If only climate models worked. Until then, the insurance bills are “eyewatering” with ten billion dollars poured into Australian Desal plants that aren’t used, and which cost another billion each year to keep being not used.
Imagine if one of these states had spent a hundredth as much on research as they did on building white elephants. They could have brought in top maths-heads, engineers, physicists and modelers and developed independent climate models that used solar factors, cosmic rays, lunar factors and even neural nets. The productivity growth could be flat-out fantastic — with the right information farmers could pick the right crops, plant at the right times, and destock or restock, and not waste seed on dry ground. Town planners could manage dams, floods and droughts without turning taxpayer dollars into mushroom clouds. The CSIRO Budget is $1.2 billion (of which the taxpayer pays $780m) and BOM $360 million (taxpayer: $212m) but the real cost of strangled government science is far more.
UPDATE: The Tungun plant in QLD may be revived for 6 weeks (at great cost) soon, and theoretically “might” be used permanently from 2020.
Idle desalination plants built by Labor cost $1bn
Rebecca Puddy, The Australian
Four desalination plants built by former state Labor governments that have since been mothballed will cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion this year alone, with no plans for their use.
South Australia’s water corporation this week quietly applied to keep the state’s $1.8bn desalination plant operating at a minimum production level until at least 2020, at a cost of more than $200 million to taxpayers.
That’s expensive insurance
While the desalination plants sit idle, water users have been hit with bill increases to cover the cost of running the plants. Under a deal struck by Labor, Melbourne households pay $620m in an annual holding charge, regardless of whether water is taken.
Even if no water is ever produced, the plant will cost Victorians $18bn by 2040.
Victorian Liberal water spokesman Peter Walsh said yesterday that households were paying about $500 more a year for water.
Who can forget Tim Flannery?
What do you get when you scientific predictions are 100% wrong? You get admitted to the Australian Academy of Science.
“The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.” Jetstar inflight magazine, March 2008
Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane would ‘need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.’ June 2007
‘dams no longer fill even when it does rain‘ New Scientist 2007, ABC landline
“Tim Flannery has warned that Brisbane and Adelaide – home to a combined total of three million people – could run out of water by year’s end.” — 2007. h/t to Tim Blair. He was keeping track of many of Flannery’s predictions.
“Water resources have dried out to the point where they’re now affecting the future of some of our cities. I’ve seen our agriculture wither and decline.” — Tim Flannery predicts, Reuters, May 2009.
(Melbourne Dams 74% | Sydney Dams 97% | Brisbane Dams 95% | Adelaide Dams 55% | Canberra Dams 86% )
I’ve put together the start of a table of numbers provided in the story, readers are invited to fill in the gaps with links.
| State | Construction | Ongoing costs | History |
| South Australia: | $41m pa | Mothballed after testing | |
| Victoria | $3.5 b (Wonthaggi) | $620m pa | Opened in 2012. Immediately mothballed. |
| Queensland | $1.12 b (Tugun) | $15m pa | Began in Feb 2009. Mothballed in 2010 |
| NSW | $1.9 b (Kurnell) | $200m pa | Opened in 2012. Immediately mothballed. |
| $10 billion total |
Climate models have led us astray,
To throw our good money away,
Such as government grants,
On defunct Desal plants,
For which hard-pressed taxpayers must pay.
–Ruairi
More information:
CSIRO Annual Reports
Bureau of Meteorology Annual Reports
“The CSIRO budget is $1 a year”
Gees.. we get value for money then….just !!
ps .. nice typo Jo. 🙂
111
Should be – and the ABC budget, while we’re at. And the Fed Dept of Environment.
230
Corrected and added links: The CSIRO budget is $1.2 billion, of which $780 m comes from the government. The BOM budget is $360 million of which $212m comes from the government.
70
Don’t mention the de-sal.
I did once inadvertently, but I think I got away with it.
And NEVER bring up the North-South pipeline from lake Eildon to (who knows where?)
The water in the NS pipe is now old enough to be classified by the National trust.
272
And there are other potentially wasteful (and ugly) projects: http://scitechdaily.com/high-density-wind-farms-generate-less-electricity-than-thought/. It now appears that even more land may be required for these ‘renewable’ resources.
90
The paper also noted that the wind turbines could have an impact on the climate because they are disrupting wind patterns. I bet this was included in the environmental impact statements along with their adverse affects to health.
30
Well beaten in age by that of the artesian water in western Qld town supplies.
A kindy fund raiser once got a commendation from Len Evans on their bottlling of that vintage
20
from a review of the wombat meister’s new book “Atmosphere of Hope”. Oh come on Tim we’ve heard this so many times from you that it’s no longer remotely frightening. We have been boiled, desicatted and fried so many times that we are immune to any further catastrophy.Why does the MSM still take this guy seriously?
452
Rollo. Maybe the MSN are sheeple who do not have the mental capacity to make up their own minds because they lack the ability to use logic, mathematics, physics, statistics, and lets not forget spreadsheets.
Or perhaps they believe that global warming can bring a world governance by communists and socialists and that is their objective. It is hard to understand the MSM.
140
The mainstream media is easy to understand once you have pieces together the clues.
Their primary role and function is to disseminate propoganda for the elite international crime sindicate which are the very same mob who give marching orders to every other human institution including government. VNR’s or “video news releases” are one very important method by which this happens. VNR’s are basically pre-packaged news segments provided for free to news stations by government departments or other corporate agencies. It is the job of the news stations to then present the VNR as if it is just an ordinary news story so that the public does not know that it is not really news, but blatant propoganda. The news stations love all the kickbacks and funding they get by cooperating with the cartel as well as not ever needing to do investigative journalism of their own. In fact the cartel has succeeded in weeding out all investigative journalists from major networks. Make no mistake. The news is under control and it has been for decades now. Don’t believe me? Speak to people in the industry. They will confirm the existence of VNR’s and the centrality of all major news sources.
