Finally, some coverage of the massive amount of money pumping the Big-Green agenda. What is really so remarkable about this is that skeptics are winning, despite the fact that the greens have almost all the institutional, academic, government, and big-media support, and far, far more money. All we have is truth and wits.
Mainstream media don’t know Big Green has deeper pockets than Big Oil
Ron Arnold
Mainstream reporters appear not to be aware of the component parts that comprise Big Green: environmentalist membership groups, nonprofit law firms, nonprofit real estate trusts (The Nature Conservancy alone holds $6 billion in assets), wealthy foundations giving prescriptive grants, and agenda-making cartels such as the 200-plus member Environmental Grantmakers Association. They each play a major socio-political role.
Seeing Big-Green funding means taking a broader view of the money trail:
Invisible fact: the environmental movement is a mature, highly developed network with top leadership stewarding a vast institutional memory, a fiercely loyal cadre of competent social and political operatives, and millions of high-demographic members ready to be mobilized as needed.
That membership base is a built-in free public relations machine responsive to the push of a social media button sending politically powerful “educational” alerts that don’t show up on election reports.
Big Oil doesn’t have that, but has to pay for lobbyists, public relations firms and support groups that do show up on reports.
US environmental activists have access to $13 billion?
I’d like to see a detailed breakdown of that. But if we include government funding to activist-scientists, as well as government grants for all forms of emissions reduction and education campaigns, it’s believeable. Compare $13 billion to funding for skeptical scientists. The Heartland Institute are the largest single group usually named as supporting skeptical scientists. Their total budget (for all their projects, which involve a lot more than just the climate) is about $6 – $7m.
“… you do need detailed knowledge to parse Big Green into its constituent parts. I spoke with Washington-based environmental policy analyst Paul Driessen, who said, “U.S. environmental activist groups are a $13-billion-a-year industry — and they’re all about PR and mobilizing the troops.
“Their climate change campaign alone has well over a billion dollars annually, and high-profile battles against drilling, fracking, oil sands and Keystone get a big chunk of that, as demonstrated by the Rockefeller assault.”
Mind-boggling. One hundred billion at their disposal?
Driessen then identified the most-neglected of all money sources in Big Green: “The liberal foundations that give targeted grants to Big Green operations have well over $100 billion at their disposal.”
That figure is confirmed in the Foundation Center database of the Top 100 Foundations. But how much actually gets to environmental groups? The Giving USA Institute’s annual reports show $80,427,810,000 (more than $80 billion) in giving to environmental recipients from 2000 to 2012.
I checked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and found $147.3 million in assets while environmental donor Gordon E. and Betty I. Moore Foundation posted $5.2 billion.
Driessen pointed out another unperceived sector of Big Green: government donors. “Under President Obama, government agencies have poured tens of millions into nonprofit groups for anti-hydrocarbon campaigns.”
RON ARNOLD, a Washington Examiner columnist, is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
h/t to Waxing Gibberish
It seems that the temperamental Environmental groups are as efficient as wind turbines or solar panels. Cost lots deliver little.
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“Cost lots deliver little”
But like an old clunker, disturbingly noisy to be around.
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Not to mention actually screwing up the environment …
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I’ve always said environmentalists hate skeptics because skeptics can get so much more mileage out of their money. Of course, when you consider that many greens are socialists who never ever ran a business or held a real job, that’s not really surprising.
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And even with that $13 billion they can’t convince enough people so they come out ahead in the polls. Which shows the power, not of ideas or facts and sound argument so much as it’s the power of crying we’re getting hotter and hotter continually when it’s all too obvious that we’re not.
Now, if our better buck mileage could only get rid of this green madness in our popular culture I would be a lot happier. And its presence in popular culture shows the power of saying it over and over so that the idea to use it in business to enhance your money making potential catches on everywhere. If you have potential customers who may want you to be “green” then you go green, even for the minority.
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A lot of money but in very few pockets. The average activist needs a shower. Need I say more?
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Yeah, lot of money, isn’t it? What would be informative would be to find out just how much of the billions of tax payer’s money is directed at the research sharp end and how much goes to rent-seekers who have only a peripheral effect on the science. Lew and Cookie immediately spring to mind, as do the enormous sums spent on propaganda, mostly through Government funding to NGO’s such as the anti-human Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. I would expect that the gargantuan effort of maintaining the model-driven Warmist narrative in the face of very strong empirical evidence against Catastophism is wasting a lot of resources in political campaigning which could be spent to the ultimate befit of Humanity. Providing clean, cheap power to the Third World and discovering cures and remedies for those diseases and complaints at present incurable would arguably be a more rational use of wealth. But then, improving the lot of Humanity is not high on the list of priorities of the Warmist religion.
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Kevin,
Obama like most egotistical leaders wants to leave a legacy. Leaving money in the bank just doesn’t cut it. Neither will Obamacare which looks like a modern Hydra and will in the long run bankrupt (oops) further bankrupt the country. So he has swung behind Climate Change and all that goes with it including useless solar and wind farms. He will leave a legacy of that there is no doubt. Every redundant, rusting and broken wind turbine should have Obama writ large on their bird killing propellers. They will be there for many years as a reminder of mans foolishness because there are no contracts or obligations to pull them down. The man is a useless fool and very soon all will have to admit it.
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While you may not think that this is not quite on topic, it shows that money for Green projects comes from an inexhaustible bucket, with yes men doling it out.
pat mentioned in the earlier Thread that the Obama Administration is actively pursuing the closure of coal fired power plants, and to replace them with Gas, Wind and Solar.
Let’s then look at Solar power, and how it might be considered to replace coal fired power.
The Ivanpah Plant in California’s Mojave Desert is one of those exciting (take your tongue out of your cheek Tony) new Concentrating Solar Plants, you know Big Green’s solar thermal answer to supplying Base Load power. (right Tony, I told you about that! Stop it now.)
This plant will cost $2.2 Billion, and they’ve received a loan guarantee from the U.S. Government of $1.6 Billion, virtually amounting to a gift in fact.
This plant has a Nameplate of 392MW. It has three units, in effect, three of those brand new turbines capable of actually driving a 125MW generator, because, well, that’s all they have the capability to drive so far. They CANNOT (and can I stress that any louder) drive any larger generator. With heat diversion (huh!) they may, just may, be able to run a 50MW generator but even that’s a stretch, as the best they have done ….. anywhere on Earth, so far, is 20MW, and that plant closes down for Winter.
The plant has NO heat diversion capability, because if they did, then the generator would never even turn over, let alone reach operational speed.
So, a gas fired turbine is used to run the generators up to speed until the solar function can actually produce enough heat to make the compound molten enough to boil the water to enough steam to actually drive the turbine, which then turns over the generator to make the power.
Because of that, the year round Capacity Factor only comes in at 31%, which amounts to an daily average of 7.5 hours, more in Summer, less in Winter, in fact, an awful lot less in Winter.
The Plant will generate the same amount of power for delivery to the grid which Bayswater will generate in 18 days and 18 hours.
For only $2.2 Billion.
What a bargain.
So then, (and I’ll use Nameplate here for actual power delivery figures) 7 of these plants, hence $15 Billion, just to replace ONE large scale coal fired plant, and you still only get power for 7.5 hours a day on average.
If that fills a Base Load requirement, then I’ll go hee!
And when the proposers went to the Government for that loan guarantee, I wonder if due diligence was done to show it could actually deliver.
Over the WHOLE OF THE LIFE of this ONE solar plant, it will deliver the same power as Bayswater delivers in ….. one year and 130 days, and Bayswater has a probable life span of 50 years.
To paraphrase Mark Knopfler, Money for nuthin’
Tony.
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Tony,
Thanks for injecting some pragmatism into these discussions. Too often we get tied up in the “feedback” debate. The real issue is that the policy of the IPCC is unilateral de-industrialization. While the alarmists argue that future weather will be extreme and nasty, the policy they propose to prepare for it is opposite. Solar and wind power rely on cloudless days in moderate weather with brisk breezes blowing continuously–hardly the conditions they are selling.
