Democracy in action.
Fully 62% of Australians don’t want to pay a pitiful $10 a month for renewables. They are already paying more, therefore at least two-thirds of our parliament should be voting “No” on this. Why is Turnbull even toying with this?
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has threatened to cross the floor of Parliament and vote against any move to introduce a clean-energy target, describing as “unconscionable” any move to wind back support for coal in favour of renewables.
In his first interview with his former chief of staff Peta Credlin on Sky News’ Jones & Co on Tuesday night, Mr Abbott described climate change as “very much a third order issue”.
He suggested Liberal MPs had “extremely serious reservations” about the government’s clean energy target, and said last year’s power blackouts in South Australia had influenced the attitude of Liberal MPs to renewable energy.
“I think there is no chance that our party room will support any significant increase in the amount of renewables in our system.”
Asked whether he would support an attempt by Mr Turnbull to legislate for a clean-energy target, Mr Abbott replied: “It would be unconscionable, I underline that word unconscionable, for a government that was originally elected promising to abolish the carbon tax and end Labor’s climate change obsessions to go further down the renewables path,” he said.
The Turnbull government has a one-seat majority in Parliament, underscoring the potential of Mr Abbott’s threat to do real damage to the government.
Limit the damage ASAP:
Asked by Ms Credlin if he would scrap subsidies for renewable forms of energy, Mr Abbott said: “We have to respect people who have made investments in the existing system. We don’t want additional sovereign risk factors bedevilling our economy.”
But he said there should be no further subsidies: “There should be no subsidies for further solar and wind because this is inherently unreliable.”
At this point our market is so screwed the government may have to build a coal plant, because the subsidies and weather-alchemy-rules have made it impossible for the private sector to do what they have done for most of the last century.
Mr Abbott also suggested governments should build coal-fired power stations.
“Power generation is an essential service and if the market won’t build coal-fired power stations, if the market won’t build base load power, the government has got to,” he said.
The unspoken problem here is how to unscrew the market so the government can get out of the generation business.
Let’s let people tick “green energy” or “coal” on their personal power bills and adjust their electricity prices accordingly. Then we’d find out how many Australians really want a renewable energy target. That’s true democracy where people vote with their wallet.
Send a message to your rep.
- Australian skeptics outnumber believers say OECD. Globally, 63% don’t want their dollars spent on the environment…
- Poll: Australians more skeptical. Climate change “dropped off” political radar
- 54% of Australians skeptics of man-made global warming, 80% don’t donate to environment or vote for it
h/t Dave B
This should help:
So Paris should be trashed forwith, game over, thank you umpire & ball boys…..
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/19/climate-change-not-as-threatening-to-planet-as-previously-thought-new-research-suggests-2/
“By Henry Bodkin
18 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 7:15PM
Climate change poses less of an immediate threat to the planet than previously thought because scientists got their modelling wrong, a new study has found. New research by British scientists reveals the world is being polluted and warming up less quickly than 10-year-old forecasts predicted, giving countries more time to get a grip on their carbon output.
An unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy has also contributed to the more positive outlook.
Experts now say there is a two-in-three chance of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the ultimate goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.”
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Got it wrong?
Calculated to deceive more accurate.
342
It’s hard to put this any other way, but you guys are so screwed! From climate to political correctness to cultural suicide … if it were a movie, who’d believe the damned script?
71
Could ir be because his bureaucratic masters in Brussels and New York are directing the show? He’s a declared Globalist. He’s signed on the dotted line to develop a close partnership with the EU. Climatism is one of the required shackles. You’ll also quite possibly be enjoying open borders soon not to mention tightly controlled markets.
The political choices and direction become ever clearer by the day, as does the obvious, ‘down under’ desperately needs a Trumpian hero to unravel the Green eco-Marxist chancre.
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Worth a look – remoing coal and replacing it with green “nirvana” of just-=in-time power generation – all controlled by smart meters
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2016/04/22/flashback-technocracy-smart-grid-green-economy/
“Introduction
According to the United Nations Governing Council of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), “our dominant economic model may thus be termed a ‘brown economy’.” UNEP’s clearly stated goal is to overturn the “brown economy” and replace it with a “green economy”:
“A green economy implies the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth… These investments, both public and private, provide the mechanism for the reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes.” [p. 2]
Sustainable consumption? Reconfiguring businesses, infrastructure and institutions? What do these words mean? They do not mean merely reshuffling the existing order, but rather replacing it with a completely new economic system, one that has never before been seen or used in the history of the world.
This paper will demonstrate that the current crisis of capitalism is being used to implement a radical new economic system that will completely supplant it. This is not some new idea created in the bowels of the United Nations: It is a revitalized implementation of Technocracy that was thoroughly repudiated by the American public in 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression.
The Technocrats have resurfaced, and they do not intend to fail a second time. Whether they succeed this time will depend upon the intended servants of Technocracy, the citizens of the world.”
20
Moreover man-made restraints on carbon dioxide emissions are unnecessary even if the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Global Warming was true.
Natural sequestration automatically increases with higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and nature charges nothing for the service.
The only CO2 action our governments should consider is limiting the rate of increase of man-made emissions.
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Local Government should be required to plant trees, and other flora, on a scale commensurate with their local tax, or rates, total.
Unfortunately, this point of view is not shared by the Green political parties. Strange, that.
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You’d fall out of your tree if you knew how much it costs Council to plant a tree.
Good thing they don’t.
90
Why?
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‘
“Why?”
Good question wit no viable answer! Good time to re-iterate:
“Mr Abbott argues the recommendation by the chief scientist for such a target should be ignored.”
A governmental ‘chief scientist’ must ignore the idea that meteorologists are those kicked out of the fine astrologers guild; for being such whit-less, insufferable a**-holes! 🙂
40
I assumed Leo was referring to gas bagging politicians and gave him a tick.
20
But! But! Christiana Figueres, the UN Climate Chick, delivered a two hour monologue, or so it seemed, on ABC’s 730 only last Thursday telling us that we have only 3 years to act on climate or the planet gets it.
She said it with such confidence that it must be true!
30
I’m beginning to believe that Turnbull is so stupid that he actually can’t understand what he’s doing, or all else there must be some sort self-interest at work. How have we come to such a position that a Prime Minister is prepared to destroy the country on nothing more than voodoo and witch doctor’s advice.
James Delingpole has an interesting article that may be too deep for Turnbull: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/19/delingpole-climate-alarmists-finally-admit-we-were-wrong-about-global-warming/
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“When the facts change, I change my mind, as Keynes said. This is a ‘scientist’? Quoting Keynes as a scientist?
The facts have not changed. What has changed is that his predictions, like all the other warmist predictions for 30 years have been without any factual support. Now we have the wisdom of hindsight and he is clearly wrong, he was wrong in the first place. The future has arrived. Nothing has changed, except the destruction of our cheap reliable energy and the enrichment of strangers and the disenfranchisement of the poor by elitists.
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Turnbull reminds me so much of Black Adder’s Baldrick, one cunning plan after another.
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About as cunning too. A privileged only son from Labor royalty, inherited a great deal and so convinced of his own intelligence like most bankers. (Rhymes with?) Too bad the country has seen nothing of it. Never more than Abbott’s shadow and now more like Rudd the gifted visionary with his Republic, blue sky battery, VFT and now ETS/CTS as he makes the smooth transition from being Gillard the underminer. Great repertory. Both awful.
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He reminds me more of Lt George (Hugh Lawrie) or even the Prince of Wales (Hugh Lawrie)
70
Baldrick actually has more smarts than Turnbull.
50
In fact, the original quote is
and it was made by Paul Samuelson on a US television program in 1970.
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Various versions of this.
Keynes might have said it but only indirect references;
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/22/keynes-change-mind/
20
Former Labor PM Paul Keating is reported to have advised Labor PM Rudd when Opposition Leader Turnbull undermined/replaced Opposition Leader Dr Brendan Nelson (who replaced PM Howard after the 2007 election loss of government by the Coalition) that his new political opponent is intelligent, fearless and lacks judgement.
My definition is intelligent enough to become an officer, fearless enough to attack a machine gun post head on alone, but that would display a lack of judgement.
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We must give Turnbull credit for being faithful to his merchant banker bosses by allowing them to make vast amounts of profit from the tax payers.
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He is not stupid.
He has a waterfront mansion on Sydney harbour.
30
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.. And never attribute to incompetence what can be explained by greed.
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Speaking of incompetence, on ABC Kimberley radio this morning, ANU bluster. I wonder what drugs they are on. Same as Chairman Mal’s?: “ABC Kimberley
2 hrs ·
DAMS CAN BE POWER GENERATORS: ANU STUDY
Three thousand dams scattered across the Kimberley could become the power sources of the future, according to a research project from the Australian National University.
The plan details thousands of man made resevoirs, which aren’t on rivers, ranging in size from 10 hectares to 100ha. Water is pumped up to a height using wind or solar power. Energy is recovered by letting the water flow back down through a turbine that converts it into electricity.
Professor Andrew Blakers says hydro power from the Kimberley could also be sent to Indonesia via subsea cable, while Pilbara dams could send electricity to Perth”
20
I wonder if they bothered to do a costing on this?
Double handling is never cheap.
20
Here is the info without the middleman
https://theconversation.com/want-energy-storage-here-are-22-000-sites-for-pumped-hydro-across-australia-84275
10
Summary please?
10
Got this from cementafriend:
00
Repeal the RET. Abbott simply wants to freeze it. This is a case of politicians doing with which most Australians do not agree. Rule from the top, from Canberra or Spring Street. All about politicians posing as caring, concerned individuals when all they have done is chase the Green vote, both sides of politics. There is no ‘Science’, just political science.
At least Abbott shows why he was elected. To kill off the Green monster and those parasitic power sources, random wind and lunchtime solar. Also he led the world on sensible refugee policy, trade deals and destroying the cash grab by both sides of politics which was Malcolm’s Carbon tax. Socialists on the one side and greedy unethical capitalists and bankers and electricity companies on the other. Ordinary Australians in the middle.
We now have the farce where politicians are passing more laws to cover up the failure of their own laws. Laws to reduce gas prices and make gas available when they are the ones who made it too expensive to sell with the RET. Decisions to compensate people for wrong and unfair taxes they invented. Budgets to build giant batteries at public expense for private power which is utterly impractical without them.
Laws to bandaid bad laws. Spending on subsidies to keep the power going as they have made coal unaffordable, as intended. Laws to stop the export of gas while passing other laws to ban the discovery and exploitation of more gas and coal. Laws to stop the mining of coal even for existing power stations like Liddell. Rulings to triple price of our coal to ourselves, forcing the closure of the biggest power station in the country and then hundreds of millions to compensate all the workers out of work and hide the rolling disaster of Whyalla, Port Pirie, Portland, Geelong, Yallourn, Elizabeth from the public and the media.
Australia needs to start again. First remove the RET. No debate. It is a very bad law designed to kill off coal. It is working. Get rid of it and all the other subsidies, direct and indiret, pay in tariffs, LGCs, STCs, electricity subsidies, subsidies for people put out of work by government policies. No taxes, no subsidies. No handouts.
Then you have Labor in the wings promising sincerely to put everyone out of work, a Labor party which has given up on workers, driven now entirely by their memberships in the public service, plus the CFMEU, MUA, ETU and EFU and a few other militant unions.
Can we please have our PM back? Are you quite done yet Malcolm? Have you achieved your dream of being PM yet? Write up how great you were at the job and leave. Better to get out while you can. Take your friends with you.
545
I read last week that Gas from NW Australia is being sent to Singapore and another tanker brought to Australia as the MUA has made it too expensive to ship directly from Australia to Australia. Similarly with potatoes from Tasmania, which are cheaper to ship from NZ after years of protests. Relatives in Tasmania have simply stopped growing potatoes at all. Electricity is just one of the ways Labor intends to cripple Australia. The NBN was the last attempt as the government tries to make an absurd scheme work when the market would have gone cheaper with satellite and wireless.
