Shame investors who manage tens of billions are not good at assessing risk. They are missing something big and obvious:
Half of leading investors ignoring climate change – study
Reuters: A report by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP), a not-for-profit organisation aimed at improving the management of climate change, found that just under a fifth of the top investors – or 97 managing a total of $9.4 trillion (6.4 trillion pounds) in assets – were taking tangible steps to mitigate global warming.
These include investing in low polluting assets or encouraging the companies they invest in to be greener.
How low is this bar. Less than one-fifth are doing anything “tangible”. To even get the tally up to a half “not ignoring climate change”, the researchers had to include a category called “first steps”, nothing tangible mind you. Perhaps someone sent an email?
Anyone might think that four fifths of top investors think climate change is a complete non-event.
A further 157 investors managing a total of $14.2 trillion were taking “first steps” towards addressing climate change, while 246 managing $14 trillion were doing nothing at all, the report said.
If only fund managers were smart enough to do a Diploma of Environment and Sustainability at USQ. All those students would know how dangerous climate change is. One day MIT grads and Wall St Rocket Scientists will get it too.
—
Try to imagine a world where a major change is coming that will kill millions, drown cities, cause death, disease and reckless fish and most of the high adrenalin number-junkie ambitious guys were not paying any attention.
” – were taking tangible steps to mitigate global warming.”
What does that mean? It needn’t mean they believe in co2 being the culperate. They might invest in air conditioning.
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Robk. “Tangible steps” could include
1) Putting up a notice in the toilets to switch the lights out when leaving.
2) Recycling the waste paper.
3) Looking at more energy-efficient processes in manufacturing. This is part of cost saving and process improvements, so happens anyway.
4) Noting when any new vehicles use less fuel than the previous ones.
5) When a heating or air conditioning system is replaced, note the theoretical savings.
6) Filling out Government surveys and/or for green organisations. Display any certificate gained prominently in public areas, and any logo on the letterheads.
370
Kevin: You forgot – reuse your toilet paper.
121
The other side is clean then?
20
Don’t go giving them ideas. Else the European Commission may decide to reduce the permissible size and thickness. They’d probably also decide that installing a smart-meter dispenser to restrict use to the minimum they deem to be necessary is a good idea.
I once used much of a copy of Ulysses during an extended remote trek in the Karakorum, and found it most unfit for purpose.
40
“Karakoram”
00
I noted, the last time working in China, that toilet paper goes into a bucket beside the toilet bowl. That explains how the UN believes that China is so far ahead in dealing with climate change.
50
All you need: Sustainable, responsible and impact investing (SRI) is an investment discipline that considers environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria to generate long-term competitive financial returns and positive societal impact.
That is, we want people to feel good as we deliver strong asset growth and competitive dividends. So absolutely, consider the environment, but don’t invest in wacky schemes that depend on government subsidies.
180
Want a real tangible difference?
Instead of spending money on medieval technologies spend a fraction on fusion.
20
Maybe it’s because the case for alarm is full of unproven suppositions. Consider how they are putting to ExxonMobil.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/behind-the-alarmist-scene/
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“Unproven suppositions”. Would that be like ‘superstition’?
80
Bloomberg, also featured this and refered to the advice of the Governor of the BOE.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-01/funds-ignoring-climate-risks-rose-last-year-despite-boe-warning
Note though, the risk is NOT from climate (changing or not) but from POLICY! In other words, it is a threat to devalue fossil fuels as assets and demand renewable sources are used. The subject of the post indicates how serious the major investors take the threat.
This means, in Mark Carneys eyes, they are incompetent and neglectful of their clients interests.
Alternatively they may be astute and have assessed that;
The demand for fossil fuels will not decline in the near future.
The Paris agreement lays no obligation on the third world to reduce usage.
Renewable energy is hopelessly uneconomic and grossly deficient logistically and practically.
The “Green” policies followed by the Annexe 1 nations will
deplete their wealth and wreck their tax base making them unstable and therefore unable to implement the policies that represent the “risk”
Note that the “compliant” investors are dominated by the pension funds of Government employees. This includes the UK Environmental Agency, but also, the Australian Local Government Super! Who do you think will pick up the tab when these funds go down the great white telephone?
On another blog it was said that these bodies live on another planet.
I think they live here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqowmHgxVJQ
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diogenese2
Notice Bloomberg gets a mention in this
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/01/inside-climate-propaganda/
60
“Note though, the risk is NOT from climate (changing or not) but from POLICY!”
Exactly. Leading investors are not interested in global warming per se. What they are interested in is what other leading investors, including governments, think about global warming, and how they will act on this.
Meanwhile lesser scavengers pick their takings out of the turmoil.
50
If you really want to investigate corrupt investments , start at home , how did Julia Gillard manage to invest 10 to 20 million dollars into the Clinton Foundation and get away with it , it was your money
370
I noticed the supreme irony where they wrote;
Just how much money has been wasted, fleeced, extorted from “hundreds of millions of people” in the name of climate salvation?
How many people have died, suffered from poverty, lost money, lost sovereignty, regressed technically in the name of climate salvation?
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Yes, if you can, try to imagine what it will look like under UN World Government, whose ingrained, totalitarian culture is visible, as are their bedfellows, for all to see. Take a look at the UN Financial Initiative.
UNEP divestment (the totalitarian word for investment that means the opposite) yet another example of Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory.
260
And yet the UN acknowledge:
Seems like the General Council has no idea what the WHO is up to, although I doubt this.
50
John Hewson chairs the AODP.
https://theconversation.com/worlds-biggest-investors-risk-another-more-severe-global-finanical-crisis-58721
40
Oh and um Hewson is a complete self interested dill, this from an earlier Conversation piece.
‘I declare an active business interest in such a technological revolution, having been involved for over 15 years in many such activities. However, I am at a loss to see how, as a nation, we can let established (and potentially quite profitable) technologies sit on the self. These includes opportunities to refine coal, or to more effectively store wind and solar power, or to produce base-load solar at the world’s lowest cost, or to generate electricity and ethanol from sugar cane, among others. None have been effectively commercialised to date.’
