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We’re told “clean” energy is a viable and cost effective. But cut the government subsidies, and 97 percent of investors vanish (in Australia it’s collapsed from $2.6b annually to $80m). The truth is that renewables are almost totally dependent on taxpayer largess. No wonder they lobby like their life depends on it. It does.
Peter Hannam of the SMH:
“Australia’s investment in renewable energy all but dried up in the first half of 2014 amid uncertainty fuelled by the government’s latest review of the mandatory target, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
In the six months to June, just $40 million was invested in large-scale renewable energy, such as wind farms, the lowest level since the first half of 2001, according to Kobad Bhavnagri, head of BNEF’s Australian unit.
The investment tally compared with $2.691 billion in 2013, the second largest annual inflow of funds to the clean energy sector behind the peak year of 2010.”
Elsewhere investment in renewables has slowed from its peak in 2011 but still running at $64b a quarter, or nearly $700 million every day. Spot that vested interest! From The Australian:
“Global clean energy investment surged to $US63.6bn in the second quarter of […]
Some extraordinary statements from Owen Paterson, the man who was the UK Environment Secretary until a week ago. This is baking hot. Paterson also draws attention to the way big-goverment has fed big-government lobbyists 150 million euros since 2007. Can we get this man to Australia? — Jo
I’m proud of standing up to the green lobby
The Telegraph UK I leave the post with great misgivings about the power and irresponsibility of – to coin a phrase – the Green Blob.
By this I mean the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape. This tangled triangle of unelected busybodies claims to have the interests of the planet and the countryside at heart, but it is increasingly clear that it is focusing on the wrong issues and doing real harm while profiting handsomely.
Local conservationists on the ground do wonderful work to protect and improve wild landscapes, as do farmers, rural businesses and ordinary people. They are a world away from the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with […]
Flagging an update (coming) to Big News Part III
Score 1 for open science review, thanks to Bernie Hutchins, an electrical engineer who diligently asked the right questions about something that bothered him regarding the notching effect. We’re grateful. This will improve the model. On the downside, it means we’re slightly less certain of the delay (darn) — the notch doesn’t guarantee a delay as we had previously thought. But there is independent evidence suggesting temperatures on Earth follow solar activity with a one cycle delay — the lag seen in studies like Archibald, Friis-Christainsen and Usoskin is still a lag.
What does it mean? The step-response graph (figure 2 in Part III or figure 4 in Part IV) will change, and needs to be redone. The reason for assuming there is a delay, and building it into the model, rests now on the independent studies, and not on the notch. The new step change will need to be built into the model, and in a few weeks we’ll know how the predictions or hindcasting change. David feels reasonably sure it won’t make much difference to the broad picture, because a step-response something like figure 4, Part IV, explains global […]
The mystery of Australian temperature adjustments
Ken Stewart has been checking the Australian BOM official ACORN minima data against the raw data. This week he highlights the six very strange cases of Brisbane Airport, Amberley RAAF, Dubbo, Rutherglen, Rabbit Flat, and Carnarvon. In all these places the adjustments change the trend by more than 2 whole degrees C. It’s a kind of hyper-homogenization.
Thermometers are supposed to be accurate to a tenth of a degree. Australian average trends are sometimes calculated to one hundredth of a degree. What then do we make of adjustments that change the trends by a whopping 2 degrees, and decades after the data came in? The only thing we know for sure about Australian temperatures is that we need an independent audit. Why is it left to volunteers to check? Surely the Greens want good data too?
Some of these stations are isolated outposts, so theoretically they are the heavyweights on Australian area-weighted averages. The map scales can be a bit deceptive. In outback Australia the nearest neighbours can all be 500 km away (300 miles). Some dots on the map are not so much a town as a motel and a gas station. […]
Don’t miss: The Book Launch: “Not for Greens” by Ian Plimer.
“Not For Greens is a powerful critique of the green movement and the damage it has done to living standards around the world.”
PERTH: Monday, July 21, 2014, at 6:00 PM, Fire and Ice, Subiaco Square (next to Subiaco train station), a mere $10. I’ll be there. The Perth Book Launch info.
MELBOURNE: Tuesday 22 July, 5.00pm for 5.30pm to 7.00pm, CQ Functions, 113-123 Queen Street, Melbourne RSVP (IPA)
BRISBANE: Monday July 28, 2014 5.00pm for 5.30pm to 7.00pm Pullman Brisbane King George Square, Corner Ann & Roma Streets, Brisbane
RSVP for Melbourne and Brisbane at the IPA here http://rsvp.ipa.org.au/. 03 9600 4744.
H/t to Lance thanks!