You should never let politicians try to run businesses. Most have no experience in a job. As for science experts, almost none and they direct the CSIRO, BOM and more. It’s a wonder the country functions at all. Maybe in the future we will all vote by computer. A plebiscite opinion poll should cost $10K, not $110million. An opinion poll on the RET would be the end of it.
474
TdeF,
Don’t bet on it.
If you voted “No” to an RET then BHP, Woolworths or AMA might sack you
102
You’re on a roll there TdeF, well said.
21
TdeF I believe you are over reacting on this occasion, Tony Abbott understands that contractural arrangements must be honoured, that to abandon investors would present a sovereign risk that would be unacceptable.
But he does not want any more subsidy agreements entered into and he wants to abolish the RET.
Isn’t that fair enough, assuming that new power stations are constructed and existing power stations not penalised in any way?
333
On this one occasion, the investors need to be taught a lesson on the dangers of building your business on the whim of government and attempting the wholesale bribery of the political class for fraudulent reasons.
300
I like that Joe.
90
So true Joe, as The Donald said in his speech at the UN, why should we abide by a rotten deal (with Iran)? Or words to that effect. If Andrews can cancel what I understood to have been a good deal with some road, why do we have to bankrupt ourselves for a rotten deal made by very poor decision makers. That is why we change government. Maybe some deals should only last as long as the government that introduced them. How can these captains of industry not know that such deals as the getting money for what your solar puts into the grid hurts the poor immensely, as they have to pay the money paid to roof top solar owners? And if they do know – which they should if they are competent in business – they should be aware that it can be changed by the will of the people.
50
Australian Conservatives (Cory Bernadi) seem to have a similar view.
https://www.conservatives.org.au/our_policies#energy
120
Sovereign risk is always used to prevent needed change. So what? Daniel Andrews paid $1.2Billion to not build a road. Business is risk. The whole RET thing is wrong, unfair, morally reprehensive, deceitful and hardest on the poorest people in our society. Just turn it off. No one could say it was unfair. Sue away. When the trough is closed, someone will claim hardship, but they were the benefiaries of a ripoff.
301
I am not applauding Andrews. Just making the point that only the conservatives care about such things, being cautious, worrying about implications. Just turn it off. Then deal with the consequences, most of which will be joyous celebration with the lights on.
161
What exactly are the contractual arrangements that need to be honoured? Do any exist?
Also, it is never a good business model to rely on subsidies or any other protection from market forces. AGL sees its future in a marketplace where market forces are not allowed to operate. They think their future is in subsidy mining not generating electricity at the best price the free market allows for. They are heading for disaster.
12
If the RET is removed the price of LGCs will collapse.
The only other change is to require all grid connected generators to meet a common NEM requirement for dispatchable power. That will immediately highlight the poor economics of wind and solar.
170
So? They were payment for nothing.
71
‘We now have the farce where politicians are passing more laws to cover up the failure of their own laws. Laws to reduce gas prices and make gas available when they are the ones who made it too expensive to sell with the RET. Decisions to compensate people for wrong and unfair taxes they invented. Budgets to build giant batteries at public expense for private power which is utterly impractical without them. ‘
Listen up …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYk22NzOMjk
90
It is as it has always been. It is the nature of the beast to willfully create laws that will fail so they can create still more laws that will fail. After all, if their laws actually solved the problem that was pretended that they solve, the politicians would no longer be necessary. It is in this way that government aggrandizes itself and as done so since the first government. The only real purpose of politicians is to assure they continue to be politicians. Ditto for the unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy in multiples.
There is a valid function of government but it is not to be the hotbed of institutionalized crime against the governed that it is and always has been. That function is to protect the individual from domestic and foreign violation of their rights and to provide a nonviolent path for redress of greviances. Nothing more and nothing less. The challenge is for the governed to constrain the government to exactly that purpose. We are failing miserably in that task.
When you take from Peter to give to Paul and constrain Peter’s freedom necessary for him continue to produce what you want to take, you are on the path to extinction. If both Peter and Paul are left free to produce, to keep what they produce, and to trade value for value, you are on the path to sustained life and flourishing. There is no third way no matter how many governmental guns, knives, ropes, boots, and thugs try to make it otherwise.
Until this is generally understood and embraced by almost all, we will continue the dance of the headless chicken. That dance is a parody of life and necessarily soon ceases.
50
“Socialists on the one side and greedy unethical capitalists and bankers and electricity companies on the other. Ordinary Australians in the middle.”
Just like in the US; policy we call ‘deep state’. Fortunately we have a new viable political party called MAGA. Watch the Nov 2018 election process as it unfolds.
All the best!-will-
60
The arithmetic doesn’t work. This would simply lead to demise of Turnbull and his Govt. Shorten would be worse. If this is what Abbott wants then he should take his chances in the party room. More productive would be for Turnbull to do a Rudd. If Rudd could say sorry for what happened 200 years ago then it has to be easy for Turnbull to say sorry for the current energy mess that had its origins about 20
years ago. The hard part will be for him to walk the talk and make the first meaningful steps out of the gluggy green delusional mess.
92
If Abbott moves now, he loses everything. His strategy is right. With Abbott’s promise to cross the floor with a few of his friends, our friends, the Turnbull Green government cannot afford to push this CTS. Don’t forget if Rudd, sorry Turnbull, proposes this act, Labor could well support it and the Senate. The Carbon tax would be back too. Abbott’s only hope is to oppose it and then Labor will oppose it, just to frustrate Malcolm.
202
Exactly, Abbott’s strategy is sound.
122
October winds blowing, Malcolm.
80
The cynic in me muses whether the idea is to destroy the private energy sector and then have government return to the power generation role? In other words the public sector regains control of the means of production, here energy.
42
That would be the Labor ideal. They never wanted privatization and seek to destroy the old system they once controlled. Bigger government and control by their friends in the ALP. This is just one of the motivations as they spread the idea that privatization was the problem, not government interference in every aspect of power generation and distribution. Laws stopping everything.
53
The NEM is on life support. There is no economy of scale with wind and solar so no point connecting it to the grid. I can produce power cheaper with solar panels on the roof and battery in the garage than AGL ever will with their Broken Hill and Nyngan solar plants in combination with fast response gas turbines. I avoid all the added cost of transmission, distribution and billing. Any household with roof space has a huge economic advantage over grid connected wind and solar.
Allowing wind and solar to connect to the grid guarantees its demise. AGL and Energy Australia have not thought this through. As they increase the amount of grid scale wind and solar they further erode the value of the grid.
If the RET continues as planned it will supercharge the electricity price trajectory and incentivise more households to leave the grid. The burden of the increasingly stranded grid assets will fall to a diminishing user base.
Battery suppliers have recognised the opportunity here and fighting for market share.
This article gives a clue to the drivers:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/market-for-solar-storage-batteries-growing-and-competitive/news-story/cae6fc767743e6b38c5165145a9bb893
The one certainty in all this is that electricity from the grid will continue to increase in price.
170
That link is behind a paywall, no access for non-subscribers.
01
Just google some of the text quoted in 6.2
00
The article is geographically blocked to those of us in the Western Isles … but no matter.
Rick, if you are talking about going fully off-grid, what are you planning to do about getting a time reference that is close (within specification) to the official time standard, where you are?
00
Jo, you ask “Why is Turnbull even toying with this?”
Why? … I’ll tell you why.
Turnbull is a global socialist who supports the Climate Change Paris Agreement and the NWO (under the totaliarian EU apparatus and the unworthy bunch of UN parasites).
He sees a future world where Australians (and the Western World generally) will have a more impoverished lifestyle living inder the Agenda 2030 template (check the UN documents for details). The OWG endeavour is totally supported by the Fabians, The Emily List (Bishop is a member) and the corporate mulitnationals.
Turnbull is Goldman Sachs man in Australia. Turnbull’s mission is to usher in the Paris Agreements instruments (carbon tax, emission trading, energy rationing, renewable technology) while putting a foot across the throat of the cheapest energy source the world has – coal. Why would he do this? The simple answer is money and much of it. Banks that handle the business of renewables (Gore’s and Soros companies) and emission trading monies (to principallly support the OWG elite) will make $100s.
Ask yourself. Who has a handy tax free Cayman Island bank account? An account that will be rweceiving kickbacks for years to come … for services rendered.
Turnbull is a sheep is wolf’s clothing (the old logo of the Fabians).
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Good comment
142
I agree.
Sacks of gold.
40
Apparently one of the goals of Technocracy is to regulate human activity by controlling the energy supply and allocating individuals a set amount of energy and energy equivalents per month. Basically treating us as robots but robots can’t innovate or choose a more profitable activity than the existing one.
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It has been clear for a few years that countries that encourage wind and solar while ignoring the other means of production would soon have to run the base means — coal, gas, and nuclear.
Companies have a responsibility to shareholders. When government whims prevent fulfilling that responsibility, the Co. has to abandon the business model and do something else. A messy transition is going on, and is interesting to watch, but not necessarily good news.
122
Chinese Bureaucracy in the Ming shut down industry and destroyed the fleet.
– This is our equivalent to the Ming Moloch state. Cross the Rubicon, Tony,
cross it!
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He will. When he has the numbers. The pressure is growing and many will desert the sinking ship Turnbull. Abbott however is also very principled, showing loyalty to his leader when that was never reciprocated. This is a stand on principle, as he says to save the government.
Consider also that if backbencher Barnaby loses his seat, Windsor is waiting. That’s a change of two. Malcolm has also threatened to resign, forcing another byelection. This is all high wire stuff with an unpassable senate, also scheduled for massive change when senators are removed. All the good intentions in the world do not help if Roberts
signed that he was not entitled to citizenship in the UK when he was.
The excuse of good intentions and a good result did not stop Pauline Hanson from going to jail and she benefited not at all. Some who signed illegally have millions to pay back. Lawyers cannot use the excuse of ignorance. Signing the eligibility declaration improperly carries a mandatory one year criminal jail sentence and even if they plead guilty and get a suspended sentence, illegal signing precludes anyone from being a member of parliament.
I doubt this parliament will last the year. Temperatures will rise suddenly and disastrously for Malcolm.
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What will happen to the Xenophon party? To Malcolm’s cosy relationship with Joyce? To the Greens losing their deputy? Is anyone really safe? October will tell. Will anyone be asked to pay the money back, as Pauline Hanson did and still did time?
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‘October will tell.’
That is roughly my timing too.
If Tony gathers the numbers then the PM may resign for the good of the party and Peter Dutton could take his place.
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Hanson and the other person charged with electoral fraud were investigated by the Electoral Commission and then by Queensland Police and charged. A Queensland Court of Law found them guilty and ordered that the monies be repaid, and sentenced them both to prison.
On appeal the sentences were cancelled, but the order to repay the money was upheld.
51
Precisely. The document she signed overstating the number of members in her party and receiving a $250,000 electoral grant was proven justified soon after with her massive vote. However she knew it was wrong and went to jail. She paid it back.
Is it any different for Xenophon who has received millions on the false statement, as a professional practicing lawyer, that he could not read a plain English document, that he did not know his father was born overseas, that he did not even know the passport of his father? What matters the nationality. His repeated signature was without care, breaking a law with criminal consequences. What was good enough for Hanson is good enough for Xenophon, or are lawyers exempt? However more than Hanson, Xenophon with a statutory jail sentence of 1 year should not be entitled to ever sit in any parliament. Similarly with the others. They all knew. Why should parliamentarians be exempt from a law of the country, written specifically for them. Arguing that that law is 100 years old hardly changes it. This was a criminal action, under the constitution.
41
Windsor will never get back in. New England is predominantly a small business/farming based electorate, the uni and some council and hospital type employers mean there are some labor votes which of course all go to Windsor, but people have learned that any split in the conservative vote means it is wasted. And Windsor has form, when he gave us Gillard for PM, the Carbon Tax, and the useless NBN, he lost all hope of ever being re-elected. Slow to understand, slow to forget – that’s New England.
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True. You would think he would never have been elected, betraying everyone’s faith in him. However he was elected and will try again as an independent. Most importantly, there is every reason to suspect the miscreants who falsely declared on a statutory document will be barred from parliament for life.
