The current state of the Renewable Crash Test Dummy Transition
Everyone who can add up in Australia knows it can’t work, but the climate of fear stops them saying so. Last month a senior energy industry executive told the Australian Financial Review quietly that everyone believes [the 2030 target] will be missed, but nobody wants to say it. Apparently, even executives are being coerced into silence for fear of retribution. The insider referred to the “discretion” Ministers have on project approvals. It’s like a national mafia racket: “Nice business you have there — shame if you couldn’t get the permit”. So the Labor Party sets itself up to fail by silencing the people it could be listening to — as if the electricity will still be there when the turbines stop turning.
To put the size of the moonshot in perspective, even Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen himself said the nation must “install 22,000 500-watt solar panels every day for eight years along with 40 seven-megawatt wind turbines every month”. In toto, we are supposed to build 44GW of “renewables” by 2030.
Instead of this frenetic pace, renewable energy investment ground to a near halt in the last quarter in Australia. What was a rolling $1.2 billion quarterly commitment slipped back to just $225 million as we run out of land near interconnectors, and approvals are delayed for new transmission lines. We “need” some 10,000 kilometers of high voltage lines, but farmers are angry the giant metal towers will devalue their properties, make it harder to farm, ruin their views, and increase fire risks. Other people are starting to wonder if we should carve up national parks with tower lines too. The real cost of all the infrastructure that unreliable low density energy needs is just starting to burn.
Then to top it all off, an expert analysis has spotted a $60 billion dollar hole in the magical Renewable fairy plan, which, if correct, amounts to about $5,600 in costs for every household in Australia that no one has budgeted for.
Way off the pace’: Just four green energy projects reached sign off
Angela Macdonald-Smith, AFR
Only four renewable energy projects reached financial close in the three months to the end of June, extending a dearth in commitments to new wind and solar farms just when the buildout is supposed to be accelerating to allow polluting coal generators to shut down. The low level of project go-aheads – for reasons including planning approval delays and grid bottlenecks – came after no wind and solar projects at all reached financial sign-off in the March quarter, the Clean Energy Council says.
The addition of just 348 megawatts of capacity into the development phase in the April-June period …
According to Rystad Energy analysis, between 3.5 gigawatts and 4 GW of new utility solar, wind and storage needs to start construction every year to reach the 2030 target.
But new financial commitments slowed to $225 million of projects, well down from the rolling quarterly average over the past 12 months of $1.3 billion.
They wouldn’t need to be bullies if it wasn’t such a bad idea…
Meeting Energy Targets close to impossible
Angela Macdonald-Smith and Mark Ludlow, AFR, July 10th, 2023
…others are much more blunt behind closed doors: “Everybody believes [the 2030 target will be missed] but nobody wants to say it because of what might happen – people are too frightened of some kind of retribution,” one senior energy industry executive said, pointing to the level of discretion ministers have in decisions on east coast gas activities, for example.
JPMorgan analyst Mark Busuttil calculates that only 628MW of new renewable capacity came online in the first half of 2023, including only 53MW of solar capacity in the June quarter.
The $60billion dollar black hole arose from the “Sunk Cost” Accounting Trick where costs were calculated “after 2030” assuming all the pumped hydro, batteries and transmission lines were built and paid off already:
$62bn black hole in Labor energy plan
By Jesse Malcolm and Geoff Chambers, The Australian
According to new analysis conducted by Australian Resources Development executive director David Carland, Labor has failed to bake in $62bn in budgetary spending required to lift renewables from 20 per cent of the nation’s energy production to the government’s stated 56 per cent target.
Mr Carland’s figures estimate that a range of projects – including Snowy 2.0, Tasmania’s “battery of the nation” plan and various transmission expansion projects — would be significantly more expensive if they were costed correctly, taking into account annual government subsidies and projected cost escalations and delays.
The Sunk Cost Trick was a way to hide costs that will be added to electricity bills by stealth:
Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien used the analysis to attack Mr Bowen for misrepresenting the GenCost review, which the Energy Minister has used to support his claim of renewables being the cheapest form of energy.
“Labor is either wilfully lying to the Australian people about the true cost of its transition or it has absolutely no idea how Australia’s energy system operates. It’s time for an honest debate about the true cost of Labor’s radical energy experiment,” Mr O’Brien said.
“Renowned energy experts have revealed that Chris Bowen has purposefully buried a $60bn black hole in its energy plan that … Australians will ultimately pay for through higher energy bills.
For a bargain we could spend 0.0001% of this to audit the foreign UN committees that say we have to spend $5 Trillion to “fix” the weather. Scientists are behaving very badly: hiding data, declines, history, adjustments and methods.
Expert climate modelers don’t want their own pensions bet on climate models, why should yours be?
Image by ThankYouFantasyPictures from Pixabay
Great paragraph commencing “Labor is either lying…” pretty much like everything Labor ever does..