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“None have been effectively commercialised to date.’”
Maybe, just maybe, that is why nobody wants to invest in them. 😉
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Several companies, immediately AFTER they got subsidies from a guaranteed market. See latest efforts in NSW to push petrol ethanol blend.
50
e.g., Graeme and Andy.
There’s a long standing rule in Australia regarding new technology. If it has a high labour content, forget it!
Why are they making ethanol from grain instead of sugar? On first glance it doesn’t make sense. On second look it doesn’t look straight.
Refining coal is certainly worthy of continuing research in an oil poor nation.
70
They are supposed to be making it from sugar (as a hidden subsidy for cane growers).
Hydrolysing wheat starch to glucose (e.g. glucose syrup) can be a cheaper source of fermentable feed stock.
30
Jo
This seems to fit here IMO
“GDP, Government Growth, And The Incredible Power Of Stupid”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/gdp-government-growth-and-the-incredible-power-of-stupid/
40
And a look at investors, green-ness and high speed rail
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/05/the-us-has-the-best-rail-system-in-the-world-and-matt-yglesias-actually-pointed-out-the-reason.html
50
Wallerawang power station, near Lithgow, has shut down. About 40 years ago it was upgraded with two new 500mw generators serviced by a new cooling tower. After construction it was discovered that the cooling tower delivered only two thirds of its design capacity. So they had to hastily construct the second set of lowline coolers to the north west of the station.
I expect that the cost of that bungle would have been still impacting the cost of power from that station in 2013 when they commenced to shut down. This might have been the reason it was shut down.
Our railways also carry a heavy cost burden from the past. The NSW Government Railways, especially city passenger services, operated with extreme Luddite work practices and criminal corruption. Around 25 years ago the government finally started to act to curb these practices, but the cost still hangs over the system.
20
The survey probably neglected the Cool Futures Hedge Fund
http://coolfuturesfundsmanagement.com/
This is small start up which is doing something More than tangible about Climate Change. Indeed their whole investment philosophy is based on a rational assessment that further warming is unlikely and some global cooling is possible or even probable.
This in turn guides the investment decisions; shorting green energy stocks which need continued government subsidies and investing in companies which benefit from cooling.
Has anyone made an investment?
70
Meh. What would they know? /sarc
00
Here’s some info which they might like. Here we missed Spring in 2015, going straight from Winter to a very early Summer. I don’t remember Summer as otherwise notable, but come Autumn, normally dated the first of March, we are still waiting in May. For three months now we have had no cold days. There are blackberries on the bushes in May. Normally rare in March.
00
But what about Bank Australia?
Here is one of our leading financial institutions taking a stance against fossil fuels to save us from climate change
https://bankaust.com.au/tools/search/1?query=fossil+fuel&search=
They’re even going to fund a project to make Melbourne more renewable by more than 28,000 households! (out of 1,494,633 as of the 2011 census)
https://bankaust.com.au/about-us/news/planet/melbourne-renewable-energy-project-update/
60
UAH V 6 temp update for April is 0.71 C. Globe 0.02 C lower than March. NH is 0.09 C lower, SH is 0.06 C higher and Tropics are 0.05 C lower.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/05/uah-v6-global-temperature-update-for-april-2016-0-71-deg-c/#comments
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More on investing – picking winners government style
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/05/matt-yglesias-actually-summarizes-the-public-parks-opportunity-in-one-paragraph.html
20
A timely post on WUWT by Eric Worrall
Greens Reframe Spain’s Green Bankruptcy Fire Sale as “Renewed Interest”
30
Yes. Greens and ALP modus operandi for funding infrastructure. Bankrupt the builders.
00
You do not have to study statistics to know that the world’s investors do not believe in global warming or its partner problem dangerous and rapid sea level rise.
Look at the hundreds of billions being spent on beach condominiums and resorts, airports at sea level or in the oceans on man made islands in Japan or Hong Kong or cities in shallow water in Dubai and elsewhere. Even Al Gore bought his apartment on the water in San Francisco and Tim Flannery has his house at the mouth of the Hawkesbury river, a getaway with only water access. Look at the world’s conversions of the old docks, left idle by container ports, from Liverpool to Melbourne. They are commanding top prices being next to the water.
No one with money is gambling here. Sea level rise is not a problem in the forseeable future, not to the project investors and certainly not to their rich clients. People love to live next to and on the water. No one can see a problem even after thirty years and while most of the world’s cities are right on the water for trade, not one has had to move or had a problem. Amsterdam is 2 metres below sea level and beautiful. If there is a problem, as with Brisbane and New Orleans, it is with people living in areas known to flood who are in turn totally reliant on new technologies to keep them dry. The old French quarter of New Orleans was not flooded in Katrina, just the parts below sea level. Coincidentally, the area had just subsided 1 metre, the highest subsidence of any area, but Al Gore forgot to mention that.
Consider half of Bangladesh (pop 157Million) is under 1 metre above sea level and there are no stories of mass drownings but we are told to worry about tiny coral atolls like Tuvalu (Pop 10,000), which by definition are build on coral which self maintains to sea level if no one actually lives there. So whose problem is that? Perennial global warming victim country Maldives (pop 345,000) has opened at least four new airports. Obviously they do not believe their own story. Nor do their investors.
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Meanwhile New Zealand still hasn’t had a legitimate climate change refugee application after creating policy to accept them back in 2001
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-zealand-admit-150
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/11887139/New-Zealand-deports-would-be-first-ever-climate-change-refugee.html
They’re still expecting to be swamped, though
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/nz-warned-to-brace-for-climate-refugees-2016041908#axzz47XsdcEnT
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“If we keep going we have the last few years, we could be seeing 4 or 5degC of global warming this century”.
Again the arithmetic. 0.5C in 10 years so 5C in 100 years. The sole reason for this is CO2. One fact, one explanation and the end of the world. With science truth like this, who needs scientists?