Nuclear is such an obvious solution (from an engineer’s perspective), but the aging, beat-the-drum anti-nuke activists will never admit it. Anything but nukes!…and coal…and hydro-electric…and oil…and gas…
Unfortunately, the CAGW/anti-growth/anti-human movement will not and cannot recognize the folly. I fear it will take death and starvation from poor harvests and cold weather without sufficient power for the governments feeding this beast to wake up. Unfortunately, such a scenario will necessarily end up haphazard with corresponding unintended consequences.
Thanks for keeping up the fight.
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Bob,
You and I are definitely on the same wave length on what the IPCC really intends. It is actually shockingly laid out in detail in what the IPCC called Climate-Resilient Pathways, which of course involve preemptive change now in human behavior and values and economic and political systems. No biggies.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/tackling-the-dilemmas-of-collective-action-requires-a-shared-cognitive-base-the-ipcc-adaptation-trilogy-begins/
To really appreciate the aims of the big foundations, especially in the US, it is important to be familiar with the work of the Reece Commission from the 50s. The foundations then and now are driven to use social science and public policy research to try to remake society in a socialistic direction. CAGW is merely the latest excuse for a very determined aim.
When you do not pay taxes and your advocacy work seeks to grow the public sector, we run into the very perverse policies of ignoring reality we are all commenting about. All these foundations seek to act as history-makers in Marx’s sense of changing the world rather than trying to understand it as it currently exists.
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The term “social science” is on the nose. Beware of things like Evolutionary Psychology were we are being conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to connect any criticism with Creationism.
This is from about.com about how evolutionary psychology explains phobias.
It sounds OK but its full of holes and lacks even a basic understanding of natural selection.
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That might make sense if:
a. Phobias weren’t defined as “irrational”, which the evolutionary responses would have been rational
b. Phobias were never defined as “being cautious”, but rather as irrational fears (see a).
About.com is just about as reliable a source as Wiki. This is what happens when you let people run about unsupervised on something as big as the Web. All kinds of drivel out there.
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So…. common sense is now classed as a phobia.
That does explain a lot of the things now classed as phobias, or ending with the suffix “phode”
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Even in this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science from the great Wiki itself they cite Marx and Weber straight off the bat.
We had the subject of “Social Science” in the curriculum at High School, funny thing is that most students didn’t really understand what the subject matter was about or why we had to do it, and I’d say still don’t to this day.
I do remember certain teachers objecting to having the subject there in the first place but they were outnumbered by the try hard left wingers in the staff.
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Yonnie-
Now a willingness to push social science in the classroom, on young students, despite parental objections earns one the right to an Edudoctorate. That is supposed to come with a taxpayer funded six figure income for life.
Honestly I will meet an ignoramus who calls himself or herself doctor and gets a confused look on their face if anyone goes off script. Every time I check on the degree it is open admissions, requires no GREs, and the materials announce that the holder has been determined to be competent to be a change agent.
It’s like something out of the Soviet Moscow U era. No wonder all my research into the controversies in education and the links to sustainability kept looping me to psych research in the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. Not the story I was looking for when I started my book, but it is definitely what I found and the influence is global.
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Thanks for the reply Robin, very interesting information there.
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Tony,
You are a wealth of factual knowledge. There is one problem. When one of my ever decreasing number of climate illiterates tells me about the wonders of renewables I can usually say they have been mis-informed and that I read the real figures somewhere. I’ll have to look it up and get back to you. The kill moment has passed.
Over the years you have presented a treasure trove of useful facts with which to destroy the warmists and wind blown freaks. Would it be possible to consolidate the info into a “skeptics guide to facts about renewables” or some such? Maybe some computer whiz kid here could make a suitable ap for i-phone or Android.
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I’m not Tony (obviously!) but that is an interesting idea. I have a wind blog and I had not considered consolidating the information into a guide or something similar. I can’t do an app, but a guide is a really good idea. Thanks.
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I have a .pdf on my blog Wind Energy: Friend or Foe that covers many of the wind questions. I am working on a blog post or PDF in a shorter version based on the points that I use when people ask about wind.
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Tony, I was about to put some clever comment up.
Along the lines of you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Then I read your post.
It seems all of the Obama government have been “fooled”.
Or have they been bought.
Excellant post mate but I am confused as to why this is’nt front page all over America.
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Because the American media loves Obama, wind turbines, solar panels and redistributing wealth. Just think of the media in the US as an extension of Obama.
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The was a minor omission error in one statement of the original Post that might tend to look a little puzzling. See this one sentence:
I left out the phrase ….. In one year.
So it should more accurately read as:
I’m guessing that most of you would have got the intent though.
There’s something really odd about this whole CAGW argument.
I use the phrase as a dare.
If you’re so sure that CO2 emissions are so dangerous, then why aren’t you believers just closing down the coal fired (and Natural Gas Fired) power plants. If there’s a Cancer, you cut it out immediately, and then go through all the trauma following that, and hopefully, come out the other side. Then if CO2 emissions are indeed the cause, then stop those emissions immediately, go through the trauma, and hopefully come out the other side.
One person who comments at this site actually told me that my statement to shut down the plants was ….. “A straw man argument.”
These people actually KNOW the solution to their perceived problem, and they’re not doing anything about it. Are they out there actively lobbying, and demonstrating in their vast numbers to shut the plants down? No, they aren’t. Are the people in positions of political power legislating to shut down those plants, or even canvassing the prospect of doing just that? No, they also are not doing that.
They don’t care about the solution. They only care that they know that their Science is correct.
Just shut the plants down. Go on, I dare you!
Tony.
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Totally agree Tony.
My preferred fix is that any business or individual household that chooses the green option should only be supplied power at the same rate as produced from wind or solar.
And that would include ALL of the ACT.
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There are 1,157,000 homes in Australia with grid connected rooftop solar panels installed.
If the power were to go off across all of Australia, all those 1,157,000 homes also lose their power for the duration of the blackout.
It’s referred to as Islanding.
They would sit there and scratch their heads and wonder ….. hey, I have solar panels. Where’s my power.
See, even rooftop solar panels require REAL electrical power to be in place so that they work.
If you want solar panels to do something for the sake of the environment, then do it right. Remove yourself from the grid in totality, and then you can say you are doing something.
Otherwise, you’re just “pi$$in in the wind” to paraphrase Neil Young.
Grid connection is the only reason these rooftop panels sell. Because the backup of the grid is always there, it gives the (false) impression that the panels are actually achieving something.
Rooftop panel owners need to be honest.
Just like everything else associated with renewable power, it’s only ever about the money.
Tony.
Post Script: Neil Young – Ambulance Blues from On The Beach.
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Here is an amusing anecdote:
“Off the Grid”
Since November 2013, WFTX Fox 4 has reported on Ms. Speronis’ ongoing battle with the city to live without most utilities.
The self-sufficient woman has lived for more than a year-and-a-half using solar energy, a propane camping stove, rain water, and eating mainly non-perishable food.
Also discussed at the special hearing was the fact that Speronis had been using the sewer system for the past year yet not paying for the service amassing a past due bill in the thousands. After her testimony admitting that she had used the service without paying for it, the city decided to cap the sewer line.
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“the city decided to cap the sewer line.”
Well I think that just stinks !!!
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Thanks for this handjive,
What it shows is that even if you do have the horrendously expensive and correctly sized for your needs battery backup for the correct rooftop solar power system enough to supply all your electrical needs, notice here how your home is still dependent upon 24/7/365 grid supplied power.
The power to have constant running water supplied to your home, and the power to have a sewerage system connected to your home.
Try to get approval for a correctly sized rainwater tank and fitting for your home, and try to get approval for an old style sump in the ground for your home. Good luck with that!
Then comes the time when you have to vacate the home. if you have gone to all that trouble for the disconnection of the sewerage system and the reticulated water supply disconnection, the owner is still then liable for all the costs to have those two systems reconnected prior to the new tenant taking possession, which would not come cheap.
And believe me here, an off grid rooftop solar system would lower the value of the home, not increase it. Age of panels, inverters, and battery life and replacement batteries.
If you go the whole hog and live life off ALL the grids, it becomes horrendously expensive, keeping in mind there’s no exorbitant FIT paying for your rooftop system, a cost borne by every other electricity consumer.
So now you can see the total reliance upon grid power, and that’s 24/7/365 power for your home, no matter how many panels you put on your roof to assuage your CAGW guilt.