The farce that is Net Zero is covering the massive waste and bumbling incompetence of Labor, especially the current one in office. The energy minister lives in fantasy land with grandiose statements that reveal very little of substance and costs. Didn’t the now PM repeatedly promise pre election on multiple occasions that electricity prices would come down? How has that working out for everyone? Our country is teetering on recession and we continue to deface our country with hideous monstrosities at mind numbing cost. I suspect we heading into a deep, dark black hole led by people who couldn’t care less about our country or its citizens.
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Here is an excellent argument against climate modelling, he makes some great points. Its so obviously a con.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/the_blunt_truth_about_global_warming_models.html
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As somebody once said, trying to establish the world’s average temperature is as useful as averaging all the numbers in a telephone book.
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Brenda! That is excellent. I am going to copy and save that as it really does focus the mind on the absurdity of average world temperatures, especially from ground based thermometers.
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Anyone with a functioning brain and school boy science credentials knew that Bowens lunatic plan was going to fail…spectacularly. Hopefully we wil soon see Bowen implode when the penny finally drops in his one functioning brain cell. But…I’m sure Magoo and Co will come up with another plan.
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Bollox brain Bowen proved his worth last time round when he was Minister for Boat People.
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I know it’s incredible isn’t it? We ( the Australian people) saw first hand what a bunch of duds Bowen, Albanese, Wong, Plibersek, Bourke, Marles etc were during the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years. Then for some reason after 9 years we voted them back in again. Not only that, “we” then voted Labor governments back in for every mainland state.
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Bowen’s one functioning brain cell is the one that makes his facial expressions look like a Quokka.
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“Nut” Zero requires the destruction of the economy, the environment and the nation itself.
But that’s all part of the plan because only the “slave army of useful idiots of the Left” believe Nut Zero is actually possible. Their leaders can’t possibly be that stupid, they know exactly what they’re doing – destroying everything to be remade into the fantasy of post-humanist Herr Kommandant Klaus Schwab.
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Net zero economic prosperity.
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Aspirational political goals only need the facade of plausibility through the next narrative cycle.
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“We can dance, we can dance
Everybody look at your hands
We can dance, we can dance
Everybody’s taking the chance
Well, it’s the safety dance
Oh, it’s the safety dance”
Another reason modern politics suck…
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60 billion would build two 5000 MW nuclear power stations and no need for any new transmission or ridiculous wind and solar. We could have happy farmers and pristine forests again.
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Nuclear produces cheap plentiful power which is the lifeblood of capitalism. This is why nuclear power is never discussed with respect to net-zero targets, it is forbidden. Prosperity is the enemy of the Left.
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How true and it would supply electricity 24/7/365 without problems.
France supplies electricity to over half of Europe from its nuclear plants, Germany was going to shut down its reactor but when someone messed up the gas supply from Russia they decided not to.
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“install 22,000 500-watt of Chinese made solar panels every day for eight years along with 40 seven-megawatt of Chinese made wind turbines every month”
But what about the Chinese made back-up batteries for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine?
These will cost around $10 Trillion to replace coal and natural gas as back-up.
Also the useful life of solar panels and wind turbines is around 15 years at best vs 50 years for a coal-fired power station. So there will be a huge ongoing replacement cost for solar panels and wind turbine
Is it a good idea for China to control Australia’s electricity supply?
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Can’t say the western governments are doing a very good job at controlling their electricity supplies. We can blame China all we like but the reality is that it’s our own governments doing this to us.
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CO2 Lover
“Also the useful life of solar panels and wind turbines is around 15 years at best vs 50 years for a coal-fired power station. So there will be a huge ongoing replacement cost for solar panels and wind turbine”
This IS entirely point AND why these low density pieces of CR.P are called renewables – they’re setting it all up for RECURRING REVENUE – the absolute best Ponzi schemes run on this concept.
I consider it to be complete CRIMINAL acts when you consider the costs to the consumer and the destruction of pristine environments such as the proposed wind farm at Chalumbin – see here: https://stopchalumbinwindfarm.com/
The local aborigines have been screaming to be heard in an effort to prevent the project going ahead – needless to say their VOICE is not being heard – does that surprise anyone at all what with the upcoming “voice” referendum?
VOTE NO to prevent racism being inserted into Australia’s Constitution – say NO to APARTHIED!!
Cheers,
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Labor’s race referendum is a golden opportunity to say a big NO. Not just to the constitutional change they’re now begging for, but to all the interlinked plans of the Left. No to globalism, digital currency, digital ID, climate lies, and all their woke nonsense.
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My Dad used to say, pre spreadsheets, “these people need to buy a $5 calculator”. They are rabbits cross bred with sheep.
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We used slide rules and logarithms.
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Isnt really that sort of problem is it? the stupidity of what is going on can be shown with basic maths, a sheet of paper and a pencil
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The extra to that was to find the brand of the calculator used – so you avoided buying one
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Stop voting for the Uniparty.