90
You also get the story that the Pacific coral atolls have been inhabited for thousands of years and are suffering from industrial pollution in the form of CO2.
In fact most settlement was generally only a few hundred years before Europeans arrived, thanks to the invention of the fast catamaran. Islands like New Zealand were so isolated from all lifeforms including humans and lack the snakes, spiders and predators, clear evidence they were totally isolated. Even storm ravaged Taiwan, a rock in the pacific, was almost deserted and the Jesuits had a plan to move Hawaiians there just to populate it, although there were some ancient hardy people. There are now 20 million people. The climate is terrible.
As Charles Darwin correctly speculated, coral grew as the mountains sank because coral only lives at sea level. Drilling on Bikini island confirmed the coral was 1400 metres thick. So when these Pacific islanders, who landed on coral atolls by definition barely above water demand financial assistance for coping with Climate Change, you have to ask exactly who has responsibility for living in a paradise climate but only 2 metres above sea level? Where does an resident of a dreamy Pacific island go on summer holiday? Germany? Still, they want compensation from the great lottery run by the IPCC.
140
Widely known here but useful to reiterate.
New Scientist June 2015
And the predictable UN IPCC counterpoint from none other than University of New South Wales in Sydney…
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“Most leading investors act like they are skeptics”
With advice like this no wonder!
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/02/lords-warn-the-times-stop-writing-the-truth-on-climate-change/
40
The leading investors are banks. Top of the food chain.
Anyone can invest in whatever they want if anyone has a suitable credit rating from a bank.
Unfortunately, the mistake is very common, to think that a company invests its own money.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_banking
“An investment bank is a financial institution that assists individuals, corporations, and governments in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client’s agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, and FICC services (fixed income instruments, currencies, and commodities).
Unlike commercial banks and retail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. From the passage of Glass–Steagall Act in 1933 until its repeal in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, the United States maintained a separation between investment banking and commercial banks. Other industrialized countries, including G7 countries, have historically not maintained such a separation. As part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act of 2010), the Volcker Rule asserts full institutional separation of investment banking services from commercial banking.[citation needed]
The two main lines of business in investment banking are called the sell side and the buy side. The “sell side” involves trading securities for cash or for other securities (e.g. facilitating transactions, market-making), or the promotion of securities (e.g. underwriting, research, etc.). The “buy side” involves the provision of advice to institutions that buy investment services. Private equity funds, mutual funds, life insurance companies, unit trusts, and hedge funds are the most common types of buy-side entities.
An investment bank can also be split into private and public functions with a Chinese wall separating the two to prevent information from crossing. The private areas of the bank deal with private insider information that may not be publicly disclosed, while the public areas, such as stock analysis, deal with public information.
An advisor who provides investment banking services in the United States must be a licensed broker-dealer and subject to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulation.[1]”
30
Here is a great investment idea…
From Zerohedge: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-02/visa-unveils-plan-burden-millennials-billions-debt
“For anyone concerned that $800 billion in student loans over the last decade simply won’t be enough debt burden for millennials to carry, worry no more, a solution has been found.”
10
Australia has one of the highest production of climate scientists in the world. That is a lot of investment/money printing.
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That is because we have more environment. The big banana. The big pineapple and the big environment. Our density of environmentalists is still one of the lowest in the world, per acre.
The last Green party $100Bn estimate for the Very Fast Train from Brisbane to Melbourne allowed $400million for an environmental study of the proposed route. That works out to $200,000 per kilometer of 2,000 kilometers. This means a 2,000 professional environmentalists will be required with one per kilometer for two years on $100K per year. Sounds fair for a study.
Firstly, what is the point if they do not find a single rare frog or bird or insect. The upside is that it is guaranteed that the VFT will not proceed. A frog could not avoid a 350km/hr train. unless we get French trains to go with the submarines. Maybe it is so 2,000 enviromentalists can go to France on study tours to see how the TGV avoids frogs?
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“Our density of environmentalists ”
I think we can all agree that own “environmentalists™” are particularly dense
It may be quite sparse per acre, but per University, its probably off the chart !!
00
There are no frogs or birds where sustainable forestry occurs. To make a forest sustainable, Carbon wise especially, first all of the original inhabitants need to poisoned after the coupe is cleared removing the largest logs by truck.
The rest is piled up in huge mounds and burnt 24 hours a day where i live close to a coal power station. The entire valley and surrounding native forests have been converted to sustainable plantation forest in a monoculture.
All that is required is to convert what remains into plantation forest, and viola, no more frogs, parrots and other competing native species that interfere with the plantation forest monobiological corporate ecosystem.
21
Plantation forest environmentalists who believe in climate change and are willing to pay for the Carbon Brand of environmentalism are ironically responsible for financing these plantation forests that are sold to them as being Carbon sinks and so on.
Carbon Green is actually responsible for helping/funding to speed up extinction of biodiversity which is why i think it so incredibly damn importat to differentiate what is ‘Green’ and what is ‘Carbon Green’.
What a rackett,
30
multiple links:
3 May: Bolt Blog: Labor is signing up for an international rort in carbon offsets
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/labor_is_signing_up_for_an_international_rort_in_carbon_offsets/
30
ROM – i responded to your WUWT reply on jo’s Unthreaded thread.
openingn AFR line should be: “The federal government is under pressure NOT to top up”…that is if they were writing from a public perspective:
2 May: AFR: Mark Ludlow: Coalition’s emissions reduction fund running low
The federal government is under pressure to top up its $2.4 billion emissions reduction fund in Tuesday’s budget, with fears the money will be exhausted as early as the end of 2016…
The results of the third auction will be unveiled by the Clean Energy Regulator on Thursday, with land-use programs, such as carbon farming or tree generation, again expected to take up the lion’s share of the funding…
The uncertainty in the market could stop some big companies from venturing into the carbon market, he (RepuTex director Hugh Grossman) said.