Then, I hope that off grid person does not own a car which would ever need petrol, or drive on traffic controlled streets, or work at a job, or shop in any stores, or own a GHG cooled refrigerator.
Having the average 2.5KW grid connected rooftop PV system (paid for by everyone else) and then saying you’re doing your bit for CO2 emissions is hypocrisy writ large.
Tony.
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Tony, much of your disdain for solar and other renewable sources of energy pertain to their suitability for providing power to a grid. I am wondering just what percentage of the world’s population are in a position to be powered with such grids that we are familiar with?
Even without considering the huge populations in lesser developed nations, I know there are plenty of places in Australia alone that don’t have access to grid electricity. How does the case for alternative energy sources stack up there?
For example, there is a certain uranium mine in South Australia which claimed to be too remote from the grid to practically use grid electricity to run the mine. Instead they chose to use a geothermal form of energy relying on ‘hot rocks’ in the nearby granite beds with their low level radioactive decay. In a rather ironic twist the ‘hot rocks’ project to power the uranium mine attracted a lot of ‘green funding’.
Joanne was making the case for Government funded medical science and one of her selling points was that it would ultimately benefit the 7 billion people on this planet. Is there any such case then for Government funded research into any alternative energy sources that may benefit not only those in Australia that have no option for grid electricity but the bulk of the world’s population that definitely has not got that option?
Australia made a huge contribution to solar research in the early days. Was that research spending a waste given the outcome of the Gov now force fitting this technology into existing grids? Is Gov funded research on any other remote power options also a waste?
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Joe-Part of the objection to using renewables in third world countries is the fear that this will be the level these countries will be held at. Whether or not it’s true, I don’t know. I do know that virtually every poor country out there would chose to go with 24/7 power if they could get it. In the USA, farmers for a long time used wind turbines and solar to provide a small amount of electricity. When the Rural Electrificaiton came in under Roosevelt, farmers seemed quite happy with the grid. Only after convincing people they should be sorry for all their excessive consumption of goods did the notion of “off the grid” and energy from the weather come back into fad.
I personally doubt the government of the USA can fund any useful research for alternative energy—don’t know about Australia. This is best left to market forces and to those rich individuals suffering from guilt such as Bill Gates, who has shown considerable interest in third world power solutions. The advantage to this system versus government is there is no rewarding the already wealthy and one’s political friends with large sums of money. For years, there has been a “clean coal research” plant in northern Wyoming. it has produced virtually nothing to date. However, it is connected to one of Wyoming’s politicians so the money keeps flowing. There is less chance of a charity engaging in such actions. Plust, I would guess Bill Gates does intend to reap some money from his efforts, which will hopefully keep him on track to really useful R&D.
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Joe
I hope you don’t mind if I try to shed some light on your excellent query.
Tony does not have disdain for so-called renewables in every conceivable application.
At the root of the matter is the fact that the comfortable life style we currently enjoy as members of Western Civilisation is abundant inexpensive energy. Those who would tear this civilisation asunder would replace it with a totalitarian society. In order to achieve this end it is necessary control the sources of energy which people use.
This is the rationale behind the nonsense about carbon dioxide. You can see the administration in the USA now making inroads to take control of energy in the form of electricity and fossil fuels of all kinds.
Tony rightly contends that the constant barrage of disinformation provided to the public regarding reliance on “renewable energy” completely at some future date is utterly ridiculous without a dramatic downturn in the quality of life we now enjoy. This is because we rely on a consistent supply of electrical energy to satisfy the requirements of the “base load”. This is the load beyond the residential sector, and in Australia about to some 18 gigawatts.
The only source of such constant reliable electricity is large electrical machines in the form of coal fired boilers, heavy duty industrial gas turbines, nuclear reactors, or large hydraulic machines. By far the least expensive of these is the coal-fired power station, which, depending upon the specifics regarding age of the plant, the cost of coal fuel, size of the operation etc. can produce electricity in the order of 3 cents per kWH. Gas fired installations, whether Rankin or combined cycle, produces electricity at a cost in the order of 4.5 cents per kWh. The cost of gas fuel is significant, and expected to go much higher soon. These costs do not include government extortion in the form of carbon taxes and fees. Hydro-electric power costs vary dramatically. Because the schemes can deliver energy almost indefinitely (some machines are well over one hundred years old), the amortisation or capital cost allowance can be quite low. However, for a new hydro scheme such as the proposed ‘Site C’ project in northern British Columbia, is expected to cost $8 billion CAD and produce electricity in the order of 9 cents per kWH.
These sources are reliable, consistent, and allow the provision of high quality electricity to the customer. Hydro is the only ‘renewable’ that can play in the reliable game. Even so, it is only reliable on a short term basis and cannot be relied upon during a drought. For that reason, drought ‘insurance’ is necessary in the form of alternative generation. Witness Hydro Tasmania which is a low cost producer with a network of legacy equipment, but the State must bear the cost of an entire 380 MW fossil fuelled plant if it is to avoid brownouts and blackouts in a future drought.
Greenies that dream of electricity from renewables have no appreciation for the quality of electricity. By that we mean a constant, steady voltage and frequency. People like their electronic devices and electric clocks.
As for living in the sticks, energy is still necessary to varying degrees. It is possible to enjoy life without services, but it costs more in terms of money or sweat or discomfort. I once lived in Northern Manitoba where the supply of electricity was a diesel genset we ran for an hour or so in the dark of the evening. Even so, we couldn’t rely on it, and of course had coal oil lanterns, and used wood as the primary source of energy for cooking and space heating. Wood warms you several times over. It warms you when you cut it, when you buck it, when you split it, when you stack it, and finally when you burn it. It was a comfortable lifestyle, but connection to an electricity grid does allow one to enjoy all of life’s pleasures. As everything in life, the benefits must traded for the costs.
Life is possible without electricity. Everyone lived without it until late in the nineteenth century. It just made things tougher. If you make the trade-off to live in the bush, you can invest in solar or wind powered means, but if you are honest about the capital cost allowance and the maintenance on your equipment, your costs will likely be in the order of 50 cents to a dollar per kWH, unless you put together a DIY system using discarded components. Even then, you must ensure that you have a back-up energy supply in the form of wood, coal, oil, etc.
The slickest system I ever saw was on the East coast of New Zealand. A family had a house a few meters above sea level at the base of a cliff about 200 meters high. Above the cliff there was a stream with a large pool, and they had a drum submerged in the pool connect to a 1 ½ inch poly pipe concealed in the scrub, and concealed all the way down the cliff. Down there they had a little micro-hydro unit of about 12 kW capacity. That’s just a good a being connected! With that much head, the flow requirement is only a few cubic feet per second. I often wonder if the gummint ever caught up to them for interfering with a natural water course.
I can only guess that at least half the global population is not connected to the services we take for granted. I remember visiting a family once high on the Alto Plano in Peru. They were happy, healthy, and comfortable with no modern accoutrements. They had buildings built of clay and straw, slept on reed mats, cooked on Alpaca and Llama dung, and ate home grown veges and guinea pigs with some occasional Alpaca meat. No electricity in sight. Their clothing was home spun Alpaca fiber that many socialites would die for. Not far away, on Lake Titikaka, I visited families that live on floating islands. President Fujiama had provided each of these floating islands with a solar panel and a TV set. Those folks were also well fed, healthy and happy. Their diet is raw fish and the roots and shoots of the reeds. I think it would be easier for them to adjust to our lifestyle rather than for us to adjust to theirs. To each his own.
Since 2007 the Australian government has spent a king’s ransom on research into what they call ‘renewables’. This has produced nothing of any particular use. Trying to extract energy from the tides, or from Earth’s mantle, or from the sun or the wind has been completely fruitless. Just billions of borrowed money pi$$ed up a post.
Living away from the madding crowd as a dooms day prepper I am certain has its advantages, but one way or the other one has to pay for that benefit. I am sure that Sheri finds enjoyment in her lifestyle in Wyoming, or an intelligent lady like that would be living somewhere else. Nothing she has ever written suggests that she expects someone else to pay for research in order to provide her with energy for nothing. Neither should you, Joe.
