By Brendan Godwin

The inclusion of unreliable energy sources such as wind and solar (“The Unreliables”) in our supply grids is causing massive fluctuations in electricity dispatch costs from $50-$100/MWh to $14,000/MWh and up to $60,000/MWh in South Australia in the Jan 2019 heat wave (Judith Sloan The Australian Jan 29, 2019) and see the graph below. This ultimately falls on consumer bills. Additionally, the locations for all of these unreliable generation sites are far from current transmission networks and new transmission lines have to be built and footprint cost and capacity factors have to be taken into account. People pushing for “The Unreliables” don’t factor these costs into their costings and neither do government pricing models. Nor do they include all of the subsidies paid to “The Unreliables” plus the state royalties on coal that forced Hazelwood’s closure.

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by Viv Forbes

Carbon dioxide must be an almighty gas – it gets blamed for almost every human disaster.

Now we have the alarmist Climate Council blaming bushfires on carbon dioxide and global warming. Focussing on the wrong problem is doing more harm than good. It is disappointing to see respected firefighters like Greg Mullins now blaming “climate change” for more and worse bushfires, and now even promoting the misguided Climate Council.

We have heat waves, dry spells and bushfires in Australia every year – bushfires were burning all up the coast when Captain Cook sailed by in 1770. But today we know what causes dangerous fires. It needs deliberate political mismanagement to create disastrous wild-fires which destroy everything – houses, sheds, fences, wildlife and mature trees.

A good wet season can result in nature building up a dangerously large fuel load. In the past this was usually removed safely by many small fires lit by lightning strikes, aboriginals, graziers or foresters. Today massive fuels loads are too often allowed to accumulate for more than one season in forests, reserves, parks and around suburbs. Then one match or spark on a windy day can produce massive fires.

Image acknowledgement: www.pixabay.com

Today’s stupid green policies that discourage and prohibit burning-off, encourage the accumulation of bushfire fuel and exclude grazing animals from large areas of parks and reserves are making uncontrollable wildfires more common. (more…)

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

“The assumptions are suspect, the relationships are far more complex than the models assume, and the scary forecasts are worthless.”

By Viv Forbes

Weather or climate? It pays to know the difference before we slaughter our economy on the climate alarm altar.

“Weather” describes atmospheric conditions at any location – temperature, humidity, clouds precipitation and winds. Every place has its own weather which depends on the time of day, the season, the latitude, local topography and the surface temperature of the nearest ocean. (more…)

By Jo Nova

Finally, 8 weeks after Donald Trump was sworn in, the UK conservative party says what skeptics and many conservatives have been saying for ten or twenty years. Perhaps they were jolted into action by the shocking polls that showed — from out of nowhere, the Reform Party was polling just as well, or even better than the 200 year old Conservative party.

Conservatives supporting global weather witchcraft and UN fantasies are facing an existential threat.

Read the full article at: https://joannenova.com.au/2025/03/uk-opposition-leader-dumps-impossible-climate-plan-net-zero-fantasy-will-bankrupt-us/

Additional Information:

And here is how Portuguese motorists cleared the road of Climate Wackos:
https://blackmon.substack.com/p/watch-stalwart-portuguese-citizens

Canadian PM drops carbon tax:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mark-carney-drops-carbon-tax-1.7484290

Once upon a time Australia was attractive to processing, refining and manufacturing industries using our abundant mineral and food resources, our reliable low-cost coal-fired electricity and a workforce trained in technical skills.

No longer.

Australia used to have 11 oil refineries, spread around the country. There are just 4 left, all over fifty years old, and all in danger of closing down. Green barriers to oil exploration have forced most of them to rely on costly imported crude oil.

We buy our jet fuel from North Asia and have just 19 days supply of aviation fuel in the country. Australia’s diesel supplies sometimes fall to just 13 days of consumption.

Now, for the first time in at least 60 years Australia no longer produces motor vehicles.

China and India have about 430 coal power plants under construction but Australia has not built a single coal-fired power station for seven years – some politicians even rejoice when they manage to close and demolish one.

Brisbane’s new trains are being made in India, Victa mowers are made in China and most coastal shipping died decades ago. Steel works and refineries producing aluminium, copper and zinc are under stress. All these industries are being pushed overseas by costly unreliable electricity and other government barriers and burdens.

Red-green policies being pushed by all major parties are making Australia more dependent on bolted-down industries such as mining and farming that can’t be sent overseas because their basic resources are here. And green opposition to nuclear power increases Aussie reliance on coal.

A century ago Australians relied on wool, wheat, gold, silver, copper, lead-zinc, butter, beef and timber – all products of bolted-down industries.

Red-green policies are pushing us back to those days. Politicians need to remember Newton’s Law of Bureaucracy – whenever the government tries to use the force of law to achieve economic goals the long term results will be equal and opposite to those intended.

So in the long run, red-green energy and environmental policies will make us more dependent on the bolted-down industries they now attack – mining, farming, forestry and fishing.