I used to think the Liberal faction of the Uniparty was slightly less bad than the Labor faction.
Then I realised it was Liberals (pretend conservatives) that were responsible for:
-allowing non-dispatchable generators to pollute the grid.
-signing us up to the Paris Accord
-the censorship bill
-much of the worst covid mismanagement.
Vote United Australia Party, Liberal Democrats and One Nation.
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David Maddison,
I would sheet most blame to the state governments who betrayed their electorates by ceding authority to the Feds. Why would they do that? The federal level is easily the most incompetent of all (perhaps the occasional local council is worse).
Besides the protest vote, another line of attack is through your state member. Press for your state to take back control of its grid. Don’t let them use the blame game — It’s out of our hands — when they’re the ones who let it go.
FWIW, in 1998 when the NEM was started we had Labor, Labor, Liberal in Qld, NSW, Vic respectively. As you say, Howard was PM.
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The most important part of your preferential voting is which party is placed LAST on the list. and maybe second last.
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Because I aim to remove the Swamp it’s always Laba last and Libls second last.
The only difference between them is in their method of diverting our taxes to their own “special projects”.
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Agenda 2030, ESG’s
RET’s
Vaxxine mandates.
Everything bad started with Lib/Nat, Labor just follow on, kinda makes you think they are getting their instructions from somewhere else.
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Is there an ARC entity in Australia?
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The same delusions are rife across the West. No-one has the balls to point out that the emperor has no clothes.
Of course, like covid when the truth finally trickles out, all the politicians and ‘scientists’ will say they never believed anyway.
No repercussions, they’ll get away with it and we’ll have to pay.
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Thanks again Jo for your guts and determination in trying to unravel their NUT ZERO lunacy.
This Bowen Loony should be stood down ASAP and surrender his seat in this crowd of Canberra’s idiots clown show.
Dr Roger Pielke has also tried to tell USA citizens of the impossibility of their NUT ZERO quest , but so far nobody is listening.
And Eschenbach has also tried, plus the GWPF, plus the Co2 Coalition, plus Jo nova, plus the Sky News team, plus WUWT, plus the Manhattan Contrarian, etc, etc.
But these left wing loonies BELIEVE because they just DISAPPEARED 60 billion $ and then expect the poor Aussie taxpayers to pay for it all after they resurrect it at some future date.
But the trouble is that most Aussies haven’t got a clue and many think we are trying to save Humans from a looming EXISTENTIAL threat.
All unbelievable but true.
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Don’t remind them they aren’t going to meet the deadline, just be glad they won’t.
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Ronin,
Good idea but if they were intelligent enough to read Jo’s blog they might become a whole lot smarter.
I’m hoping they don’t read the good stuff here so that they (esp that numb-nut Bowen) end up making a GIGANTIC mistake with ALL the leftie policies BEFORE they send Australia broke 🙁
Cheers,
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Don’t forget Popeye, that you can explain things to people and show things to people , but you cant make them understand. Median IQ < 100 and everyone votes. For anything drastic to happen many need to be smacked between the eyes by things like blackouts, personal loss, shortage of essentials.
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I was alerted by email to the image at the top of this post (which of itself is generally unremarkable, as even the AFR has gazed at reality, although then quickly averting that).
The image though, is wonderful. And applicable to many other things as well as “renewabubbles”. Crash test dummy indeed.
For those who still think this (energy) supply disaster can be largely avoided or at least retrieved, just hear the every-day ideologues when questioned about the spaghetti junction situation: “Oh, you ignoring new technological advances. Any day now …” . Their solution is to keep the larger coal-fired generators alive with tax subsidies while maintaining the sentence of legislative death on them.
Such people believe in magic, and comprise about 50% of the adult population. This is incurable.
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This is the “cancel culture” of the Left.
They are terrified of alternative opinions or any opinion that doesn’t fit their Official Narrative.
Hence their support for censorship, people-cancelling, ad hominem attacks, defunding, deplatforming and failing that, violence.
There just has to be non-woke power system engineers (probably those that graduated before the universties became fully dumbed-down so pre-1990 graduates), as well as other people who know the truth, out there who know about nut zero insanity. But they are usually afraid to speak for the above-mentioned reasons.
You never hear conservatives call for such things as censorship but it always unashamedly comes from the Left now that they’re in control.
Similarly, they silenced huge numbers of dissenting voices during covid which cost people lives and their livelihoods, e.g. because doctors were too scared to report adverse effects of covid vaccines, to advise patients against taking them, and prohibiting effective treatments etc..
And look at Finkel and Buttrose who both oversaw two of the most destructive elements in Australia, the official belief in the fraud of anthropogenic global warming fraud and Their ABC, the highly destructive taxpayer-funded propaganda service of the Left. Do you think they would have gotten or kept their jobs if they dared question the Official Narrative (not that they would have, they were both true believers)?
Any society that doesn’t tolerate a diversity of opinions and free speech is already a dictatorship.
