HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER, PUMP STORAGE AND BATTERY STORAGE.

Terence Cardwell

TUMUT 1 HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER STATION.

There has been so much talk and false information about Hydro Electric Power Stations, pump storage and System battery storage that I felt it was time to put the facts straight.

Some of the most incorrect and misleading information is from self appoint university experts who have made all sorts of ridiculous statements. As well as from some politicians who either live in fairy land or are deliberately lying. You decide.

Do I know what I’m taking about; I was with the Electricity Commission of N.S.W. for 26 years in a number of positions including the commissioning and in charge of the Coal Fired Thermal Generators at Tallawarra, Wallerawang and Munmorah Power Stations.
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Why do taxpayers have to subsidize this? Why do environmentalists give it a free pass?
By Ron Arnold

It uses tons of fossil fuels every day, emits a greenhouse gas that’s like CO2 on steroids, can’t do the job it’s made for, costs taxpayers exorbitant fees, and makes the federal government look mentally ill for giving it outrageous subsidies. It also chops up birds, bats and scenery with roads and monstrous 400-foot-tall machines. “It” is wind power, of course.

These harsh facts were condensed into a preliminary draft study of wind subsidies by researcher Teresa Platt, who circulated it to specialists for vetting. I obtained a copy of the extensively footnoted working draft, which gave chilling reality to the truth behind wind industry claims.

“Every year since the 1980s,” Platt’s study said, “the 5,000 turbines at NextEra’s Altamont Pass in California kill thousands of slow-reproducing red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls, kestrels, as well as iconic golden eagles, and bats.” The birds Platt mentions are raptors – birds of prey – particularly valued for their agricultural role in killing mice and other crop-damaging rodents. Eagles, both golden eagles and bald eagles, have long impressed Americans for their majesty, and the bald eagle was selected by our Founding Fathers as our national emblem.

I asked Bob Johns, spokesman for the American Bird Conservancy, about wind farm eagle mortality. He confirmed Platt’s study and told me the Altamont operation alone has killed more than 2,000 golden eagles. But that’s not all. “Nationwide, the wind industry kills thousands of golden eagles without prosecution,” Johns said, “while any other American citizen even possessing eagle parts such as feathers would face huge fines and prison time.”

Huge is right. Violate either the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Eagle Protection Act, and you could get fined up to $250,000 or get two years imprisonment.

Not a single wind farm operator has yet been prosecuted for killing birds, yet in 2009 ExxonMobil got whacked with a $600,000 fine for killing 85 common ducks and other birds that flew into uncovered tanks on its property. Other similarly outrageous revenge-style penalties have been assessed on oil companies by the viciously ideological anti-fossil fuel Obama administration.
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This question was received in response to the article “Government Gas Wastrels”

Re: “Government Gas Wastrels”

Well, Viv, Gas burns cleaner.

And Big Coal doesn’t need to be defended — it is capable of defending itself, or are you Big Coal itself… bought paid, signed sealed and delivered…?

B&T

Reply to B&T:

“Carbon Sense” does not defend or oppose any particular energy source. We will comment on their technical or economic advantages and disadvantages. We oppose government taxing some and not others for spurious climate reasons. And we oppose government forcing everyone to pay more for electricity because politicians have forced electricity companies to use unreliable and costly means of generating their power (via their market mandate schemes).

You should be free to buy gas energy, or solar energy, or coal energy, or cannabis energy, or cow pat energy as long as you pay the full cost, and leave me also free to make my choices on whatever basis I choose.

My personal position is clear. I do not represent Big Coal, Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Farming or Big Government. I have been chairman of a small oil and gas company, director of a coal producer, manager of a cattle grazing enterprise and a lowly public servant. I am presently a director of a small coal exploration company and I breed and graze cattle and sheep. I also use electricity and liquid carbon fuels. Does all that make me a vested interest schizophrenic? I have learned from all of these experiences, and I do not hide my continuing interests in mining, pastures, cattle, sheep and politics. Should we only listen to people who know nothing about the science and economics of the industries they presume to “Cap-n-Tax”?

My interests do not change in one whit what I think and say about the science, and politics, and economics of the Global Warming Scam.

In fact I am opposed to the weak policies of the industry bodies representing Big Coal and Big Farming. Both seem to think they can get special deals for themselves leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves (and thus pay their share of the increased costs of Cap-n-Tax). Far better to oppose the whole thing.

Unfortunately Big Coal does not support the policies of “Carbon Sense”. They support the emissions trading scheme with all the stupidities that brings. They also have conned taxpayers and shareholders to pour billions of dollars into Carbon Capture and Burial. They also lobby for exemptions from the Ration-N-Tax Scheme that they are content to see foisted on the rest of us. “Carbon Sense” has opposed all of these policies.

The Carbon Sense Newsletter has been funded sparingly by about 40 individuals who pay subscriptions for newsletters and advice. Another 1,500 or so get the newsletter for free. Like the government, our expenses exceed our income, so we are making our contribution to the Great Financial Stimulus Package.

Viv Forbes

Earth Hour is a sacred rite of the global warming religion whose message is: confess, do penance (turn out the lights for an hour once a year), and your sins will be forgiven.
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By Cliff Reece

The PVV (Party for Freedom) led by Geert Wilders (pictured above) emerged victorious in a seismic election in the Netherlands last week that resulted in fears from left-wing climate activists’ groups that it will adversely impact on the country’s global warming objectives.