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Thanks Rod for your lengthy response. It sounds like you have seen some interesting things in your time. I don’t have any real disagreement with the points Tony raises or the facts you have quoted and I am not all for the subsidies and market distortion that the Governments cause. My question was more about the research side of the spending and whether there is a case for research that might benefit the non-grid available populations? Right now in Aust we subsidise the non-grid or remote grid customers quite heavily because coal fired stations are not practical. You say that Aust Gov has spent a king’s ransom on renewables research since 2007. I am not certain of what research you are referring but I guess any amount could be a king’s ransom. I thought that most of our Gov spending on the solar research had stopped a long time ago.
Sherri, I think Governments still like to keep a finger in the pie on alternative energy research. While I think we have let go on things like solar now, I think we and probably the US too like to stay involved in nuclear power research. I think here in Aust it might even be a bit tricky to have free range on researching say Thorium reactors etc and the Gov would probably want to at least be looking over your shoulder.
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Well Joe, there is this for a start: “The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) was established by the Australian Government to make renewable energy solutions more affordable and increase the amount of renewable energy used in Australia. We have a $2.5 billion budget to fund renewable energy projects, support research and development activities, and support activities to capture and share knowledge. – See more at: http://arena.gov.au/#sthash.kP2uqJ3M.dpuf”
Several million put into the tidal power contraptions that sunk ten billion dollars.
Then there was the geothermal exercise done to make Flannery wealthy.
Those are juist a few off the top of my head.
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Thanks Rod, ARENA is a relatively new setup. Only a small amount of their budget goes towards the traditional backroom technical research and their goal is to attract local or international investors. Most of their budget gets spent on near ready projects which as you point out could be total wastes of that money. The decisions being made by an ‘independent board’ are no doubt open to corruption and error.
The old model was the CSIRO model where the people in the lab coats were researchers employed by the Government. I am not so much asking what or how much we do now or did do, but whether there is a case for the research to be funded by the Government or not. I genuinely don’t have a strong position either way on it for this sort of science or the medical sciences, hence the solicitation of opinion.
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Joe: In the US, the government would like to keep it’s fingers in every pie.
The US uses nuclear power and there is research both by private and government entitiies. The private ones are overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For a long time, the government had to be involved because there was no private insurance for US nuclear plants. I have read this may be changing. Also, I was not counting nuclear as alternative energy. In the US, only wind and solar are “renewables” becaue they then qualify for subsidies. Hydro and geothermal are pretty much not counted as renewable any more so they don’t get subsidies much—the argument is these are “established”.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of the government funding any research, unless perhaps it’s only to fund the research and then stay out of the marketing. Anything the government funds is subject to political winds and is easily moved from science to politics overnight. Research starts to give the answers the government wants, rather than actual answers. Perhaps small grants awarded by drawing in all fields would work, but when you get large-scale, you introduce politics to science. Only by randomly awarding the grants can you avoid rewarding your donors and voters by handing out large contracts that benefits their states, rather than benefitting everyone. There’s also little impetus to succeed in government work, as most grants are awarded continue based on the projected political benefits and not the actual research benefits. I suppose the best way to say it is when you are using someone else’s checkbook who has not choice in the matter (as in the case of government), there’s little to answer to and much incentive to spend, rather than produce useful results.
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Joe
Population without electricity
Pakistan 56 million
Cambodia 9 million
Bangladesh 61 million
Kenya 34 million
China 3 million
Nigeria 85 million
Yemen 15 million
From International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook
See IPA review May 2014 page 29.
00
Very true, Tony, very true. People do not understand the true cost of “living off the grid”. I no longer refer to it as “living off the grid”, but rather not having a power line to your home. You still depend on the grid for your workplace, the stores you shop at, hospitals, the items you buy at the stores, etc. In reality, you are maybe 1% off the grid. The only true “off the grid living” is a person growing their own food, making their own clothes from crops they grew or animals they traded for and raised, etc. In other words, off the grid would be like a lone pioneer in the early 1800’s. Even then, this was usually a group of people, because one person cannot “live off the grid” well. There is an air of moral superiority when people say “living off the grid” which really just says the person refuses to acknowledge just how little they know about the grid and their dependence on it. I don’t hear “morally superior”, I hear “doesn’t understand reality”.
As Tony notes, the “improvements” needed for off the grid can be poorly done, etc. If you really want to live without a powerline to your house, buy 40 acres in the middle of a very cold, unihabitable location (we have lots of those for sale in Wyoming) with no services or roads and build there. If you don’t freeze or starve, life will be, well, boring and unhappy for you, but you certainly showed the power company. Wanting to live within the city limits and still have no powerline is just plain stupid. Or an indication you fully understood just how bad things were going to be.
00
Good point Sherri about ‘living off the grid’, it is good to keep that in perspective and recognize that what we consume at our home is just a subset of the big support system we tend to rely on. Having said that tho, someone who say contributes some money to a charity to feed hungry children should not be criticized too heavily if they start claiming that they are ‘stopping world hunger’ or such. While the semantics may not be totally correct, the intent is probably good even if somewhat limited. And also having said that, I think it is fair to point out that many people with no grid connection at their home are not necessarily in that position voluntarily. Many may not be able to afford it, others as I pointed out in my reply to Tony above, may not be any where near a grid supply but quite happy to otherwise depend on the grid to support the manufacture of goods they use etc. In Australia we have many such places and they are not ‘cold uninhabitable places’ like your examples in Wyoming. Solar power in these locations is often a totally practical and cost effective solution. The whole solar don’t work at night or cloudy days is not sufficient to deter these people. Instead of buying into this argument, these people make simple adjustments to their lifestyles to suit the energy supply as man has done for millenniums. Even the need for huge storage batteries is a myth projected by extending the typical city lifestyle requirements into these other areas.
00
I’m a stickler for accuracy, so I don’t accept that people who contribute to a charity to feed children are “stopping world hunger”. That’s just me, however, and you are welcome to allow a broader definition.
Yes, I am very aware of people who live with no powerline to their home because there is not one available. Perhaps in Australia, the solar works fine. My personal experience with this in Wyoming (and I have personal experience—I have a cabin with no power line coming in and it’s located in a rural area where there is no power available) is the cold and nasty do cause problems. Residents make adjustments, such as having frozen sewer and water lines much of the winter, CO poisoning (one resident reportedly passed away due to a stroke from CO poisoning), and many are bored out of their minds with little to do. There are people who adjust, yes. There are many more who are simply miserable and stuck. This situation was one reason for my getting involved in conservation, politics, etc. One resident died in a blizzard after being lied to about accessiblity in the winter—he tried to make it back to his cabin by walking in a blizzard after his truck became stuck. Another resident and I wrote letters and so forth and got legislation passed that required buyers be told what “NO SERVICES” really means. I also know that some people do adapt and do well—or reasonably well. In a cold climate with 60 mph wind all winter, living without a power line is not generally enjoyable. (I am not sure what you mean by huge storage batteries—most people in our rural subdivision have 10 or 12 marine batteries. They have lights, maybe a frig, may not, a computer and maybe a few other conveniences. None have a lot of electrical goods. The batteries often freeze in the winter, unfortunately.)
I have no objection to people living as they chose, and in all honesty, I no longer care if people buy out in the middle of nowhere and freeze because now they are warned. My objection is the romanticizing of a lifestyle that is anything but romantic in many cases.
10
It would seem the POTUS is intending to do exactly that.
That is when he will need all that ammo that he is amassing.
10
Did I read somewhere that the US EPA of all people have purchased (or been given) 1 million rounds of ammunition ?
And not just ordinary ammunition.. either.
Why the heck would the EPA need that much “killing” ammunition?
Can anyone confirm ?
172
You might be thinking of a recent post on Zero Hedge, reporting that the US Department of Agriculture issued a public procurement notice to buy machine guns. It’s here http://tinyurl.com/mkld4uk .
90
The EPA has been purchasing large amounts of ammunition, as have several other agencies, starting with the inaptly named Homeland Security.
60
I guess they feel threatened. Perhaps they worry that all those corn stalks grown for ethanol will rise up and smite them. And I kinda hope they do. 😉
70
But the real implication of all this arming of government agencies is this. The power behind the current government doesn’t intend to abide by the results of an election that goes against them.