50
Just got back from western QLD and there are many desicatted cats- which is a good thing as I personally knocked off a score of those feral felines with my .22 Hornet.
82
Good stuff Glen! 22 Hornet is a classic calibre, one that I have been to young to appreciate however.
10
The sales of Flannery’s latest book will give a good indication of how much the religion has moved in Australia in the last 10 years (since his first book).
80
Cost of Kurnell desal plant: At least $1896M
https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/shado/Divisions/Sydney%20Division/Southern%20Highlands%20and%20Tablelands%20Regional%20Group/ENVIRONMENT/SydneyDesalinationPlant-Watts-29Jul10.pdf
90
Cost of Tugun desal plant: $1.12B
http://www.water-technology.net/projects/gold-coast-plant/
90
The Australian Academy of Science and the Federal Department of the Environment should be mothballed also before they do even more damage.
100
Cost of Wonthaggi desal plant: $3.5B (not $2B):
https://www.aquasure.com.au/history
160
Hew, thanks. I’ve added those three to the table. Appreciate your research.
40
Here’s the 4th:
Port Stanvac – $1.824B
http://www.smec.com/Uploads/Documents/South%20Australia's%20Largest%20Ever%20Water%20Infrastructure%20Project%20Opened;%2027%20July%202013_20130802141337.pdf
50
You might also consider adding the SE Queensland $9B water grid white elephant to this list as well:
https://www.qao.qld.gov.au/files/file/RTP14.pdf
30
Flannery owes the Australian taxpayer upwards of $5 billion, which even his two sea-level luxury properties on the Hawkesbury won’t cover ….
282
Is Flannery still employed by the government?
50
Nah he’s just an escapee from the Lower Permian and the first of that type with facial hair.
60
The Senate recently rejected Government legislation to shut down the Climate Change Commission.
40
How much did he earn in consulting fees? That should be a matter of public record although it won’t be.
40
White elephants for the green wet dream, yet we pay forever for the inanities of labor the greens and the unions that rotted us with over runs and lock in contracts. Yet nobody is held responsible, my children’s children will be paying for all this crap into the next ice age.
271
You’d think if they were so great for the economy, job production, producing free energy ect. that the Greens would finance these projects for themselves and make a killing. They don’t, so they must know deep down that they are lying when they make such statements. Blatant lies for their ego and righteous dignity. “because we’ll be doing the right thing” (despite the fact it doesn’t work and costs a fortune).
80
Warragamba is full to overflowing, which suggests the desal plant is pure Flummery and a constant reminder of AGW folly.
Future generations of school children will no doubt tour the mothballed facility and mock us.
241
Just as likely, the tour will be mandatory for all children. The guide, after ordering the students to ignore the rust, will hold forth upon how important the zero flow plant is. As they enter, a huge statue will exclaim in a resonant basso:
“My name is Flannymandias, king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
140
10 billion plus 1 billion per year wasted? So in about 50 years that’s $60 bullion or so. How many dams that could also be used for producing hydroelectricity could we build with all that money? Even just one would make far more economic sense.
191
Ah!….But anything Australia can do Britain can do worse…(Star Specking across the Univers)…
https://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/box-clever-a-cubist-revival/
200
I reckon so Fenbeagle. That’s excellent stuff on your blog….thank you. 🙂
80
Fen, you continue to be the best. 🙂
Just one comment though. No one that I know of has a practical continuously running fusion reactor. If anyone had it would make news like nothing since the discovery of electricity. The problem of containing the plasma magnetically is evading everyone so far. India may announce as they please but I want to see one running continuously producing commercially significant output (megawatts) before I believe they have what they claim. I’ve seen several claims of viable fusion power just about to go public only to see them disappear soon after.
Keep on sticking it to them.
130
What would I know, I’m only a D O G. I’m more interested in who’s putting their valuable reputations on the line in making claims they didn’t need to be making, over time scales that could have been a lot more biblical in length.
They might have a scam going that I’ve missed so it’s interesting from that point of view, and even more interesting if they haven’t.
Fortunately there’s lots of fossil fuel anyway, so there’s plenty of time to resolve it either way….(As long as there aren’t idiots trying to stop us using it of course.)
190
Decent Old Guy?
60
Well, if you are just a dog. I’m sure old bones (fossils) might make the tail wag…
40
Commercial fusion power is a mere 50 years away. It always has been.
40
This one is the best by a million light years 🙂
40
Climate models have led us astray,
To throw our good money away,
Such as government grants,
On defunct Desal plants,
For which hard-pressed taxpayers must pay.
320
This makes the Bradfield Scheme look very good!
40
It would have been cool except for the evaporation, here is a Queensland engineer with a better scheme.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/engineer-proposes-9b-plan-to-divert-north-queensland-river-water-to-parched-areas-via-canal/story-e6freoof-1225936839926
60
The Burdekin dam holds back a huge volume of water which is largely unused;full of dead trees overgrown freshwater crocs( and estuarine) catfish.Pipe ‘er out to Hughenden I say!
50
That is only the first stage. Terry sent me the overview of the whole project, the routes, engineering, budgets and cost benefit analyses. He is presently working on another project in Northern Australia.
40
Bowring’s scheme has canals, so the evaporation problem would be the same.