“It’s a very dark market. It’s quite opaque. There’s no transparency, which you have through other carbon markets…READ ON
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/coalitions-emissions-reduction-fund-running-low-20160501-gojoxr
2 May: Fox News: Businesses falsely named as carbon tax supporters
By Michael Bielawski and Bruce Parker
Energy Independent Vermont claims businesses are joining the call for a carbon tax, but some business owners say they are being misrepresented by the environmentalist coalition…
A partial list of carbon tax supporters appears on Energy Independent Vermont’s website.
However, when Watchdog.org independently reached out to companies on the list, some business owners were surprised to learn that they were part of the group’s campaign.
“I said I didn’t support carbon taxes,” James Bissonette, owner the Dutch Mill Restaurant in Shelburne, told Vermont Watchdog. “It would kill our business if we did that, not the way we run things. We’d have to raise soda prices and everything.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/02/businesses-falsely-named-as-carbon-tax-supporters.html
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Well now! What a surprise, only about a fifth take climate change seriously. I wonder why.
Could it be that the rest actually pay attention to the world around them and what’s happening in it, maybe even to how the climate is actually going instead of the fantasy being fed to them by the usual suspects? Could it be that they actually notice what’s making money and what’s going bust? Do you suppose they actually realize their purpose is to make money in the first place?
No. Of course not. That would make sense.
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…”only about a fifth take climate change seriously.”
A slip there Roy. I didn’t say anything about them taking it seriously.
A fifth (less actually) are doing something “tangible”. Not the same 😉
Note they don’t say “significant”, “measureable”, or “useful”.
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“tangible”
Taking a short position on Abengoa is doing something “tangible”.
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/ABG:SM
Money to be made there, punters.
Although for Abengoa the majority of the profit from the short has probably been made.
There are many other opportunities though in other listed unsustainable green tech boondogle companies.
Perhaps we should start a tip-sheet.
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You caught me, Jo. I guess I inferred it. But how would you take that? Doing something (considering climate change mitigation in how they invest MY money) = seriously, too seriously. Not doing anything = not seriously.
00
I know I mention this (fairly) regularly, but it is related to this main topic here, about how the (supposed) big end of town are taking very little notice of Climate Change and all its ramifications.
For years now, we have been bombarded with scare campaigns that the prolific consumption of electricity is perhaps one of the root causes of the problem.
Think about air conditioning for a moment, and in the same respect as for this Thread, because, if there was such a horrendous problem, then the proliferation of air conditioning is one of the supposed biggest drivers of that increase in electricity consumption.
I can remember back to a time before we moved to Queensland as a young family in Victoria in the late 50’s. No one had cooling in Summer, and for heating in Winter, all you had were Briquette burners. Coal, which was burnt inside the home to heat it.
In Queensland, there was no need for heating in Winter, and I can’t even recall seeing a fan, as a youngster in the 60’s.
Even in the 70’s airconditioning in private homes was so rare as to be non existent. We had our first one in Wagga Wagga, a small R/C box mounted in the window, and it sucked up electricity like crazy, but it did the job in those extreme Wagga Wagga Summers, and as a heater in those extremely cold Winters there.
Scroll forward to now, 2016, and walk into an electrical retailers and look at the plethora of aircon units available. Look at the real estate dot coms and see how many homes have aircon units, sometimes in the bedroom as well as the main unit in the living area, nowadays, nearly all of them.
If there was such a horrendous problem, they would be doing everything they could to stop the production of such (perceived) high end users of electricity. But no, there so many brands with so many types and so many different configurations of them.
Over the years, the technology has advanced so that now we have a unit in our home here specifically designed for the space to be cooled, and heated in Winter, that is four times the power of that original ‘box in the window’, consumes about half the power, and does a more efficient job of it all, and a smaller unit in the bedroom, like most homes around here in Rockhampton. And they have got commensurately cheaper along the way as well.
Technology has driven this perceived high end user of electricity down into the realms of moderate consumption.
The use of airconditioning in residential homes has exploded virtually off the map in recent years, and yet overall power consumption has not only NOT expanded considerably, but has stabilised, or even fallen slightly.
So here we have two fronts, the huge expansion of production of aircon for residential use, and in fact, the lowering of power consumption from those units.
If there was a problem, it would be being fought on two fronts also, perhaps an enforced stop put to their manufacture, and a campaign to stop residences from installing them. Neither has come to pass.
Those warmists rail against them, saying this is the cause of the huge spike in power usage, possibly necessitating the continuation of fossil fuel power generation, and this scare campaign is really not all that true. It’s used as a big stick, but has now become so commonplace.
It’s the same principle as this Thread canvasses. If it was so bad, they’d put a stop to it.
Tony.
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This seems a good place to put this, insofar as your comment is all about energy efficiency over the years.
We have a, so called, Heat Pump. [Technically, a heat pump is a mechanical-compression cycle refrigeration system that can be reversed to either heat or cool a controlled space.] In simple terms, it moves heat but does not create it as burning wood, coal, or gas does. I grew-up with these.
In the summer it takes the energy from the air inside, and pumps it to the outside.
In the winter it takes energy from the outside air and pumps it into the house.
[An “in the ground”-source unit would be better, but wasn’t possible.]
At very low outside temperature, the heat pump switches to resistance heating – a more costly solution than compressors.
40
The one thing they all had in common was poor insulation. Not sure if insulation was even a concern back then or even now relatively
10
I notice that the magic number — 97 appears again
50
??? anyone care to evaluate?
2 May: SMH: Ken Baldwin: Why is the ACT bringing forward its 100 per cent renewable electricity target to 2020?
(Professor Ken Baldwin is the founding director of the Energy Change Institute at the Australian National University)
Last Friday the ACT government announced it was bringing forward its goal of 100 per cent renewable electricity from 2025 to 2020…
Part of the reason is the collapse in investment in the large-scale renewable energy market during the past few years that has enabled the ACT to cash in on the current glut of renewable energy projects. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, investment in Australian renewables in 2014 crashed almost 90 per cent from the previous year, and in 2015 was only marginally better…
This collapse has been due largely to the enormous energy policy uncertainty created in the federal sphere as a result of changes introduced by the Coalition government…
In this chaotic policy environment, any investment in big energy projects – whether fossil fuel or renewables – has been stalled.
