There is only one good reason to buy The Age: cartoonist John Spooner
…
For foreign readers, there are two big headlines in Australia this week that Spooner is teasing us with.
One is about Shorten’s fantasy that Australia can go 50% renewable by 2030. This is an “aspirational ambition”, which, according to opposition leader Shorten, doesn’t need any kind of feasibility or budgeting before being announced as a policy. He plans to wave his magic wand and make aspirations happen, regardless of stuff like “money”, “Watts” and thousands of dead bats.
The second is that the Labor Party is tearing itself apart over whether to have the “option” to maybe-maybe-not turn back boatloads of asylum seekers. Turning back boats has killed no one; allowing boats through has led to over a thousand deaths.
If he follows through on the 50% uncosted renewables aspiration, Shorten may solve the illegal boat problem by trashing the Australian economy and removing the economic incentive to come. “That’ll help”.
The astounding thing is that Labor is still ahead in the polls.
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That’s because half the population believes in AGW and the need to reduce our footprint.
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We mean the brainwashed half of the population of course!
Geoffrey Williams
Sydney
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Brainwashed through our education system.
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That’s presuming you go by current polls. But those numbers don’t really show the actual behaviour of Australians during Election time.
The Greens usually gain approx 10% to 12% of the votes during Election time. In the current political climate, the ALP need the Greens in order to even be on-par with LNP. This is why they jumped into bed with them! (Which kills their own core voter-base over time). The Greens have taken some voters away from ALP. In order to stem the tide, Shorten is appeasing and compromising with the Left of the party. eg: Plibersek, Wong, Albanese, etc.
ALP and their union backers also has to deal with moving from the Industrial Age to the Information Age.
* Union Membership during 1980s => Approx 50%
* Union Membership during Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years => Approx 20%
* Union Membership this year? => Approx 17%
This also explains why the big unions behave as outlined by ICAC inquiries. They are bleeding membership.
(In the Information Age, its about entrepreneurship. The implementation of ideas to bring valued products and services to society. Anyone can start a business…And who are for business start-ups? LNP!)
Since most union folks generally lean towards the Right of ALP and are shrinking, you can see the Left are growing stronger. Shorten has to compromise. But such compromise will eventually drive the remaining Right-ALP members away. (Long-time members will eventually become fatigued from Left’s issues/narratives.)
The Right side of ALP recognises it cannot continue this path. => We have to listen to the people!
The Left side of ALP wants to double-down on policies that failed them. => The people just need enlightenment!
The Left will only stop if Abbott has a high chance of getting a 2nd (or more) term. This is the only time where they will back down. If they get power again, they will resume their original plans/policies.
You actually highlight something extremely interesting…
For the 3-day ALP Conference, no one, I mean NO ONE, mentioned ANYTHING about economics and how they were supposed to steer the country back to a surplus! Nothing they talked about had even rough estimates! (It is the very same “back of a beer coaster” approach of the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years! ie: “Aspirational”)
Not a peep for a common sense economic plan! Every single issue they just went through, were the very same issues that caused them to be thrown out in 2013!
By simply blurting out “50% renewable by 2030” (and all those other things) without a thought; just shows us that ALP has no economic credentials…They don’t know how to create wealth. They don’t know how to manage money. And those three days shows us they have no qualms in ignoring the people! (Really, the 3 days was about Shorten saving his leadership.)
I get the feeling they know they will lose the next Election…The result will give them the chance to get rid of Shorten.
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Shorten and his mob need our footprint up his a%$#
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I’m an Opinion Poll Sceptic.
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Could not agree more. The recent British election was a classic case. In Australia we remember an election won on “there will be no carbon tax in a government I lead”. That will not work twice.
Now we have 50% Renewables (from <1%, 50x as many windmills in 15 years as in the last 7)
Double the intake of refugees, at no cost
Gifts to the UN, at no cost
No free trade agreements, to protect workers jobs, having chased Toyota out of the country through the High Court.
Unions extorting money from businesses, as ever.
