It’s a very well written article: Bonackers vs. Big Wind by Robert Bryce. h/t Andrew. The good news is that opponents of wind power are having a lot of success onshore. The bad news is that the renewables industry is pushing offshore instead, but fishermen don’t want them either, and families that have been fishing the same areas for 300 years are up in arms.
“The South Fork fishermen are fighting to preserve their access to some of the most productive fisheries in the world.”
Some eye-opening numbers:
- Obama set a target of 10GW of offshore wind power by 2020. But right now there is only 30 MW. It’s 9,970MW short. The offshore push is on.
- To replace a single nuclear generator will take 45 offshore wind plants.
- Offshore generation costs as much as three times what gas power costs per KWh.
They face big money renewables proponents — not just rich beachfront homeowners, but large corporations who want tax credits worth millions, and groups like Norwegian oil giant Statoil ASA, plus the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Governor Andrew Cuomo has a goal of “producing 50 percent of the state’s electricity from renewables by 2030.” But to do it, bills will go up for the poor.
The backlash on land:
“The backlash against Big Wind is evident in the numbers: since 2015, about 160 government entities, from Maine to California, have rejected or restricted wind projects. One recent example: on May 2, voters in three Michigan counties went to the polls to vote on wind-related ballot initiatives. Big Wind lost on every initiative.
An analysis of media stories shows that, over the past decade or so, about 40 New York communities have shot down or curbed wind projects.”
Onshore wind is becoming unviable due to opposition. So New York Governor wants it offshore. But fishermen don’t want wind power either.
“Alex. Beckwith traces his family’s roots in the region back more than 300 years. “I’m totally opposed” to the wind project, he said. “It’s going to be a hazard to navigation.”
Expanding offshore wind to the 2.4 gigawatts that Cuomo has pledged will require covering about 300 square miles of offshore territory with turbines.
… fishermen are facing “permanent denial” of their labor in the areas in and around the proposed projects. “We can’t go anywhere else,” she tells me. Asked about the politics of offshore wind, Paul Farnham, who owns the Montauk Fish Dock, which packs fish for shipment and sale (on consignment) to the New Fulton Fish Market at Hunts Point in the Bronx, replies: “I’ll guarantee you, 90 percent or more of all these fishermen voted for Trump. It wasn’t because they liked him. It was because they wanted less regulation.”
Milions in tax credits:
As my accounting consultant (and brother) Wally Bryce, a CPA, reminds me: “You’d much rather get a tax credit because it applies dollar for dollar against what you owe the government.”
Offshore wind companies take advantage of a different part of the tax code: the investment tax credit, which is based on their project’s total cost—and is currently equal to 24 percent of that cost. If Deepwater Wind builds the South Fork project, it will collect some $170 million in tax credits.
Offshore windpower costs 3 times as much as gas power:
LIPA has agreed to pay Deepwater Wind about 22 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity produced from the South Fork project. But as Newsday’s Harrington pointed out in February, the average cost of natural-gas-fired electricity on Long Island is about 7.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Thus, Cuomo is effectively preventing New Yorkers from using low-cost gas-fired electricity in favor of electricity from offshore that costs about three times as much.
Groups have tried legal suits to stop some projects. But with mixed results.
Ominously, Cuomo has many links to the NRDC which lobbies for wind power. Hypocritically, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who is a senior attorney with the NRDC, fought plans to build offshore turbines near his home in Hyannisport.
Read it all: Bonackers vs. Big Wind by Robert Bryce in the City-Journal.
I suspect that when the rest of the world has finally executed, cremated and buried these monstrosities forever, Australia will be 10 years behind and crowing about how we are leading the world in renewables.
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And based on the now way out in front of the world electricity prices in Australia the 1 in every 8 who were living in poverty is now 5 in every 10 and the list is growing.
The rest who are surviving, leaving aside the 10% who are very high income earners, are struggling to make ends meet.
Electricity price is the central issue however, every goods and services provider and their suppliers are passing their electricity costs, plus profit margin, in their selling prices. At each link in the supply chain. Until the end user’s purchases have a substantial electricity component and their own electricity supply cost in addition.
Economic vandalism by government/s has lowered the standard of living from 8th in the OECD 38 members in 2007 to 38th by 2025.
Australian’s economic prosperity has sunk to banana republic level and President Turnbull of the new Republic of Australia says that he will convene a meeting of all businesses to remind them of the Australian “fair go”, request that they immediately publish a list of where the cheapest goods and services can be found.