This is no trivial matter. How can we have parliamentarians, professional lawyers who demonstrate from the outset a contempt for the laws of the country, who cannot read the law or have a flippant attitude to rules and regulations. It is hard enough to put up with some of the MPs and Senators, but improperly signing this document was criminal. They knew it.
21
I think you are being a bit harsh. Since these citizenship issues were an easy fix at the time, I don’t think any errors were deliberate, or even known.
We already knew most politicians, while perhaps good intention-ed, are certainly not stellar intellects or achievers. One cost of democracy is mediocrity, but its better than the alternatives. I think. If the conservative side had any brilliant thinkers they would have killed the RET years ago. It’s no good saying they tried, it has been obvious for a long time now just how pernicious and deadly it is, the extraordinary amount of damage it has done, lives it has cost this winter among the pensioner home owner demographic. It should have been dead and buried, instead of the pensioners who turned the heat off in the dead of winter because the cost had demolished their small fixed income budgets.
60
Windsor signed on with Rudd Labor during 2008 after Oakeshott won the Lyne electorate by election and signed on. They pretended to be negotiating with Abbott and Gillard when the 2010 election produced a hung parliament.
Oakeshott, and Windsor, were National Party MPs earlier in their political careers but both had a falling out and became “independent”. They used their Nationals background to fool voters into thinking they are “conservative former National Party” safe hands. Labor needed their “sleeper” status support because even with Greens preferences Labor had no hope of winning an election in either seat, Lyne and New England electorates.
Windsor’s cousin, Bruce Hawker, was PM Rudd’s spin doctor advisor. Oakeshott had offered to join NSW Labor when he was a state MP before the federal by election but his offer was rejected, Labor knew that if Oakeshott was a Labor MP he would lose the seat. He and Windsor were promised extra money and when the Gillard Labor minority government took office they were given positions on various parliamentary committees earning extra pay, and adding to their retirement pension entitlements (defined benefits scheme).
Most voters in New England (and in Lyne) remember what took place.
51
Joanne mentions this in her main text:
That is the single simplest task for me and anyone else who lives here in Queensland.
Anyone who ticks the box ….. “Green Energy”, then it’s achieved with the flick of a switch, by just turning off their power.
Between 115% and 125% (Base Load and Peak Power) of all Queensland’s consumed power comes from coal fired power.
Tony.
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Tony:
In Victoria there is (at last) an opportunity for ‘smart meters’. Equip them with 3 buttons.
A red one if you will accept reliable and cheaper coal fired power.
A yellow one for those who want ‘green’ energy when it is available, otherwise they will take reliable power.
A green button for those who want only ‘green’ energy.
It would be simple to calculate the bills. Obviously those who press the green button will get only ‘green’ power but as that will only be available for limited periods their bills won’t be that much higher. But in the cold of winter they will be kept warm by that smug glow of superiority.
The Red buttoneers would get the lowest cost for the power used and receive it virtually uninterrupted.
The Yellow buttoneer will have the cost and unreliability of ‘green’ electricity demonstrated so quickly that I expect they will all switch to the red button after one quarter’s bill.
100
Here’s me being a populist commo, just for a bit. (When your free market is rigged like a four-mast schooner and your capitalism has gone all crony you need to look at other options.)
As well as exporting, reserve adequate gas/coal/uranium, with flexible limits, a reasonable price ceiling in our favour and no price floor except what you need to keep stuff being mined. This will be dodgy, Whitlamesque even…but I did warn you it was a bit commo.
The West of the continent will be devoted to gas exploitation and development, the centre to nukes (including world’s most ambitious waste facilities) and the east to coal. Nothing less than global leadership in these three energy fields expected, even if South Australians and Vics experience some pain through the sudden digital extraction.
Hire rafts of spin doctors to dress up every initiative as somehow green or transitional. Sell the ABC, bully or bribe the networks and rig the click-bait media. Study the way Murdoch’s news.com.au advertises Aldi as serious news almost every day and and do that for our coal propaganda.
Persecute non-hydro renewables just for fun and pass dubious retrospective laws to force the green carpetbaggers to take away their mess, including the concrete bases and wiring for wind. Use of diesel for any purpose other than transport, specified manufacturing and back-up to be made illegal on national security grounds. Ban Big Battery on national sanity grounds.
Hey…it’s fun going a bit bolshie! I’m really liking this!
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SA generates nearly 50% of its electricity from renewables (a reliable estimate from the ABC). Since about 20% comes from Victoria they only need about 60% of RET certificates they bring into existence so the surplus must go to other States.
You could ask west australians whether they want their power bills inflated to pay for RET Certificates from SA. Try that in NSW but say the Certificates come from Vic. (MadDanistan).
As for renewables choose the Spanish option and charge them for “Grid disruption” for each MWh they dump onto the grid.
91
Grid disruption could be a thing. I like that. Since we’re going bolshie, why not call it Violation of Safe Grids?
Having spent much time in the Spanish countryside, I’d really like to see wind companies like Gamesa and Acciona SA obliged to remove ever lump of concrete base and unpick all that buried wiring. I’m told it’s the least desirable job outside of mopping after the Tomatina Festival.
80
SA reminds more and more of the movie “The Island”, whereby people think they are going to this special place as a badge of honour….but they wind up being human spare parts for other wealthy & Powerful humans…actually, now to think of it, Australia could go that way for amusement of the globalists….SA might have just been the start…a sort of bizarro franken-State which has been dismembered and then put back together together all kinda weird like a small kids pulls wings off a fly for amusement…
51
First they came for the South Australians, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a South Australian.
Then they came for the Victorians, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Victorian….
60
Oh so apropos, moso,
1984 down the memory whole,
UN/ABC/18C/restrictshuns
on free speech and free
press, what we are
permitted to know, we
cits, servants of the
bureaucracy, ’twas so
often so. Oh Socrates.
A serf.
60
I am now seriously considering that the [snip] is just a well timed political *distraction* to obscure the real prize, which is wrecking our power grid…..
Its an old political trick, usually used to obscure, or to deflect attention from other shennanigans.
I recall when Tony Blair in the UK was in political trouble, there was a convenient “unspecified terrorist threat” that required tanks deployed around Heathrow. Nothing came of it as you would expect….a very ‘Yes Minister’ moment….
[Steve, Please avoid the subject I snipped out in future comments. Thanks.] AZ
00
As Turnbull and Shorten are quite willing to give up Australia’s sovereignty to the Global Government Bureaucracy which is the Paris Accord; Trump reminds the world that the US will not be following down the same path to destroy American industries and jobs.
Some extracts from Trump’s speech to the UN:
Full transcript here.
192
The current issue of New Scientist reports on page 21 that “JinkoSolar is constructing a solar farm in the UAE that produces electricity for 2.4 US cents per kilowatt hour”; is this simply New Scientist transcribing a press release or is such a number possible?
30
New Scientist hasn’t checked any facts for at least 25 years, and certainly not in the cases of AGW or renewables. Yes, it is possible if someone provides enough money to buy the panels without wanting anything back. Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy or the World Bank etc.
You could make a similar supply agreement but it depends on whether the men in white coats get to you first.
71
I may Be wrong but didn’t Abbott increase the RET and didn’t he have a hand in forming it with his master Howard , sure cross the floor with CET but to where when the labs and greens want it .
Time for the Libs to have a party meeting with the nats and once and for all put this baby to bed .
41
No babies in the bed with the current postal vote.
A few things in the bed, but certainly not babies.
71
He also tried to get rid of the money pit for green waste but that Palmer chappy got a whisper in his ear from that Gore chappy and we are stuck with green death. Tried to renegotiate way down on RET but got whipped by greentards in Senate.
70
From a doorstop interview on 29 September 2011:
QUESTION: Is the Coalition committed to a renewable energy target?
TONY ABBOTT: Look, we originated a renewable energy target. That was one of the policies of the Howard Government and yes we remain committed to a renewable energy target. I certainly accept that the renewable energy target is one of the factors of the current power system which is causing prices to go up but we have no plans to change the renewable energy target.
QUESTION: Will you then pull your Nationals colleagues into line and tell them to support it
TONY ABBOTT: Well, the Coalition, we have a position, we support renewable energy targets. Now, that’s not to say that there can’t be debate on this subject, nothing wrong with debate, nothing wrong with people having an opinion. I’m in favour of free speech, I’m in favour of my colleagues having opinions but our position is to support the renewable energy targets.’
Guardian
40
Not accurate, support means the existing agreements, and no more entered into.
51
Elgordo I think a few here won’t like seeing exactly what Abbott was saying , yeah pollies change their mind and that’s the point , they change it back to an unfavourable position .
30
The explosion in price of LGCs and STCs was anticipated by some, certainly by investors in Wind farms. However I suspect Abbott and others did not see the Act as being particularly onerous, where they fought the Carbon tax with a passion. Most of us did.
Little did we suspect the act which was the Renewable Energy(electricity) act of 2000 as introducing a carbon tax which was 20x worse than Gillard’s carbon tax, not a tax and not on carbon. It was knife in the dark. For Abbott too, I suspect.
42
Robert that was half a decade ago, a man is entitled to change his mind.
Politicians are restrained by their party, a consensus view becomes policy, but now Tony is unrestrained and can speak the truth.
30
‘….sure cross the floor with CET but to where when the labs and greens want it .’
They could sit with the independents of like mind.
30
No, PM Abbott tried to abolish the RET of 23% that Labor created, the Howard Government introduced a trial RET of 2% following them signing the UN Kyoto Agreement (Rudd Labor ratified it).
Abbott’s repeal bill was blocked by the hostile Senate, and instead the Senate voted to cap the RET at 23%.
51
Okay thanks Dennis, that clarifies the matter perfectly.
Still, I can’t see Tony getting his old job back, but he’s a good mate of Dutton and deserves a seat on the front bench.
For our overseas visitors, this is likely to be Oz PM by Xmas.
https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/k/r/o/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620×349.golhmv.png/1462352422918.jpg
20
I see 15.2 is still in moderation. Come on Mods…where is your sense of humour?
10
Im sure some of you are well aware of the situation (mess?) in Germany with their drive to renewable power..
….i just wish our decision making leaders were equally aware..
https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies-markets/gone-with-the-wind-743799
40
If my memory serves me (doubtful) we in Victoria had that option in the early 2000s, at least on Origin Energy bills.
40
Yes manalive, as they did in Canberra. But only a minuscule number ever bought into it.
Lesson: when the greenies have to pay with their own money (as opposed to your hard earned money) they are very reticent to do so.
60
Did anybody challenge that?
How could “green energy” be guaranteed delivery via the electricity grid?
Isn’t the claim, and the extra charge, deceptive advertising, which is illegal.
51
Mine is so called green from the snowy hydro .
30
How do I identify “green energy” when I use it?
21
Only way I know is if your tofu making machine runs when you switch it on .
30
Or it starts playing The Internationale…..
00
walking away from Paris & the SDGs is the only way to go:
19 Sept: ClimateChangeNews: Karl Mathiesen: UN secretary general links hurricane devastation to climate change
The catastrophic Atlantic hurricane season has been made worse by climate change, UN secretary general António Guterres said on Monday…
Guterres said cutting carbon emissions “must clearly be part of our response” to the disaster. “The rise in the surface temperature of the ocean has had an impact on weather patterns and we must do everything possible to bring it down.”…
Guterres said the “huge discrepancy” between lives lost in storms of “similar size” highlighted the need to help poor countries better prepare for the effects of extreme weather. The UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals could “never be achieved” in countries that were constantly rebuilding, he added…
The meeting, which a briefing note said would offer nations “an opportunity to highlight the role of climate change in extreme weather events”, was attended by ministers from affected countries as well as those wanted to offer support for reconstruction.