The Burdekin tends to have more water in it during drought than most other Australian rivers in flood, but currently the north east is in drought. Within a few months it may be necessary to start pumping from the Burdekin to the Ross dam. Costs upwards of $28,500 a day during weekdays and $70,500 a day on weekends (2014 figures). Residents in the Burdekin could face water restrictions for the first time in almost 30 years. We need a Bradfield scheme that works in both directions, but no one makes pipes or pumps that are big enough. The only solution is more containments and there aren’t a whole lot of places suitable, even if the greens finally come to their senses.
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/search-results?q=pumping%20from%20burdekin
30
Thanks el gordo,
Have just flicked this on to Barnaby Joyce. At present he is on about a Brisbane /Melbourne inland rail link. Maybe the rail easements could also be pipeline easements.
00
Some reverse osmosis membrane suppliers laughing all the way to the bank.
70
In these days of dire drought in California I’ve shut down my reverse osmosis system to stop the “waste” of the water that goes down the drain to keep the membrane flushed out and prevent its becoming too clogged to work. It’s a significant amount of water when you’re facing what amounts to fines for using more water than the water district approves of.
Otherwise though, there’s no better filtering system than RO.
60
Rubbish,
The best water filter is an evaporator followed by a condensor, which you can make with a bit of stainless steel and 2 old windows.
10
Bob,
I won’t argue with you on the technology. Distilled water would have zero dissolved anything, whereas RO always lets something through. But you forget that I can get the output of the RO system delivered to a tap at my kitchen sink under pressure — very very handy — but I would have a lot of additional apparatus to build using your simple method to get the same delivery of the distillate under pressure at the sink. Then there’s the question of the daily capacity in gallons or liters and I suspect that over 24 hours I can get more water from the RO system by a significant margin.
Then there’s the difficulty of working with stainless steel. I cut out the hole in a stainless steel sink to put in the RO tap. That job wore out 2 of the hardest bits I could find to drill the pilot hole and then wore out 3 of the toughest hole saws I could find before I finally had the mounting hole I needed. Better stuff than what I used is available but it’s quite expensive. So I may have saved myself money the way I did it.
Working with stainless is not child’s play. 🙂
20
I do hope they mothballed them correctly because if they didn’t then the costs you see at the moment will be chicken feed to get them up and running should they ever be needed.
One such plant I had the misfortune to be involved with in Saudi ended up being cheaper to scrap it and start from scratch.
120
Like this one? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/california-citys-desalination-push-sparks-debate-over-costs-coastal-impact/2015/07/08/8f0b2ede-1a84-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html
60
Like that only worse. The membranes, pumps, and control equipment in the plant were either dead or corroded solid and then the 4 gas turbine power plants had just been switched off without any shut down maintenance. It was a total mess.
The Australian plants will be the same. If they have started them up for acceptance tests they need to keep them running because it costs almost as much as building them to mothball them correctly.
30
Each of those four desal plants is, umm, mooted to be running off renewable power, or renewable power plants are to be constructed to equal their power consumption..
DO NOT EVER believe this.
Any desal plant is required to be running 24/7/365 to be running efficiently, and by law, must be connected to the electricity grid, so while those hand on heart, pure as the driven snow, would I lie to you politicians tell you the plant will be running off renewable electricity, there are no 24/7/365 renewable plants on Planet Earth..
Desal plants are quite literally concentrated electricity, so then let’s do the Maths.
Sth Australia – 300ML/day – Reverse Osmosis – 1500MWH per day – 550GWH per year
Victoria – 550ML/day – Reverse Osmosis – 2750MWH per day – 1000GWH per year
Queensland – 167ML/day – Reverse Osmosis – 835MWH per day – 305GWH per year
NSW – 500ML/day – Reverse Osmosis – 2500MWH per day – 920GWH per year
All up total around 2800GWH of continuous electricity consumption per year. So just these four desal plants, if they ever get to the stage where they are actually running, then they will be consuming around 1.4% of Australia’s total power consumption, just four desalination plants, and more are planned.
And that’s just the start as with all the plants, extra power will be required for the pumping stations.
Tony.
200
Compared to water captured by an elevated dam above a city and distributed largely by gravity, a desal plant has a significant additional power cost distributing and lifting millions of tons of water to reservoirs well above sea level.
80
Tony, not only running 24/7/365 but also very close to full capacity otherwise you start to get problems with the membranes and pump seals.
There should also be a standby generator (usually a gas turbine unit) ready to kick in if power is dropped from the grid. I suspect the 4 we are talking about don’t have that so if there is ever power loss from the grid the will be rather expensive restart problems.
40
And some fools want to mothball the coal fired power stations.. DOH !!!
60
Tony, wasn’t it the case that the desal plants were backed up with only nameplate capacity of windmills, meaning that at best they could only provide one third of the energy needed even if they did work as advertised?
30
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Victorian Labor Government who first started the Wonthaggi Desal did mention that to cover the high usage of electricity at the desal plant, they would construct a 90MW wind plant.
90MW wind plant – total power generated per year – 220GWH
Actual desal plant power consumption per year – 1000GWH
So, to cover the desal plant consumption they would build a wind plant to supply less than a quarter of the plant’s actual power usage.
There’s logic there somewhere.
Tony.
60
> 90MW wind plant – total power generated per year – 220GWH
That usually means 90mw of installed capacity. And real-world performance of wind has worked out to under 1/5 of installed capacity (not the overly optimistic 1/3 figure used by greens). So in reality you’re talking about 1/2 that much raw electricity generation, possibly less.
