supply bottlenecks, public safety problems and disruptions to road and rail transport have revealed the vulnerability of modern societies and made extreme demands on health, emergency and rescue services.

Since almost all critical infrastructures rely heavily on a power supply, a scenario of a widespread and prolonged power blackout involving massive disruption to supplies, economic damage and risks to public safety is a very serious matter. In 2004 the National Crisis Management Exercise (LÜKEX) highlighted the problematic consequences and chains of consequences and also the enormous difficulties faced by federal structures in managing such a crisis and threat situation that strikes without any advance warning.

As far as can be seen, however, the possible consequences of such an event have not yet been subject to an in-depth, systematic analysis in the literature or in official documents.

The analyses conducted by the TAB reveal that the consequences of such a power blackout could at least be akin to a national disaster. All internal and external civil protection forces would need to be mobilised in order to at least mitigate the effects.

The TAB report indicates how the resilience of critical infrastructures could be strengthened and how possible courses of action within the national system for disaster management could be improved. The report thus makes a valuable contribution towards heightening awareness of this issue within industry and society and offers the committees of the German Bundestag a sound basis for further consideration.

The Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment The German Bundestag retains the copyright to this publication. Reproduction is authorised, except for commercial purposes, but full acknowledgement is requested.

Source: http://www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/en/publications/books/petermann-etal-2011-141.html

Report: http://www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/en/pdf/publications/books/petermann-etal-2011-141.pdf [PDF, 7.4MB]

The moon causes tides on Earth. The most obvious ones are in the oceans, but they also occur in the atmosphere and also in ground water and even in the crustal material.

The moon also reflects solar radiation, maximized at full moon and minimized at new moon.

These effects are also maximised at perigee, when the moon is closest to the earth.

Ken Ring is a New Zealand based private weather forecaster. Ken provided the following brief summary of the importance of the Moon on Earth’s weather.

The Effects of the Moon on Earth’s Weather

By Ken Ring

Phase

The moon is responsible for the daily atmospheric tide, which changes air height according to the inconstant position of the moon. When the moon is above the horizon the air-tide is “in” and when it sets below the horizon and until the moon rises the air-tide is “out”.

This changing air height varies ground temperatures throughout the day, depending on the moon phase. It is well known that the full moon increases the temperatures on earth:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19950319&id=UB9OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZRMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5517,3976094

When the moon is out of the sky in daylight hours (1stQ moon dawn-noon, full moon time dusk-dawn, and lastQ time noon-dusk), the sun’s heat can reach the ground more intensely, with no absorbent air to block its path.

When the moon is out of the sky at night (lastQ dusk to midnight, new moon (midnight-dawn), and 1stQ midnight-dawn), the airtide is “out” letting in more of the heavier cold air from the edge of space which cools the ground more than otherwise.

In summer the full moon time is the hottest of the month, and consequently is around the time of the month when tropical cyclones form, because the water within 6 deg of the equator can be heated to 26-28degC which is required for sufficient evaporation to occur that will provide enough to fuel the cyclonic system. The new moon is also a cyclone breeder, because the new moon is in the sky all day which tends to clear the sky, thus allowing the sun’s heat to again penetrate closer to the ground.

Declination

The moon changes hemispheres on a 27-day cycle, due to the tilt of the earth. In summer the new moon is always over the southern hemisphere, the full moon is over the northern hemisphere, and the quarter moons are over the latitude of the equator. In winter the full moon is over the southern hemisphere and new moon over the northern hemisphere.

Perigee

The perigee is the shortest moon-earth distance, and varies over a 27-day cycle. Perigee exaggerates whatever else is going on. When it is, e.g. full moon and perigee in summer, there is extra heat around. It may be noted that TC Ian began to form around 1^st-2^nd January, when it was new moon + a very powerful perigee (second closest moon-earth distance) for all of 2014.

There is no way to measure global temperature at any one moment, when at that moment half the world is experiencing freezing winter and the other the half burning heat of summer. Also, half the globe is enjoying daylight and the other half the cold night temperatures. There is no thermometer invented that can measure the temperature of the whole globe at once, nor the temperature of anywhere a day ahead and certainly not measure temperature of anything, let alone the whole world, over a whole decade or century ahead. Anyone who thinks they can is just guessing.

Ken Ring

www.predictweather.com

Ken Ring, of www.predictweather.com is the Australasian longrange forecaster who predicts coming weather patterns by planetary cycles and orbits of the moon and sun.  It is science, not astrology. Ken is longrange consultant and presenter for both Australia’s Channel Seven and Nine Networks and author of the Weather Almanacs for Australia. NZ publisher Random House NZ Email Tel: 0011649-817-7625  Mob: 021-970-696

We hear continually that “The Science is Settled”. It is easy to find proof that the science of man-made global warming is not settled. Professor Hayden, in a short submission to the EPA demolishes the IPCC science consensus.

He also demolishes the “tipping point” scares and suggests that a warmer world may be a better world anyway.

Read Howard Hayden’s short sharp report:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hayden-to-jackson.pdf [PDF, 129MB]

About Howard (Cork) Hayden:

He writes and publishes The Energy Advocate, a monthly newsletter (on real paper) about energy. For a sample copy contact: corkhayden@comcast.net

He is the author of the books:

Bass Ackwards: How Climate Alarmists Confuse Cause with Effect
A Primer on Renewable Energy
A Primer on CO2 and Climate

These and other books are available from Vales Lake Publishing, LLC: www.valeslake.com

The Energy Advocate:

www.energyadvocate.com
PO Box 7609
Pueblo West, CO 81007

“People will do anything to save the world… except take a course in science.”
“Chromoergic psychosis: The delusion that energy has a color, usually green.”

Why Vote?

In a long life of observing and participating in many election campaigns, I have never before seen anything approaching the ferocity and stupidity of the “war on carbon”. Are we fighting –

• “Carbon” which is the essential element at the centre of every molecule of life on earth?… OR
• “Carbon Dioxide” which is the natural atmospheric gas-of-life that feeds all plants?… OR
• “Carbon Fuels” such as oil, gas and coal which are natural hydrocarbons which store ancient solar and hydro-thermal energy and which provide most of the electrical and motive power that supports and feeds every society on Earth?
• The Answer? Judging from their statements and sloppy language, the alarmists and green zealots are fighting all three. They aim to make “carbon” a dirty word and to deny all humanity the great benefits of hydro-carbon energy.

Like all futile wars, this one will eventually collapse. But it has already done tremendous damage to the global economy and financial stability.

Ominously, Malcolm Turnbull signed Australia onto the Paris Climate Agreement. This appalling document should be forever draped around his neck like a dead albatross. We need our own CLEXIT – climate exit from the climate Czars of Europe. Julie Bishop and Greg Hunt supported him and were collaborators in wasting or committing over one billion dollars on climate nonsense. Please put these three and their supporters last in their electorates.
(more…)