There are no major political parties now, the union movement controls all levels of government and the faceless leaders are members of the UN Club of Republics that have representatives in the new House of Presidents.
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And meanwhile the Australian still Commonwealth Government of Australia until new arrangements can be organised is funding “7 new Bali tourist resorts” for Indonesia tourism.
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I think a massive informal vote could be the go.
Now before people get snotty with the idea, and can’t provide a better suggestion consider this: it seems both parties have the same greenist left wing agenda.
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Not sure what happened..anyway, the only way to cripple the green lunacy is to electorally cripple the malcontents.
Yes it would create political instability for a while, but would stop the lunacy in it’s tracks that would shatter the green madness and force the globalists to roll over.
The main question is, short of an actual revolution ( much not preffered ), an electoral gutting of both parties is the only logical answer. Once both parties sold out, they seem to be actively working *against* normal Australians….
Hmmm…..
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Another day, another fatuous statement from Josh Frydenberg. He claims that Australia under Turnbull is on track to “42% clean energy” to meet our agreements under the Paris Accord.
Can anyone explain to me why our reduction in CO2 emissions of variously 0.09%, 0.17% or 0.21% (Shorten’s fancy) would make any difference to an increase of 25 to 35 (or more)% under the Paris Accord? Not one of the major emitters (China, USA, India, Russia, Japan, Sth. Korea) intends reducing their emissions except by adopting cheap frakking gas in the case of the USA and lower emission coal fired plants otherwise. WE have to do so with expensive unreliable methods with NO PROOF that they reduce CO2 emissions. Can anyone explain to me why our politicians are arguing about what country they may or may not belong to, when the pressing question is What Planet do they think they are on?
Bear in mind that Frydenberg’s pre-selection was hailed as a major boost to the Party, that he was just the sort they needed to boost party stocks, and that he might be a future Liberal leader, so just what fifth rate incompetents have they currently got filling their ranks? Then look at the Shadow Cabinet of whom my late Maths Teacher would have said “they haven’t got the brains of a raspberry seed”.
We don’t need to know what country might influence our politicians….we need compulsory sanity checks. NO! Don’t vote informal. DO NOT Vote for anybody from the 2 major parties, and their jackals the Greens and Xenophonics. Like outbreaks of contageous and fatal disease we need to remove these carriers from contact with society in order to save the population.
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Can anyone name one politician from labor or liberal that aren’t muppets ?
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But Graeme,
In our compulsory proportional voting system, how do you put last all the people you wish to exclude? Particularly if you’re living in a “safe” seat?
Christoper Pyne put it very clearly in a recent interview (sorry, I don’t have the reference, so this my paraphrase):
“I’ll get back in because, in my electorate, most people hate Labor”.
Cheers,
Dave B
21
Sorry, but the UK leads to world in the race to the bottom with regard to offshore wind power. Unaffordable, intermittent, short lifetime, maintenance problems, harmful to migratory birds, harmful to whales (resulting in beaching), kills off fishing industry. The lunatics are still in charge of the UK attempt to be the world leader in the race for the worst renewables, and we (the people) are unable to do anything about the ongoing insanity.
10
The next step is for Cuomo to send out brochures advising consumers to shop around for the best price, turn off appliances at the point, check energy ratings on new white goods they can no longer afford and shower with an enemy if they can’t find a friend.
Remember: though all other industries are mortal and must fail, government brochures are eternal.
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Coalition Turnbull berates power companies for not reducing prices, meanwhile… Coalition Turnbull supports compulsory purchase of REC’s from renewable generators by retail networks under the RET rising to 31,000,000 REC’s @ $85.00 each – an extra $2.635Bil added to the cost of our electricity in the next 12 months.
Snowy 2.0, Tesla Batteries and REC’s – the Law of Diminishing Returns for consumers.
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James Bradley –
do you have a link? I tried to find one today and failed.
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No links, Pat, I’m sorry, I just attributed the information I heard yesterday morning on the Alan Jones Show on Radio 2GB – I’d like to think he followed up on information about REC’s and the RET I sent him a few weeks ago… BTW I’m a huge fan of your work and your dedication so a big, big thumbs up from me.
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James Bradley –
thanks James.
I also heard it on Alan Jones show, but thought he was referring to an article online. good on you for getting information to him.
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His shows are available here:
http://www.2gb.com/show/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/
21
Song of the fishermen.