In a dictatorship such as National Socialism or International Socialism, there is only one opinion and that is the Official Narrative. If you don’t agree you go for re-education or execution. That’s where we’re headed, especially if the censorship bill passes. It’s only a matter of time.
And if you think that’s extreme, what Aussie would ever have thought Australians would be attacked by a paramilitary police force with chemical agents banned in war under the Chemical Weapons Convention; be shot in the back with rubber bullets (I bet someone in police or government command were upset they couldn’t use the real deal); or have police in armoured personnel carriers patrolling the streets; as happened during the covid lockups in Socialist Vicdanistan?
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David,
Don’t EVER forget that they perpetrated that criminal act on the steps of the Shrine of Remembrance where everyday Australians remember the glorious sacrifices made by our forefathers to ensure freedom for all of us.
Cheers,
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David, Fact checking is a fraud too-
https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/the-fact-check-files-inside-the-secretive-and-lucrative-fact-checking-industry-behind-a-foreignfunded-bid-to-censor-voice-debate/news-story/31915e1eb03b029b86a2f03aac19338b#top
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Very disturbing.
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But no surprise.
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Mission Impossible continues on towards the cliff of reality.
The estimated (bound to cost lots more) $60 Billion of South Pacific Pesos for the Infrastructure cannot be hidden for very long as it will eventually show up in Consumer Power Bills (if it goes ahead).
Not going to happen of course as the Reality (the Empire) Strikes Back.
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It isn’t just Australia. Germany, the UK, Finland and Sweden have basically lost their enthusiasm for “renewables”. The Netherland is in the throes of an election where the government is trying to survive (and may not) and there is less enthusiasm in Spain for being Green. Poland and Hungary are ignoring Diktaks from the EU bureaucracy (as are Italy and Greece) and the USA is in the chaos of getting rid of the President and his hangers-on.
Germany and the UK are not going ahead with off-shore wind because the cost of raw material, installation and the cost of bridging finance (largely because of Governmental policies) and the unlikelyhood of screwing more money out of electricity users. That means Bowen’s fantasy of off-shore wind won’t occur. Neither will Andrews get any off Gippsland,because he won’t get them (shortage of installation ships) but he will retire before the failure is permitted to appear in the media. And speaking of media, even the ABC has recently had something to say about pylons being forced onto farmers.
Labor is fortunate in gaining power at the most favourable time but in their usual spending frenzy have already run short of money. BHP has refused to go ahead with projects that the Labor mob in Qld want soon (to cover for their incompetence). The best Labor State Government for thinking ahead (WA) is suddenly well behind in the polls (to the worst opposition for thinking at all) and are now facing the problem of shutting down their coal-fired plant with Union and public reluctance.
The times are changing.
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We must never forget that the TOXIC W & S lunacy will have to be replaced AGAIN and AGAIN every 20 years or 15 years for offshore wind.
None of this ongoing extra WASTE of tens of BILLIONs $ is taken into account by the Loonies in Canberra.
The WASTAGE and cost will be horrendous by 2030, or 2050, or 2070, or… if we were stupid enough to keep voting for these imbeciles.
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Australia will keep destroying power stations and unreliables won’t and can’t replace them.
Even if our rulers (not leaders) understood the need for power stations, whether they be coal, gas or nuclear, planning approvals, bureaucracy and Leftist activists will halt such building indefinitely.
This is one of the reasons that the Liberal faction of the Uniparty promote nuclear, they don’t truly believe in it but they know it will never happen anyway.
When the Chicomms eventually invade they’ll have USC coal plant built in 2 years or less, and no CFMEU unions thugs or other activists to thwart the process.
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Time , cost, quality
Speed not equal quality necessarily. China is very good at rapidly building low quality structures. Hopefully they take power plants more seriously.
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Here’s some of the latest headlines from the UK GWPF’s Net Zero watch list.
1) Germany set to miss Net Zero target as climate efforts falter
Reuters, 22 August 20223
2) Sweden to lift ban on uranium mining, plans to build 10 nuclear power plants
Mining Technology, 21 August 2023
3) Net Zero Britain: “Nearly 13 million UK homes skip heating due to energy bill fears”
Energy Live News, 22 August 2023
4) Scottish government faces heat pump rebellion over ‘exorbitant’ bills
The Daily Telegraph, 21 August 2023
5) UK Government looking into “watering down” plans for Net Zero EV mandate
GB News, 21 August 2023
6) Voters won’t accept ‘economic destruction’ to reach Net Zero, Starmer warned
The Daily Telegraph, 20 August 2023
7) New Scientist: How worried should we be about climate change?
Net Zero Watch, 23 August 2023
8) Coral reefs may have adapted to ocean warming
The Times, 23 August 2023
9) Ian O’Doherty: Ireland’s bonkers plan to kill cows to save the planet
The Spectator, 20 August 2023
10) Will the rising cost of green energy cost US Democrats next year’s elections?