8.8 out of 10 based on 56 ratings
Wayward thoughts…
7.1 out of 10 based on 17 ratings
In response to Australia removing the Carbon Tax the ABC News report broadcast the best arguments of believers in man-made global warming . They tell us we should spend billions to manage a ubiquitous natural molecule with a fake market, in the hope we’ll get nicer weather. If you question that you are a bad, bad person. You are the kind of vile, stupid and selfish person, a troll, who doesn’t mind killing people with asbestos or tobacco, you are an international pariah, a shock-jock and an irrational, unthinking denier.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is our national debate, by our leading “thinkers”, broadcast on our national public news service:
ABC News 17-7-2014
ADAM BANDT, DEPUTY GREENS LEADER: This is the Australian Parliament’s asbestos moment, our tobacco moment, when we knew what we were doing was harmful but went ahead and did it anyway.
RICHARD DENNISS, AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE: … We’re outing ourselves as a pariah. We’re outing ourselves as a country that’s not committed to tackling climate change.
BILL SHORTEN: Direct Action is a Clayton’s climate policy, designed for the audience of internet trolls and shock-jock radio announcers and climate sceptics.
It is […]
Albany, Western Australia. Not near a desert. Not near the tropics. Hottest place in Australia?
Lucky, thanks to the BOM, that we have such high quality data to understand the Australian climate. Without it, we would never have found out that the hottest day ever recorded in Australia appears to be the 8th of February, 1933 in, wait for it… Albany, in the far cool south of Western Australia.
Chris Gillham emails:
“Guess where and when was the hottest day ever recorded in Australia? 50.7C at Oodnadatta on 2 Jan 1960? No way! Mardie at 50.5C on 19 Feb 1998? Get out of here! It was at Albany on 8 February 1933, that historic day when this normally chilly town on WA’s southern coast was razed with a temperature of 51.2C. Don’t believe me? You can’t question the accuracy of ACORN, a temperature network that shapes economic policy, and the screenshot from last night’s ACORN download for Albany max proves it …”
The all new marvellous ACORN dataset has been “expert peer reviewed”, it “employs the latest analysis techniques “ and it is “a complete re-analysis of the Australian homogenised temperature database”. Phew. The BOM lists their […]
As of today, Australia no longer has the most expensive “carbon” price in the world. The voters didn’t ask for a tax in 2010, but it was forced on them in 2011. They rejected it wholeheartedly in 2013 but it still has taken months to start unwinding this completely pointless piece of symbolism which aimed to change the weather. The machinery of democracy may be slow, but this is a win for voters.
11:15am EST today: The Australian Senate passes the carbon tax repeal bill.
“Australia has become the first country in the world to abolish a price on carbon, with the Senate passing the Abbott government’s repeal bills 39 votes to 32.“ SMH
Now we need to turn off the tap to all the other green gravy rent-seekers who ignore the evidence.
h/t Matthew (aka Matty thanks!)
Other news services are starting to cover this. All the cross-benchers except Nick Xenophon (who was absent) voted for the repeal. Labor and the Greens opposed it. News.com
Soon big companies will stop paying a penalty on carbon emissions, currently just over $25 a tonne, ending Australia’s most controversial policy implementation since the 2003 decision to join the Iraq invasion.
[…]
Niger, Africa, is considering building a new small coal fired power station. Greenpeace have protested before at coal power stations in Africa. But how compassionate are those who don’t want Africa to use cheap coal fired power (like, say, professors at western universities?) TonyfromOz puts the issue in perspective. I knew much of Africa was very very poor, but this rather lays the dismal extent out before us. Mali, a nation of 15 million people produces the same amount of electricity as the small town of Dubbo, NSW. Niger, with 17 million, produces even less. All up, there are 23 nations in Africa that each produce less electricity than Dubbo. If we combine them, the 142 million people in those 23 nations are using the same amount of electricity as Adelaide in Australia (which has about 1.1 million people). Stark.
Perhaps we could ask Niger if they’d like to help reduce global temperatures by 0.0 degrees, or if they would rather save money and have electricity that works at night instead? — Jo
Guest Post – TonyfromOz
Niger, Africa
Recently, a new coal fired power plant was proposed for the country of Niger in Africa. […]
The Coalition must be thrilled today that the Australian Labor Party want to run the next election on the carbon tax. Could there be better news for Tony Abbott? Labor has vowed “to fight for “a serious, credible climate change policy’’ .”
The Carbon Tax was a centrepiece at the last election and the voters threw it out. Current polls show only 35% of voters want it. So far it has brought down two prime ministers and an opposition leader. The damage looks set to continue.