“We need to get used to the multiplication of these tragedies now,” said French minister for ecology Nicolas Hulot…
On Tuesday, France’s prime minister is expected to address the general assembly of the UN to call for a global environment pact (LINK)…
“There are lives being destroyed,” said Dominican Republic president Danilo Medina said: “Irma is not a phenomenon in isolation, but an extreme symptom of a greater problem… Climate change and its consequences should not be the subject of speculation or debate. It’s a truth which hits us and which causes great uncertainty.”
***A minister from the United Arab Emirates also spoke at the meeting, announcing two renewable energy construction projects in the Caribbean…
US deputy representative to the UN Michele Sison addressed the meeting, offering solidarity to other affected countries, ***but made no mention of climate change…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/09/19/un-general-assembly-leaders-link-hurricane-devastation-climate-change/
only joking, but perhaps De Niro is one of the ***”international actors”?
United Nations: High-level meeting on Hurricane Irma – September 18
Equally the event offers an opportunity to highlight the role of climate change in extreme weather events, the need to promote resilience by “Building Back Better”, and the importance of strengthening the humanitarian-development nexus to reduce risk and vulnerability and build resilience to future natural disasters, including hurricanes. The event will convene UN Member States, regional organisations, UN Agencies, and other international ***actors…
PROPOSED PROGAMME INCLUDES:
12:39 Remarks by Mr. ***Robert de Niro
http://www.un.org/pga/72/event-latest/high-level-meeting-on-hurricane-irma/
10
18 Sept: UK Telegraph: Jillian Ambrose: Britain braces for higher energy prices this winter
Energy bills in the UK could be set to rise this winter after the cost of power jumped well above last year’s prices.
The wholesale cost of winter electricity in the UK market is on average 16pc, or around £7 per megawatt-hour, higher than it was this time last year.
The price rises could spell trouble for British bill payers who faced a flurry of tariff hikes over the spring following last winter’s volatile energy trading.
Last year market prices surged higher due to safety concerns across almost a fifth of EDF’s 58-strong French nuclear reactor fleet.
This year, energy prices are climbing due to ongoing concerns around France’s nuclear plants as well as Germany’s reliance on power from coal, which is trading 50pc higher than last year.
Although the UK burns very little coal to produce power, the country imports electricity from the continent. Germany, Europe’s largest electricity market, relies on coal to generate almost a quarter of its power.
Jamie Stewart, a power market expert at pricing agency Icis, said German wholesale power prices were 40pc higher than last autumn and French power was 34pc higher year on year.
The higher prices should provide a strong signal to the operators of gas-fired power generators to keep their plants running as much as possible, he said.
Wholesale gas prices have also climbed higher after the UK’s main gas storage facility, Centrica’s Rough site, closed after decades of use.
“Rough does add an extra element of risk to the winter. Gas traders we speak to though are fairly relaxed about the loss of Rough due to UK’s general supply flexibility,” Mr Stewart said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/18/britain-braces-higher-energy-prices-winter/
10
I wonder what’s going to happen when the people find out that wind and solar just cannot deliver. I couldn’t care less about the politicians, because when they find out, they’ll just talk about something else. It’ll be over their heads anyway, and could you even begin to imagine what it would be like trying to explain what the Base Load is to Senator SHY.
When it’s finally explained to the people, I feel that there will be a pretty major backlash.
So then right now 5PM Wednesday 20Sep2017, you know that mob, AGL, you know them ….. “We’re getting out of coal.”
AGL power currently being delivered by all their wind plants – 320MW
AGL power currently being delivered by their coal fired power plants – 4,000MW.
Makes you wonder eh!
Tony.
270
I tend to agree – there will be a major backlash of one sort or another. Let’s hope it’s a productive one and not self destructive like in some countries. We also desperately need a new leader for the government – more so than ever before in recent times.
As for Abbott I am so glad someone in the defunct LNP has the guts to stand up. Perhaps there is life after the death of the LNP after all.
As for AGL, they are behaving a little like North Korea. Forget common sense and logic, let’s destroy our own nation’s economy.
80
I know one investor in AGL. He is excited by the whole thing. Money for jam. It brings out the worst in people, unethical people, people who give conservatives a bad name. A Green idea for destroying a hard working democracy while generating paper wealth for immoral people. No wonder Climate Change is making unprecedented fortunes, all in the name of saving the planet. Immoral.
As for logic and science, they were never involved. The glib explanations. Acid seas which are not acid. Polar bears crying when they are fine. Missing Caribou. Drowning islands. Thirty years of total make believe. Money and power and the rapid destruction of Western Democracies. I could talk about science all day. This is not science.
171
The love of money destroys people and countries because it replaces the love of people and the nation they helped to build up in the first place. History is full of proof of that. It’s actually the opposite of extreme communism. One is as bad as the other. We may be about to witness the two sides forming a coalition of sorts. It will be the mother of all disasters for this country if it’s not stopped. It will be much like matter and anti-matter colliding. I can clearly see it coming like the sun rising on a bright summer’s day. Yet most Australians are too busy, too stupid or asleep to notice the coming perfect storm. There is still a little time to avoid it if we replace the leader of the LNP soon with someone who doesn’t fiddle while Australia burns.
50
In a more optimistic tone, Peter Dutton becomes the new PM and banishes all climate change guff with scathing wit, remember his quip on rising sea levels.
Democracy becomes refreshed and Beijing is not happy, a discontinuation of renewable subsidies would come as a hammer blow to the dictatorship, so presumably they will put in the cheapest tender to build coal fired power stations.
40
China to build our coal fired power stations? I know an Australian engineer in that field of construction and he to this day still frequently visits China, Vietnam and other places to consult and advise them on how to build coal fired power stations. SO are we to get China to build them here but using our knowledge and experience? Let me guess. They will Chinese labor to build them. I wonder how long before we become a province of China. I suspect it will happen after the next major financial crisis.
20
‘China to build our coal fired power stations?’
It will be a tender process, would you prefer HELE from Japan.
‘SO are we to get China to build them here but using our knowledge and experience?’
A coproduction at every level, Beijing understands our sensitivity on employment issues. Coolie labour is a thing of the past, but I reckon they could build a continental bullet train network in an extraordinary short time span.
10
Yes they could but only using contracted and non-union workers, either local or overseas. Unions and ALP will have such a hissy fit they will have to change their nappies every minute.
20
With wages growth around the world in slump mode, all I can suggest is that qualified Australians (union or non union) are given the opportunity of becoming involved in this infrastructure revolution.
10
‘Let’s let people tick “green energy” or “coal” on their personal power bills and adjust their electricity prices accordingly.’
One billion green thumbs for this.
Lets get some pollies to push for this, and the abolishing of supply charges which impact on poorer people the most. Supply costs should be recouped through electricity rates.
130
“Supply costs should be recouped through electricity rates.”
On the contrary, the supply charges should cover the full cost of building and maintaining the grid and should be levied equally on all properties connected to the grid, INCLUDING those who get paid to export their excess solar power.
31
With other goods and services you usually pay per unit of what you receive. Why should it be any different for electricity.
People who cannot afford their electricity bills and go without heating, cooling and hot water should not be slugged the same amount for supply charges as those who can afford to use several times the amount of electricity. The less electricity a person uses, the less they are using the grid. At the very least, the supply charge should be proportionate to the amount of electricity consumed.
00
If that were to happen and a number of the Coalition particularly Nationals were to follow or even abstain it would undoubtedly be Turnbull’s ‘Chamberlain’ moment when a fellow Conservative quoted Cromwell: “You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
110
Could History repeat itself (in a slightly different form)
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/churchill-becomes-prime-minister
Rewriting:
Prime Minister Turnbull agreed with Labor Leader Bill Shorten that a RET and Carbon Tax was necessary. Turnbull promised cheap renewable ENERGY FOR ALL. Confidence was shattered by power failures in SA and threats of similar results in Victoria. Turnbull declared that he was for a reliable energy target. After further electricity failures in SA and Vic Turnbull lost the support of many members of his Liberal Party. In December a heat wave caused massive power blackouts in SA, Vic and NSW. Turnbull formally lost the confidence of the House of Parliament.
Abbott was known for his understanding of the importance of coal fired power stations maintain the integrity of reliable power on the grid. He quickly won the popular support of Australians.
100
Didn’t Howard follow a similar pattern? It takes scars and much pain before we humans learn not to repeat the mistakes of the past and wise up, at least for those who are humble enough to do so. That last point rules out Turnbull ever changing. In fact I suspect Shorten would change before Turnbull ever could. Hard to imagine but it’s possible.
20
Television News misleading viewers again, CH9 tonight claimed that when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister his government was responsible for the 23% RET.
Not true, they tried to abolish the Labor 23% RET but the hostile Senate rejected that repeal bill.
The Senate instead agreed to cap the RET at 23%.
Labor raised the RET from the Howard Government trial only 2% RET introduced after they signed, but did not ratify, the UN Kyoto Agreement.
71
Dennis I agree on pretty much everything you have said even your remarks on Trump in the last thread I agreed with you wholeheartedly but Abbott is where we part company .
Only things he ever did right was ousting Turdball and removing the carbon tax and that covers his entire political career .
I too was an Abbott fan but he lost me somewhere around the captains pick saga , I’m sure he was top dog when we gave a big donation to the Clinton foundation but my memory is not quite that good .
Who is the right leader for the Libs ? Beats the heck out of me , I wouldn’t give you 2 cents for any of the current crop of pollies from any brand .
As for where that leaves us imo, up the creek without a paddle , the way things are going nowadays I sometimes wonder if we’d have more freedom and a better economy if we were taken over by the Chinese .
30
You are not well informed, but that is not meant to be critical of you, the MSM misinformation regarding Tony Abbott, and the relentless negativity, has been substantial, from the “Black Hand” Liberal rebel faction since 2009, from Labor Greens, and as Christopher Monckton warned via video before PM Abbott was toppled, from international leftists.
Clinton Foundation donations were from Minister for Foreign Affairs Bishop, and before that from Labor. In fact PM Abbott denied Bishop extra money to donate in South America to the UN IPCC, he said use your aid budget if you must, she was angry but donated $200 million.
Abbott led the Coalition to defeat Labor in 2010, despite their substantial 2007 win, and PM Gillard was forced to accept MP support from outside Labor to cling to government, a minority alliance. At the 2013 election the Abbott led Coalition won by a landslide defeat of Rudd Labor. The negativity undermining him, and therefore the government he led, continued until 2015 when he was replaced.
Too many achievements to list here, most of them ignored or distorted to suit his political opponents, and compliant MSM.
It has been correctly said that when mud is thrown some of sticks, the more that is thrown the more of it sticks.
And that lies told often enough eventually become the truth.
91
In fact one distortion of the truth was the awarding of a Knighthood to Prince Phillip. No, a nomination for the award that was awarded by the Queen. She had asked Commonwealth of Nations member country leaders to nominate her husband. PM Abbott was not in a position to defend his position at that time.
As for the only two ongoing Knighthoods, they were only for public service by Governors General and the Chief of the ADF, both in ceremonial terms reporting to the Queen of Australia, who is ceremonial head of state here only when she is on our soil, the GG is at all other times.
MSM and others rely on the ignorance of the public, and twist the facts to mislead us and when it suits them to undermine a political leader.
Australia is an independent sovereign nation, what President Trump mentioned in his UN address.
91
Thanks Dennis I’m not a thin skinned woosey and can appreciate your side , maybe my anger is more towards the party power brokers of the Libs but personally somewhere my like for Abbott has eroded .
Yes he had a raw deal from MSM but he didn’t help his own cause imo .
41
Definition of ‘Sovereign Risk’
Definition: A nation is a sovereign entity. Any risk arising on chances of a government failing to make debt repayments or not honouring a loan agreement is a sovereign risk.
Description: Such practices can be resorted to by a government in times of economic or political uncertainty or even to portray an assertive stance misusing its independence. A government can resort to such practices by easily altering any of its laws, thereby causing adverse losses to investors.
Example: Countries like Argentina and Mexico had defaulted on their loan payments in 1970s to a big extent after the oil shock.
31
RET subsidies, cancelled, sovereign risk situation arises.