Politico, 22 August 2023
11) Dominic Lawson: Most people support the idea of net zero, until they’re faced with the prospect of giant turbines or an army of pylons wrecking their views
Daily Mail, 21 August 2023
12) The Electric-Vehicle bubble starts to deflate
The Wall Street Journal, 21 August 2023
13) And finally: Is it really human beings who are triggering earthquakes and causing volcanoes to explode?
The Daily Sceptic, 22 August 2023
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We have to put the fear up the fear mongers for being useful idiots.
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I am still waiting on a technical response from CSIRO’s ACCESSS team. The basis of my grievance was published last week at WUWT:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/14/climate-modelling-in-australia/
The email I sent did not go into this detail. It was less specific – a précis.
I did get an acknowledgement from CSIRO two weeks ago and have since followed that up. I will give it till the end of September before going to the Commonwealth Ombudsman if I do not get an engaged response.
I am currently working on a detailed explanation of why climate models lack the vertical resolution to model cloud formation during convective instability. Unless models can simulate the physical process of cloud formation and persistence to surface conditions they will remain junk.
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Jo’s throwaway comment at the end is just nonsense. Climate scientists have been warning for over 50 years what the consequences would be from unabated greenhouse gas emissions. Their forecasts have proven to be demonstrably true, there is no denying that the climate is significantly warmer. You have to go back 125,000 years in the paleoclimatic record to find a period provably warmer than today.
Please don’t cherry-pick spatial and temporal subsets to try and prove me wrong, we are talking global here.
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This is a life. Models produce unphysical claptrap.
The average temperature of Earth has been warming for at least 200 years. The warming follows the peak sunlight with land in the NH warming faster than the iceblock and southern ocean cool in response to declining peal sunlight.
No climate model predicted the increasing extent of winter snow coverage. No climate models predicts that the Greenland plateau would be increasing at 9C./century in January. No climate model predicted the Southern Ocean to cool. Most models (INM excluded) predict ocean surface temperature to sustain more than 30C – a physical impossibility with the present atmospheric mass.
Claptrap – Figuratively, an artifice or device to elicit applause or gain popularity; deceptive show or pretense.. Somewhat generous description for climate models. Models are no more than government sponsored propaganda. Anyone who thinks they have scientific merit is a fool.
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So Simon. Start listing the things “the models” got right. Go right ahead. The melting arctic ice (probably more due to shipping pollution) is one of the only things the modelers can pretend they predicted in advance. The global temperature warmed slower and lower than even the lowest estimate of all the models in 1990. The Antarctic confounds the models. The Southern Ocean, the Southern HEmisphere. The polar amplification was a core part of the model estimates. They were wrong. The Hot spot was a core “fingerprint”. They were wrong.
Nothing that is happening on Earth today is outside the normal rates. Nothing is unprecedented. Storms were worse. Sea levels were higher. The models disagree on everything to do with rainfall, flooding, droughts, clouds, humidity. So even if you find a model with one aspect correct one year — which model gets the water cycle correct most of the time. Answer: None.
Which CMIP6 model is the right one? If you can’t name “The One” — they are all just a random number generating “cloud” that disagree with each other. So you can retrospectively say “this prediction was right” but only years after the prediction and with post hoc cherry picking.
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Simon,
Regarding the models, read Dr Richard Lindzen,
Student of Naychur and science methodology,
Don’t go with consensus modelling, it’s politically
Driven to create a self serving unreality…
Guvuhmint, by its intrinsic nachur, must protect
Itself.
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That’s hiliarius, brilliant, I can’t stop larfing.
U, yes u, have maid my day.
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Simon,
When you pick cherries their all rejects . Keep going….cognitive dissonance can be cured .
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How about showing us a list of ‘forecasts proven to be demonstrably true’ versus ‘prophecies’ proven to be demonstrably false over the past 40 years or so.
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Right Simon except
Not warming for 50 years but 111 years about coal burning causing the Earth to warm or possibly 159 years when George Perkins Marsh, sometimes said to be the father of American ecology, warned that the earth was ‘fast becoming an unfit home for its “noblest inhabitant,”’ and that unless men changed their ways…..
That was not the 1817 comment by the RS to The Admiralty about Arctic warming (which ended in 1845 when Franklin and all perished in the ice ) but the 1860’s debate about glaciers melting. Fortunately the weather (climate?) turned cool again, so the scare could be recycled in 1908 to 1955 (although The New Scientist carried it on until 1960) until it was replaced by The Coming Ice Age in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Followed by the Great Warming for the next 42 years, although by the end only the gullible believed it.
And if you still think that the current time is “unprecedented” and “warming has shot up since the cold year of 1850” try this when we look at the temperature rise after a cold period,
In the 8,200 year event the temperature went up 3.7℃ in 356 years
In the next warming it went up 2.3℃ in 326 years
In the Minoan warming the temperature went up 1.85℃ in 356 years
In the Medieval warming the temperature went up 1.80℃ in 170 years
It is said that it has gone up 1.8℃ in 170 years – so what? It is still cooler than all those warm periods.