The vacuum created by federal policy uncertainty has meant the ACT government’s renewable energy program has been the only game in town. Renewable energy companies have flocked to the ACT government wind and solar reverse auctions, which have so far netted 400 megawatts generating capacity from five wind projects and 43MW from three solar projects, with another 200MW to come from the reverse auction announced last Friday to meet the 100 per cent-by-2020 target.
The result is that the ACT is a buyers market. Prices as low as $77 a megawatt hour make wind power the cheapest new-build energy source (fossil or renewable) in the country. When averaged with inflation for the 20-year lifetime of the reverse auction contract, this equates to a low $60/MWh at current prices…
The ACT already has the cheapest electricity (about 20¢/kWh regulated price) mainly because it is a compact jurisdiction near major transmission lines and hasn’t had the overbuild in poles and wires that has forced up electricity prices in other states…
Already South Australia is 40 per cent renewables and on its way to a 50 per cent-by-2025 target, and Queensland is committed to 50 per cent by 2030 – both well short of the ACT’s 100 per cent by 2020…
Australia is moving inevitably towards placing a price on carbon pollution – whether through an emissions trading scheme or other mechanism – in order to avoid economic isolation from the rest of the world in the post-Paris climate change era. The ACT is now well placed nationally and internationally as a leading renewable energy jurisdiction.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-is-the-act-bringing-forward-its-100-per-cent-renewable-electricity-target-to-2020-20160502-gok8ms.html
10
The ACT is a niche market quite unrepresentative of cities in Australia, mainly because of its low content of heavy industry.
Although Australia once benefitted from alumina refineries and aluminium smelters, these have been departing in the direction of lower cost, reliable supply electricity, notably nuclear and hydro.
As usual, Canberra is not pulling it’s weight. It is an energy bludger. No new aluminium industry investment will come to Canberra. No big Al investment will flock to renewables anywhere. As a generalisation, not much new heavy industry will head towards Canberra if it claims to be heading to 100% renewable.
(Besides, Canberra has not explained what it shall do when there is no wind or sun).
Geoff.
90
Geoff, you mention this:
Considering where the ACT’s renewable power plants are.
Ararat Wind Plant in Victoria – 1000KM from the ACT
Coonooer Bridge Wind Plant at Bendigo in Victoria – 980KM from the ACT
Hornsdale Wind Plant near Jamestown in South Australia – 1200KM from the ACT
Sapphire Wind Plant at Glen Innes in Northern New South Wales – 880KM from the ACT
Tony.
00
Moderstors,
When I first posted on this subject at the Weekend Unthreaded, the Comment remained in Moderation for just on three hours until found and approved. Try as I might I could not find the reason why it might have gone into moderation.
Then, today I posted this comment and it also went into moderation. What that confirmed to me was that certain words enter moderation automatically, and this latest comment then narrowed down the reason.
I feel sure it is the first part of that third wind plant mentioned there, the one with the bridge in the title, and it’s that first four letters of the first part of the name.
My guess here only.
Tony.
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It’s the 2nd plant’s name, Tony. I just did a test post that is now in moderation
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Geoff, Geoff, Geoff, stop worrying.
Everybody knows Canberra is full of hot air. That’s as good and sustainable a substitute for wind as you could ever want.
I’m sure the ANU, in partnership with the now reduced CSIRO green machine, will shortly mount a federally funded research program aimed at getting Canberra’s anthropogenic hot air to drive a hot air turbine (HAT).
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People are not wearing enough HATs.
https://youtu.be/O2QJvc_SxFQ?t=25
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The ACT will, of course, when 100% renewable, cut their connection to the grid. Oh hang on, didn’t I hear that they are going to purchase “renewable” energy from sources a long way beyond the ACT border. So, if the wind does not blow ………… It won’t matter will it!
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Maybe 2-3% of said renewables are within 500km of the ACT.
(one small solar plant and some very small percentage of rooftop solar.
(I was down there recently, not much rooftop solar in sight)
IT IS A FARCE !!!!!
When the ACT is run by 100% renewables WITHIN ITS BORDERS..
.. then I will sit up and pay attention.
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I still think phase shifting transformers with output gain at the borders linked to the windfarm’s outputs should be funded by Victoria and NSW (since the SA power must transit Victoria’s grid). Then the ACT can be given the full 100% renewables experience.
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Well looky here – “Ground-level climate at a peatland wind farm in Scotland is affected by wind turbine operation” open access from the Jl Environmental Research Letters.
“Here, we present high-resolution data from a wind farm collected during operational and idle periods that shows the wind farm affected several measures of ground-level climate. Specifically, we discovered that operational wind turbines raised air temperature by 0.18 °C and absolute humidity (AH) by 0.03 g m−3 during the night, and increased the variability in air, surface and soil temperature throughout the diurnal cycle.”
No comment as I haven’t read the full paper
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Follow the money to see what they really think.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife hold securities in 94 (yes; ninety-four) oil and gas companies. That represents about a quarter of the portfolio of securities owned by the near-destitute couple.
90
The need to invest in 3 more to reach the magic number
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I guess they’ve had their fair suck of the sauce bottle then!
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***Abraham is crowing about ***”a judicial recommendation that WILL HAVE impacts across the country”, but it is a non-binding opinion, yet to be acted on. multiple links.