31
What is the RET worth to a wind outfit? Well, going by this report, the RET is worth a lot more than the actual electricity exported to the grid!
2016 FY, income from electricity generated, $437,210, income from sale REC.s, $743,674.
And this is from a very modest 4MW, 2 turbine wind farm!
Is it any wonder that that the rent seekers are screaming for renewables? it’s not the renewable factor, it’s the money, free money!
$743,674
100
Here is the link! https://www.hepburnwind.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/FY16_Hepburn-Wind-Annual-Report-.pdf
50
RET is a gold mine.
No wonder Industry Super Funds are happy to share investments with foreign investors, and Labor facilitating the wealth creation by raising 2 per cent original trial RET to 23 per cent.
And state/territory governments cooperating. They have primary responsibility for our electricity supplies.
91
Industry Super.
Now we see money trail.
41
It’s always money. Check who donates to their campaigns.
40
They have another cash flow source, the Australian taxpayers.
Federa, state and territory Labor governments approve grants to the unions as applied for, all kinds of creative reasons given and rubber stamped approved for payment. Former senior Treasury executive, Dr Des Moore, wrote a book on his experiences during the Labor Government years 1983 to 1996 and included “laundering of taxpayer’s monies” – close to $100 million over 13 years in grants to unions which were most often “donated” to the ALP directly or used to campaign for the ALP during election periods.
The Australian reported after the 2010 election, or around that time, that the unions spent around $20 million on the Kevin 07 campaign 2006/07 for the ALP and before the 2010 election that had been returned by way of grants.
31
“The Insanity of Base Load Wind Power”
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2017/09/the-insanity-of-base-load-wind-power.html
40
Apologies for being off-topic
Our very own BoM has finally updated its Tropical Cyclone Trends plot.
I’m not surprised that this plot had previously not been updated beyond 2010 as it shows NO INCREASE in either frequency or intensity.
60
There seems to be a steady decrease in Tropical Cyclone severity and frequency over the time period 1970-2017.
10
Clearly the Bom is not happy that the trends are as you highlight.
So far they haven’t changed or homogenised the cyclone data but they’ve put a lot of effort into the accompanying commentary (viewable at the BoM link above):
“Analysis of historical tropical cyclone data has limitations due to a number of changes in observing practices and technology that have occurred over time. With new and improved meteorological satellites our ability to detect tropical cyclones has improved, as has our ability to differentiate tropical cyclones from other tropical weather systems such as monsoon depressions, which in the past may have been incorrectly named as tropical cyclones. A particularly important change occurred in the late 1970s when regular satellite images became first available from geostationary satellites above the Earth’s equator.
The time series of analysed tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region (south of the equator; 90-160°E) show that the total number of cyclones appears to have decreased. However, there was a change to the definition for tropical cyclones in 1978 which led to some systems which would previously have been classified as tropical cyclones instead being considered sub-tropical systems. This contributes somewhat to the apparent decline in total numbers.
The number of severe tropical cyclones (minimum central pressure less than 970 hPa) is dominated by variability with periods of lower and higher frequencies of occurrence. There is less confidence in the earlier intensity data with continuous satellite coverage commencing in 1979.
Potential changes in tropical cyclone occurrence and intensity (a measure of wind speed alone rather than the amount of precipitation or coastal flooding) are discussed in CSIRO and BoM (2015: see Sections 4.2.7 and 7.3.2). There is substantial evidence from theory and model experiments that the large-scale environment in which tropical cyclones form and evolve is changing as a result of global warming. Projected changes in the number and intensity of tropical cyclones are subject to the sources of uncertainty inherent in climate change projections. There remains uncertainty in the future change in tropical cyclone frequency (the number of tropical cyclones in a given period) projected by climate models, with a general tendency for models to project fewer tropical cyclones in the Australia region in the future climate and a greater proportion of the high intensity storms (stronger wind speeds and heavier rainfall).
Wind speed is only one aspect of tropical cyclones and their impacts. The amount of heavy precipitation from all weather systems, including tropical cyclones, is likely to increase. Increased rainfall intensity from tropical cyclones is pertinent to Australia, since these storms have historically been associated with major flooding.
Additionally, increases in storm surges and extreme sea-levels are very likely to occur in association with tropical cyclones under future climate change. This change is independent of changes in tropical cyclone intensity and is directly related to increases in global mean sea-level due to global warming.
Projected changes in tropical cyclone characteristics are inherently tied to changes in large-scale patterns such as the El Niño – Southern Oscillation, changes in sea surface temperature and changes in deep convection. As global climate models improve, their simulation of tropical cyclones is expected to improve, thus providing greater certainty in projections of tropical cyclone changes in a warmer world.”
00
Their models illustrate a regional cooling trend in a ‘warmer world’, that can’t be right.
01
Pinching my ideas Jo! Read back some of my postings. If you want a real market then ditch the cross subsidy, just have four boxes, green (Wind, Solar), Blue (Hydro), Yellow (Gas), Black (coal) and against them put the price per kWh for each, then ask the poor suffering taxpayer to fill in percentages of each they want to buy – Now that’s a market.
60
no rush!
18 Sept: Irish Times: PA: ‘Cash for ash’ inquiry delayed until November
Renewable Heat Incentive scheme investigation had been due to open next month
The start of an inquiry into an ill-fated green energy scheme that triggered the collapse of powersharing in Northern Ireland has been delayed.
The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) inquiry being chaired by retired judge Patrick Coghlin, which had been due to open next month, will now commence hearings on November 7th.
DUP leader and former first minister Arlene Foster, whose role in the scheme was at the heart of the political row that triggered the collapse of powersharing at Stormont in January, is not anticipated to give evidence until the new year…
The volume of evidence being examined – now standing at ***880,000 pages – was one of the reasons he cited for the delay in commencing formal hearings.
“Clearly it is a mammoth task to review and assimilate this documentation,” he (Coghlin) said…
The state-funded RHI was established to incentivise businesses to shift to renewable energy sources by offering a proportion of the costs to run eco-friendly boilers.
But in Northern Ireland the subsidy tariffs were set too high and without a cap, so the state ended up paying out significantly more than the price of fuel.
This effectively enabled some applicants to “burn to earn” – getting free heat and making a profit as they did so.
Ms Foster had a central role in establishing the scheme during her time as Stormont minister for enterprise…
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/cash-for-ash-inquiry-delayed-until-november-1.3225397
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read all:
20 Sept: Daily Mail: Now that’s an inconvenient truth: Report shows the world isn’t as warm as the green doom-mongers warned. So will energy bills come down? Fat chance, says MP Graham Stringer
By Graham Stringer Labour MP And Member Of Commons Science And Technology Committee
Al Gore, the U.S. politician and self-appointed champion of the green cause, famously declared that ‘the science is settled’ on climate change.
It was a claim that revealed far more about the intolerance of the environmental movement than the reality of scientific inquiry.
Now the hollowness of Gore’s assertion is exposed again by a vital new report that shows how the apocalyptic predictions of the green lobby have been exaggerated.
In a study just published by the respected journal Nature Geoscience, a group of British academics reveals that the immediate threat from global warming is lower than previously thought, because the computer models used by climate change experts are flawed.
According to these models, temperatures across the world should now be at least 1.3 degrees above the mid-19th century average, which is taken as a base level in such calculations. But the British report demonstrates that the rise is only between 0.9 and 1 degree.
That discrepancy is ‘a big deal’, says Professor Myles Allen of Oxford University, one of the authors of the study. He is absolutely right.
The importance of this new investigation cannot be downplayed
It shows that so many of the assumptions behind the imposition of the fashionable eco agenda — such as the creation of vast, subsidised wind farms or the levying of green taxes — are wrong. Yet the environmental warriors show not a shred of embarrassment over these new findings.
Arrogance
There has been no word of apology, no sign of humility. Remarkably, they carry on preaching their diehard gospel. With their habitual arrogance, they argue that the lower levels of global warming mean that we now have even more time to implement their radical policies…
They display such certainty because environmentalism increasingly resembles a religious creed…
I was particularly intrigued by the infamous scandal at the Climatic Research Unit in the University of East Anglia in 2009, when a series of leaked emails appeared to show that scientists there had distorted historical research to suit the green narrative. As a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee, I followed the saga closely.
I was therefore disappointed when my colleagues on the Committee, having conducted an inquiry into the ‘Climategate’ scandal, did not come to a more robust conclusion about the scale of the scientific manipulation at the unit. Too many of them seemed to be following the herd.
But, as the latest report demonstrates, the weakness of the global warmists’ case is now obvious. This is not just a question of misreading data. It is essentially a matter of broken computer models and a determination to ignore any inconvenient truths
Phoney
If the environmentalists had it right, we would now be facing global catastrophe, a scorched Earth and rapidly rising sea levels. None of that has happened…
The triumph of the environmentalists has had an enormous and costly impact on our daily lives. Successive governments have brought in green taxes, hiked fuel duties and pushed up energy bills.
The real price is paid not by the eco justice warriors wallowing in their phoney moral superiority, but by people like those in my Blackley and Broughton constituency, who struggle to meet their household running costs…
This week’s scientific report should mark a return to environmental sanity in place of the current dangerous green fundamentalism.
But given my own experience, I wouldn’t bet on it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4901278/Report-shows-world-isn-t-warm-greens-warned.html
behind paywall:
20 Sept: UK Times: Letter from Graham Stringer: Climate change forecasts and the Paris goal
The real catastrophe is that my constituents, some of the poorest in the country, are paying the price for this arrogance when they receive energy bills inflated by unnecessary green supplements…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/climate-change-forecasts-and-the-paris-goal-tvl3zw0pg
30
Well, i reckon Tony will find the polling for best PM in the sidebar here of interest.
He’s a dead set runner is our Tones, and ready to save the nation by knifing daH Trembling Truffle!! 🙂
10
Another biased poll, nothing to see here.
Dutton is a clean skin and favoured to win if Talcum quits government, what portfolio should Tony get for his splendid effort over the years?
20
hopefully, Tony Abbott is being fully briefed on the following, because this study needs to be front and centre of his “Daring to Doubt” lecture at GWPF in London on October 9, if it is to be topical & relevant.
the Met Office basically admitting to the “pause” also needs to be incorporated into the lecture:
20 Sept: UK Sun: JAMES DELINGPOLE: How scientists got their global warming sums wrong — and created a £1TRILLION-a-year green industry that bullied experts who dared to question the figures
The scientists who produce those doomsday reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally come clean. The planet has stubbornly refused to heat up to predicted levels
I’VE just discovered the hardest word in science.
Not pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (inflammation of the lungs caused by inhalation of silica dust). Nor palmitoyloleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (a lipid bilayer found in nerve tissue).
No, the actual hardest word — which scientists use so rarely it might as well not exist — is “Sorry”.
Which is a shame because right now the scientists owe us an apology so enormous that I doubt even a bunch of two dozen roses every day for the rest of our lives is quite enough to make amends for the damage they’ve done.
Thanks to their bad advice on climate change our gas and electricity bills have rocketed.
So too have our taxes, our car bills and the cost of flying abroad, our kids have been brainwashed into becoming tofu-munching eco-zealots, our old folk have frozen to death in fuel poverty, our countryside has been blighted with ranks of space-age solar panels and bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes, our rubbish collection service hijacked by hectoring bullies, our cities poisoned with diesel fumes.
And all because a tiny bunch of scientists got their sums wrong and scared the world silly with a story about catastrophic man-made global warming.
In a new paper in the prestigious journal Nature Geoscience, the scientists who produce those doomsday reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have finally come clean — the computer models they’ve been using to predict runaway global warming are wrong, the planet has stubbornly refused to heat up anywhere near as much as they’d warned…
This war on CO2 has resulted in a massive global decarbonisation industry worth around $1.5trillion (£1.11trillion) a year. Though it has made a handful of green crony capitalists very rich, it has made most of us much poorer, by forcing us to use expensive “renewables” instead of cheap, abundant fossil fuels…READ ALL
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4503006/global-warming-sums-experts-bullies-james-delingpole-opinion/
31
Got their sums wrong?