We’re all at sea
to see the sea so
compromised by these
so pesky and low energy
giants, noisy sea-scape
destroyers and barriers
to trade for those who
go down to the sea in ships.
Only those who grow rich
on subsidies could possibly
think otherwise… (Sea birds
don’t like them either.)
http://i45.tinypic.com/15z5w9k.jpg
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I know that I have linked this article of mine a few times, but it’s always worth reading to see how politicians have this distinct aversion to facts, even to the point of not even asking someone who does know, so that they don’t make fools of themselves when they open their mouths, but hey, if the general public has no idea, then how would they know if it is in fact a load of old bovine waste.
In the Obama Administration, very early on, his Secretary Of the Interior Ken Salazar made some pretty monumental claims about Offshore Wind Power, and I wrote an article at my home site shredding what he said.
I still cannot figure out why these people just don’t take advice from people who know stuff like this.
This article of mine is from April of 2009 when that Administration was still in the first flush of taking Office.
I’m still willing to bet that no one in a position like that has even the faintest clue just how wrong they can get things like this.
Salazar claimed that offshore wind on the U.S. Eastern seaboard could generate five times the power that was currently being generated by coal fired power in the U.S. and then supply power for the whole of the U.S.
When the maths was worked out, I was certain I was somehow wrong, because why would he say something like that with what he said was advice from the Department of Energy, but each time I worked it out, the result was the same.
Read the article (if you wish to) and laugh as loudly as I did.
Salazar’s Wind Power: First Open Mouth, Then Change Feet
Tony.
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Tony….in this religious war against humanity, the marxist zealots don’t consider facts, just ideology…..
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ALL the Politicians get their advise from”Public Serpents”and”Lobbyists”And I do mean ALL Politicians.it doesn’t matter which country,Australia,china,USA,Russia,whatever.Public Serpents formulate policy.
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Often they are the 25 year old University graduates completely brain washed with the prevailing cultural marxist backed themes such as AGW.
31
Great article, Tony.
Of course, they’ll need somewhere to get the power from for all of those factories.
Let’s make it easy for them…..Just build the COAL FIRED power stations, then you won’t need the rest..
Cheaper and easier….and right where the power is NEEDED..
Thanks again, I look forward to all of your posts….
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This issue has some wider implications concerning politicians’ comprehension of the real world. We are probing the citizenship qualifications of our parliamentarians lest they not be completely loyal to Australia. Is this the relevant question? Why do we trust any politician who demonstrates more allegiance to the renewable rantings of Al Gore than to the viability of the Australian economy? Our politicians should be acting in the best interests of Australia not blindly chasing what they think will get them more votes. Perhaps a test of their comprehension of Evans/Nicol/Svensmark is more relevant to Australia’s wellbeing than a scrutiny of their ancestry.
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John Watt:
I fully agree but jumped in at Comment 1.1.2.1.1. I personally think that any test involving high school science, simple arithmetic or elementary logic would be beyond the vast majority of our parliamentary representatives???? and their cohorts.
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30 Aug: Guardian: Katharine Murphy: Coalition’s Finkel response won’t rule out new coal power stations, PM says
After meeting with energy chiefs, Malcolm Turnbull says the Coalition will not set a clean energy target to exclude coal
Malcolm Turnbull has signalled the government’s eventual response to the Finkel review will not create any barriers to building new coal-fired power stations, as he secured additional undertakings from energy retailers to be more transparent with customers…
The prime minister said “I don’t foresee there being any barrier to a new coal-fired power station being built…
Turnbull said the government had a technology agnostic approach to energy policy and his view was “all of the above”…
The retailers agreed to write to 2 million customers on standing offers by Christmas and give them information that should help them obtain better rates.
The energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, said the companies had also agreed to move to a system where customers could access their consumption data and their payment data on a bar code on their bill, “and by using a smartphone or a similar device, they can click on that barcode and then automatically get access to better deals that are available in the market”…
The government also wants energy retailers to issue monthly accounts to customers in an effort to prevent bill shock but the companies say there are practical difficulties with this if customers are not hooked up to smart meters…
The prime minister earlier this week told the ABC the government had no plans to build a coal-fired power station.
Asked whether he would rule out funding any coal-fired power stations, Turnbull replied: “Well, we have no plans to do so.”