Plus a Carbon tax which is not a tax because it is a compulsory legislated gift from all Australian businesses where we are obliged to buy worthless bits of paper and call it trading.
The idea that anyone is fooled by the ‘option’ of stopping people smugglers is absurd. With the Greens, the tail is wagging the dog. Only 7 Federal Labor politicians were elected on first preferences. On the governments side it is over 55. The takeover of the world Green movement was the smartest thing the failed communists ever did. Caring new parents are condemning their children and grand children to penury.
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These are Green promises made at the National ALP conference. Without Greenmail, they would not have been made. Nearly every Labor politician is beholden to the Green vote, so traditional Labor voters are just ignored.
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1) Green preferences, especially in the upwardly mobile inner-city electorates, are ***essential*** for the ALP to win
2) Traditional electorates (the “heartland” of the ALP in eg, western Sydney) are cynically catered for by promising to “tax the rich” – the envy vote wins out there
The conflict of values between these groups are papered over. The electoral cream for the ALP are the Muslim electorates, who don’t really care about greenie issues or the philosophy of envy
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Unfortunately, we do not have, as the British, first past the post voting so it is possible for a candidate for the lower house to win the seat without getting a majority of number 1 votes: for example, although Dr. Glasson topped the poll ex PM Rudd was elected, and in the subsequent by-election when he retired Dr. Glasson improved his primary vote but lost to a Labor lawyer whose name escapes me. In the Senate it is worse.
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This SMH story is four weeks old, but it gives a sense of what is happening inside government.
‘The Liberal Party has avoided a public brawl over climate change at its federal council meeting by shunting a skeptics motion off to a committee.
‘The motion brought by the party’s regional and rural committee called on the Abbott government not to sign up to any binding agreements at the United Nations climate change summit in Paris later this year.
‘The motion called for a parliamentary inquiry to “examine the scientific evidence that underpins the man-made global warming theory and investigate the reasons for the failure of computer models, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and prominent individuals to predict, among other things, the pause in global warming this century”.
‘But in the end, the motion did not even get debated. Instead, Victorian Liberal President Michael Kroger moved that it be referred to the party’s policy committee.
‘He insisted the party was not trying to avoid debate but rather give more people a say on the issue.
‘Earlier reports had suggested Environment Minister Greg Hunt would be forced to step in and fight off the motion by asserting the government accepts climate change is real and is willing to work with other nations to combat it.
‘It’s not clear whether Prime Minister Tony Abbott will attend the Paris climate talks or send ministers. He has said any new emissions target for Australia will safeguard economic growth while taking action on climate change.’
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I already offered to go, with Jo and Bob Carter as Australias delegation.
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With the Opposition fighting the next election on climate change, I sincerely hope the ‘committee’ calls on your expertise.
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The Australian Labor Party seems to have no idea where the money for their never-ending promises comes from or how wealth is created. They have this narrow vision of how the world ticks and this is due to their very narrow recruitment base for their parliamentarians: union staffers, left-wing lawyers, teachers. They wouldn’t know a wealth creating situation if it barked them on the shins. Even so, they are probably worldly sophisticates compared to ABC journalists. There we are talking real la-la land!
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The alp think they have a Magic Pudding or perhaps a Money Tree.
They must live in an alternative reality from the rest of us !
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Good Evening Jo,
OMG.!
Fairfax lets in a sliver of sunshine!
Why oh why does our “lame-stream” media continue to over-look the bleeding obvious when it comes to the once-principled but now incredibly pathetic institution called the ALP.
Let’s not forget the following scary statistics…
Of the current 150 seats in the House of Rep’s., 55 are held by the ALP.
Of these 150:–
(just) three were won on a primary vote >50%;
12 were won where the vote for the Greens was less than the winning margin of the ALP. member; and
The remainder, ie. 40 members (72%) would not have won without the aid of Green Preferences!!
Oh, and by the way, if this renewables scam/boondoggle is such a great thing for country’s economies??!! … Why then did the recent G8 pledge only aim to totally phase-out coal in 85 years??
Why didn’t they say aim to do it in say: five, 10 or 15 years??