Deliberately.
41
He must be joking …
PAUL KELLY
Green energy schemes contribute only a small fraction to high power prices. That’s the hard reality for Tony Abbott.
The Australian
51
And it’s lies like this from the MSM and ill informed pollies that are going to ruin our country .
50
‘Abbott in essence wants to recast the contest along exclusive lines as the Coalition’s belief in coal versus Labor’s faith in renewables. The conservative populists love the notion but it is a losing position at an election.’
Kelly is out of touch, this is the most important political issue of our time and brings the AGW monolith into question. Tony knows the science is crap, so we just need him to say CO2 does not cause global warming.
30
The Libs have been taking a lemming like suicide march on the back of this energy policy. Whilst Abbott and others crossing the floor can cause mayhem it won’t stop Turnball from getting bipartisan support for a Clean Energy Target. Turnbull chose Finkel to do the report because it would give him the firepower to bring a CET in. I hope I’m wrong and Turnbull doesn’t try and shove something through with support from Labor and /or the Greens but frankly I don’t trust him.
50
DAVID CROWE
Australian factories are at risk of shutting down as gas exporters starve local customers, says the ACCC.
The Australian
21
20,000 pumped hydro sites to fix the baseload power requirements in oz , we only need two probably three decent sized coal fired plants at the moment .
The cost of a new pumped hydro setup would surely be similar to a coal plant .
10
They are inefficient and could only be for back up when peak demand periods take place.
Australia does not have the water resources for many efficient hydro power stations .
01
There is a lot of hype about Zen Energy and Sanjeev Gupta. Powering steel plants with renewables. Does anyone know if this is real or some kind of scam? If true, it provides warmists lots of ammo.
30
If it is real it’s probably only going to happen here in Australia. Everywhere else they are building hundreds of coal fired power stations to provide less costly base load power. For whatever reason this country is committing economic suicide. It can only stop if we get a new leader in the now defunct LNP.
40
Yes, the South Korea ship building industry has been a huge success based on Australian iron ore and coal.
21
Paul Kelly in the Australian this morning
– “Tony Abbott’s threat to cross the floor depends ultimately on whether his new position on energy can save the government’s political fortunes — and that is dubious in the extreme.”
– “Reality check for Abbott: no silver bullet in a war on renewables”
– “Abbott’s appeal to the conservative base will be powerful but the message from Sims is obvious: don’t be fooled into thinking there is a silver bullet answer.”
He is completely wrong. Kelly does not understand the RET. In fact few do.
o Why should the largest cheapest supplier at 4c kw/hr close when the public is paying 40c kw/hr?
o Why should we suddenly pay triple for our own coal?
o Why should billions of dollars go overseas for nothing?
o Why should we pay for strangers and capitalists to own windmills and solar systems whose power we are obliged to buy at a huge markup.
o As Abbott says, why should we be the world’s biggest exporter of coal and cheap, clean power for the last twenty years but legally unable to use it ourselves?
Remove the RET and there is no bullet involved. The RET (Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2000) is the driver of the massive imbalance in between gas/oil/coal and wind and solar. How many people, including Kelly, have even read the Act. It is not about targets. That was bolted on later as a distraction.
The RET is the problem, designed to cripple all forms of ‘fossil fuels’, enriching strangers on order from our Federal government. Under British tradition, it is utterly improper if not illegal. A challenge to the High court could see it struck down as it is not a tax at all, more mandated extortion. A gift ordered to any carpetbagger prepared to build, own and operate a windmill with our money. Renewable, eternal cash.
However Kelly, who like Savva is always attacking Abbott, even lectures him on the failure of any attempt to touch the RET. Kelly is utterly wrong. Whoever brings down the RET, the giant hidden carbon tax will take the wind out of the sails of the Greens and Labor. They will romp home. South Australians are sick of this. So are Tasmanians. People cannot afford to live in their own state, thanks to some notion of saving the world.
Random power is no substitute for coal. We, the plants and the trees, all life on earth is made from Carbon Dioxide and Water. That is what we are. Combustion, fast or slow, jet engines or just rotting and decay, is perfectly natural return of rotted plant matter.
What is wrong with Kelly? Can’t he see that. Or is it just the Anti Abbott camp speaking. The Black Hand.
71
My point is that the domination of the Senate by the Greens is currently under threat in South Australia and Tasmania, as if Xenophon has not shown that. It is not about Labor vs Liberals any more, but eco madness vs sensible environmentalism. For all the pain and suffering and personal disasters in South Australian and Tasmania, now is the time for the Liberals to rally against crippling Green extremism.
However Malcolm and his Black Hand friends want an additional Emissions Control Scheme or CPRS or whatever he calls his ETS now. By Emissions he means Carbon Dioxide. Only a lawyer or Goldman Sachs banker would think this made sense. The Liberal/National Party is heading for catastrophic defeat. Malcolm will just walk away. Job done.
81
Your right TdeF , the liberals will tear themselves apart on this issue alone giving labor and the greens a free pass at the next election , sure you can change the top dog but the chain remains the same .
40
Consider this important factor, as recently put forward by former PM John Howard who happens to be an astute voting trends observer and estimator:
In the past 80 per cent of voters gave their primary vote to the major parties but now the number is 60 per cent.
In other words the minor parties and independents are supported by 40 per cent of the voting population.
The next election will not be a walk in victory for either formerly major side.
40
‘The Liberal/National Party is heading for catastrophic defeat. Malcolm will just walk away. Job done.’
I see Malcolm walking before Xmas and the new PM taking the Coalition to a stunning victory at the next election.
Tony won’t have to cross the floor.
30
Fairy Power, apparently gifted to the extreme Greens by the fairies down the bottom of former Greens leader Bob Brown’s Tasmanian garden.
Reported years ago as the place where the Greens go for meditation and consultation.
11
Are you sure that’s politically correct? Also I thought the Green Fairy was absinthe?
21
Loussikian omits the 16 percent for “green schemes”:
21 Sept: Daily Telegraph: KYLAR LOUSSIKIAN: Electricity prices force families to choose between power and health
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said he doubted Mr Abbott would cross the floor and hand power to Labor.
“I think that no matter what sort of statement’s been made, they know full well that the best form of government you have is one where people actually understand business are operating the show,” Mr Joyce said.
Mr Sims, who is currently undertaking an investigation into AGL and other major energy companies and their practices, said power prices had doubled, even taking into account inflation over the last decade.
“Of those price increases, over 40 per cent is due to network prices. Then you have got higher retail costs and margins which have contributed 24 per cent,” he told the National Press Club.
The stoush over electricity prices also comes as Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg is handed a report which shows there are 8600 sites in the state (NSW) that could be dammed to provide new low-cost, large-scale hydro power.
“Investing in renewable storage technologies, such as pumped hydro and batteries, will play a key role into securing an affordable and reliable energy network in Australia,” Mr Frydenberg said.
Those sites, about 22,000 across the country, are away from major population areas and from national parks, Australian National University researchers conducting the work for the government said.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/electricity-prices-force-families-to-choose-between-power-and-health/news-story/7831e7ff1ce071f9782c329a556646f8
21 Sept: BrisbaneTimes: Peter Martin: Death Spiral: why electricity prices are set to climb ever higher
Most of each electricity bill is the cost of the network – poles, wires and transformers. The companies that own them are necessarily monopolies, often government-owned. What they can charge is regulated, but since the late 2000s, regulated to their extraordinary advantage…
In 2010 demand per residential customer slid 4.4 per cent in NSW and 0.7 per cent in Victoria. Then 2.1 per cent and 5.4 per cent, and so on.
Seven years on, NSW consumers use 17 per cent less than they did in 2009, Victorian customers 15 per cent less…
Competition and Consumer Commission chief Rod Sims told the Press Club on Wednesday that network charges were by far the biggest driver of electricity price increases, accounting for 41 per cent. Retail margins account for 24 per cent, generation 19 per cent, and green schemes 16 per cent. Yet it’s the green schemes about which our leaders most often speak…
The national broadband network is about to face it big time. Costing billions to build and having to charge billions to break even, for many city users it’ll be uncompetitive with 4G and 5G. As they go wireless, it will have to charge more to those who remain, and so on. It’s a design flaw. Private health funds face adverse selection too…
And public schools…
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/why-electricity-prices-are-set-to-climb-ever-higher-20170920-gykx0w.html
00
some coal and steel will be used, but the “green” bit will be for recycled steel. Ross Garnaut, Zen Energy Chairman, on how Zen can deliver green, reliable power which will be much cheaper etc. Tony Wood, Grattan has his say;
***Labor will help Turnbull get a CET through Parliament:
VIDEO: 6mins24secs: 20 Sept: ABC 7.30 Report: David Lipson: Can renewable energy power a steel mill?
Despite Tony Abbott’s assertion that it can’t be done, the new owner of the Whyalla steel mill is teaming up with renewable provider, Zen Energy, and banking that renewable energy can provide clean power for steel production.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/can-renewable-energy-power-a-steel-mill/8965796
AUDIO: 9mins20secs: 20 Sept: 3AW: ACCC Chair Rod Sims talks to Steve (Price) about how energy affordability has gone from being a source of economic advantage for Australia to the opposite.
http://www.3aw.com.au/podcast/australians-choosing-between-paying-medical-or-electricity-bills/
10
What a break through, they should lead the world and put other steel manufacturers out of business with green steel
20
62 precent OZ ?
In America the poles said that Hilary Clinton would win ?
This did not happen
There are so many Australians who do not want to pay for Renewables
then why are there so many Australians voting for renewables.
Does this mean the that public no longer answers truthfully ?
30
Maybe the pollsters are related to BoM/CSIRO climate change creators?
21
All this talk of pumped hydro has sheeple oohing and aahing in wonder of this free and green energy , no mention of the power required to pump the water back up the hill vs the power generated .
And where would the power come from to pump the water back up the hill , I have a cunning plan to just build a coal fired generator to pump all that water back up the hill .
20
For starters Robert SA has no elevated land worth considering and secondly we are the driest State in the driest continent. Now those of you living near the Great Dividing range or similar have to consider how soon and how the Hell you’re going to get the NIMBYS to agree to flood their local elevated valley with sea water, as doing it with desal water is the equivalent of digging holes and filling them in again.
Pumped hydro! When was the last time even a modest fresh water dam got built in this country?
30
Pumped hydro is part of the problem not part of the solution, yes there are plenty dam sites along the great dividing range and commonsense will tell you that these dams if allowed to be made could be used for flood mitigation and storing water for the inevitable droughts this country has .
00
I see the ABC is now pushing the 100% renewables & pumped storage utopian dream now:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-21/pumped-hydro-renewable-energy-sites-australia-anu-research/8966530
Good luck:
1) Getting sufficient dams built.
2) Getting enough land for the millions of windmills and solar panels required.
3) Maintaining a stable grid with 100% renewables.
4) Doing all the above at a cost that isn’t orders of magnitude higher than fossil fuel energy.
50
Don’t you just love that cute cutaway diagram of ‘How pumped hydro works’ showing the concrete reservoir containing all the salt water when in reality the developers will be looking to dam and flood elevated valleys to achieve the volumes of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. It’s a lot like the SSM debate with show us your legislation you say will protect the rights of traditionalists. ie Show us the valleys and the costs of flooding them with sea water with and without the concrete lining or give us some of what you’re smoking.
40
They could desalinate the salt water with the electricity produced.
sarc
21
Mr Abbott said: “We have to respect people who have made investments in the existing system. We don’t want additional sovereign risk factors bedevilling our economy.”
This is rubbish. Subsidies can’t possibly be forever. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing private companies. Scrap the RET and set a date when ALL subsidies will be removed. Taxpayers funds are not a bottomless pit. The whole idea of government subsidies for companies is flawed.
30
Agree on all you said but the government will never run out of money , they’ll just borrow more .
00
I have a question about the ozone layer – had a discuission with a project manager ( another re-tasked Engineer in our office… ) who believed in CAGW.
He said “Hey we stopped CFCs, kids dont get cancer any more”
Er…pardon…?