Then it gets worse, you have to factor in the energy lost keeping the turbines spinning at a minimal speed when the wind dies entirely. Then you have to remember that the wild fluctuations cause extra inefficiency elsewhere, like rapid ramping up/down of power generation by fossil fuel sources to deal with the fluctuations.
Afterwards you end up with about…well basically you end up with what might just as well have been garden pinwheels stuck in the dirt.
30
Just to clarify, for each MW consumed did they need to construct 1MW of windmills or buy the 1:1 offset of “renewable” energy – actually requiring about 5:1?
20
Topher looked at alternative to the Wonthaggi desal plant in an “Unpopular View” video back in 2010. It was to build a water pipeline from Tasmania to Melbourne. It was estimates to cost $2.6bn, provide Tasmania with a source of income (that could be used for environmental purposes), give Victoria a cheap water supply and would be powered by gravity. Instead Victorians will be paying for most of the next 30 years to mothball a plant, maybe to switch it on for a couple of years in a decade or so.
131
Jo makes an important point. If climatology was really a science, it would be improving climate models to predict the extreme droughts and floods that much of Australia is prone to. But instead there is wasted money on useless projects.
More generally for believers in climate catastrophism, they should have long since realized that mitigation policies are going to fail. Global emissions will not fall because most of the population of the world lives in developing economies with growing emissions. So, if they truly believe climatologists should be developing much more accurate predictions to avoid the particular catastrophes. What it more, short-term predictive successes would be a demonstration that climatology is a credible science. Problem is that even one of the most dogmatic bloggers
in climatology cannot find a single predictive success. When I pushed him, all what I got was rudeness and dogmatic evasion.
180
(Melbourne Dams 74% | Sydney Dams 97% | Brisbane Dams 95% | Adelaide Dams 55%)
Canberra 86%
https://www.iconwater.com.au/Water-and-Sewerage-System/Dams/Water-Storage-Levels.aspx
100
Ooops I read the chart wrong. It is 82.5%.
00
Not such a big problem seeing the dam capacity has been increased 35%. So that is 82.5% of 135 percent.
00
Somewhere in the machinery of governments are sections that provide audits of government expenditure to ensure we get good value for the taxpayer’s dollar; where are they or have they gone AWOL? The same could be said of the monies spent on “green energy”, are we getting value for the expenditure?
60
Building the Desal plants,
as was also the case in building some of Victoria’s recent roadworks was all about one thing:
REDISTRIBUTION to the Labour Parti Supporters.
Redistribution of our hard earned tax dollars to those who supported the right parti and made access to the national treasury possible.
Global Warming control, desal water made from pure sunlight sourced electricity all very worthy of our tax dollars but in reality just
useless gestures to allow the transfer of money from the treasury to those who really deserve it.
KK
82
Brisbanetimes, 1 Sept. 2015:
Tugun desal plant back online permanently from summer 2020: Seqwater
However Seqwater’s external relations manager Mike Foster said its planners estimated Tugun’s desalination plant could come back on line permanently during summer months from summer 2020.
~ ~ ~
Bonus Link: The secrets of my city: Gold Coast (australiaplus.com)
The Gold Coast is located 42 kilometres south-east of Brisbane’s central business direct.
It’s the second most populous city in Queensland, and the sixth most populous in Australia.
Already a major tourist destination, you’ll hear more about the city in coming years as it prepares to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
40
Thanks Handjive. Note added re Tugun. “might” be online in 5 years. Pretty desperate stuff….
Thanks to Siliggy, I added the Canberra dam capacity too.
20
You would think that they’d learn something eh!
While that Tugun plant is the white elephant that it is, there are indeed plans for two others in Queensland one at Lytton (Hmm, a pretty safe Labor seat if there ever was one in Queensland) and one at one other of two other sites.
There’s a really odd thing about all this water in Queensland, and I hope you don’t mind if I get a little controversial here.
Go to this site, (Dam Levels- Seqwater) and scroll to the bottom. On the right of that graph, untick the top (default) Grid 12, and then tick the bottom one, Wivenhoe. Then, under the graph, tick the view all button. What you see mid screen is Wivenhoe total water capacity dating back for the last 20 years.
See the low point there. Well, hover your mouse over it and dates will appear. There’s a five Month period where it hovered at 15%. Water restrictions had been progressively imposed becoming more and more drastic, each time. At one stage the Labor Government, (Anna Bligh then) spent millions on a mail out to every residence in the State with a plastic three minute shower timer, and most of them ended up in Landfill.
While Anna was away out of the Country, Deputy Premier Paul (where’s that nearest microphone) Lucas, who was also Minister for Infrastructure gave a radio interview over the phone in his Limo on the way back to Brisbane to the local ABC FM radio station on the Gold Coast (CoastFM, and I listened to them because they did music and very very little talkback, which has now become the default for ABC Radio) This was in December of 2007 and again that Wivenhoe water level was still only 15.7% or something.
There I was sitting at the computer and listening to the interview and it was almost unbelievable. He discussed plans for the desal, and talked at length about the level at Wivenhoe. This same Government, while introducing more and more draconian water restrictions had also raised the cost of water three or four times to a large cost, more at that time than anywhere else in Australia, and he was pressed about that in a day when radio announcers didn’t necessarily suck up to the ALP like they do now.
Lucas mentioned that (and here’s the point of all this) that the water behind Wivenhoe, (and also Somerset, which is directly upstream of Wivenhoe, and empties into Wivenhoe) was a State owned resource that was a source of income for the State. The announcer mentioned that it was a big amount if it ever filled, not just in Water, but the value of that water to the State. Lucas changed the subject, but mentioned that it would never get back to even close to full again, and mentioned climate change etc etc.