Keep up the good work.
Warm regards, Reformed Warmist of Logan
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Warmist.
“Of these 150:–”
I’m pretty sure you mean of these 55???
Still, to be sure, if the ALP can’t convince the Greens that their statements on “turn backs” are BS then the Liebor party is HISTORY!!
Cheers,
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If you want to see the futility of Wind Power, you only need to look at the U.S. and thank heavens they have their EIA, a wonderful source of accurate data only 2 Months in arrears.
The U.S. currently has 66,000MW of Nameplate for Wind Power. That’s the equivalent of 33 large scale (2000MW+) coal fired power plants, and incidentally, in the near eight years I have been watching, not one plant greater than 800MW has closed, with all that wind virtually new from then. The cost. Near incomprehensible,
All that wind power supplies barely 4.4% of total U.S. power consumption, at a Capacity Factor of a tick over 30%, probably the best in the World for CF, and around the same CF as for here in Australia.
While an equivalent of 33 large scale coal fired units, the power supplied is the same as delivered by only 11 of them, and have 11 large scale coal fired plants closed because of this. No again!
So, while that is the U.S. let’s compare it with Australia.
That Nameplate total in the U.S. is 18 times the total Nameplate here in Australia. The total power delivered in the U.S. by all those wind towers is still only 85% of the total yearly Power consumption here in Australia.
Wind power is a flop, and data backs that statement up ….. absolutely conclusively.
Bill Shorten’s aspiration for 50% of all power consumption from Renewables will ….. NEVER be achieved, and and if I could make that word never larger, I would.
Tony.
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Great comment:
Tony tells it as it is with all the facts!
Geoffrey Williams
Sydney
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Tony,
just to add to your comment re USA..
California for all it’s chest beating and declarations of going renewable.. they have a little secret not advertised much …
There are currently 5 coal fired power stations outside the State , which are supplying them with electricity.. !
This approximates to 30% of it’s energy consumption
1. Navajo Generating Station – Arizona
Total Capacity: 2,409 Megawatts (MW)
2. Reid Gardner Generating Plant – Nevada
Total Capacity: 612 MW
3. Intermountain Power Plant – Utah
Total Capacity: 1,640 MW
4. Four Corners Power Plant – New Mexico
Total Capacity: 2,070 MW
5. San Juan Generating Station – New Mexico
Total Capacity: 1,848 MW
Total 8579 MW
The Navajo Generating Station is coal-fired power plant in Arizona, just outside the Grand Canyon National Park. It’s one of two coal plants that supplies more than 40% of Los Angeles’ power.
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Many years ago a ex-teacher that I know gave her analysis on a major problem with education in Australia.
Which was that people on overseas study tours picked up on the “newest and brightest” and set about introducing it to Australia. And, due to the time lag and the lack of “post enthusiasm checking”, about the time it got introduced here it is being kicked out at its source as “not the newest and brightest”.
So it seems that Bill is doing similar with eyes wide shut.
Now there has been plenty of questioning the place of renewables and baseloads on threads here (particularly Tony) and the following question and answer referring to UK is in that vein (and repeated from the last “Unthreaded”)
“Black also asks the question: “Can the UK run on 100% renewables with no baseload power. Maybe it could…” “
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/7/26/what-am-i-bid.html#comments
And the historically truthful (pre coal)answer is in this comment
“
“Can the UK run on 100% renewables with no baseload power. Maybe it could…”
Of course it can. It used to for many millennia.
Would I want to live in a 100% renewable UK? Sure not.
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol “
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Just on the subject, Geraldine Doogue on RN Saturday Extra last;
She interviewed Dr Hugh Saddler principal consultant of pitt & sherry in the context of the forthcpming Labour Party meeting and its push for 50% renewables by 2030.
Geraldine wanted to get ‘a word impression if I could’ from the interviewee on the current state of renewables in Australia. She went on to ask ‘is it an emerging industry?, is it brittle?, is it maturing?, is it robust? and so on she went. Talk about waxing lyrical! The whole thing went on for over 12mins and the replies were even more irritating, as Hugh Saddler fumbled, mumbled and stumbled through his clearly biased and dare I say dishonest answers to often soft and leading questions.