I kept the look of incredulousness on my face long enough to make him back-track a bit, however I found this :
http://www.joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
I was wondering where current research is up to on this topic, as summer is coming an no doubt it will be dragged out. I’d also like to be able to burst the CFC nonsense-bubble too….
Thanks.
30
You have no hope when Engineers Australia has an ideological AGW policy and its periodical is full of renewables rubbish.
41
What age group, and where did they graduate from?
12
Probably late 30s….
Is there anything more recent than 2015 on the debunking of the ozone hole?
30
Engineers Australia has been taken over by Environmental Engineers. More environmentalists than engineers. There would be a lot of cultural marxism in their curriculum. Normal engineers are too busy working to be involved in their association.
21
19 Sept: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: Lindsey Graham Joins Dems In Calling For A Carbon Tax
“I’m a Republican. I believe that the greenhouse effect is real, that CO2 emissions generated by man is creating our greenhouse gas effect that traps heat, and the planet is warming,” Graham told an audience at a Yale University event hosted by former Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday.
“A price on carbon—that’s the way to go in my view,” Graham said, according to Time (LINK).
Graham is working with Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on carbon tax legislation, making him one of the few Republicans — possibly the only in the Senate — to explicitly endorse a carbon tax. Graham also worked with Democrats on cap-and-trade legislation in 2010.
Carbon tax legislation is still unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Congress, but activists will no doubt see Graham’s endorsement as a big win…
Sen. Whitehouse introduced carbon tax legislation with Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz in July to tax emissions at $49 per ton in 2018. The rising tax is expected to raise $2.1 trillion over 10 years, they said, which would be used to lower corporate taxes and pay for more tax credits.
Whitehouse and Schatz both said they were in talks on carbon tax legislation with several Republican lawmakers in both chambers of Congress.
Graham is apparently one of those pro-carbon tax Republicans. There are also 28 Republican lawmakers on the House Climate Solutions Caucus that have so far been silent on a carbon tax but could possibly be convinced to support such a policy…
Republicans passed a party platform in 2016 that opposed global warming taxes. President Donald Trump also came out against a carbon tax on the campaign trail. Conservative groups oppose the tax largely on grounds that it would grow the government and raise energy prices…
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign didn’t propose a carbon tax, in part, because higher energy costs didn’t poll well…
Earlier this year, a group of former GOP officials with the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) met with White House officials to push their own carbon tax plan — one that looks very similar to one Clinton toyed with…
CLC is a strategic partner with the World Resources Institute (WRI), an environmental group, and is funded by major oil companies, including BP, ExxonMobil, Total and Royal Dutch Shell.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/19/lindsey-graham-joins-dems-in-calling-for-a-carbon-tax/
00
20 Sept: Yale: Mike Cummings: Kerry-led conference sets climate-change agenda
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ’66 opened the Yale Climate Conference this week by comparing the threat of rising global temperatures to the danger posed by a rogue state acquiring nuclear weapons…
“We are here because too many politicians who have a responsibility to defend our nation and the planet are hardly doing so by ignoring the devastating impact of climate change,” he said, calling climate change “a silent killer that compounds its destructive power daily and threatens the lives of literally billions of people.”…
“We are not here to debate the science,” Kerry said. “We are here to lay out an agenda, and to measure where we are, where have to go, and how to get there.”
The nonpartisan conference’s five sessions, each moderated by Kerry, were open to the Yale community. They featured prominent leaders from business and public sectors, representing both major political parties, who have committed themselves to fighting climate change. The sessions, which all drew large crowds, approached the topic from specific angles, such as the future of energy policy, bipartisan approaches to confronting the challenge, and state and local efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Panelists included Ernest Moniz, former U.S. secretary of energy; Henry Paulson Jr., former U.S. secretary of the treasury; James A. Baker, former U.S. secretary of state; California Governor Jerry Brown; Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo; Jeffrey Immelt, chair of the board of General Electric; and Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio, an environmental activist and U.N. Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change…
The session included recorded messages by Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham calling on their colleagues in Washington to address climate change…
https://news.yale.edu/2017/09/20/kerry-led-conference-sets-climate-change-agenda
00
Have a look at Wikipedia – Euro 5 & 6 and compare petrol and diesel emissions.
And;
Electrification
As Europe’s requirements for its vehicle fleets head toward a goal of 98 grams of CO2 per kilometer by 2020, Christian Maloney of the German office of consulting group McKinsey & Co. says the only way the automakers can get there and make money is with plug-in vehicles.
Many EU member states have responded to this problem by exploring the possibility of including electric vehicle-related infrastructure into their existing road traffic system, with some even having begun implementation. The UK has begun its “plugged-in-places” scheme which sees funding go to several areas across the UK in order to create a network of charging points for electric vehicles.
21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards
01
Consider the green planning;
1. Ban leaded petrol in favour of unleaded
2. Ban diesel containing sulphur
3. Promote diesel sales for better fuel efficiency
4. Ban diesel engines
5. Ban petrol engines unless used as a hybrid generator power pack
6. Ban all of the above
7. Legislate for EV only
8. Ban private ownership of EV
9. Offer EV for short term hire or long term lease only
10. Count profit from each of the above.
Now that’s taken care of the crony capitalists.
22
Did anyone notice the increase in the average IQ of the western world’s major cities when tetraethyl lead was removed from gasoline.
I didn’t.
If anything the average IQ went down!!!
10
21 Sept: TownsvilleBulletin: Butler called a ‘hypocrite’ on energy
by DOMANII CAMERON
FEDERAL Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman has been slammed as a hypocrite for opposing Adani’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility loan application while supporting a $60 million concessional loan for a multinational renewable energy project.
Mark Butler was in Townsville yesterday for an energy roundtable with Herbert MP Cathy O’Toole.
When asked for his stance on Adani’s Carmichael coal mine, Mr Butler said: “Federal Labor is steadfastly opposed to taxpayers’ money being given to a multinational company to build a private sector operation like a coal mine.”..
“Frankly that should stand or fall on its own merits,” Mr Butler said…
However, when asked whether an outback solar farm owned by Saudi Arabian billionaire Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel should have received a concessional loan from the Federal Government, Mr Butler said the project was part of a renewable energy target.
“Well, this is a project that is part of a renewable energy target which was directed particularly at pulling through technology in areas where they weren’t able to stand on their own two feet,” he said.
“There were 173 nations in the world that have RETs that were directed at one thing, and that’s to ensure that renewable energy, particularly solar and wind technology, would get to the point of being able to compete on its feet in a market.
***“We’re now at a point where solar and wind in Australia are now cheaper than old-school technology and they will be able to compete in a structured market.”
The Moree solar farm, in northern NSW, has received a taxpayer-funded grant of $101.7 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and a $60m concessional loan from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Coalition Senator Matt Canavan said Mr Butler’s comments highlighted Labor’s “rampant hypocrisy”.
“They’re happy to gift an oil sheik hundreds of millions of dollars to produce renewables but they won’t even consider an investment loan to support our second biggest export industry, coal,” he said.
“They’re too focused on green votes that they ignore North Queensland.”…
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/butler-called-a-hypocrite-on-energy/news-story/ca6c786e10ebadc059ba3d89fb952383
00
Here’s an idea , scrap all subsidies across the board for electrical generation, then introduce a 4 cent per mwh incentive/subsidy for any generating station that provides 24/7 baseload power .
10
20 Sept: Guardian: George Monbiot: Who’s the world’s leading eco-vandal? It’s Angela Merkel
Ignore her reputation for supporting green initiatives. The German chancellor’s record on environmental policy has been a disaster
What? Have I lost my mind? Angela Merkel, the “climate chancellor”? The person who, as German environment minister, brokered the first UN climate agreement, through sheer force of will? The chancellor who persuaded the G7 leaders to promise to phase out fossil fuels by the end of this century? The architect of Germany’s Energiewende – its famous energy transition? Yes, the very same.
***Unlike Trump, she has no malicious intent…
Merkel has a fatal weakness: a weakness for the lobbying power of German industry. Whenever a crucial issue needs to be resolved, she weighs her ethics against political advantage, and chooses the advantage. This, in large part, is why Europe now chokes in a fug of diesel fumes…
Even now, two years after the dieselgate scandal broke, Merkel has continued to defend diesel engines…
But this could be the least of the environmental disasters she has engineered…
…her blunt refusal – supported by the usual diplomatic bullying – to accept proposed improvements in engine standards forced the European commission to find another means of reducing greenhouse gases. It chose, disastrously, to replace fossil fuel with biofuels, a switch Merkel has vociferously defended.
Merkel and the European commission ignored repeated warnings that the likely consequences would include malnutrition and massive environmental destruction, as land was converted from forests or food crops to fuel production. The European biofuel rule is now a major driver of one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters: the razing of the Indonesian rainforests and their replacement with oil palm…
Not only has this wiped out vast and magnificent ecosystems, and the orangutans, tigers, rhinos, gibbons and thousands of other species they supported; but it has also, by burning trees and oxidising peat, caused emissions far higher than those produced by fossil fuels…
Is this the worst? It is hard to rank such crimes against the biosphere, but perhaps the most embarrassing is Germany’s shocking failure, despite investing hundreds of billions of euros, to decarbonise its electricity system. While greenhouse gas emissions in other European nations have fallen sharply, in Germany they have plateaued.
The reason is, once more, Merkel’s surrender to industrial lobbyists. Her office has repeatedly blocked the environment ministry’s efforts to set a deadline for an end to coal power. Coal, especially lignite, which vies with Canadian tar sands for the title of the world’s dirtiest fuel, still supplies 40% of Germany’s electricity…
She has announced that “coal will remain a pillar of German energy supply for a prolonged time span”…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/19/world-leading-eco-vandal-angela-merkel-german-environmental
00
It would be an interesting exercise to work out all costs and feasibility of disconnecting a home from the electricity grid and using solar, battery pack and a stand by portable petrol generator for extended cloudy periods.
We know it is possible and there are already properties in country locations with no connection.
With ever increasing electricity pricing and so far no end in sight isn’t time for rebellion?
The industry has given us the world’s highest pricing already.
11
For example, I have one half of the house roof facing north and a large shed with roof facing east on side and west on the other with power supply connected to the house switchboard. I was thinking about solar panels as calculated for my requirements and some spare on a couple of locations, probably the east of shed and the north of house with battery pack cabinet attached to the shed where the portable petrol generator is stored.
02
Itd perfectly feasible and financially sensible, even without the battery…which is the most expensive component….and remaining grid tied to “store” the excess power you produce during sunlight periods.
You just need enough north facing roof space , or garden for a “pole mounted ” system.
The cost is currently low..$5k will get you a system fully installed .with about a 5 yr payback.
Its another +$12k for a battery if you want to go off grid, but that blows the payback out to 15+ yrs.
10
Thank you Chad
00
The other option would be forklift truck lead acid batteries.
00
Please consider sealed AGM or valve vented lead acid for any stationary storage I now have 7.2kWh storage for $500 that I picked up from reclaimed freight with free shipping. 4@ 150 A/h each, but 36kg each!
00
Yes many options if you have the skills and know how and are prepared to DIY an off grid system.
I was only considering commercial , fully approved options..
If i were to go fully off grid, my prefered battery option would be a recycled 16kWh GM Volt lithium car EV pack..about $3k .
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20 Sept: TheAmericanInterest: Jamie Horgan: Examining the Energiewende: Germany Will Miss Another Green Goal
Berlin’s grand green energy transition is falling short of the lofty targets that inspired it. Earlier this month, the think tank Agora Energiewende released a report that projected Germany would fall well short of its goal to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—far shorter than was previously believed. Berlin had committed to cutting 40 percent of its GHG emissions by 2020 as compared to 1990 levels, but as that year looms large, the country has achieved a reduction of “just” 28 percent (a remarkable decrease, though nowhere close to the target), and it’s expected to only shave off another 2 or 3 percent over the next few years. Now, a new study from the BEE renewable energy group suggests that the country is going to fall short of its Brussels-set target of sourcing 18 percent of its energy production from renewables by 2020…
According to BEE, Germany’s green energy will amass “just” 16 percent (again, this is by itself a remarkable number, but it’s still off the targeted pace) of the country’s energy consumption by 2020, short of the 16.7 percent level that was previously forecasted, and shorter still of the 18 percent goal. BEE seems to lay the blame at the feet of “increased consumption in the heating, transport and electricity sector,” but that doesn’t tell the full story.