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Oh Simon,
Please show us ALL here how your superior intellect trumps the REAL scientists.
Professor Ian Plimer “earth has been heading into ice age for 50 million years”
He knows about the tyranny of geologic time which you obviously don’t – you say 125,000 years with no references – absolute BS. Do some research and learn a few things FFS.
https://politicom.com.au/new-ice-age-looms-say-uk-scientists/
Cheers,
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Simple Simon missed the fact there was an iceage between 125,000 years ago and now.
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IPCC 5th assessment report (2013)
The fifth assessment report said: “Uncertainties in climate projections arise from natural variability and uncertainty around the rate of future emissions and the climate’s response to them. They can also occur because representations of some known processes are as yet unrefined, and because some processes are not included in the models.” [FAQ 1.1, chapter 1]. It is clear that the IPCC knows that climate models perform badly, the exact reasons are unclear, and that accurate modelling is likely to be extremely challenging, if not impossible. So, one of those “unrefined” processes would be cloudiness and its effects.
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The current crop of climate models are based on a false premise. The notion that radiative heat transfer within the atmosphere is important is just wrong. Wind energy transfer is up to THREE orders of magnitude higher than radiative heat transfer. Convective instability is the engine that drives global air advection.
It is not unusual to see wind power density above 100kW/m^2 in the atmosphere:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-264.29,-66.83,378/loc=51.437,-47.583
And this is over a vertical column up to 14,000m or so covering the entire globe area. So an enormous amount of kinetic energy locked up in the climate system transporting heat. Convective instability is the heat engine that powers this energy transfer and it is not incorporated in climate models.
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No matter how beautiful the model! G-I-G-O…
https://beththeserf.wordpress.com/2018/12/23/56th-edition-serf-under_ground-journal/
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Europe and the US can get away with unreliables to a certain extent because they can rely on neighbouring countries or states with less woke energy policies to import power from.
Australia is on its own and all states have equally stupid and woke energy policies and compete with each other for the most imbecilic politicians.
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If you ask someone why isn’t Earth an icefall, the response would likely be that the Greenhouse Effect prevents it.
That response is wrong.
A better way to look at this is to ask the question – why do we get clear sky over oceans? Think about that. Why aren’t oceans covered in perpetual fog. What stops the ocean atmosphere from being perpetually saturated 100% humidity all the way up the atmospheric column. It is not due to the daily sunlight heating the surface and clearing the fog because the ocean surface temperature, even under clear sky, has a small diurnal range of a degree or so.
The correct answer is convective instability. The ability of the atmosphere to partition into convecting zone below the level of free convection and a de-humidified zone above the level of free convection. It is convective instability that limits ocean surface to a sustainable temperature of 30C. Convective instability is the heat ending that pumps up the atmosphere in the tropics and drives global air advection.
This is such an important process and yet no climate model can simulate the process. The recent tropical storm that caused flooding in Californie commenced life as convective instability over a 30C warm pool off Mexico. The same warm pool spawned the convective storm that accelerated the grass fire on Maui. The same warm pool has stalled the development of the current El Nino. This is the warm pool two weeks back:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2023/08/10/1200Z/ocean/surface/level/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-112.38,17.78,378/loc=-101.605,15.813
Understanding convective instability is vital to understanding climate and yet the convective working groups are primarily involved in adverse weather events – not climate modelling.
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The investment cliff we’re seeing now is somewhat ironical, because it’s largely caused by the energy inflation that results from having more RE in the grid and that vicious cycle only gets worse as you add more RE. In recent weeks, there is another big investment cliff driver emerging and that’s the slowdown in China’s economy, which will cause a big drop in our currency and drive up the costs of RE products, all of which are manufactured overseas. The recent dip in the currency is just the beginning, but it’s already having a big impact on skinny RE profit margins. My guess is we’ll see a continued drop in RE investment and the green rent-seekers will be crying out for higher and higher subsidies to offset their profit losses, which only add to consumers already unaffordable bills as we head towards peak energy poverty.
What concerns me the most is the end result of pushing this failed RE solution, where we end up with failing coal plants that have reached end of life and where we have no plans to build any new real power sources and no money. Having an intermittent “on/off” grid with limited capacity and at an outrageous cost will kill what’s left of the economy and probably send us to the 4th world preventing us from ever emerging from this mire. The only happy person will be Chris Bowen who will look and the smoking ruins of a once prosperous nation and proudly say “I did this”.
150
Argentina, here we come.
40
Serge,
We should get some stickers with Chris Bowens face and the words “I Did This” and we could all have fun with that similar to the US (until its verboten).
70
Let us hope missed target dates pass,
Because people protested en masse,
For the right to rely,
On a power supply,
From oil, coal and natural gas.