Any genuine listener would have to agree just how poorly informed the whole thing was executed by both interviewer and interviewee.
If this was Geraldine’s ‘snapshot’ of the industry then one was left with a very blurred image. Honestly, these people wouldn’t know a wind farm from a pig farm except for the smell! Why do we have to put up with this rubbish from the ABC!!!
Geoffrey Williams
Sydney
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The reason is pretty obvious. We have a totally inept and spineless PM, and his government are a clueless rabble.
If they had any spine, or any political nous, they would have put the ABC on the market as their first order of business when they were first elected.
Instead they have just sat there like schoolboys with silly grins on their faces, and allowed the ABC to become the Australian incarnation of Pravda.
Do you remember TA when Julia Gillard gave her infamous misogyny speech? TA just sat there with a silly grin on his face. Anyone with a spine would have got up and ripped into her like a pit bull on steroids.
The consequence is that the left, and the ABC, know that they have a free hand to do whatever they like, and TA and the Liberals will just sit there and grin.
I have every confidence that there will be a change of government at the next election, and Australia will race Greece to the bottom.
I say all this as an ex- Liberal voter. Imagine what my opinion would be if I were a Greens or Labor voter?
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William,
The point of my comment was to have a go at the ABC for biased and inaccurate reporting.
I had no intention of knocking the Abbot government and you haven’t changed my mind about that.
Have you forgotten who abolished the carbon tax? (And turned back the boats)all under difficult circumstance of a an aggressive Senate.
Name calling Tony Abbot does not help. You should make up your mind which side of the fence you are on and please let us know!
If the Labour party gets power at the next election then this country will become a greenies paradise for unbridled leftist climate policies.
Then all the blogs in the world will not help the cause of natural climate sanity and we can all close down our computers and go home!
We need the Abbot government to get re-elected if we are to have any hope of defeating the global warming alarmists.
Regards
Geoffrey Williams
Sydney
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Geoffrey:
I used to be a solid Liberal voter. I voted for TA at the last election because he did a pretty decent job of being leader of the opposition. I had hoped that he would demonstrate equivalent competence as PM. However, he got elected as PM and has demonstrated that he is nowhere near up to the job. He is a total dud.
He has betrayed his prime constituency, goes out his way to appease those who will never vote for him anyway, continues to make incredibly stupid blunders that suggest he got an “F” in Politics 101, and refuses to engage either the general public or his political enemies.
All of this has handed the political battle to the opposition, and they have a free run of the field. They run the agenda, they set the priorities, they run the government. They will win the next election.
To say that TA and the Liberals have been a dismal disappointment is a gross understatement.
In answer to your question, I don’t know who to vote for in the next election. Granted it will not be either Labor or the Greens, but it won’t be the Liberals either. The most likely recipient of my vote will be “Informal”.
The only satisfaction I get from this is that the children and grandchildren of all the idiots who voted to bring us to this mess will pay for their parent’s idiocy for the rest of their lives.
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William:
Thank for your reply – I respect your point of view.
However on the subject of Tony Abbot we will have to agree to disagree.
(though I accept that he (Tony Abbot) does have his limitations.
On the subject of CAGW however I am sure of my position.
And I remain a hopeful skeptic until proven otherwise.
Regards
Geoffrey Williams
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Abbott didn’t lower himself to argue with the man hating Gillard. My suggestion is that the ALP lost the last election not only because of the carbon tax but also because not only men but many women voters were completely turned off the ALP after Gillard’s misogyny speech.
I used to think that Hunt should have been moved to another portfolio. However I think it is a cunning move to have one who speaks the Green language but walks in the opposite direction as the Minister for the Environment. Have a look at the mining projects, including coal, to which he has given the environmental OK. One could never imagine the CAGW leaning ALP to have approved those projects.
I have though it would be better if Abbott did a bit more along the lines of Tony of Oz’s critique of wind and solar as competitors for fossil fuel. Let’s hope he gets stuck into a demolition of useless technologies like wind at the opportune time before the next election.