When the announcer pressed him as to lowering the draconian cost of the sale of the water, he said it would never be lowered, and the announcer mentioned percentages, say, back to 75%, 80%. Lucas just scoffed and said not even then, but it was academic as it was never going to be back at that level, and that virtually ended the interview.
I went to their website looking for a replay of that interview, but it never appeared, and when I phoned and asked the announcer, he said that it wasn’t taped, and how lucky was that.
Scroll forward to the flood when Wivenhoe was back at 100%, as was Somerset, and scroll your mouse along the area just short of that monster spike, and it was at 100% or around for almost nine Months.
All that water was now worth an absolute fortune, around $3 Billion. Water costs had stayed the same.
Then came the flood, and scroll your mouse to the top of the spike there. Water was lapping barely nine inches short of the top of Wivenhoe, with all gates wide open.
Luck was all that saved us from disaster there.
How I wish the thought to turn my tape recorder on had come into my brain, but I trusted the station to actually record it, more’s the pity.
More detail at this Post of mine – Wivenhoe Dam Levels – The Critical Days
Tony.
60
Yes the Wivenhoe floods were an interesting issue, an overreaction from it since then means they listen to the BOM, if the BOM says its going to be wet they will dump up to about 1/4 of normal capacity. For those who do not know normal capacity is less than 50% capacity of the dam since it is designed as flood mitigation. So capacity is termed 100% then 210% or thereabouts is unrestricted flow i.e. overflowing. What happened leading up to the floods in January is that water was not shed back to 100% from the heavier than normal spring-early summer rains meaning capacity around Christmas of 2010 was about 126%.
The BOM originally predicted none of the rainfalls that initially filled up the dam nor the rainfalls that caused the dam to become uncontained at the time, but that rainfall would not cause an issue with the dam if it was kept to 100% levels. They covered up this by dumping water below the 100% level in case something like this happened again as a political cover-up of having it WELL OVER 100% at the time peak rainfall was recorded and is often recorded to occur. My opinion does disagree with the 2007 conclusion that it was insufficient to mitigate flood by the Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD).
One reason for this disagreement is that even with the best flood mitigation dam on one part of the Brisbane River without the mitigation of other parts such as feeds in through the Bremer, flood events will still happen especially if tied to king tides which can flood low lying areas in Brisbane without the need of rainfall.
Plans to upgrade Wivenhoe further and add 8 dams statewide and three west of Ipswich were released early last year, we have a Labor government in now though so who knows.
10
Let us promote an Electoral Hall of Fame for electorates that succeed in electing governments that achieve the greatest unsustainable economic harm. Australia, you have surpassed yourself.
The obvious demonstrable fact is the insatiable and unsustainable appetite of the totalitarian Green scourge, literally the greatest pestilence ever visited on humanity. This is their intended goal:
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development annexed to the present resolution, to the General Assembly at its seventieth session for action during the United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda to be held from 25 to 27 September 2015.
Congratulations Australia. You’re not only allowing them to tell you what they will permit you to do, you’re well on the way to running out of everyone else’s money.
100
Manfred –
what is extraordinary is the disconnect among the CAGW followers, who constantly rail against the IMF & World Bank, yet do not have a clue who is running the CAGW scam!
At the autumn session of the World Bank and IMF in Peru, from October 9th to 11th, (France’s foreign minister, Laurent) Fabius’s finance minister, Michel Sapin, will try to rustle up contributions to the $100 billion annual Green Climate Fund -The Irish Times, “France turns up heat on climate change ahead of Paris conference” 12 Sept 2015 (link in jo’s previous “southern ocean” comments)
11 Sept: WSJ: Chris Larano:World Bank Confident Funding to Back Climate-Change Deal Will Be Secured
MACTAN, Philippines—The World Bank’s special envoy on climate change on Friday expressed confidence that industrialized countries will open their wallets when they gather in Paris later this year to bankroll a global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“There will be a finance package and it will be a generous one,” World Bank Vice President Rachel Kyte told The Wall Street Journal at the sidelines of the meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ministers in this central Philippine island.
Ms. Kyte said talks on the financing package are continuing but she declined to quote the potential size of the financing package…
Ms. Kyte said political leaders must understand that for every $1 spent on projects intended to mitigate the impact of climate, an estimated $4 are saved in relief efforts after a disaster strikes.
“The science is very clear. The economics are clear as well. It is really a political decision now,” said Ms. Kyte, who is in Mactan to help muster support for the an plan on building economic resiliency amid natural disasters and financial shocks…
Climate change “might be the biggest systemic risk the global economy faces,” said Ms Kyte…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-confident-funding-to-back-climate-change-deal-will-be-secured-1441975772
one big happy family:
3 Sept: Statement by World Bank Group President on Selection of Rachel Kyte as SE4ALL CEO
The World Bank Group today issued the following statement by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on the announcement of the selection of the Bank Group’s Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change, Rachel Kyte, as Chief Executive Officer of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative and appointment as the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All.
“I am delighted that Rachel Kyte, one of the world’s leading advocates in the battle for action to combat climate change, has been appointed as head of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative that I co-chair…
“After completing her work at the World Bank Group to secure the strongest possible climate agreement in December, Rachel will move full time into translating those commitments into action as the new CEO of SE4All.
“Rachel is a passionate and inspirational leader who understands the links between poverty and climate change that are vital to achieving our shared mission.