Think about it. The voters are fed up. What would you do if you thought you might be out of power because of an election yet you wanted to stay in power? You would prepare for the backlash when you ignore the election and say you’re staying as Senator, Governor or President.
The other possibility is these departments preparing for backlash when their implementation of, say Agenda-21, causes civil unrest.
Both of these are no joking matter.
90
Well, I guess they need to be prepared, in case somebody tries to steal the environment.
90
Funny Rereke and also true in the sense of “steal the environment” political agenda, propaganda, UN ideals, control, the list goes on doesn’t it?
60
In case somebody tries to steal the environment…BACK!
20
This is a start:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/14/armed-epa-agents-in-alaska-shed-light-on-70-fed-agencies-with-armed-divisions/
They are buying and contracting for hundreds of millions of rounds of military and non-military ammo.
They say for “practice”.
10
The troughs of money available for officially approved climate research are truly immense, if sceptics had just 1% of this funding, the alarmist cause would be reeling under the assault.
Thankfully, both greens and government are so bad at managing anything, that even with the current 100 – 1,000 times outspend over sceptics, they are losing the argument.
Green and government environmental organisations are infested with activist bureaucrats, who are well aware that their existence depends on being as bloody minded and alarmist as possible.
As sceptics, we should congratulate ourselves that with such few resources the alarmists are in retreat. Unfortunately, there are still many bastions of climate idiocy, such as in the White House or the UK’s’Ministry of Climate Change, but these are transient phases.
Somewhere I recently read this wonderful description of climate alarmism:
It is not a case of crying “wolf!”, as one day the wolf might eventually come, rather it is one of crying “Unicorn!, Unicorn!”
200
You are right Peter, the road to our ruin is their (fascist) agenda, we must continue to counter every attack on us, which is an attack on everything that’s good about capitalism.
They are becoming increasingly shrill and threatening.
10
Due solely to it’s manner of operating Big Green can never stop.
It’s operatives, once they have control of still another part of the social or ruling structure and / or the economy must by their own very fixated dogma move onto trying to gain control over yet another part of society.
If they stop, they stagnate as their supporters where their strength lays will continue to want to see and be involved in action of some nature
That reinforces the memberships belief that they are accomplishing something which will be of benefit to them personally..
The excuse used is it will “benefit the environment” but reality says that sheer selfishness is behind nearly all of Big Greens activities, mostly along the lines, you can’t have something I haven’t got.
Therefore if Big Green stops, it stagnates.
If it stagnates and ceases activist orientated political actions it loses it’s reason to exist
If it loses the reason to exist it loses it’s activist supporting base.
If it loses it’s activist base it loses it’s funding which is activist orientated
If it loses its funding or part of it, it is a sign to all that it is becoming just another failed dream.
It it becomes to be seen as failing it’s collapse is inevitable as it’s activist rats desert the ship for another activist run ocean liner .
The more Big Green extends by any and all the nefarious means available to it in attempting to project its power and influence into and over people’s personnel lives and into the way they live and works and play, the greater and greater will be the resistance to Big Green’s power.
We are already seeing that.
The greater is Big Greens impact on the ordinary person the greater will be the pressure brought to bear to forcibly if neccessary, open up and reveal Big Greens modus operandi and reveal it’s financial sources which always puts a great dampener on the secretive purveyors of money from very dubious sources.
This along with it’s failure to contribute any tax remuneration to our society at all despite it’s wealth power and influence will be one of the big items bringing Big Green undone .
The Kiwis now tax Greenpeace to the full as Greenpeace lost it’s charity status and was classified as a Lobby organisation by the NZ High Court I believe
Like all such organisations where the end justifies the means and where money as in truck loads of money which are the drivers behind Big Greens power base and it’s activities, the greater is the suspicion of an increasing percentage of the populace as to the intentions of such creepy, secretive tentacled activist power hungry organisations.
And the greater becomes the effort by individuals and politicals of other persuasions who will start to make serious efforts to lift the lid on the what inevitably with that much money available and flowing through it will be sen to be a writhing twisting bucket of gross corruption hidden under many layers of spin and threats.
Big Green by becoming Big and attempting to become even bigger is intruding and forcing it’s way into peoples lives without those people ever being allowed to have any say on what is being done to them.
We have seen this on innumerable occassions out here in the country, in farming circles, in green governmental inspired legislation that has taken away the rights of a whole generation of rural people.
And is now attempting to force the way in which food is grown to conform to the ignorant city based Big Greens rabidly stupid and ignorant idealistic totally impractical; food production reducing dogma and ideology.
Big Green has sold it’s soul to the devil where the end justifies the means and human life is worth but a pittance .
The price Big Green will pay will be it’s complete destruction and extinction as it tries ever harder to spread it’s greedy grasping strangling tentacles ever further into every facet of peoples lives.
For if it stops it can no longer exist for there would be no reason for it to exist.
_________________________
And isn’t it interesting .
Only a couple of decades ago “The” Environment, said in hushed and reverent tones, was Our Environment.
That small but very complex set of interactions of surrounding events, of culture, weather, people, community, neighbours and family in our immediate surroundings where we lived and worked and played.
That was “our environment”, the environment in which we grew up in and lived our lives.
Now The Environment said in hushed and reverent tones is some shimmering vision far beyond the last house on the big city’s very edge, never to be changed or allowed to be altered in the smallest speck for to do so is to desecrate that shimmering vision of Environmental perfection that according to Big green can only be desecrated by sinful and evil man alone,
Those in a couple of words, who are not members, sympathizers and the running dogs of Big Green.
171
“mostly along the lines, you can’t have something I haven’t got.”
but we do… and something they will NEVER have..
INTEGRITY !!!
121
ROM,
Agree with your themes but balk at the many wrong ‘it’s’.
‘It’s’ almost always means ‘It is’. Easy path to correction.
Peace. Geoff.
20
I’ll, oops!
I will try to remember, Geoff.
😉
00
I got a bit curious about Geoff’s correction to my punctuation in my posts so checked on those “it’s”.
Well Geoff is right and I have been using those it’s with its apostrophe in the wrong sense for a long time.
———–
“its” is a possessive adjective belonging to or associated with a thing previously mentioned or easily identified :
USAGE; Its is the possessive form of: it . it’s is the contraction of it is or it has ( | It’s been too long).
The apostrophe in it’s never denotes a possessive.
The confusion is at least partly understandable since other possessive forms (singular nouns) do take an apostrophe as in [ the girl’s bike ] or [ the president’s smile.]
____________
76 years and counting and I still don’t know all the ins and outs of my native language and probably never will!
41
This is a much repeated line that I really object to
The MSM do know this – they simply refuse to publish it
Attributing ignorance to the meeja suggests that it can become more informative if enlightened. There is absolutely no hope of that … just give it up, please
130
Give it up; or you will go blind
71
What does he mean by “highly demographic members”?
20
I believe that he is using Jargon. “High-demographic” refers to the A’s and B’s of the standard demographic structure, i.e., the filthy rich and the well-qualified indurrlectual (sic) groups.
81
Hi all. Lookie what just popped out of the blogosphere:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/study-environmentalists-have-substantially-worse-than-average-carbon-footprints.
It’s all those high-demographic minutemen waiting to be mobilised. Shrinking carbon-footprints are for losers.
00
Hi Peter C; I imagine there are a few in this crowd:
The Rockefeller-sponsored America 2050; United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG); Metropolis; World Economic Forum; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; World Bank; Clinton Climate Initiative; Climate Group (Tony Blair); World Conservation Union (IUCN); Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership; Global Footprint Network; International Centre for Sustainable Cities; Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative; The Stakeholder Forum; World Business Council for Sustainable Development…
50
The major thing with the Big Green lobby machine is they are sure that they know what is best for you. Like some omnipresent, fear-filled, and overbearing parent they will stop you doing what they know is bad for you. Greenies all to often are used as pawns in the game, hysterically chanting the green message of the day, never really understanding how their actions affect the rest of society, and who will get hurt.
Some think they are dictatorial, IMO that underestimates their evil intent. The vast majority of what they believe in can be traced back to the works of Marx, Lenin, The Fabian Society, and Malthus. They are a force of and for the left of center politics.