120
Where are the checks and balances on this outrageous expenditure? Where is the evidence that the massive investment in wind and solar is producing the expected results? Without those results, the government cannot judge the effectiveness of wind and solar power generation on the climate.
I believe we need to audit this expenditure – and include the CSIRO.
The Commonwealth Investment Framework (available from the Department of Finance website) quite clearly states that:
“When developing investment proposals, Commonwealth entities are encouraged to explore all viable investment instruments and delivery vehicle options.” and
“The assessment of options should be supported by an explanation of the costs, benefits and risks (including legal risks) for the Government’s consideration, taking into account:
a) achieving the proposed policy objective of the Government;
b) the level and type of control the Government may wish to exercise during delivery;
c) the characteristics of different investment instruments or a blend of instruments, including any rights and benefits they may confer
d) optimising net benefits for Australians and value-for-money.
Has the policy achieved or is achieving the Government’s objective? No, it is not.
Is the level and type of control lawful under the Constitution? No, not that either.
Have the different investment instruments conferred any rights and benefits? No. Entirely the opposite.
Have Australians received ‘value-for-money’? No, we have not.
The government is contravening Commonwealth legislation and policy in pursuing the monetary black hole of renewable energy.
The waste is of money is astonishing, the continued waste is criminal, the future, planned, waste is psychotic.
120
When was the last time you heard a Uniparty politician complain about Australia’s $1.7 trillion+ dollar debt for federal, state and local government?
It’s just not something they talk about and they don’t care.
https://australiandebtclock.com.au/
140
Jaye, covered so eloquently in the the TV series “Utopia”. There’s a freeway being built relatively close to the NBA ( National Building Authority- mythical, but so close to reality!) headquarters and Tony ( boss of NBA) is curious because of disruption to his daily commute. Apparently it was funded etc, but it’s not only running overtime its also way over budget. No-one at the NBA knows much and all info is hidden away under political camouflage. So, Tony goes out to the worksite to get some inside information and basically gets nowhere. All the managers have recently had “media training” and so dont answer questions directly. I cant remember the end of the episode, but basically no-one knows anything, the project never gets audited but all is good because its employing loads of union people in hi-vis and hard hats, which makes good background for the next on-site press conference. Sound familiar??
80
They can manage a regular “closing the gap” report to Parliament, so surely its not a big ask to have an “Energy, how are we going?” report giving us a regular update on generation capacity, cost tracking and progress against plans. If we are actually in control of ourselves a regular progress report should not be a big deal.
10
Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen himself said the nation must “install 22,000 500-watt solar panels every day for eight years along with 40 seven-megawatt wind turbines every month”…..Thats 64,240,000 sun mirrors and 3,840 wind mills. So where the hell is Blackout Bowen going to put them all? On Bob Browns Island? In the middle of all ALP/GREENS/TEALS electorates?…I keep on asking these same questions in the ” we are all going to fry because of global boiling climate alarmists ” news sites, but I never get an answer, and very rarely get published….bwahaha,GOODLUCK with that Australia.
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We’ll meet the 2030 target and the world will be saved.
https://media.tenor.com/SDKj5QycO40AAAAC/laughing-hysterically-cry.gif
50
AGAIN why do these loonies choose to waste trillions of $ and waste billions of hours while lying to the voters about their so called dangerous Climate Change?
Why don’t they admit that the last 200 years and the last 70 years have been the most prosperous and benign period for Human flourishing? EVER.
AGAIN why do they lie about the fact that life expectancy and wealth has soared since 1950? And 5.5 billion more people since 1950 and obviously a Human record.
Why don’t they admit that the last 70 years has been the safest period for all Humans on the planet?
Again why don’t they admit that the UN projections tell us we will be living much longer lives by 2100 and will be at least 4 times RICHER in another 77 years?
AGAIN I ask WHY in the SAFEST period for Humans over the last 200,000 years do these loonies choose to tell these disgusting lies to their voters and taxpayers?
Don’t they think we will always check the DATA for ourselves?
110
A James Lindsey discourse on “Degrowth”, a widely used term in WEF circles. It runs an hour, but one thing he hammers is the WEF’s obsessive strategy to get rid of aviation for the masses, by 2050. Well they might give us electric or hydrogen planes!! What he points out with the obsession is, that aviation is only 3% of CO2 emissions, and single aisle passenger planes (minor route planes) are 4% of that total; so 4% of 3%, why are they even bothering, if it isn’t just a tactic to shut everyone down? They, the elites want to destroy our mobility – replace ICE with electric cars that we can’t afford, have everyone scrambling to survive, so no one has time to think, or organise, or hear anything that isn’t the narrative. I don’t think we are far from a precipice. Hopefully their hysteria is a sign they are losing it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pip8CUCbz4o&t=14s
50
So the planning approvals have crunched to a halt and at present it will cost each household $5600.00 extra. And we don’t even have THE VOICE in place yet that we can replicate the WA disast…, uhm I mean experiment nationally – wait for that to see real increases to those approval costs…
50
More reading for “ElBowen”
“New Book—Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/23/new-book-green-breakdown-the-coming-renewable-energy-failure/
10
And
“From Poverty to Moon Landing: How Coal Propelled Indian Economy”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/23/from-poverty-to-moon-landing-how-coal-propelled-indian-economy/
20
According to Dr Bill Burrows Australia could already be at nett zero.