If you would like to comment on this article, or see other comments go to:

http://www.pickeringpost.com/glance/back-to-bolted-down-industries/7781

Further Reading:

Construction of new coal-fired power plants is increasing in at least 35 countries:
https://climatism.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/world-building-new-coal-plants-faster-than-it-shuts-them/

Asia is returning to Coal:
https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/why-is-asia-returning-to-coal/

Greens Disappointed by Economic Growth:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/14/co2-emissions-surge-greens-disappointed-by-economic-growth/

Australia’s Aging oil refineries are closing:

http://theconversation.com/security-in-doubt-as-australias-aging-oil-refineries-shut-down-5553

Viv Forbes

16 Nov 2017

[An excerpt from the newsletter: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/farmer-fred.pdf (PDF, 269KB)]

Yesterday morning, before the frost had left the grass, I was sitting quietly beside my fashionably-green wood-burning heater reading the latest explanation in “The Green Gospel” on why the Arctic ice had not yet melted.

Suddenly Flora burst into the room like an Arctic Blizzard with a look on her face that said I was in big trouble.

“Did you tell that awful Professor Percival he could cut holes in Maria’s belly and leave her with a bum bag and a rubber sausage strapped to her back?”

Can’t believe this is happening? See the sheep torture paddock:
http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/tag/sheep/i/1898/testing-sheep-for-methane-production/10

And see here where a whole team of apprentice professors are also torturing cows:
http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/diet-change-cuts-methane-emissions-in-cow-burps-20150804-girf6l.html

“It’s all right dear” I explained patiently, “The Prof has a new job researching how to stop sheep from adding carbon compounds to the atmosphere.” (Which means, translated crudely – “how to stop sheep from burping and farting”.)

“Well tell him to torture that awful Dorper ram that butts me, not my darling Maria. Where are those animal cruelty people when I need them”?

The Prof had coached me on the settled-science story which I now relayed confidently to Flora: “Sheep and cows release lots of carbon-rich gases from both ends. The science says this will affect the atmosphere, heat up the globe, melt the ice caps and we will all drown.”

“He is being paid big bucks to postpone that watery judgement day.”
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Every living thing needs access to energy – food, light and warmth.

But the UN is plotting to limit our access to energy.

This cartoon may be used freely providing the author’s name is retained and the source is acknowledged: www.carbon-sense.com

A study of human history shows what a grave threat this poses to all of us.

Our distant ancestors were hunter-gatherers. They killed and ate wild animals, which provided much of their energy needs. Solar energy warmed their days, and gave life to the herbs, roots and fruits they gathered and to the grasses and shrubs that sustained their prey. Sunlight reflected from the moon allowed them to hunt and fish during moon-lit nights. The sun and moon dominated their world, so naturally many of them worshipped these heavenly bodies.

The invention of stone and wooden weapons and tools increased their access to energy – hunting and gathering was more efficient with tools.

The discovery of how to control fire multiplied man’s access to energy. Fire provided heat and light and could be used to clear vegetation, fight enemies and trap wild animals.

Hunter-gatherers need access to land, preferably free from competitors. This led to the development of territory with defined and defended property boundaries. Property rights are thus an essential ingredient to provide guaranteed access to food and energy.
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Cosmic Cycles, not Carbon Dioxide, Control Climate

This cartoon may be used freely providing the author, Steve Hunter, and the source is acknowledged: www.carbon-sense.com

Those who think the political war on carbon will lower Earth’s temperature or keep climate stable need to study climate history.

Temperatures on Earth dance to a cyclic rhythm every hour, every day, every month, every season, every year, and to every beat of the sun-spot and glacial cycles.

The daily solar cycle causes continual changes in temperature for every spot on Earth. It produces the frosts at dawn, the mid-day heat and the cooling at sunset. It is regulated by rotation of the Earth.

Superimposed on the daily solar cycle is the monthly lunar cycle, driven by the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. These two cycles interact to produce variations in atmospheric pressure and tides, and currents in the oceans and the atmosphere. These are the daily weather makers.
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Peter Spencer and his family have been farming in Australia for 180 years but their land and livelihood have been sacrificed on the Kyoto altar. Peter has been prevented from clearing vegetation or controlling woody weeds on his land, and his farm is no longer viable. Unable to get compensation in the courts, Peter is now into day 40 of a hunger strike. And unable to pay his mortgage, he is also about to lose his property. He needs the help of all fair minded Australians.

To read more on the Peter Spencer story by John Ibbotson see this PDF:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/peter-spencer-story.pdf [PDF, 14 KB]

Please publicise his plight.

Viv Forbes

Additional information:

Article by Justin Jefferson on Quadrant Online:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/12/peter-spencer

Background information from ABC’s Counterpoint (you will need to click the “Show Transcript” icon):

Great White Land Grab 24 January 2005
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2005/1284009.htm

The City-country Divide 16 February 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2492429.htm

Peter Spencer Protests 7 December 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2764313.htm