Not that they are all Malthusian in their outlook, some are only neo-Malthusian but they all (whether they know it or not) subscribe to the idea that man is the virus on the planet, destroying all that nature has provided, just for our own selfish needs. This IMO is just so wrong. By their reckoning man is apart from nature, somehow a separate unnatural being whose only want is the destructive consumption of everything.
Because of their enormous financial muscle they can stop, or at least seriously slow, progress for projects that they disagree with. To hell with democracy, to hell with personal freedom for them you are just a foolish individual that, unlike Big Green, does not understand what is best for you and best for the world.
130
Why are you so surprised that the sceptics are winning? Surely, history has shown that the truth invariably wins, no matter how much stands against it? What makes it so sad is the vast amount of innocents suffering collateral damage en route to victory. What makes it even worse is the knowledge that the main perpetrators of the scam will get off so lightly, in the end.
120
Surely, history has shown that the truth invariably wins, no matter how much stands against it?
The problem is that they are continuously infected others – children especially, with their destructive nonsense.
It may take many generations before the last vestages of this hate-filled idiology is removed from the world. I will not be around to profit from it’s demise, I doubt if anyone commenting here will.
90
True; and those children are among the innocents of which I speak. It is strange how, as the “indurrlectuals” (thanks, Kevin Lohse) of the western world move away from God-centred beliefs, other beliefs are created; the maxim of nature abhorring a vacuum could not be more clearly demonstrated.
Interesting, too, is the point made by yourself, that these “indurrlectuals” see Man as a virus on a pristine planet, yet Christianity see the planet as a gift from God to Man, to use as we see fit. It is just a shame that these indurrlectuals do not practice what they preach, and remove themselves from the tainting of the planet.
90
The bottom line is that these people are mostly self-haters who inspire and project their Malthusian ways on others.
IMO the most people require some sort of irrational belief system; be it a real religion, or just ‘a cause’, to feel worthy and complete.
Unfortunately for far too many with money, religions are not ‘active’ or ‘immediate’ enough for them. The results of the religious experience are too emipherial, too subtle to satisfy these instant gratification, impatiant types.
So they take up the ‘green cause’ with all the conviction, and energy, of a latter-day missionary going on their first mission abroad, and all the rest of us pay for their folly.
40
The “Truth Wins In The End”. Quoting this line by Jim Carrey from the hit comedy Liar Liar (1997) – ironically this movie was released just before the 1998 El Nino event.
“And the truth shall set you free”. Carrey was brilliant in this movie and this punch line came right at the end of the movie.
In the case of CAGW that means we the accused – the CAGW skeptics – will be set free because “The Truth” will prevail – ie the “CAGW Alarmists” will be revealed as Liars Liars Liars ………………………
20
The truth sets you free from the lies. There may be other consequences and complicated outcomes from learning the truth.
10
Well I’m getting a bit tired of waiting for my oil money cheque. I’m crossing over to the other side and opening a new bank account ready for my green cheque.
You’re all wrong. The world is too hot because you’re all a mob of CO2 junkies.
30
As I have so often written, it is always about the money!
The people who post here are usually wonderful and caring people. However, most of the people on this planet do not care about anything other than themselves. This global warming scam will finally end once the taxpayer is aware of just how badly he is getting bent over!
Unfortunately, P.T. Barnum was right and the greens will just invent another bogeyman to vilify and to use to shakedown the taxpayer.
What’s really scary? I am an optimist! 😉
111
The greenwashing of children was a big mistake.
Now for the lifetime of the modern teenager there has been no warming, never mind Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Lying to children triggers a longterm distrust of authority.
Hence the use of propaganda by the authoritarians is another own goal.
Especially in an argument where the alarmed ones only point of discussion is appeal to consensus and authority.
Funny how most of these wanna be dictators are from the mechanically inept end of the gene pool.
I guess their beliefs make sense if emotion trumpets logic and wishing overrides reality.
80
But these children are being mistaught critical thinking, especially how cause and effect works. This allows them to fall as easy prey to the forces of the hive mentality, and elitist manipulators of the public conscience.
40
Actually they are being taught critical thinking, as they have been told much that ain’t so, to the point they will have little reason to respect authority.
The only difference being at high school college and university they get propaganda, then released into the real world where the university of hard knocks kicks them.
True it would be nice if the “education” system prepared them for the real world. But delusional instructors can only demonstrate their defects, not teach prevention.
50
I think this all ties back into the ultimate aims of the CAGW agenda – social change. It’s a Trojan Horse; of course it is. Even the most cursory glance across the pages of the UN/EU’s shared Agenda 21 reveals as much – there it all is; hidden in plain sight. The longer it’s gone on (and it’s already been – what? 30 years?) the more obvious the deception becomes; I really hope that one day the ‘CAGW generation’ (none of whom have ever known rising global temperatures in their young lifetimes) one day wake up to the stunning realisation that they have been so completely, so carefully and so complicitly lied to by their deceitful educators, their entertainers, their media and by their governments. I feel sure that moment is now approaching.
In the end, truth will out. It always does; it always will. This Grand Project of the left – CAGW – a socialist, collectivist agenda (green on the outside, red on the inside) – will eventually be laid bare and when that happens (and it will) there will hopefully be return once more to real science, real research, honest enquiry and no more of the medieval witchcraftery and sensationalist astrology so beloved, so propagated, by these years of wilful misdirection and alarmism.
In my lifetime, though? Hmmm…
60
I see my comments (comment-1462421) is still in moderation. Have I been that naughty, if so I apologize.
[I have no idea why that comment got stuck in moderation – I have released it -Fly]
10
Wait till Senator Harry Reid hears about all these shady foundations, bankrolling politically motivated campaigns. He’ll surely stand up in the Senate and roundly and repeatedly condemn them, like a parrot on steroids, in the same way as he has been obsessively harping on about the Koch brothers, won’t he?
20
Not only do Big Green have all those funds .. with which they produce ABSOLUTELY NOTHING…
But Big Oil actually put quite a large amount of funds into selling the Green agenda as well.
If they can get coal demonised, oil and gas become the main power supply, and “Big Oil” becomes “Big Oil and Gas”
31
In hindsight, that is so obvious.
Big Oil obviously prefers not to fund sceptics, instead it funds the Climate Establishment, because it wants an effective way to demonise coal. Big Oil is not stupid and knows very well that wind and solar power are no more than a transitory whim, because of their high cost and unreliability.
By getting the idiot greens to demonise coal, they are forwarding the interests of oil and gas, realising full well that ‘renewables’ are a complete irrelevance.
Conspiracy theory or fact?!?
20
There have been blog posts and theorizing that oil and gas go along with the greens because they know the greens will fail. Conspiracy—no. Realization of who your real competetion is? Probably. Many energy companies are invested in coal, oil, NG, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear. They cover all the bases. That’s called wise business practices. Oil and gas do compete with coal and both industries would be not so good at business if they didn’t avail themselves of the opportunity to damage the coal market. Of course, getting in bed with snakes is risky—sometimes they bite.
20
FACT!
10
or ‘Big Green Oil and Gas’?
10
Jennifer Marohasy has a post about the corruption of the OZ temp record. I just put this up on her blog—–
This is a very interesting post showing Ken’s years of hard slog trying to unravel the facts about the OZ temp record. But what about Hansen’s previous claims about the USA temp record up to 1999? Here is a copy of their 1999 NASA GISS report. http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
I’m sorry I couldn’t show their graphs but above is the full report with the graphs showing the lack of US warming up to 1999. So what happened in the 13 years since 1999 to show much more warming? Plenty of earlier SOUTH adjustments it seems, to make the present seem warmer.
NASA Logo, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Go to Main Content (press 2)
Go to Site Navigation (press 3)
Goddard Space Flight Center
Sciences and Exploration Directorate
Earth Sciences Division
Science Briefs
Whither U.S. Climate?
By James Hansen, Reto Ruedy, Jay Glascoe and Makiko Sato — August 1999
What’s happening to our climate? Was the heat wave and drought in the Eastern United States in 1999 a sign of global warming?