Asked on Wednesday whether he had now ruled out building a power station, Turnbull said: “No, what I said was – I was asked if we had any plans to build a coal-fired power station, and I said we didn’t”…
“We are the largest exporter of coal in the world,” he said. “Coal has a big future to play, not just in our electricity generation, for many, many years to come, but in the world’s…
(Bill) Shorten said nothing would improve on energy prices until Australia had a new climate and energy policy to give investors certainty.
He said the No 1 cause of rising prices was policy uncertainty. “We need a clean energy target”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/30/coalitions-finkel-response-wont-rule-out-new-coal-power-stations-pm-says
71
Unfortunately,ALL the Tax’s which apply to coal will stop any investment and you can bet”Halal Mal”nows it.
21
30 Aug: The Conversation: Turnbull is pursuing ‘energy certainty’ but what does that actually mean?
by Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University
Disclosure statement: Alan Pears has worked for government, business, industry associations public interest groups and at universities on energy efficiency, climate response and sustainability issues since the late 1970s. He is now an honorary Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University and a consultant, as well as an adviser to a range of industry associations and public interest groups. His investments in managed funds include firms that benefit from growth in clean energy. He has shares in Hepburn Wind.
But underlying the ongoing political scrimmage is the reality that certainty means something very different to each player. It’s particularly difficult to achieve in a time of disruptive change.
What is certainty?
For politicians, certainty means getting energy prices and policy out of the media, ensuring construction of a new coal-fired power station, or both.
On the other hand, incumbent energy companies want to protect profits by blocking emerging competitors and guaranteeing their revenue.
For emerging energy businesses that sell renewable energy, batteries and smart energy solutions, it’s about opening markets to fair competition and finding a role in a rapidly changing environment…
Households (and voters) also want affordable and reliable energy bills (and some basic respect from energy companies and politicians) but that doesn’t necessarily mean low prices: it can mean low fixed charges, access to energy efficiency programs, and finance for rooftop solar and batteries. Then they can buy less energy while living in comfortable homes with efficient appliances…READ ON
http://theconversation.com/turnbull-is-pursuing-energy-certainty-but-what-does-that-actually-mean-83082
41
“We are the largest exporter of coal in the world,” he said. “Coal has a big future to play, not just in our electricity generation, for many, many years to come, but in the world’s…”
This echoes Julia Gillard’s adenoidal raptures over brown coal exports from Vic. What can we not achieve from the export of our coal? Exported coal is just the bee’s knees. However, coal used domestically is durrrrrrdy (work it long through those adenoids, Jules).
Get it? Your bbq is bad. Your next-door neighbour buys your bbq and uses it just on the other side of your fence…and your bbq is now good. It doesn’t matter how the bbq is functioning or which way the wind is blowing or what you put on the bbq. On your side of the fence, bad. On the other side of your fence, good.
I’m sure that when our Green Betters go to Bilderberg or Davos they just take some uppers, dress in clown suits and dance the Macarena. They’re all in the pay of Big Silly. No other explanation for…
http://tinyurl.com/ycuhcyqd
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mosomoso:
Is that Port Kembla or Carrickalinga? I assume the first from the useful surf, although both are useless eye sores..
42
Graeme, that’s Kembla, still my favourite Green Folly.
I’m not saying that Carrickalinga isn’t right up there in the envirocomedy stakes. There’s bound to be something hilarious about a wrecked 3000 tonne wave generator rusting in the ocean under blue South Australian skies. Maybe they’re waiting for someone to invent a wind-powered dredger or a solar towboat. Lots of grunt and no choot-choot. But hush…
We mustn’t be giving Jay and Elon any more ideas.
62
Still pushing “free” wind.
Uneconomic, Unreliable, a Known Wildlife Killer and Unscientific.
Now you may be wondering why the “Unscientific”.
Well the inconvenient truth is that the movement of air through the blades creates very low frequency pulsing, VLF, which damages humans. The Unscientific part comes from the fact that this is hidden away, swept under the carpet, people complaining of nausea and vomiting are just malingerers.
I guarantee you will not be able to get funding to follow this up with a PhD. Twenty years ago the only research that could be found on this topic was from the backwards Iron Curtain countries. No worker insurance there.
And the issue still gets swept under the carpet in the quest for a better world for all.
Except those caught near a wind turbine complex.
Green venom doesn’t really care about people.
KK
102
All this absolute nonsense is predicated on the idea that mankind is increasing the world’s CO2 levels, without proof of any sort. In fact you can easily prove it is not true. Then you need assistance from H2O and you can prove that is not happening. Then you need some sort of connection between CO2 and Temperature and that is not true, CO2 going up steadily regardless of how many windmills we build while temperature has not changed for twenty years. Nothing is justified, true or even past borderline feasible.