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Llew;
I agree with your sentiments entirely.
Liberals must return to government at the next election if they are to rebuff the CAGW ideology.
This can only be done by encouraging informed, honest and open debate on the subject.
Liberals must win the hearts and minds of the people by dispelling the brainwashed ideas of the past.
Then and only then will they have the mandate of the people that is politically necessary.
Regards
Geoffrey Williams
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The reason is pretty obvious. We have a totally inept and spineless PM, and his government are a clueless rabble.
If they had any spine, or any political nous, they would have put the ABC on the market as their first order of business when they were first elected.
Instead they have just sat there like schoolboys with silly grins on their faces, and allowed the ABC to become the Australian incarnation of Pravda.
Do you remember TA when Julia Gillard gave her infamous misogyny speech? TA just sat there with a silly grin on his face. Anyone with a spine would have got up and ripped into her like a pit bull on steroids.
The consequence is that the left, and the ABC, know that they have a free hand to do whatever they like, and TA and the Liberals will just sit there and grin.
I have every confidence that there will be a change of government at the next election, and Australia will race Greece to the bottom.
I say all this as an ex- Liberal voter. Imagine what my opinion would be if I were a Greens or Labor voter?
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Heard Geraldine Doogood on the ALPBC talking about how it must be a good thing that the church has embraced climate change. Well, talk about laugh….The problem was, she was talking about the Christian church embracing paganism, but she is too dim to see it.
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Interesting that The Australian has launched a series of articles about the nonsense of renewable electricity, from Adam Creighton, Graham Lloyd, Annabel Hepworth and Terry McCrann and others. All concentrating on the cost and uselessness of the idea.
I wonder if the Fairfax press will copy any of those?
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Labors recent eco-spruiking bravado seems to have been for the arrival of the Goracle, sickening to watch the fawning adulation over a truly twisted and dangerous man, more future ammo to use when Labor tries to rewrite their history I guess.
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What are we worried about? Isn’t this all another case of Laborites “seeming” but not actually doing?
On the down side, even when the ALP only “seems” to achieve 50% renewables, it’s going to actually cost a truckload of tax money to get to that failure point.
Still, they have to keep up with Fankhauser’s Law of Climate Regulations
When we said we wanted Labor to increase production we should have been more specific.
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They’ve got the “doing” down when it comes to getting the money, though.
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My standard question to renewable zealots is that if wind, water (hydro) and solar are free, making renewable energy so wonderful, why is it not already in widespread use.
This question is guaranteed to create mayhem.
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Meanwhile wee Willie Shorten has been consulting with “Vice-president” Al Gore at Melbourne University, and come out babbling about how excited he is that Vice-President Gore approves the ALP’s policies.
I get it, that former high-office-holders in the US get the title for life without the need to install “former” in front of the title, but can any of our US correspondents tell us if “Vice-President” outranks “Next President”?
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Actually Us yanks call him Crazed Sex poodle Gore.
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The only hope of getting significant, genuinely “renewable” energy by 2030, or something close to it that is safe and environmentally friendly is NUCLEAR.
Nuclear uses fuel but when it is used in civilian reactors the “waste” contains about 98% of its energy so only 2% of useful energy has been extracted and then the remains of the fuel rods are wastefully buried.
That 98% of wasted energy could be recovered with fast breeder reactors and the resulting waste at the end of the cycle would be quite benign.
That is as close as you can get to useful, economic and clean “renewables”, you would extend the life of the nuclear fuel by 50 times.
Of course, we could just keep burning coal and gas, with specialised use of hydro as we do now and all would be fine.
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David Maddison,
Nuclear! What don’t you understand?
As the experience of Japan has shown these things are just too dangerous. People could die.*
Dispite proving themselves economic, and an excellent source of cheap electricity, nuclear plants are just too dangerous. And this danger is too great for lilly-livered politicians or the timid electrorate to face.