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
How can the absence of clear climate change in the United States be reconciled with continued reports of record global temperature? Part of the “answer” is that U.S. climate has been following a different course than global climate, at least so far. Figure 1 compares the temperature history in the U.S. and the world for the past 120 years. The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability. Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. Global temperature, in contrast, had passed 1930s values by 1980 and the world has warmed at a remarkable rate over the last 25 years.
Figure 1
Fig. 1: Annual and 5-year mean surface temperature for (a) the contiguous 48 United States and (b) the globe, relative to 1951-80, based on measurements at meteorological stations.
A picture of how U.S. climate change during the past half century compared with the rest of the world is shown in Figure 2. This map shows that the trend has been toward warmer temperatures in most of the world. There has been nearly ubiquitous warming in the tropics, especially in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, where the largest warming coincides with the location of more frequent strong El Niños. The strongest warming has been in Alaska and northern Asia. Warming in Alaska is often associated with El Niños. A suspicion of many climatologists — as yet unproven — is that an increasing greenhouse effect may cause more frequent and intense El Niños. Asia has long been predicted to show the largest warming due to increasing greenhouse gases, especially in the winter, and observations are consistent with that.
30
Yes, Ken has done an enormous amount of work trying to show the maleficence that massively cooled the past Australian temperature record, so much so that a very average summer now becomes the “hottest ever”
31
” The IPCC, whose duty is to reflect the balance of the scientific literature, mendaciously and without statistical rigour…..”
The Noble Lord is at it again.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/17/pseudoscientists-eight-climate-claims-debunked/
30
I’ve been checking out these new online protest groups that have their foundation in Moveon.org.
Moveon.org created Avaaz.org which has two directors Jeremy Heimans and David Madden who are two aussies with US university business degrees. They went on to found GetUp.org.
Sumofus.org also came from Moveon.org and Avaaz.org. Founder Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman is an aussie living in the US and is ex- Avaaz.org. Tate Hausman, Treasurer is ex – Moveon.org.
In a radio interview last week the head of GetUP.org when asked about funding said it was mainly from public donations, well, apart from the $1.2 million donated by the CFMEU, with the average donation only being a mere $18.00. He then went on to say that they received 380,000 donations last year. That’s $6.84 MILLION!!
Avaaz.org claims 36 million members worldwide and is also run on donations – can you imagine how much money is pouring through these protest organizations and who are creaming large salaries off the top.
60
Regarding ammunition purchases by government agencies:
Within any agency that has authority to have weapons, all those who carry or might handle rifles, pistols, or revolvers have established standards for qualification courses. For State agencies laws require passing a firearms test before graduation from the academy, and then yearly as long as the officer is on the job. In a large country such as the USA with cities, counties, States, and many national agencies the qualification courses, annual retesting, and practice sessions requires lots of ammunition. Then there are the members of the military, fish and wildlife officers, state parks rangers, air marshals, CIA, FBI, and many more.
Many people have never been around rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Why not ask your favorite law enforcement officer about her or his training and the number of shells fired each year by each member of the organization.
There is also the need to have regular large orders to provide economic efficiency and stability to buyers, sellers, and manufacturers.
Check these things out before going of half-cocked (note the pun there?)!
10
What is your reasoning for the DHS purchasing millions of hollow point bullets?
Practice???
10
Yes, practice. They carry hollow point because it’s less likely to shoot through and has better stopping power. You have to practice with your carry ammo—therefore, they purchased millions of hollow point bullets. A million bullets is not nearly as much as it sounds like. An avid hobby shooter can easily go through 1000 rounds a month—one person. Then if you add in the professional shooters….well, a million’s not that much.
10
The alternative to hollow point ammunition is “round point”. The issue with round point ammunition (also known as full metal jacket) is collateral damage.
It is not uncommon for a round point slug to go right through somebody, and kill an innocent person who is unlucky enough to be in the line of fire, but behind the real target. Hollow point tends to stay inside the target. It sounds bizarre, but hollow point is actually safer.
10
It is safer, except for the recipient!
10
Yeah, but that’s kinda the point when you’re authorised to carry firearms for situations that require deadly force.
10
Yes this isn’t that unusual even here in Australia for government depts. I am required to qualify each year in a variety of weapons and about the only one where we use range rounds instead of service loads is the good old S&W revolver and this is only carried rarely now and only for personal protection because it is absolutely fool proof and reliable. The rest of our kit is standard full metal jacket, SG’s and 9 mm hollow point and we go through a poultice of it on range shoots not counting re-shoots if you happen to drop one or two out of a couple of hundred.
On the plus side it is sustainable because range rules dictate you pick up all your spent brass for reuse.
Note to Rereke – absolutely correct about full metal jacket, we definitely use them in our semi auto carbines and they penetrate so well that some of our rounds are now frangible for applications where collateral injuries could be otherwise expected. The round nose rounds we use are.38 and are just range loads otherwise all other handgun rounds are semi-jacketed hollow points including the .38 and 9mm when in service use.
10
17 May: WaPo: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley vetoes bill delaying wind farm projects
By John Wagner and Jenna Johnson
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) on Friday vetoed a bill that would have delayed — and likely derailed — a proposed wind farm in Somerset County, saying the legislation would send “a chilling message” to the clean-energy industry if it became law.
The governor’s decision was praised by environmentalists and some officials on the Eastern Shore as a way to bring much-needed jobs and green energy to a part of the state that is struggling economically…
But it ran counter to the wishes of U.S. House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Southern Maryland lawmakers, who argue that a wind farm would compromise radar that tests the stealth capabilities of fighter jets at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, just across the Chesapeake Bay.
“I am deeply disappointed by Governor O’Malley’s veto,” Hoyer said in a statement late Friday afternoon…
He noted that the bill passed the General Assembly “with a strong, veto-proof majority” and was also backed by U.S. Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.).
Proponents of the wind farm project had urged O’Malley to overturn the legislation, arguing that it could scare away wind developers and taint the governor’s reputation as a dedicated environmentalist as he contemplates a White House bid…
“The real threat to Pax River is not an array of wind turbines on the lower Eastern Shore, but rising sea levels caused by climate change,” O’Malley wrote. “If this moratorium were to take effect, it would send a chilling message to clean energy investors, developers, manufacturers, construction firms, engineers and sustainable businesses that the state can change the rules in the eleventh hour.”
Texas-based Pioneer Green Energy has proposed building 25 whirling turbines in Somerset County, bringing hundreds of construction jobs and extra income for farmers. The developers thought they had reached a compromise with military leaders that would protect the radar capabilities at the Patuxent River base, simply by turning the turbines off during test flights…
There are still numerous regulatory and procedural hurdles to clear before the wind farm can be built. But Pioneer Green Energy said in a statement that it is eager to move forward with the project.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of several environmental groups that praised O’Malley’s action, said the veto “will accelerate the development of East Coast wind farms that will bring new jobs to Maryland while helping to slow sea-level rise in the Chesapeake Bay.”
House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) said he plans to survey his members to assess whether there is interest in returning to Annapolis for a special session to override the veto. An override requires a three-fifths vote in each chamber…
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said he understands that O’Malley made a judgment call.
“He’s the environmental guru of Democratic governors, and rightly so,” Miller said. “He staked out his claim to wind power a long time ago. . . . I personally think Pax River is too important to risk.”
Turning the turbines on and off would publicly signal the start of test flights, which has concerned some of the base’s customers, a group that includes branches of the military, contractors and foreign governments, said Sen. Thomas M. Middleton (D-Charles), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. Those customers could then take their business elsewhere.
“We are fighting for the jobs we already have, not the ones we might have,” Middleton said…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/gov-omalley-to-veto-bill-to-delay-wind-farm-projects-state-lawmaker-says/2014/05/16/51e89fda-dd01-11e3-bda1-9b46b2066796_story.html
WaPo left out any reference to “tax credits”; this AP piece leaves out any reference to the company involved, Pioneer Green Energy:
AP: Opponents of the bill said it would have threatened development of a wind farm in Somerset County due to expiring federal tax credits.
http://www.stardem.com/ap/state/article_eec19b8a-c9c2-5e89-aab0-47507acf78fa.html
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16 May: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: True scale of wind industry revealed as number of turbines reaches 30,000
Spread of small-scale wind turbines popular with farmers takes total number to 30,000, analysis shows
The number of onshore wind turbines in Britain has reached 30,000 after increasing by 13 per cent last year, according to research.