Still the Communist Green Industrial complex is building windmills and solar farms, against logic, against the facts against any reason. Pyramids in the ocean. Pointless, useless, destructive and massively expensive. At least the Pyramids lasted 4,500 years. These things will be useless in twenty and gone in a hundred. Renewables indeed! What is vanishing is the opportunity to build a better world and really invest for the future.
183
Right on TdeF , and in a country like ours if there was any proof that Co2 was bad we should be building massive dams with hydroelectric where ever we can , up and down the east coast .
Which would also give us water security for the future long term droughts this country goes thru .
131
.
Arguably one of the most perspicuous comments I have come across on Renewable Energy and the climate change ideology generally was in the comments on Jo’s link, “The Bonickers vs Big Wind”.
“You can’t save the world unless you’re prepared to force other people to sacrifice.”
John Olson
71
The question is who sacrifices…..
They can get a reality check if they think we will…..the NWO numpties are happy to literally force us into poverty and slavery to achieve their demented goals….
81
OSPAR Commission
QUALITY STATUS REPORT 2010
Assessment of the environmental impact of offshore wind farms
What are the problems?
——————
Table 3. Potential impacts associated with the development of offshore wind-farms (not exhaustive). Source: OSPAR, 2004.
Issue;
Source of Potential Impacts
Examples of Potential Impacts
Birds
– turbines, mainly rotor blades and wakes
– light emission
– bird collision
– attraction of birds due to illumination by navigational lights and subsequent increase in the risk of collision
– wind-farm as a whole
– temporary or permanent habitat loss or change, including exclusion of habitat, e.g. sandbanks, water surface/water body due to disturbance
– fragmentation of feeding, breeding and roosting areas, as well as migratory routes due to barrier effect
– change of food species availability
– boat traffic during construction and maintenance
– stress and reduction of biological fitness
– temporary or permanent exclusion from habitat
– electric cable to shore – increase of temperature in sediments during operation
– increased risk of botulism in coastal areas (eulittoral) resulting in an increased death rate for wading birds and water birds
Bats
– turbines mainly rotor blades and wakes
– collision and barrier effects
Marine Mammals
– shadow from rotor blades
– emission of sound and vibration into the water body
– construction noise (including pile driving)
– habitat loss due to avoidance
– fragmentation of migratory routes and of sites for foraging and reproduction
– induced permanent or temporary threshold shift in hearing (PTS/TTS), reduced perception of biologically significant sounds (masking)
– boat traffic during construction and maintenance
– changed behaviour, stress
– electric cables (see below)
– disturbance of small- and large-scale orientation
Fish
– electric cable within the wind-farm and to shore – artificial electromagnetic fields emitted during operation, in particular from monopolar direct current cables
– disturbance of small- and large-scale orientation (especially migratory species)
– emission of sound and vibration into the water body
– habitat loss as fish may leave area
– disturbance of behaviour and stress
– clouding and sedimentation during construction
– damage to fish eggs
– damage and or disturbance to spawning grounds
– introduction of hard substrate
– construction noise (including pile driving)
– alteration of food species availability and abundance, which in turn may alter community composition and abundance of fish
– induced permanent or temporary threshold shift in hearing (PTS/TTS), reduced perception of biologically significant sounds (masking)
Zoobenthos
[ Benthos is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the seabed, also known as the benthic zone. This community lives in or near marine sedimentary environments, from tidal pools along the foreshore, out to the continental shelf, and then down to the abyssal depths.]