The party is projected to win 37 seats in the 150 seat Dutch parliament, putting it in the driver’s seat to form a new government.

“We are shocked,” Extinction Rebellion Netherlands says. “This outcome will likely mean a rollback of climate measures, new fossil investments, exclusion of marginalised groups, and more.”

Friends of the Earth Netherlands spelled out what PVV’s rule could mean for Dutch society: “A Wilders government will mean four years of climate change denial, exclusion and a breakdown of the rule of law.”
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By Dr. John Happs

Wat: “You have been weighed.”
Roland: “You have been measured.”
Kate: “And you have absolutely…”
Chaucer: “Been found wanting.”
– A Knight’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer (1340’s – 1400)

A knighthood is a title given to a man by a British king or queen for his achievements or service to his country. Founded by King Edward the Third in 1348, the knighthood is regarded as the highest British civil and military honour obtainable and one would expect recipients to be persons of honesty and integrity.

There are at least 4 English knights who appear to have strayed from the path of honesty and integrity when it comes to relating information about climate change to politicians, the media, business and the general public.

The first Knight’s Tale is about Sir David King, former Professor of physical chemistry at Liverpool University, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was knighted in 2003 and made the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor (2000 – 2007).
In 2008 King became the Director of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment established by generous funding from the Martin Smith Foundation of which the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Dr. John Hood, said:

Oxford University is enormously grateful for the generous benefaction from the Martin Smith Foundation that has ensured this exciting project can be made a reality. Martin Smith and his wife, Elise, have devoted great energy and enthusiasm to this initiative to combat global climate change. – https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2013/09/sir-david-king-uks-extreme-weathervane/

Read the full article: https://papundits.wordpress.com/2022/03/14/four-knights-and-their-tales-of-climate-lies-and-exaggeration/

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/

“The Benefits of Human CO2 Emissions” by Dr Patrick Moore

All life is carbon based and the primary source of this carbon is the CO2 in the global atmosphere.

As recently as 18,000 years ago, at the height of the most recent major glaciation, CO2 dipped to its lowest level in recorded history at 180 ppm, low enough to stunt plant growth. This is only 30 ppm above a level that would result in the death of plants due to CO2 starvation.

It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments.

The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees.

Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.

This extremely positive aspect of human CO2 emissions must be weighed against the unproven hypothesis that human CO2 emissions will cause a catastrophic warming of the climate in coming years.

The one-sided political treatment of CO2 as a pollutant that should be radically reduced must be corrected in light of the indisputable scientific evidence that it is essential to life on Earth.

Read More: https://fcpp.org/sites/default/files/documents/Moore%20-%20Positive%20Impact%20of%20Human%20CO2%20Emissions.pdf

And here is an improved version: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1353857523

Dr. Patrick Moore is a Senior Fellow with the Energy, Ecology and Prosperity program at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He has been a leader in the international environmental field for over 40 years. Dr. Moore is a Co-Founder of Greenpeace and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International. Following his time with Greenpeace, Dr. Moore joined the Forest Alliance of BC where he worked for ten years to develop the Principles of Sustainable Forestry, which have now been adopted by much of the industry. In 2013, he published Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout – The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, which documents his 15 years with Greenpeace and outlines his vision for a sustainable future.

By Don Aitkin

“I object to having to pay more for electricity that is produced inefficiently and erratically because some people are worried about the end of the world. In the 1980s, solar energy looked a possible way in the future of protecting our small and diminishing reserves of oil – because even then there were experts telling us that ‘Peak Oil’ had already arrived. It would never have occurred to me that we would be considering it as a source of baseline power. How would we store overnight the energy gained during the day? No one had the answer then, and no one has produced an efficient working model of the answer today. For isolated settlements and properties? Yes. For the grid? No.”

From: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14447

Windmills and Electricity Supply

Allan Duffy (Press and Journal, August 26), makes a number of assertions and claims which invite challenge.

First, there are far more than a “small number of people” opposing “windfarm sites”.

Second, the cause of this opposition is about more than the potential impact on tourism.

And, finally, they will never generate “excess power” that can be sold to the national grid to enhance Scotland’s economy.

Much of the opposition to windmills relates to their inability to produce electricity when required, combined with their negligible impact on CO emissions because of the expensive associated need for “spinning” back-up from conventional CO-emitting generators.

In his time in Germany, Mr Duffy may have noted that, for all their thousands of windmills, the Germans have not shut down one conventional power station and, in fact, are having to build new coal-fired power stations to meet demand.

If he were to look at the NETA (New Electricity Trading Arrangements) website, he would see that, with all the windmills at present operating in the UK, wind contributes only about 0.1-2% of daily national demand.

Yes, renewable energy must be a component of our future energy mix, but unreliable and expensive windmills are not the answer.

G.M. Lindsay,
Whinfield Gardens,
Kinross, Scotland

Idle Windmills Enrich Some

Yet again, while travelling through the Glens of Foudland, I was struck by a distinct lack of movement by even one of the many wind turbines you drive past.

Another bad day in Scotland’s fight against global warming… sorry, I forgot for a moment that climate change seems to have been adopted as a more appropriate term now.

In the meantime, the landowners, renewable-energy companies – through massive subsidies – and overseas manufacturers of said turbines continue to get rich at the expense of the taxpayer. Strange times indeed.

Chris Davis,
Maryhill, Orton,
Fochabers, Scotland

Source: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1890438/