The evidence of the Japanese nuclear Fukushima incident has shown, these things attract earthquakes and Tsunamis, and huge amounts of dangerous political fallout; fallout that can last for many decades. Sometime this type of fallout never decays.
*Loss of life during the Fukushima incident was due to the earthquake and Tsunami and none due to nuclear leakage.</p
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World Nuclear Association:
http://world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Fukushima-Accident/
Fukushima and Chernobyl: Myth versus Reality
http://world-nuclear.org/Features/Fukushima/Fukushima-and-Chernobyl—Myth-versus-Reality/
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As it has all been said before about politics, many, many times I’ve gleaned a few quotes from Brainyquote
————-
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx
———
We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.
Kin Hubbard
———-
It is enough that the people know there was an election.
The people who cast the votes decide nothing.
The people who count the votes decide everything.
Joseph Stalin
———
Politics have no relation to morals.
Niccolo Machiavelli
———
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
Napoleon Bonaparte
———
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
Milton Friedman
———
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
———-
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan
———-
You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
Harry S Truman
———–
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
———–
My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.
John F. Kennedy
————
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Will Rogers
———–
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
Henry A. Kissinger
————
A week is a long time in politics!
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‘Shows the great concern Labor has for the environment. Around 2pm Saturday I saw on ABC News24 TV Senator Mark Butler addressing the Labor Conference on environment while many seats (75%) in front rows were empty. Has a picture survived online anywhere? I dived for the camera but the scene later was obstructed by a caption. Also heard him saying how the CFMEU were great environmentalists.’
Warwick Hughes
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They are!
They make a fortune out of all the environmental projects, like the cleaners that were getting paid $2,800 per week at the VIC desal plant.
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The public are bound to go sour,
On Shorten’s renewable power,
Where some magical spark,
Can light up the dark,
Indefinitely hour by hour.
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ABC & Fairfax left scratching their heads, no wiser as to the true costs and feasibility or otherwise of their grandiose plans. makes you feel all warm and cuddly. think of the “kids and grandkids”, after all:
27 July: ABC: Jean Edwards: Al Gore: People left scratching heads over Australia’s climate change position, former US politician says
Australia’s position on climate change has left some in the world scratching their heads, former US vice-president and environmental campaigner Al Gore says.
Mr Gore visited Melbourne and met ministers from Labor-led Victoria, South Australia and Queensland to discuss renewable energy and economic growth, and the importance of the Paris climate change summit at the end of this year…
“There are many people around the world that think of Australia as a leader in the community of nations, it almost always has been, and some have been frankly scratching their heads of late, wondering what has been going on,” he said.
“But what I feel is a process of change here.”…
“This is the tipping point year for action on climate,” he said.
“The meeting in Paris is shaping up as a success. The commitments are being made, the past is past. We’re going to get a ‘yes’ in Paris.”…
But South Australian Environment Minister Ian Hunter said Australia needed to show greater leadership, after a grilling about emission reduction targets at a climate change meeting in the German city of Bonn last month.
“Australia had a barrage of 36 questions directed at us from the rest of the world, I think the next largest list of questions was about 12 to Brazil,” he said.
“We have a lot of questions to answer as a Commonwealth and the Federal Government has to really take the initiative that we used to have.”
Victorian Environment Minister Lisa Neville said it was important that “sub-national” governments collaborated on acting on climate change, alongside national efforts to tackle the problem.
“Without us acting and acting together we will be left behind,” she said.
Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles said he was concerned about the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef, which supports 70,000 jobs.
“If as a planet we don’t address climate change then the living wonder that is the Great Barrier Reef won’t be there for our kids and grandkids,” he said….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-27/al-gore-says-some-surprised-by-australias-climate-change-policy/6651718
in Fairfax video, Al says as he doesn’t vote in Australia & is not an Australian citizen, so he doesn’t feel he should make statements about our internal politics, but he’s lying, of course.
what he sees is a process of change here (CHANGE OF GOVT NO DOUBT), & it’s certainly evident in the (LABOR) leadership of these State Govts i’m sitting at the table with.