– cable laying
– disturbance of intertidal habitats
– local destruction and sediment plumes during the construction/removal of foundations
– permanent covering of the sea floor
– introduction of artificial hard substrate
– changes in hydrodynamics
– electric cable within the wind-farm and to shore – increase of temperature in sediments during operation
– temporary and permanent habitat loss
– alteration in the benthic community composition
– indirect habitat loss through small-scale changes in sediment structure around the turbine and changes of large-scale sediment dynamics
– alteration in the endobenthic community including colonisation by alien species
– increased degradation of the organic content resulting in a release of heavy metals (depending on the total organic matter content and metal content of the sediment)
Macrophytes
[ A macrophyte is an aquatic plant that grows in or near water and is either emergent, submergent, or floating,]
– local destruction and sediment plumes during the construction of foundations
– permanent covering of the seafloor
– temporary and permanent habitat loss
– change of current dynamics and sediment conditions
– introduction of artificial hard substrate
– habitat loss
– alteration in the plant community composition
Hydrodynamics and MorphodynamicsHydro dynamics and Morphodynamics
– construction and presence of foundations and cables
– change of sediment dynamics, for example slowing down of natural erosion and sedimentation processes (at the site and adjacent coastlines)
– reduction in wave energy (shadow effects) from different sized arrays and how/if this influences sediment inputs and exchanges
– beach faces and flood defences
Landscape;
– tall structures visible from afar – lighting
– intrusion on the typically flat and featureless sea and “industrialisation” of this natural landscape
– alteration of the scenic landscape – especially at night
Navigation
– danger of collisions between vessels and wind turbines (including restriction/constriction of shipping routes)
– pollution through oil spills or chemical spills
– impact on socio-economic operations
Emergency Operations
– obstacles due to the presence of static structures
– impact on emergency operations
Other Users
– exclusion of other users from the area
– disturbance of the natural landscape
————–
Add ship navigation radar returns corrupted by rotating turbine blades. Which is also a now known problem for the critical to aircraft separation Airfield Radars.
Plus the narrowing and restricting of shipping lanes as the off shore wind farms multiply.
Plus some remaining questions on the pulsing reflectivity of the rotating turbine blades and the potential corrupting of the GPS frequencies used for precise navigation in the proximity of wind farms.
Plus the clean up after only two decades of wind farm operation of all the concrete and steell detritus left behind by the scammmers who are long gone with the tax payers loot.
122
A backlash will only work when one removes the food source of the “renewable” lobby. That means the voters must make it career-ending for any politician to support and/or vote for renewable subsidies and special favors.
100
Andrew Cuomo has an answer to the low cost of power from natural gas fired power plants; make natural gas more expensive. https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuomos-natural-gas-blockade-1503529234 Mr. Cuomo wants to run for president in 2020. Apparently, increasing the cost of living in your governing jurisdiction is a ticket that Democrats have to punch to be considered a serious candidate.
41
Listen to Alan Jones go off his tree about Renewables (he calls them, Unreliables) on his show this morning. First 10 minutes.
He says they (Turnbull and Frydenberg) must be on ‘dope’.
72
I trust that he acknowledged that;
1. The original Coalition RET was 2 per cent and was a trial, recently former PM Howard said it should never have been raised.
2. The present RET was Labor’s from when they were in government 2007/13.
3. The Abbott led Coalition Government tried to convince the Senate to pass a Bill to abolish the RET.
4. The Senate agreed to cap the RET.
5. Shorten Labor claim that if elected they would raise the RET to 50 per cent.
51
Dennis, you might want to send him that information. He is certainly on our side.
https://form.jotform.com/63541623081955
31
If that link doesn’t work go to:
http://www.2gb.com/show/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/
And go to feedback.
21
There’s no need for a target of any sort.
If a product is useful people will buy it. What purpose dose a target serve?
41
He sure doesn’t pull any punches. We need a hundred more like him.
31
Hot off the press.
http://euanmearns.com/an-initial-look-at-the-australian-electricity-grid-data/#more-19400
01
Dear Friends, sceptics and deniers,
Are we being deluded, distracted and red herringed into analysing, criticizing reviewing and generally disagreeing with all the global warming stuff being promulgated?
The climate will do what it must and the reasons for its variability may never be known BUT what we should be doing is showing, proving and explaining that CO2 is NOT! the major, and only cause of this variability.
That is the prime directive, just prove that and all the rest is moot.
All Davis Evans work seems to have been lost. Dozens of studies are available and are being studiously ignored, as are we here in this blog.
If it is possible to get a large cohort of well-respected expert, educated and peer reviewed people together to agree that CO2 is a very minor participant and limiting its production is not only futile but causing untold harm to the economies of the world.
With that accepted the world can proceed with coal and gas fired power, let wind power live or die on its own merits, stop feed in tariffs for roof top solar, and stop wasting trillions of dollars chasing the deluded dream of power hungry scaremongers.
I take you back to Jo’s statement ” Don’t fall for the ‘complexity’ argument, or accept vague answers. The climate is complex, but the only thing that matters here is whether adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world much warmer.”
That and only that!
Back to basics please.
82
begging?