This is due to the huge land area and our relatively small population. So if in say 10 years time we appear to be missing the net zero target, all they we have do modify the narrative, rearrange the figures and bingo they will have saved Australia from being the world’s whipping boy. They can’t loose . .
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Technically speaking we are actually Net Negative. Always have been, always will be. Our biosphere consumes 15x the amount of CO2 we emit as a nation. We are a carbon sink.
70
mmmmmm along with the rest of the Southern Hemisphere
20
Interesting that countries GDP per capita now shows the Irish to have the highest income in the world at about 102,000 $, then Norway , Sweden, USA and Australia.
By 2060s India will have the largest economy, taking over from China.
https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth
10
Now for something really depressing. I was checking out the “most commented” pieces from Jo’s blog just now. Almost 10 years to the day (20/8/13) Jo’s article was headlined ” The day the Global Warming death spiral began”. 7th on the list with 745 comments – good effort guys, well and truly before my time. So, it’s one helluva a long death spiral, if that’s the case. Seems like with the present Labor/ Teals / Greens/ Pocock government, it pulled GW/CC out of its death spiral and is now gaining altitude again.
30
This blog is so old that my great grandmother used to post here. She’s a bit long winded but,
https://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/is-another-big-la-nina-on-the-way/#comment-498542
20
What a great (great) grandmother you had Keith!
10
Thanks Beth, I taught her everything she knows and for a bit of fun her comment caught Rereke, from New Zealand as he says;
https://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/is-another-big-la-nina-on-the-way/#comment-498836
True modelling is a legitimate, useful way of dealing with the reality of complex interactive chemical processes. One example is the massive blast furnace created to turn hard rock into molten iron.
Unfortunately that legitimacy has been used by the modern Klimate Scientists to give their global warming fairy tales an undeserved impression of truthfulness.
It sounds impressive but is simply misrepresentation of reality for political reasons.
How do we combat this blatant deceit?
00
MaryF’s last post;
https://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/unthreaded-oct-22-2011/#comment-622658
Weird.
It’s amazing what Carbon dioxide has done to the world.
🙂
00
As HRS says below we used to think that reason and rational thinking would prevail. That scientists were rational thinkers employing the scientific method. That the average person was educated and could rationaly think things through. But it turned out we are dealing with a new pagan religion.
00
It seems from what I’ve been seeing, those ugly windmills and stupid cars powered by lots of double A’s, are heading for a big fall.
30
Just make sure that you’re well earthed when it goes off, there’ll be stray current all over the place.
20
Chris Bowen himself said the nation must “install 22,000 500-watt solar panels every day for eight years along with 40 seven-megawatt wind turbines every month”
Jo, can we have an update/progress report on just how this is going in fact against the target instalation rates?
I suspect that it is way behind what should have been installed by now and likely to get worse.
Of course, the whole thing is a futile and wasteful exercise but we all should be informed on just how much “progress” has been made against Bowens targets.
20
You think climate cult scientists are cooked check out this guy, he is a left over from the halcyon days of the covid cult 🙂
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/covidobsessed-man-living-in-pressurised-tent-in-garage-because-partner-gave-up-on-precautions/news-story/739f9a986ac0ebf2fda46066a90c9b1a
20
Never thought we would experience what it was like to live through a Medieval witch pogrom or Salem.
Lucky us.
The very intelligentsia that produced ‘The Crucible’ and ‘1984’, countless movies and books …
have produced this.
And apparently are poised to do it again.
The JoNova blogosphere, or blogosflat, witnessed the preliminaries.
Mistakenly thinking we were participating in high minded debate about science, with reason and logic as our guide.
Wonder if Richard Feynman were still with us, we would have a chance to stop this.
But more likely he would have been banned on YouTube and dropped by Linkedin.
Keerist, what has happened?
I think the Inquisition were true believers.
This New Church are not, and are intentionally driving us mad with no purpose but destruction … only the dream of ruling over the ashes.
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A pie chart “ElBowen” need to understand
https://redpowerphotos.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/monthly_2023_08/IMG_6581.JPG.f14364da98d4b8301c39f1db0ae708c5.JPG
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Ping.
It mightn’t be much, but every little bit helps.
00
I love the image at the top ( could almost become a logo to represent ruinables ) . Seems so fitting . A fantasy crashed in a desolate location .
And yet they will keep pouring money into it until our economy , infrastructure and society are just as wrecked .
10