2 May: Guardian: John Abraham: Peabody coal’s contrarian scientist witnesses lose their court case
Peabody Energy brought contrarians Spencer, Happer, and Lindzen to testify on their behalf, but the judge wasn’t convinced by their case
In Minnesota, an administrative hearing resulted in ***a judicial recommendation that will have impacts across the country. It was a case argued mainly between environmental groups (such as Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, and their clients Fresh Energy and the Sierra Club) and energy producers (such as the now-bankrupt coal company Peabody Energy) regarding what a reasonable social cost of carbon should be…
I was called as an expert witness in the case along with respected climate scientist Dr. Andrew Dessler. We were opposed by the well-known contrarians Drs. Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, and William Happer (who has recently received attention related to his charged fees in the case). In full disclosure, Dr. Dessler and I were not paid for our work in the case. I recently wrote about the testimony (LINK) and provided links to the testimonies submitted for the case. The judge’s recommendations and how they will impact energy decisions in the USA were the keys to this trial.
On April 15th, the Administrative Law Judge decided that the estimated cost of carbon pollution currently used in Minnesota is too low…
How was this case won? Well certainly it helps to have science on your side…
You can’t just bring in some contrarian scientists to make unsupported statements that minimize the costs of climate change. You have to bring in the best scientists and base your conclusions on high-quality peer reviewed studies.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/02/peabody-coals-contrarian-scientist-witnesses-lose-their-court-case
18 Apr: MPR News: Elizabeth Dunbar: Updated climate change costs make coal-fired power less attractive
State law already requires Minnesota account for climate change costs when deciding how to generate electricity. But an administrative law judge says the price range Minnesota uses is way too low — by a factor of more than 10 — because it’s outdated and doesn’t fully account for health problems and other societal costs tied to climate change.
If the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission agrees with the judge’s view, it could mean wind and solar will look a lot cheaper than burning coal…
On Friday, Administrative Law Judge LauraSue Schlatter mostly agreed the federal government’s social cost of carbon figures were the way to go and suggested the state PUC adopt a new price range — from about $11 to $57 per ton of carbon emitted. The previous range was about 50 cents to less than $5.
The agency is expected to make a final decision on the numbers later this year…
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/04/18/climate-change-costs-make-coal-less-attractive
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It really is time that the coal industry said .. enough is enough..
and just withdrew power supply until common sense prevails.
If this idiocy continues, they will get forced out by subsidies wind and solar anyway.
Go out with a FIGHT….. not a whimper. !!
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Make these idiot judges realise the social BENEFITS of coal.
COAL BUILT WESTERN SOCIETY !!!
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This weekend would be an incredibly opportune time for the coal power industry to demonstrate the full implications of giving these morons what they are asking for
http://australia.breakfree2016.org/
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further info:
15 April: Sierra Club: Judge Recommends Use of The Social Cost of Carbon
The organizations supporting the Administrative Law Judge’s recommendation include Environmental Law & Policy Center, Fresh Energy, Midwest Renewable Energy Association, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Minnesota Department of Commerce, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Public Health Association, Sierra Club, Solar Energy Industries Association, Twin Cities Medical Society, and Wind on the Wires.
http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2016/04/judge-recommends-use-social-cost-carbon
20 Apr: Bloomberg: Mark Wolski: ALJ: Minnesota Should Use Federal Costs of Carbon in Decisions
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide sometime this summer whether to follow a state administrative law judge’s recommendation that it use the federal government’s Social Costs of Carbon in its decisions regarding energy generation.
Although noting several exceptions, Administrative Law Judge LauraSue Schlatter wrote that the PUC should use the federal costs when examining energy issues in the state…READ ON
http://www.bna.com/alj-minnesota-federal-n57982070025/
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3 May: Bloomberg: Francois De Beaupuy: French Energy Titan Seeks Cultural Revolution From Youthful CEO
When Engie SA’s Gerard Mestrallet hands over leadership of the French energy giant to his deputy this evening, he’s confident Isabelle Kocher can complete the company’s shift away from fossil fuels.
The plan laid out in February by Chief Executive Officer Mestrallet, 67, and Kocher, 49, involves selling 15 billion euros ($17.1 billion) of assets by 2018, while boosting the contribution of energy services, pipeline operations, solar and wind power to 85 percent of the business from about 50 percent last year.
“This is a cultural revolution, and we’ve chosen a young CEO with a rejuvenated team to meet the challenge,” Mestrallet said in a phone interview. “We need to make a cultural leap from a very centralized, technical, engineer-driven universe made of large plants, power lines, dams and infrastructure.”…
She must also persuade investors the company can make up ground on Spain’s ***Iberdrola SA and Italy’s Enel SpA, which have been faster to embrace renewables.
Investor Skepticism
“There’s some skepticism; the company has disappointed quite a few investors in the past five or six years by promising increased earnings without delivering much,” said Xavier Caroen, an analyst at Bryan Garnier in Paris…
Solar power only accounted for 1 percent of Engie’s 117 gigawatts of generation capacity at the end of last year, even after the acquisition of SolaireDirect made it France’s largest solar-farm operator. While wind power comprised another 4 percent, that was dwarfed by 56 percent from natural gas, with hydro contributing 17 percent and coal 13 percent…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-02/french-energy-titan-seeks-cultural-revolution-from-youthful-ceo
Iberdrola facing opposition in Carbon County!
2 May: WNEP: Sarah Buynovsky: Wind of controversy blows in Carbon County over proposed turbines
CARBON COUNTY — Residents living in one part of Carbon County are up in arms over proposed wind turbines near their homes.
“I’ve worked two and three jobs my whole life to afford to live in this neighborhood where it’s peaceful and tranquil and quiet, where I want to grow old and retire and die here,” said Dan Towne of Towamensing Township, who lives in Beltzville Lake Estates.
Atlantic Wind, a division of ***Iberdrola Renewables, is proposing a plan for 40 wind turbines on a mountain ridge just above the housing development on the Penn Forest Township and Towamensing Township line…
“I think they’re going to destroy a beautiful place up there. It’s gorgeous up there. There’s birds that are going to be affected. There’s animals’ habitats that are going to be affected, and it’s going to ruin a beautiful place,” said Andrea Miller, a Beltzville Lakes Estates resident.
Penn Forest Township supervisors heard an earful at their meeting Monday night.
“You guys have every reason in the world to deny this. I hope you guys stop this. You will destroy everything,” said one man.