30 Aug: SMH: Peter Hannam: ‘Critical’: Deeper carbon cuts for power sector would slice prices, RepuTex says
A weak Clean Energy Target would shift the emissions reduction burden away from the electricity sector, undermine investor certainty, and potentially leave power stations pumping out pollution into the next century, according to analysis by RepuTex.
In modelling commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation, RepuTex examined the effect of a CET to cut 2005-level emissions from the electricity industry by 28 per cent by 2030, as outlined by the Finkel review into energy security…
It urged the CET have a higher rate of at least 45 per cent…
Since wind and solar effectively have no cost of fuel, more solar and wind farms would push out high-cost gas, which often sets wholesale power prices across the National Electricity Market…
(See chart below showing how whole prices with a 45 per cent CET would push wholesale prices below $40 per megawatt-hour by 2023, roughly half business as usual levels.)…
Diving even deeper, a 63 per cent CET would phase out electricity sector emissions by 2035, and supply 60 per cent of the Paris abatement…
Investors’ craving for certainty is one reason why the government needed to aim higher – for both the power sector and the economy overall.
“The bar is low enough that industry would welcome any target at this point,” Mr Harper said…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/critical-deeper-carbon-cuts-for-power-sector-would-slice-prices-reputex-says-20170829-gy68t5.html
21
more begging by FakeNewsMSM:
30 Aug: The Age Editorial: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull should listen to, not lecture, the energy industry
The government, spooked by recalcitrants in its ranks, appears unable to confront the central issue. A clean energy target is a substitute for an emissions trading scheme, which puts a price on carbon and was the industry’s preferred mechanism for the transition to renewables, but political machinations within the Coalition and the ALP precluded it.
The lack of such a target is the biggest impediment to our necessary and inevitable transition from a reliance on coal-fired power stations, one of the worst polluters, to the renewable energy sources that will help limit dangerous global warming and tumultuous climate change.
This is not an ideological statement – it is based on scientific consensus about an existential issue. It is not an outlandish claim by environmental extremists. It’s not an opportunistic tactic by a political grouping. It is what the electricity industry has long been telling the federal government is the leading cause of the lack of investment in power generation in the past decade.
And it is what the electricity industry is now actually imploring the government to introduce…
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-should-listen-to-not-lecture-the-energy-industry-20170830-gy7dm5.html
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I’m leary of the “To replace a single nuclear generator will take 45 offshore wind plants.” quote.
Is that a simple it takes 45 offshore plants to equal nameplate power, or it takes 45 offshort plants to equal actually produce a similar amount of power when you factor in average power actually produced over time.
Most likely given the much lower load factors being seen for wind it will actually take many more than 45 plants to equal one nuclear, and that probably still doesn’t give you dispatchable power.
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Might need to also figure in the cost of storage and the extra windmills to create that stored energy.
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The promoters of unreliables only ever seem to use nameplate capacity, not the actual average power delivery based on capacity factor. Even then, because of the random nature of the power delivery it is unusable most of the time so a typical 30% capacity factor will really be much less than that. All the time you still have coal and gas power wastefully turning over on spinning reserve to back up the whole mess.
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https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/22/by-the-numbers-lifetime-performance-of-worlds-first-offshore-wind-farm/
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Warren Buffett loves windmills for the tax credits.
QUOTE Buffett has a long history of investing in wind energy, but his love for wind power is driven by lucrative tax credits handed out by the federal government for generating wind power.
“That’s the only reason to build them,” Buffett said of the wind tax credits in 2014. “They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
END QUOTE
http://amp.dailycaller.com/2016/04/15/warren-buffett-is-building-lots-of-new-wind-turbines-with-your-tax-dollars/
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So the fishermen who voted for the party that hired Trump voted for “less regulation”.
Focussing on party platforms, the only real difference between the Dem and GOP plans is in their energy planks. The Dems wanted to tax, regulate, nationalize, subsidize and send men with guns to coerce all electric generation. This is copied from the Communist and Green platforms. The Republicans pledge to protect everything that generates electricity without coercion at gunpoint. This they copied from the 2016 Libertarian party platform. So ignoring the personalities that so fascinate small minds, pro-energy Libertarians and Republicans garnered 53% of the POPULAR vote. The Dems, [snip. left side “etc”] together lost the electoral vote and popular vote, thanks to their fascination with forcible freezing in the dark. Anti-energy lobby claims to a majority among US voters are as false as claims to majority support from persons with science degrees (unless 0.06% is greater than half).
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