The disclosure has prompted suggestions that the wind industry is encroaching upon the countryside by stealth. The figure dwarfs the total that is commonly quoted by the industry, which currently stands at 4,399.
The discrepancy is because the lower figure does not include the vast numbers of small and mid-sized turbines that have the capacity to produce less than 100kW of electricity each.
The smaller turbines range from “micro” roof-top turbines to those that can reach over 100 feet tall and have been installed by thousands of farmers and landowners across the UK.
By comparison, the biggest onshore turbines can reach 475 feet tall…
Wind farms have often met with strong local opposition, and are estimated to add £765 million a year to consumers’ bills through subsidies, according to the Renewable Energy Foundation.
Many Tories fear that the issue could cost them crucial votes in rural areas…
Data compiled by Earthmill, a specialist in farm turbines, showed a 60 per cent rise in the number of “live” planning applications for small and mid-sized turbines since October, with 810 applications in the system at the end of last month.
Chris Heaton-Harris MP, who has led the campaign against onshore wind turbines, said: “The true scale of onshore wind and its cost is only just beginning to come to light…
“But my opinion is we have too many already because the subsidy is too high, and we are backing a losing horse in the race for sustainable energy.”
He said the smaller turbines “can go much closer to people’s homes”.
He added: “It is proximity to other dwellings that causes the upset.”…
Steve Milner, director of Earthmill, said that small and mid-sized turbines were popular with farmers as they reduced their energy costs.
He said that a 225kW turbine – which could reach 147 feet tall – could cost up to £500,000 to install.
A farmer could however expect to recoup that cost within 10 years through a combination of subsidies, which are funded through levies on consumer energy bills, the avoided costs of buying power, and additional income from selling surplus power. The subsidies would continue for a further 10 years, meaning they could expect to make a further £500,000, he said…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10837563/True-scale-of-wind-industry-revealed-as-number-of-turbines-reaches-30000.html
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To TonyfromOZ: It would be an interesting analysis to price out the 30,000 wind turbines built. You would have to include direct and indirect costs and then compare them to what the actual costs would have cost the end user if they had only had coal fired power generation. Probably too much work to actually do.
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I might be able to find some of that information for the US.
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PeterK,
interesting exercise really, but time consuming for accuracy, so I’ll just do a quick thing here.
Keep in mind that 30,000 turbines is just for the UK.
On a Worldwide basis, you’re looking at between 160,000 and 200,000 turbines on the Planet.
Just a quick calculation for now shows that what is notable is that the total Nameplate for wind comes in at close on 325,000MW, which sounds really huge, and if you work on a large scale coal fired unit as being 2000MW, then that Nameplate equates to 160 large coal fired plants.
Now comes the calculation part.
The actual total power delivered from all those towers, that 325,000MW is 540TWH, again, a huge figure.
However, that equates to a Capacity Factor of only 18.9%, which averaged across each day comes in at around four and a half hours, which is (and there’s no other word for it) pitiful.
So, working on actual power delivered during one full year, (540TWH) then that same amount of power would be delivered from 35 new technology USC coal fired power plants.
Now, because wind power only has half the lifetime of coal fired power plants, (25 years wind versus 50 years coal fired) then that same amount of power will be delivered by only 18 of those large scale coal fired power plants.
So, we have a minimum of 160,000 wind towers or 18 coal fired power plants.
Going on current costings then a 600MW wind plant (King Island) comes in at $2 billion, so 320,000MW comes in $1066 Billion.
$1066 BILLION. WTF.
18 large scale new tech USC coal fired power plants at $4.5 Billion comes in at $81 Billion.
$1166 Billion versus $81 Billion.
You be the judge.
These are just quick calculations.
I could work something definitive out for the next Unthreaded Post here at Joanne’s site if you like, because right about now, even I’m intrigued.
Tony.
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Thanks TonyfromOZ. These numbers are out of this world. No wonder our Province of Ontario (which used to be the industrial powerhouse for Canada) which for the last 10-years or so has closed down all of their coal fire power plants and instead have built these monstrosity wind turbines along with gas power plants.
Ontario now has the highest electricity rates in North America and if I remember the number, something like 300,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared (in just 10-years).
Here in Canada we have what we call Equalization Payments (have not Provinces receive extra funding from the have Provinces). Ontario is now a have not Province after just 10-years of this looniness.
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When I was in Orkney last year there were a lot of these small turbines around. After all Orkney is one of the windiest places that can be inhabited. But a couple of the locals were quite definite that there was no interest in putting up new turbines as the cost wasn’t being recovered any more. What caused this change in attitude I couldn’t find out at the time.
From http://www.smartergridsolutions.com/about-us/our-experience/orkney-smart-grid.aspx (picture showing turbines in situ)
“The Orkney electricity network is served by two 33 kV circuits connected to the Scottish mainland. The existing generation (on Orkney) at the outset of the project already included 21 MW of capacity that would be disconnected or ‘intertripped’ in the event of an outage on one of the circuits to the mainland.
According to conventional electricity grid planning standards the Orkney grid was ‘full’ and unable to accommodate any additional generator capacity for further wind farm and other renewable generator projects. At this stage, Orkney was already exporting power at times of high renewable generator output.”
Reading between the lines of the puffery it appears that they allowed more turbines to connect, leading to a lot more excess power being sent to Scotland.
Supply and Demand would have led to lower prices for the turbine output, and possibly the grid shutting down the turbines in stronger winds. Either event alone would have made the economics ‘unsustainable’.
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The trouble is that people think if you’re apparently “saving the planet*” it’s ok to have/use lots of money, but when you’re supplying the world with cheap energy, it’s evil.
(*when in reality, you’re “screwing the planet” by attempting to deny people cheap energy that they need to survive)
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People may be interested in the Left Wing networks behind a great deal of this….
This website describes the networks and agendas of the political Left (including funding):-
http://discoverthenetworks.org/
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Ever wondered why green groups disrupt Russian oil rigs in the Artic? Why they shut down coal seam gas drill sites in Australia? Why they disrupt operations at BP & Shell refineries? Why they shut down coal loaders in Newcastle? Why they sail around the Southern Ocean poking faces at evil Japanese whalers?
How is it that the USA has gone from being an importer of gas to an exporter in just a few years without hippies throwing themselves in front of drill rigs as they do here? How is it Chevron Australia never has to deal with protesters over its projects in WA while Woodside had to abandon a gas processing plant, in part, due to long running green protests?
Big green knows where its bread is buttered. What would happen to all those lovely US dollars if they started attacking US interests the way they go at foreign interests? Funds would very quickly dry up. Ever since Greenpeace ran its successful anti-whaling campaign in the 1970s the green movement has basically been guided by US intelligence agencies into becoming an arm of US industrial foreign policy. They force foreign owned companies into wasting millions of dollars developing environmental policies and PR campaigns to tell everyone that they are not as bad as greens make out. When was the last time a US company had to run adds about its environmental credentials?
Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but can anyone give an example of a US corporation having a major project shutdown or disrupted by green protests in the last 20 years? I can’t, but then again I don’t get out much these days.
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Keystone XL springs to mind.
Oh, wait. That terrorist is in the White House!
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Not in the last 20, but in the last 25, there was a group that chained itself to a geothermal project by True Oil in Hawaii and remained in the way for a few days. Why they were protesting geothermal, I never quit understood. Maybe it was an early version of the “We don’t want Koch’s money” move by the New York nurses? All oil company work is bad, so protest geothermal if it’s an oil company involved.
Protests have been planned. There was a group of students going to disrupt things at a coal mine here in Wyoming about 2 or 3 years ago. That never happened. I guess they figured out you’re trying to take jobs from guys who work shift work in mines and they might just ignore your presence entirely and go on working. Having gigantic haul trucks rumbling by about 10 feet from the equipment you chained yourself to could be disturbing. There would have been no work stoppage. The miners would have just gone on with the usual day.
American companies do run ads about their environmental credentials. NG runs them all the time. Most power and oil companies show wind turbines in their ads and virtually all have “green” divisions. Maybe that’s one reason why the protests stopped. American companies “care” because they have pictures of wind turbines and solar panels in their ads. Americans seem easily fooled by pictures.
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