Another went so far as to build a model of the project to scale and present it to the crowd.
“Almost everyone I speak to comes to the Poconos because they love the beautiful environment here. They did not come here to live underneath a massive industrial complex.”…
The Penn Forest Township zoning board is going to consider granting a special exception that will allow the wind turbine project to move forward. That is scheduled for May 12 at 7 p.m.
http://wnep.com/2016/05/02/wind-of-controversy-blows-in-carbon-county-over-proposed-turbines/
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2 May: Devex: Jeff Tyson: Can the World Bank make renewable energy cheaper?
What’s important now, he added, is to make renewable energy sources like wind and solar cheaper — to make renewables the best financial option for policymakers around the world so they live up to their commitments not because they are written in a U.N. document, but because it makes the best economic sense.
“So much of the solution is going to be policy change linked to financing, linked to very specific instruments that can bring solar in at [4-5 cents] a kilowatt hour, which would make … the financial argument so powerful that [policymakers] have to move toward renewables,” (World Bank President Jim) Kim said…
One way the bank hopes to drive down the price of renewables is by making it cheaper and less risky for the private sector to get into the renewable business in developing countries…
For the rooftop solar sector in particular, the bank is putting in place “deal teams” to facilitate doing business with renewables by combining private sector expertise from the IFC and public sector energy expertise from the bank.
There are a lot of opportunities to install rooftop solar panels in developing countries, said John Roome, senior director of the World Bank’s Climate Change Group, but “often companies that want to install renewable energy find it difficult to access finance at scale.” With so many individual installers trying to break into the industry on their own, costs can be prohibitive.
The bank’s new “deal teams” would work to create a market for these installers. One idea is to develop a fund that smaller companies can access to finance their investments in rooftop solar, without needing to go to an individual retail bank and explain how rooftop solar works, Roome said…
The World Bank is investing in those technological enablers, like battery storage, sensors to predict wind patterns, and evacuation lines that transport power from solar power plants into the main power grid…
“The thing that I worry about is we’re not yet having the urgent conversations about how to tackle the most urgent issues,” Kim said. “And the good news there is we actually know how to do it, we know how to bring these prices down, but we’re not quite gelled yet.”…
For Kim though, the question is whether the prices will come down fast enough to prevent long-term investments in coal and other alternatives, which at the moment are still all too appealing for policymakers — and on rare occasions, even for the World Bank itself.
https://www.devex.com/news/can-the-world-bank-make-renewable-energy-cheaper-88078
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Trouble brewing out my way.
‘Federal Labor has dismissed as “nonsense” concerns its climate change policy would severely undermine primary producers in western New South Wales.
‘The party plans to reinstate land clearing restrictions if it is elected, which the Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said would put a Federal Police officer in every paddock.’
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Wee Waa?
All the more reason to vote for the Nationals in the Senate – right across Australia. In every electorate.
Just ask Barnaby to confirm that the Nationals will not support a Carbon tax or an Emissions Trading Scheme in any shape or form.
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SS
I have asked this many times:
Of all my local candidates senate & HoR
Not one confirmation that they will, even from the GREENS
This is amazing that the champions of CO2 Tax refuse to confirm or deny this?
Something is wrong about this silence from all?
Why?
I think the voters are being lead astray like the leading Superannuation Companies are telling porkies to gain customers.
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Of course they’re lying – all of them.
How can guaranteeing a rise in taxes, prices and accelerating these increases over a decade win votes ?
So they just keep stum and wait to clobber you.
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Do you mean the ‘national banks’? and political representatives.
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el gordo
I’m back to the field in Qld on this. Which was a worry as, with droughts and things, I might be missing some. But this is about the 4th go round and the major changes are the peeing on of the CO2 side as per
http://www.beefcentral.com/news/tough-tree-laws-not-backed-by-evidence-senior-ecologist/
and link.
And, in medieval warfare terms, in this agriculture is at about the stage of using the sally port and hasn’t much further to retreat in “compromise”
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Sorry for the off topic.. but this is a major NAIL !!!
http://cphpost.dk/news/business/dr-news-reports-danish-workers-at-siemens-have-become-chronically-ill-after-prolonged-exposure-to-dangerous-chemicals.html
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final quote from the lik
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The smartest guys in the room.
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Labor’s ETS scheme will just introduce more fraud and corruption into the already fraudulent CAGW mitigation mess. And of course zero change to the climate after wasting endless billions of our borrowed dollars for decades to come. Worthless scraps of paper costing billions that have no basis in fact, just ask Dr Hansen and Interpol.
Yet we have fools that are happy to vote for the corrupt Green and Labor parties. Unbelievable.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comm ents/labor_is_signing_up_for_an_international_rort_in_carbon_offsets/# commentsmore
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I think we’ve got this right
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“Clogs to clogs in three generations!”
An old German saying.
.
They were young men and women.
They came out of the overwhelming devastation, the terror , the human meat mincer of the terrible times of World War 2 which in itself was a continuation of the unsettled international problems thrown up by WW1, the immensely costly in human life, humanity destroying European WW1 which had ended only 20 years before WW2 began.
The war was ended.
The cost had been enormous in human life and treasure.
They had nothing left except faith in themselves and their hands and minds.
Now there was a new world to build and rebuild.
They worked.
They trained as chippies and sparkies and machinists and concrete pourers and teachers and rail and road and airport designers and engineers and doctors and chemists and ~
They built.
They built roads and dams and cities and harbours and ships and planes and cars and power systems and electricity grids and communications systems and care facilities and hospitals and health and welfare organisations.
And they built them across entire nations and continents
They invested in people and institutions and society and community uplifting organisations.
And they had kids, lots of kids
.
And the kids grew up and went to the schools their parents had built and paid for.
And some of the kids went to university.
And they travelled all over the world that their parent’s generation had rebuilt after WW2.
They travelled on rail and plane and ship and stayed in remote places in grand surroundings beyond even those that a Lord of the Manor of bygone times would have lived in.