& it’s true when u look at the public opinion polls of what the Australian people BELIEVE, so it’s too early to reach a conclusion that the national Govt will not take notice of what the vast majority of Australians BELIEVE and WANT. if they did not, then the head-scratching will get more intense.
27 July: SMH: Tom Arup: Some global ‘head scratching’ on Australia’s climate stance: Al Gore
On Monday Mr Gore met state government ministers from Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, telling media afterwards that he had been impressed by work they were doing in moving to address climate change.
But he was more circumspect when asked about the national picture and the Abbott government’s decision to scrap the carbon price…
Mr Gore said renewable energy technologies were developing rapidly and falling quickly in price. He said previous forecasts of how much global solar power would be installed each year were already being smashed, and along with energy efficiency measures, significant green industry jobs growth was occurring in the United States and elsewhere.
“The only question is which nations, which states and provinces, which regions, will move boldly into the future and harvest the jobs and economic progress associated with this revolution,” he said.
Later on Monday Mr Gore met federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. He then held a roundtable with academics at the University of Melbourne before giving a presentation to staff and students on the science and dangers of climate change…
Answering questions from PHD students after his presentation, Mr Gore expanded on his expectations for Paris saying he believed there would be an agreement and people would feel it was a “solid movement forward”…
Mr Gore added that any agreement in Paris would build more momentum in the shift towards renewable energy and sustainability in the market place.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/some-global-head-scratching-on-australias-climate-stance-al-gore-20150727-gilgny.html
GUESS THOSE PHD STUDENTS DIDN’T ASK ANY OF THE TOUGH QUESTIONS EITHER!
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Tristan recognises there’s a problem with “aspirational” talk, and even admits there are some “deluded greenie optimists” out there when it comes to renewables, but ultimately he wants Bill to give more concrete promises to achieve the impossible:
27 July: Business Spectator: Tristan Edis: Is Labor’s 50% renewables target a joke?
When questioned yesterday by Andrew Bolt about Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, Labor frontbencher and a public critic of the Renewable Energy Target several years ago, Joel Fitzgibbon, said: “it’s not a policy – it’s an aspiration”…
Achieving 50 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply from renewables by 2030 is an ambitious goal and one that doesn’t lack for hurdles and challenges. So it is sensible – indeed essential – that you’d consult with stakeholders and get technical advice about how to ensure such a target could be achieved while managing power reliability at reasonable cost.
However, a target set for a time 15 years into the future and without any commitment to policy mechanisms on how to get there isn’t worth much to investors and in fact could actually be bad for investment in renewable energy projects.
Imagine you’re about to build a wind farm and 50 per cent of the revenue relies on the price of renewable energy certificates power retailers need to buy to meet a 23.5 per cent RET…
Now of course there’s some upside, you’ll get an emissions trading scheme introduced too – but what’s that worth?
Joel Fitzgibbon reckons it could be worth not much – noting to Andrew Bolt that the eligibility of international credits would have made it drop to $10. Indeed if the emissions trading scheme was open slather to all UN international carbon credits, the price would be less than 50 cents. By comparison a renewable energy certificate is currently worth about $50.
Not much of a replacement is it?
There are range of deluded greenie optimists out there that think renewable energy is on some kind of unstoppable path of cost reductions that nothing can stop it and government simply needs to “get out the way”.
They don’t have a clue.
Without government policy, renewable energy in this country is dead.
The chart below, developed by Kobad Bhavnagri from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, explains why…
But what about solar and batteries competing against retail prices, I hear you say?
Well, network businesses have a fix for that one too – they redesign power tariffs such that when you install solar you can only avoid the wholesale energy value, not the cost associated with the network. Also, if you think batteries will save you check out this article examining what Ergon is up to: Ergon’s new tariff will stop solar but not peak demand…
In addition, there’s a need to consider how the market could be redesigned to encourage power demand to better flex to changes in supply of renewable energy.
However, this should not be a licence for Labor to just say ‘trust us’, while leaving the industry that is supposed to deliver this target in the dark as to the future of a policy that is so critical to investments that need to be made now.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/7/27/policy-politics/labors-50-renewables-target-joke
at AFR, poor Tony Walker is still in payback mode for the free trips to Europe.