“Access to clean sustainable energy for all, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, lies at the heart of all countries’ interests, as low-income countries cannot develop without energy…
***”As proud partners in the global platform created by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, we look forward to working with Rachel as Sustainable Energy for All sharpens its focus on results on the ground and translates political promises into access to energy for more people.”…
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/09/03/statement-world-bank-group-president-selection-rachel-kyte-se4all-ceo
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Pat, the ‘disconnect’ you refer to seems to me to be a frank dissociation between individual reality and the marketed image concealing the totalitarian Green nightmare. When the the ‘connect’ materialises, as it inevitably must, the squealing will be deafening.
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Sustainable Energy for All: Advisory Board Members’ Profiles
Private Sector includes:
Jose Manuel Entrecanales, Chairman and CEO, Acciona
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO and Managing Director, MASDAR
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s pioneering renewable energy initiative…
Chairman of Sky News Arabia…
Michael Liebreich, Chief Executive Officer, Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Former member of Clinton Global Initiative advisory board & Energy and Climate Change working group…
Helge Lund, CEO, Statoil
President and CEO of Statoil ASA. Former CEO of Aker Kværner ASA. Former political adviser to Conservative Party of Norway’s parliamentary group. Former consultant with McKinsey & Co…
Ceri Powell, Executive VP of World Wide Exploration, Royal Dutch Shell…
Civil Society, Foundations, and Eminent Personalities includes:
Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum
John Kerry, Secretary of State, USA
Andris Piebalgs, Development Commissioner, European Commission
HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, Deputy Minister of Petroleum and
Mineral Resources, Saudi Arabia
Chair of the SE4ALL Committee
Charles O. Holliday, Chairman, Bank of America
http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Energy/SE4ALL_Bios_January_6_2014.pdf
meanwhile, ABC/Fairfax/Guardian & the rest of the MSM present the gullible young CAGW followers with 24/7 rubbish from Greenpeace, the Greens & assorted so-called leftwing NGOs, etc, giving the impression it’s idealistic & compassionate to want to save the planet from non-existent CAGW. makes them feel superior. once the followers understand who is behind the CAGW curtain, it’s all over.
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Lets not forget the nonsense that is the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
As I type, the NSW Murray Irrigation Area has ZERO allocation. Thia area covers 748,000 hectares from Mulwala in the east to Moulamein in the west and has 2,300 farms dependent on irrigation.
The dams which supply the water are:
Dartmouth: 68% full
Hume Dam: 50% full
However these dams also supply water to farms downstream, particularly the Sunraysia [Mildura] and Riverland [South Australia] areas, as well as Adelaide and Whyalla [plus many other towns] from the Morgan Whyalla pileline. All these areas have a FULL allocation.
And yet 7 gates are open to the sea at the Goolwa barrages. So we have the idiotic scenario in which a viable irrigation area close to the water source has NO water for the coming season, water is being held back in those dams for the environment and the barrages are open for environmental reasons.
Why, when the Murray Irrigation area has ZERO allocation is fresh water being flushed out to sea? Remove the bloody barrages and let the sea water do the job, and use the valuable fresh water to grow FOOD.
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I’m with you redress, but for some unknown reason there appears to be a lack of political will at state and federal level.
Its maddening.
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The Tugun plant has not been mothballed. It also supplied Brisbane after the 2011 and 2013 floods!
Here.
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another perfect example.
Americans from the “Progressive Left” never mention Citibank without a descriptive such as evil, infamous, notorious or the like, yet here is one of their ideological darlings – Thom Hartmann – on RT’s CAGW-infested & ProgLeft-infested channel (pity):
11 Sept: Sputnik News: Citibank Warns About the Cost of Climate Inaction
Thom Hartmann Program (Russia Today)
Taking action on climate change is vital to the survival of our species, and it’s essential to the economic future of our nation’s banks.
According to a new report from Citibank, failure to act on global warming will cost $44 trillion dollars more than investing in low-carbon energy solutions. To create that report, called “Energy Darwinism,” researchers analyzed the likely cost of energy in the coming decades and the cost of the “negative effects” of our changing climate…
It doesn’t matter whether you believe that humans cause global warming. But it does matter that our planet is changing and we had better get busy figuring out how to cover the cost of surviving those changes…
http://sputniknews.com/radio_thom_hartmann_show/20150911/1026879714.html
throwing the ProgLeft’s Occupy Wall St under the bus, Thom?
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I would like to see the person responsible for telling politicians the dams would never fill held personally and financially accountable for their statements.
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Can these desal plants truly be mothballed? I thought that had to be kept running, even at a minimum production rate, just to prevent the membranes from deteriorating.
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The VIC desal plant was a bonanza for the CFMEU union thugs that got to build and operate it. E.g. reports of cleaners getting paid over $100k per year.
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And wouldn’t you just happen to guess – Thiess was the prime contractor – birds of a feather.
Despite the big numbers and the waste, the numbers are chicken feed compared with NBN. Wasn’t that a well planned and brilliantly executed project? The ministers responsible )on both sides) should be sacked.
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Don’t even try to talk to me about the plantation forests ACA Carbon sinks, in our catchment areas that fill the dams up full of silt so that the capacity of the dams and reservoirs are now full of silt instead of water.
We now measure the capacity of dams in terms of silt and mud carrying capacity.