The only way Germany has been able to jumpstart its wind and solar power sectors so effectively has been through the use of feed-in tariffs—a form of government subsidization, in which Germany guarantees renewable power producers locked in, long-term, above-market rates for their supplies. These feed-in tariffs were wildly effective, but they were also costly, and they were ultimately paid by consumers in the form of a line item green surcharge on power bills that ended up making German electricity some of the most costly in Europe…
Expensive power is harmful for households and businesses alike, and its effects are most keenly felt by the poor, for whom the power bill represents a larger slice of the monthly budget…READ ON
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/09/20/germany-will-miss-another-green-goal/
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The sky is falling…the sky is falling!!!!!! Oh hang on…its volcanos?
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/global-mass-extinction-set-to-begin-by-2100-study-finds/ar-AAshjOR?li=AAgfYrC&ocid=mailsignout
“Planet Earth appears to be on course for the start of a sixth mass extinction of life by about 2100 because of the amount of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere, according to a mathematical study of the five previous events in the last 540 million years.
Professor Daniel Rothman, co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lorenz Centre, theorised that disturbances in the natural cycle of carbon through the atmosphere, oceans, plant and animal life played a role in mass die-offs of animals and plants.
So he studied 31 times when there had been such changes and found four out of the five previous mass extinctions took place when the disruption crossed a “threshold of catastrophic change”.
The worst mass extinction of all – the so-called Great Dying some 248 million years ago when 96 per cent of species died out – breached one of these thresholds by the greatest margin.
Based on his analysis of these mass extinctions, Professor Rothman developed a mathematical formula to help predict how much extra carbon could be added to the oceans – which absorb vast amounts from the atmosphere – before triggering a sixth one.
The answer was alarming.
For the figure of 310 gigatons is just 10 gigatons above the figure expected to be emitted by 2100 under the best-case scenario forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The worst-case scenario would result in more than 500 gigatons.
Some scientists argue that the sixth mass extinction has already effectively begun. While the total number of species that have disappeared from the planet comes nowhere near the most apocalyptic events of the past, the rate of species loss is comparable.
Professor Rothman stressed that mass extinctions did not necessarily involve dramatic changes to the carbon cycle – as shown by the absence of this during the Late Devonian extinction more than 360 million years ago.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, he noted that events such as volcanic eruptions, climate change and other environmental factors could also play a role.”
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20 Sept: CleanTechnica: Saurabh Mahapatra: SkyPower Global May Lose 100 Megawatts Of Solar Projects In India
SkyPower Global has found itself in a legal tussle with the government of Madhya Pradesh and could end up losing two of the three 50 megawatt solar power projects it won in the state’s competitive auction…
While MPPMCL claims that the company failed to commission the project within the stipulated 16 months, SkyPower claims that it had completed the projects on time and had even submitted an application for grid connection four days before it received the project termination order…
All the projects were secured at tariffs around Rs 5.00/kWh (7.8¢/kWh) which are among the lowest solar tariffs in India at that time.
Another solar power project developer, ReNew Power Ventures has also been served a termination letter for its 51 megawatt project. MPPMCL claims that ReNew Power failed to complete land acquisition on time. The company, however, claims that it managed to achieve commercial operation on time…
Solar power tariffs in India have collapsed by around 73% since 2010, making solar power one of the cheapest sources of electricity in the country. This, however, seems to have caused a major disruption in operations of power utilities across India. There have been repeated cases where power utilities have forced solar power project operators to reduce their generation citing lack of transmission capacity, or have delayed monthly payments against the power generated.
More recently, power utilities have unilaterally initiated processes to renegotiate tariffs for projects auctioned several months back. Utilities in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand forced the developers to reduce tariffs. Utilities in Andhra Pradesh recently refused to sign a power purchase agreement with a 350 megawatt solar project despite being one of the lowest priced projects in the country, stating that they had already contracted enough solar power to meet its renewable purchase obligations.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/20/skypower-global-may-lose-100-megawatt-solar-projects-india/
20 Sept: MoneyControl: Gujarat govt’s solar auction sees lowest winning tariff of Rs 2.65/unit
The remaining projects were won by NYSE-listed Azure Power, one of the largest solar developers in the country, which also bid Rs 2.67 per kwH.
This price is the among the lowest bids concluded in India — the lowest being one concluded in May this year for a Rajasthan project, at Rs 2.44.
The winning bid at the latest auction held was expected to be higher, as solar radiation in Gujarat is not as intense as radiation in Rajasthan…
Also, developers in Gujarat will not be provided land in solar parks – they will have to acquire land by themselves. To add to that, the cost of solar modules in China has risen from where 90% Indian solar companies imported their equipment. These costs were not as high before…ETC
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/low-winning-tariff-of-rs-2-65unit-seen-at-gujarat-auction-2392309.html
19 Sept: India Times: Maoists Blow Up Tata’s Solar Power Plant In Bihar
Maoists have allegedly blown up a solar power plant in Bihar’s Gaya district, damaging its control room and workers’ accommodation unit
Apparently, irked over non-payment of levy, the Maoists detonated an Improvised Explosive Device in the premises of the Tata Power-owned solar power plant yesterday night, Assistant Superintendent of Police Arun Kumar Singh said.
Maoists had earlier demanded a levy of Rs 1 crore from the company, but its executives refused to make the payment.
The control room and workers’ accommodation unit of the plant were gutted, he said…
http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/maoists-blow-up-tata-s-solar-power-plant-in-bihar-330058.html
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What is a fair and logical model for charging the consumer for electricity?
In Australia it seems to be a per kW/h charge plus a daily “service charge”.
Just like the purchase of any other commodity whether it be petrol (gasoline) or concrete, it should be solely based on the amount purchased with no service charge.
What do you think?
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No idea why, but I have all my power bills going back to 2009, so it was an easy thing to do a comparison.
The cost for power on that oldest 2009 Bill was 14.8 cents/KWH
The most recent power bill see the cost at 25.9 cents/KWH
However there are two other very subtle changes.
The 2009 bill has a service charge at a flat rate of $17.07 for the 90 day billing period.
The current bill sees that service charge at 89.572 cents per day, so for the usual 90 day billing period, that sees that Service Charge now as $80.62.
And then, on top of that, there is now what they refer to as a Meter Service Charge, a flat $10 fee.
So, whereas once that service fee was just $17.07, it has now risen to a combined $90, so that has increased by a factor of five.
It’s clever the way they find new and innovative ways to hike the price.
When comparing that old bill from 2009 to the most recent one, perhaps the most astonishing thing for me anyway was the amount of power I actually consumed.
In 2009 for that 90 days, the average was 24.51KWH per day.
This most recent bill, the average for 90 days was 24.35KWH per day.
All but exactly the same.
Tony.
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Those prices are much cheaper than Victoriastan.
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So, at what point is going off grid a financial reality?
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I see where you are coming from but you are also accessing a service infrastructure and there are costs associated with that. You can, of course, toss those costs somehow into the kW/h charge but it would be a complicated formula that could not simply be linear or ignorant of location.
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lengthy, a must read, chart with figures:
20 Sept: Newsbusters: Aly Nielsen: $341 Million Powers NonProfits That Tie Hurricanes to Climate Change
Left-wing environmental groups peddle global warming alarmism all the time, especially during major hurricane devastation. Turns out those same green groups saw a lot of the other kind of green in the past two years — $341 million in donations to just seven organizations.
Groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Democracy Now! And Union of Concerned Scientists, which get big bucks from billionaires like George Soros and the Rockefellers, all tried to link Hurricanes Harvey and Irma to manmade climate change from carbon dioxide and “fossil fuels.”…
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the very agency that monitors and forecasts hurricanes, said on its website “it is premature” to link hurricane intensity to climate change. That didn’t stop those liberal nonprofits from declaring there was a connection…
During Harvey and Irma, the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, 350.org and Democracy now! made sweeping assertions about climate change, including “climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly” and fossil fuel use “supercharges” hurricanes. 350.org even advocated creating a new Category 6 for “super storms that are emerging in our changed climate.” …
Some of the most notable donors included Open Society Foundations and Open Society Institute (two foundations run by left wing billionaire George Soros), the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Tides Foundation. Many of those foundations gave to multiple left-wing, environmental non-profits. In fact, Union of Concerned Scientists was the only one of the seven organizations Rockefeller groups did not fund in in 2014 and 2015…
Greenpeace, which received more than $17 million in 2014 and 2015, directly contradicted NOAA’s statement on Aug. 28…READ ALL
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/aly-nielsen/2017/09/20/nonprofits-tie-hurricanes-climate-change-got-341m-two-years
too depressing to link to the propaganda pieces, but note how no-one connecting the hurricane to CAGW is designated “leftwing”, an “advocate” or a “believer” but, once you get to Matt Ridley & others near the end, it’s “conservative”, “other rightwing commentators”, and “skeptics”:
12 Sept: CarbonBrief: Media reaction: Hurricane Irma and climate change
Multiple authors
Irma reignited the media discussion sparked by Harvey about the role of climate change in such intense storms. Carbon Brief looks back at how the media covered the destruction that Irma caused, where climate change fits in, and the political fallout on both sides of the Atlantic…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/media-reaction-hurricane-irma-climate-change
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as if the MSM isn’t left-leaning enough, imagine when this google-back thousand get deployed! can u imagine a CAGW sceptic among them? read all:
18 Sept: Columbia Journalim Review: Public-service journalism program pitched in CJR lands funding
By Steven Waldman and Charles M. Sennott
(Steven Waldman and Charles M. Sennott are the co-founders of Report for America. Sennott is founder and CEO of The GroundTruth Project and co-founder of GlobalPost as well as a longtime reporter for the Boston Globe. Waldman is founder of Beliefnet.com, LifePosts.com, and author of books about both local news and AmeriCorps)
There’s widespread agreement in the news media that the crisis in journalism threatens democracy…
In a 2015 CJR article (LINK), we sketched the broad strokes of the idea. Remarkably, the concept is becoming a reality (LINK), launched today at the Google News Lab Summit, as an initiative of the GroundTruthProject, Google, and others…
Report for America will deploy an emerging generation of journalists in communities around the country doing civically important reporting in local newsrooms. Ultimately, RFA will put at least 1,000 local reporters on the ground…
The national Report for America program will provide 50 percent of the cost to fund the annual salary for a local reporter. The local news organization and local donors will each provide 25 percent…
And it’s time for national philanthropies and local communities to support these efforts.
https://www.cjr.org/local_news/report-for-america.php
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People who talk about sustainability often miss the single best metric we have of the net scarcity of resources that goes into any product: price. I am always amazed when people point at a much much higher price version of some product and claim that it is more sustainable. How can this possibly be? Assuming the profit margins are relatively similar, the higher priced product has to be using more and scarcer resources. How is that more sustainable (I will perhaps grant the exception that certain emissions are not properly priced into some products).
To this end, wind power is much more expensive than, say, power from modern natural gas generation plants, even if one factors in a $30 a ton or so cost of CO2 emissions. This has to make us suspicious that maybe it is not really more “sustainable”.
Wind turbines, apart from the fibreglass blades, are made mostly of steel, with concrete bases. They need about 200 times as much material per unit of capacity as a modern combined cycle gas turbine. Steel is made with coal, not just to provide the heat for smelting ore, but to supply the carbon in the alloy. Cement is also often made using coal. The machinery of ‘clean’ renewables is the output of the fossil fuel economy, and largely the coal economy.
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I liked the last sentence.
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SIMON BENSON
Australians are paying twice as much as Canadians for electricity and 60 per cent more than Americans.
The Australian
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