Tony says polls show Aussies want climate change to be taken seriously, but Aussies don’t want higher electricity prices; but Tony says polls show Aussies want renewables, which Tony says foreshadow higher electricity prices;& Tony says all this contradictory polling “should give the Coalition pause when it focuses on election issues that might prove a drag on its poll numbers”!
26 July: AFR: Tony Walker: The world waits on Australia’s emissions targets
(Tony Walker is The Australian Financial Review’s international editor. He visited France and Germany as guest of those governments to be briefed about preparations for the Paris conference.)
With a UN conference in Paris in November aimed at setting emissions targets, Bill Shorten’s pledge for renewable energy generation assumes significance beyond run-of-the-mill politicking.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has elevated the stakes in a climate change debate that will help to define campaigning for the coming federal election, due within 18 months.
His announcement – without reference to shadow cabinet – of an ambitious target of 50 per cent of energy generation from renewable sources by 2030 represents an aspirational goal without detail of cost, or how this bold benchmark might be reached.
Business and unions have every reason to be sceptical about the Shorten pledge that represents not much more than a thought bubble – and, potentially, an expensive one since it foreshadows ***higher electricity prices…
Given France’s energetic sponsorship of the coming Paris conference – the French government has invested considerable energy and resources, not to mention prestige, in trying to ensure a successful outcome – the likelihood is that COP21 will achieve at least some of its goals…
In Bonn, where diplomats have been working on a final text to be agreed to in Paris, Australia’s representatives are said to have been unhelpful, and, on occasions, obstructive.
A senior German official described Australia as one of the “black sheep” in preparations for the Paris conference. Others were South Korea and New Zealand…
All that said, climate change remains an area of vulnerability for the government, judging by the polls. ***Polling indicates that a clear majority believes climate change is a problem, and one that should be taken seriously.
***But if there are costs involved in mitigating the effects of global warming, with higher electricity prices, then public support diminishes…
Bound up in this debate is the issue of renewables versus fossil fuels, and coal in particular.
***A poll published last week by Essential Media found that 50 per cent of people thought the government should prioritise support for renewables over the coal industry, against 6 per cent who thought the opposite.
***This sort of polling should give the Coalition pause when it focuses on election issues that might prove a drag on its poll numbers…
America has a president who regards action on climate as an important component of his legacy…
In China, environmental degradation has become a serious political problem for the ruling Communist Party. This is no longer an issue of development versus a green movement…
In Australia, mainstream figures like Bernie Fraser, former Reserve Bank governor now chairman of the Climate Change Authority, have been adding their voices to calls for boldness in Paris…
Business is also getting on board internationally…
http://www.afr.com/news/policy/the-world-waits-on-australias-emissions-targets-20150726-gikngx
32
Here we go again.
Alarmist Clive Hamilton pops his head up again to spew out more BS.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/answer_global_warming/
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Talk about global warming Hypocrites !
Hilary Clinton preaches to the serfs and then jets off in her plane……
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/on_your_bike_orders_clinton_from_her_private_jet/
What a joke !
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Seems to be not too far O/T here
”
2 comments in that Telegraph UK article sum up the Stupidity of Scientists on Global Warming
1. Computer models have shown that, at this rate, everyone will have been assassinated by 2050.
the second in response to 1.
2. Right.
My scientists have just CONFIRMED that on their computers.
The only thing we haven’t worked out is how are the last two alive going to do it
Sums up Australian Scientists approach to Global Warming
OldOzzie of Sydney (Reply)
Tue 28 Jul 15 (09:27am) ”
From comments at
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/answer_global_warming/#commentsmore
10
Bill Shorten met with Al Gore. Any credibility he had is now gone! (ok there wasn’t really any there). Regardless of any view on Climate, Weather, CO2, Global Warming, Global Cooling…… Al Gore has been proved as a fear mongering walloper!
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It pays to remember Jo that 50% of the population is on the left hand side of any given bell curve…
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