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12 Sept: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Bad luck Greenies, this wind farm has bitten the dust
Despite the axing of one madcap scheme, the Government still shows no sign of a sensible strategy for keeping the lights on
To the rage of the Greenies and the delight of countless thousands of local residents, the Government announced on Friday its rejection of the £3.6 billion scheme by a Franco-Dutch consortium to build a monster wind farm covering up to 76 square miles of sea between Dorset and the Isle of Wight, blocking off some of the most valued sea views in southern England…
Yet on one still day last week, when coal was still providing nearly 25 per cent of our electricity, the output of all our 5,500 wind turbines put together was just 0.6GW, or less than one per cent of the power we were using. Which illustrates precisely the point that those in charge of our energy policy seem incapable of understanding…READ ON…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11859814/Bad-luck-Greenies-this-wind-farm-has-bitten-the-dust.html
12 Sept: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: BBC bias, yesterday, Today, and tomorrow…
recalled the time back in 2000 when I presented the BBC with five fully-documented examples of how it had led the news with claims that some major international company, such as Nissan or Toyota, had threatened that, unless we joined the euro, they would pull out of Britain. In each case, the company trenchantly denied that it had said anything of the kind. But when I asked the BBC why it had not reported any of these denials, it merely replied that “BBC News is not biased. Our coverage of the euro-debate is balanced, fair and accurate”, while ignoring my question.
The real point, as I have observed here before, is that, on a whole range of issues, from the EU to climate change, the BBC is so lost in its own groupthink that it simply does not recognise just how biased it is…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11859875/BBC-bias-yesterday-Today-and-tomorrow….html
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***viewers didn’t want the Years of Living Dangerously” TV series? give them another series.
students don’t want Michelle Obama’s school lunchs? give them James Cameron’s instead!
11 Sept: Variety: Ted Johnson: James Cameron’s Next Climate Push: The American Diet
On Tuesday, he will take part in the U.S.-China Climate Leaders Summit in Los Angeles, appearing at a lunchtime panel with Sam Kass, former White House senior nutrition policy adviser, about the relationship between food and climate change. This week, Cameron and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti taped a series of social media video segments to promote the summit…
More recently, he founded the Food Choice Taskforce, jointly funded with cellular mogul Craig McCaw and others, with a recent initiative called My Plate, My Planet.
Among other things, the initiative has gathered dozens of groups and scientists to push federal officials to adopt dietary guidelines higher in plant-based foods, running open letters in May in The New York Times, the Washington Post and Politico. The Dietary Guidelines Committee, which makes recommendations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, recommended such an approach, with implications for the school lunch program and, when it comes to education, the food pyramid…
He said that when it comes to messaging to the public, he’s learned a bit from his experience making the 2014 Showtime documentary miniseries “The Years of Living Dangerously,” which won an Emmy but didn’t do well in terms of viewers.
***Nevertheless, he says that a second season is in the works…
***He said, “Most people aren’t aware of this information, and when they become aware, some become ‘evangelist’ about it, or are willing to make big changes to their diet, for their own health and the health of the planet.”…
http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/james-cameron-climate-change-avatar-diet-sam-kass-eric-garcetti-1201589500/
nothing is too silly for the CAGW propagandists:
12 Sept: Vice: Danielle Elliot: Will Climate Change Force Men’s Tennis To Shorten Grand Slam Matches?
ATP spokesman Nicola Arzani said that the notion has not been officially considered. The players council would have to come together and ask for the change… As of now, there is nothing happening in that regard.
If the Earth’s climate keeps changing and tennis does not, men’s Grand Slams are going to become an extreme sport. So why wait? Sure, a shift would mean the men won’t have to withstand the five-set battles that players have faced in every previous decades. Players in previous decades played those contests in lower temperatures and easier conditions. They also used wooden racquets. There is no comparing today’s matches to those of the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. It’s fast becoming a different game, played in a different climate…
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/will-climate-change-force-mens-tennis-to-shorten-grand-slam-matches
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Toss coin, shake hands, have interview, go home.
Easy eh!
Tony.
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As well as the reverse osmosis desalination plant there are also three water reclamation plants that use reverse osmosis to remove water from sewerage in Queensland, the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project that cost about $3 billion to build. There was a plan for some of this water to be placed into the into Wivenhoe Dam, a source of drinking water to Brisbane and environs. I imagine all of these plants are now on care and maintenance.
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The heading – Cost of bad climate models — $10 billion wasted, and $1 billion a year for Desal plants no one uses in Australia
is wrong!!
http://www.watercorporation.com.au/water-supply-and-services/solutions-to-perths-water-supply/desalination/perth-seawater-desalination-plant
WA and Perth are still in Australia aren’t they?
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Bob, The Australian article specifically says the cost of $10b relates to the Desal plants in QLD, SA, Vic and NSW. The cost of Perth Desal was not included in the tally. It’s true we use the desal here, and our dam capacities are very low (28% now, which is not that unusual), but Perth is in a unique situation. We get 50% of our water from underground aquifers, more than nearly everywhere else. In addition, our stream flow runoff has dropped dramatically, and much faster than the rainfall decline. I’ve seen credible arguments that it’s the increase in undergrowth in catchment areas which is stopping the water getting to dams. I hear there is a case to be made (but it’s a complicated one) that the Perth Desal is only needed because we won’t burn off or clear the undergrowth from our major catchments.
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Jo’s article was on the “bad” desal plants – those which weren’t required – as shown by their lack of operation.
The 2 x desal plants in WA are in full operation due to concerns about over-extraction from our main aquifers.
The reality for Perth is that only just over 10% of our water comes from dams and 90% of that is for commercial/business use.
The other aspect of the “bad” desal plants in the East is not only were the construction costs over-inflated by Union involvement with exorbitant wages and conditions but much of the key investors were Union/Industry based superannuation funds which are now guaranteed good returns over the next 25-30 years. And guess who pays for this high level of rorting?
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As so often happens in Australia when Union’s Labor are in government major projects become union projects and contractors are manipulated (see Trade Union Royal Commission inquiry findings) and in the desalination plants example former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, a consultant to Macquarie Bank until he became a Senator, was also consultant to the foreign desalination plant supplier and he assisted them to negotiate with Labor State Governments at that time.