And they got a job in industry and offices and in the fields and open spaces and found work and employment in some of the most distant and harshest conditions on this Earth.
They started companies and whole industries and began to create treasure and wealth for all to participate in.
And they saved and bought the Car and then the “Block” and then built the “House” for their future retirement.
And they had kids, not many but enough.
.
And the kids grew up and their parents remembering how hard life could often be as they experienced it and not wanting their kids to ever have to go without as they often did, lavished money and very expensive play toys onto their kids even as they grew up.
And the kids grew up soft and easy.
And their demands in life were for everybody to continue to make their lives soft and easy. So the government to keep itself in power made life soft and easy for those kids.
They went to university often at others expense.
They no longer wanted to build something for the future or for the nation but only build for themselves here and now.
They became the “Demand” generation where every tittle and turn was demanded of others to satisfy their lust for ever more of everything so long as it did not cost them.
Half of them became dependent on the taxes extracted from the other half.
They were no longer interested or capable of building anything
For many their dream was a comfortable government paper shuffling job with no responsibility.
For some it was to elevate themselves to having half an alphabet after their names from authoring a number of pseudo science papers written in a salubrious office somewhere in some ivory tower that told nobody anything but used lots of big words understandable only to their fellows in the same department.
Sometimes they had kids that they didn’t know what to do with so they gave them money and told them to disappear for a couple of days while they themselves had “fun”.
And now
The pot holes on that beautiful smooth road to the future, laid down and built by those first and second generations are getting much, much deeper and rougher as nobody now wants to put in the time and the hard yards to keep that road to the future smooth and keep the travelling to that future, nice and easy.
Where that rapidly deteriorating, winding, twisting convoluted road will now lead to in the future, who can predict!
But those smooth expensive dancing shoes worn by that third generation on that road to the future might soon have to thrown away and the hard wearing clogs again put on to rebuild that road and all that is being lost.
“Clogs to clogs in Three Generations”
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End of an era
Leigh Creek’s final coal train leaves the station in wake of Port Augusta power station’s closure
I notice both the Northern Plants have been operating pretty much full capacity so far this month despite the very strong generation by the wind farms (~90% CF) with the very strong steady winds. When that last train’s coal gets burnt by Mother’s Day, I guess the Torrens Plants will be ramped right up.
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3 May: Reuters: Alister Doyle: Ex-Mexican foreign minister Espinosa nominated as UN climate chief
Former Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa has been nominated to be the new U.N. climate chief, helping to bolster a 2015 Paris Agreement to shift the world economy from fossil fuels, officials said on Tuesday.
Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican who is stepping down in July after a six-year term as head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, wrote in a Tweet that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had nominated Espinosa to succeed her.
The Bonn-based Secretariat said the appointment needs to be approved by an 11-member U.N. bureau, whose members represent groups of governments worldwide and is now led by French Environment Minister Segolene Royal.
The bureau has no record of challenging nominations by the Secretary-General, diplomats say, even though some had expected that the job would shift from Latin America…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-un-idUSKCN0XU0VU
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3 May: Reuters: Jose Elias Rodriguez: Abengoa to carry out cost cuts affecting 10 pct of jobs in Spain
Spanish renewable energy company Abengoa said on Monday it plans to carry out adjustments as part of its restructuring programme which could affect up to 10 percent of its workforce in Spain.
The company, which is in debt talks with its creditors to avoid becoming the country’s biggest ever bankruptcy, has around 5,000 workers in Spain and some 17,000 worldwide.
http://www.reuters.com/article/abengoa-jobs-idUSE8N17H00T
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3 May: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Mexican ambassador (Patricia Espinosa) selected as next UN climate chief
The position, paying around US$200,000, has been upgraded to under-secretary general.
Yet there is unlikely to be extra funding for the institution, which employs around 500 people, Figueres told Climate Home.
Speaking before the successful candidate had been named, Figueres said they would be “facing up to many new responsibilities with a flat budget”…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/05/03/mexican-ambassador-named-as-next-un-climate-chief/
3 May: UK Daily Mail: AP: Diplomats: Norway’s Solheim to be new UN environment chief
U.N. diplomats say Norway’s former environment and development minister Erik Solheim has been chosen by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to head the U.N. environment agency.
Solheim currently heads the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s committee on development assistance. He also serves as special envoy for environment, conflict and disaster for the United Nations Environment Program known as UNEP.
The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement, said Monday that Solheim will succeed Achim Steiner as UNEP’s executive director, with the rank of undersecretary-general…
Nairobi-based UNEP calls itself “the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda” and advocates for environmental protection.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3569875/Diplomats-Norways-Solheim-new-UN-environment-chief.html
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unbelievable:
3 May: CarbonPulse: Stian Reklev: Poll shows 57% of Australians back carbon market proposal
More than half of Australians back the opposition Labor party’s proposal last week that included lifting the nation’s 2030 CO2 target and introducing an emissions trading scheme, a poll showed Tuesday.
Labor maintained its 52-48 majority on a two-party preferred basis from last month ahead of the likely July 2 election, the Essential poll showed…
Climate change is emerging as one of the major issues yet again in an Australian election campaign, after Labor’s policy release last week, which included setting up two emissions trading schemes…
Do you approve or disapprove of this policy?” the pollsters asked.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents approved, while 21% disapproved, the poll results showed.
The policy enjoyed particularly strong backing by Labor (76%) and Greens (88%) voters, while only 36% of Coalition voters backed it.
The poll also found that 70% of voters aged 18-34 supported Labor’s climate plan, while it was opposed by 39% of those 55 or older…
http://carbon-pulse.com/19246/
Essential Poll
http://www.essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport
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Meanwhile: Multi-billion Euro carbon-trading fraud trial opens in Paris.
NB: When it says “that cost the European Union” it means the “ordinary” people living in the EU.
This is a tiny fraction of the amount extracted from real wealth and converted into folly by “legitimate emissions trade”.
h/t Tallbloke
P.S. I used the f-word because it’s in the france24.com article.
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