Before New South Wales Labor left office they rushed through sale of fifty per cent of state owned electricity companies and accepted a tender that was $6.1 billion less than the lowest estimated value of the assets. The Labor Government from when Bob Carr was Premier had been arranging for the electricity companies to borrow money every year (off state budget records) which were used to pay extra dividends to the state government. When the debts were retired all that was left of the $6.1 billion was $800 million.
I understand that other State Governments have been doing the same, borrowing money through state owned businesses to make state budget bottom lines appear better than they were.
It worries me that Commonwealth Government debt exceeds $400 billion plus off budget NBNCo borrowings, and with State and Local Government levels debt added Australian governments owe over $800 billion. The Commonwealth monthly interest bill exceeds $1 billion, equivalent to the cost of a new public teaching hospital every month paid in interest. Add the interest on other levels of government debt.
Unfortunately ABC and many private sector media outlets will not reveal these things.
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Don’t worry Dennis, the Government can just print more money! 😮
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The present government is not responsible for the debt position, despite the deceptive commentary from Union’s Labor & Greens, some of the debt has already been retired as Joe Hockey pointed out in Question Time recently. The monies the present government borrowed in 2013/14 was to fill the black holes in the last Labor Budget 2013/14, no provisions made to pay for commitments such as the Gonski education grants to the State Governments which added about $25 billion to the Labor estimated budget deficit.
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I understood that Dennis. I meant “Government” in a generic sense.
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We are badly let down by ABC/MSM leftist media, last week Craig Thomson was found guilty of corrupt behaviour by a Federal Court and he is now awaiting sentencing. Where were the headlines?
100
Are these desal plants relocatable to any extant? I.e. could the be sold to some country that actually needed them or are they worth just basically scrap metal value?
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I reckon that if all the money that’s been flushed down the toilet trying to “save the planet” from warming had been cash physically flushed, all the main sewer lines would be perpetually clogged. There wouldn’t be enough capacity left to flush even the freshest Lew paper. 😉
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Broken link 🙁
10
Thanks Mikey. I fixed that link, and found two more quotes to add in to the story. Cheers~!
“Tim Flannery has warned that Brisbane and Adelaide – home to a combined total of three million people – could run out of water by year’s end.” — 2007. h/t to Tim Blair. He was keeping track of many of Flannery’s predictions.
“Water resources have dried out to the point where they’re now affecting the future of some of our cities. I’ve seen our agriculture wither and decline.” — Tim Flannery predicts, Reuters, May 2009.
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I am curious what percent of individual country and global GDP is spent on “climate change” in all its aspects, e.g. “research”, investment in unsustainables, investment in desal etc..
20
Adelaide’s desal plant is necessary insurance.
Our dams hold only about 1 years’s supply (eastern states have 2-3 years).
And we can’t build any more (no suitable spots left in the Adelaide hills).
Right now we have 6 month’s supply (“Adelaide Dams 55%”) – and that ‘s at the end of winter !
I still remember how worried everyone was in 2007 after years of drought. The SA Government was making plans to bring in water by ship and trains
In a prolonged drought, which will inevitably come around again, we can’t rely on the eastern states letting any water flow down the Murray (no matter what agreements have been made) – they will surely look after themselves first.
When that happens, the people of Adelaide will be very grateful to have our desal plant.
22
Why not reconsider the idea of towing icebergs from Antarctica? It would probably still be cheaper than a desal plant. Or building a pipeline from the far north to bring in water otherwise dumped into the ocean by northern rivers?
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Towing icebergs from the Antarctic and building water pipelines from northern Australia have both been examined several times and found to be uneconomic and impractical.
A desal plant (using electricity from fossil fuel power stations 🙂 is the only truly dependable source of water for Adelaide.
10
Didn’t Flannery predict “Our children won’t know what water is”?
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It’s fairly obvious what needs to be done to help the Eastern States de-sal plants to become productive.
The main dams need to be dismantled.
C’mon, you know it makes sense.
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Jo, All the State Government’s building the desal plants were/are in debt, can you add in the borrowing and ongoing interest costs to you article.
00
The decision was made to build in Adelaide and the plant was built on the recently abandoned oil refinery site. I now have to pay for that decision, my water bill has risen, I pay for something that I don’t need because someone said something that he had no qualifications to pronounce and other people (conveniently) believed him. It is not just the fact we have all been betrayed by our public representatives and that we all bear the costs, it is the fact that we have not considered the alternatives, how many rainwater tanks could have been installed for free using that billion dollars? How much stormwater could have been redirected and saved from being discharged into the gulf for that billion dollars? How many scientists could have been employed to look into the problem of recycling and efficient use of waste water, what new ideas will not eventuate because the billion dollars was spent on a dream? And don’t forget this farce has been repeated all around the country, Billions of dollars wasted on desalination plants that were not needed, Billions of opportunities forgone.
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The money was not WASTED.
It was very deliberately parceled out.
11
Famous last words
Something to write on the school of Climate Science’s tombstone perhaps ?
But as Gavin Schmidt points out , the models are skilled at volcanoes !
It is still unclear if he means his favorite volcano, a famous celebrity volcano or just the “average” volcano ?
30+ years climate scientists have been modeling the climate using (as the climate scientists have quoted themselves ) math that is well understood and is 100 years old ..
So why are climate scientists still working on this ? after all they already know the answer and have done since the start…
It seems silly to even continue , and I am sure those people living on the coast do not need to know the sea level (in 2075) to the nearest Nano Meter!
what a total misuse of valuable resources 🙁
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