For Labor, nothing has changed. They still think it was right to tell the voters there would be no carbon tax in the 2010 election campaign, and then bring in a carbon tax. (Who cares what the voters think?) The Labor Party still thinks a tax can change the weather. They still are the gullible patsies for large financial houses bringing in a fake market in a product that nobody wants, that depends on unknowable “intentions”, and is prone to fraud. The Labor Party plan to help workers by transferring billions of dollars from citizens to the financial sector and green-renewable industry patrons, all in a quest to reduce the global temperature by 0.0C […]
UPDATE Thursday: DONE Success at 11:15am this morning in Canberra. The Carbon Tax is gone.
UPDATE: Weds –– This could take days. The repeal was before the Senate this morning. Labor and the Greens are “dragging the debate out” with speeches. “Filibustering” according to Finance Minister Mathias Corman (The Australian). More debate is due tonight. But the Senate has agreed to extend sitting hours after Friday and keep coming back until this is resolved. They were due to start a 5 week break on Friday. (See Sky News too). This doesn’t look like being resolved today. (SMH)
Sydney Morning Herald: It [The government] was concerned that while all eight cross-bench senators say they are committed to consigning the carbon tax to history in a final vote, as many as three might baulk at the use of a guillotine to bring an end debate and force that vote.
In a further sign the government had lost exclusive control of the legislative timetable, the Climate Change Authority bill was removed from the list of those to be considered, supposedly at the insistence of the PUP.
Sources said the CCA bill, the purported vehicle for Mr Palmer’s proposed ”dormant” […]
For all the fuss about an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), Australia already has a version of a market in carbon credits and it was set up in 2001 by the conservative Howard government. The RET, Renewable Energy Target, aims to reduce emissions by mandatory use of 20% renewable energy by 2020. For all kinds of reasons we are overachieving, and headed for 27% renewables mix (along with shocking electricity bills, see here too).*
“Official estimates suggest that the RET will generate a transfer of $20bn from householders and industrial users by 2020.”
So in this artificial government-mandated market, which sector is fast to get involved? Finance.
This is not so much an efficient free market as its pale cousin, the whimsical fake market. But free or fake, banks are there. You can’t blame them. But nor do we need to feed the machine unless there is a good reason.
Banks exposed to big RET risks
The Australian: AUSTRALIA’S banks are holding nearly $900 million worth of certificates designed to stimulate investment in renewable energy generation as the price of those instruments becomes captive to the political debate over green energy schemes.
Banks including […]
The latest Newspoll results say that Australian voters want Clive Palmer to stop blocking the repeal of the carbon tax.
[The Australian] A Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian after last Thursday’s chaos in the Senate saw the repeal bills rejected, reveals 53 per cent want the controversial tax to be abolished.
Only 35 per cent want the Palmer United Party to continue to block the removal of the tax, while 12 per cent are uncommitted.
So one third of Australia wants us to keep the carbon tax (they can always pay it voluntarily thinks Jo?)
Keeping the carbon tax is costing Australians $11 million dollars a day. There is a deadline. It’s Friday:
The electricity industry incurs $11 million a day in carbon tax charges and market-traded contracts have not been trading carbon since July 1. But a carbon price of $25.40 a tonne will be returned to the contracts if the repeal fails to pass the Senate by Friday. Mr O’Reilly said failure to achieve the repeal by Friday would complicate returning savings to customers by “an exponential amount’’.
Even 33% of Labor voters want the tax gone.
8.9 out of 10 based on 64 ratings […]
For wandering thoughts…
7.4 out of 10 based on 28 ratings
Filed under: A Curiosity for a Friday
The far side (left) does not look like the near side (right) there are no maria or “seas” on the far side.
For 55 years some people have wondered why the near and far side of the moon look so different. (I can’t say it had occurred to me, but the answer is very cool anyway.) The far side of the moon has none of the dark flatter pans or seas called maria – instead it is covered from top to bottom with craters.
What I find even more amazing is that the Earth and Moon have been locked in an orbital dance where the same side of the moon always faces the Earth, round and round, and it goes on for billions of years. (Yes, and how do they know, I also wonder, but there is an answer below.) In any case, here’s a new theory that might explain the difference between the near and far sides. It’s very neat.
The Earth and Moon have a rather extraordinary relationship. Not long ago we heard how the gravitational tidal forces between them are so strong it causes tidal bulges in the rock […]
Clive Palmer, the coal mining Billionaire and his three (or four) PUP Senators have voted down the Carbon Tax repeal they said they would pass. It was quite the blockbuster day in Australian politics. They supported the government move to bring on the vote at 11:45am today, then decided not to vote for the repeal bill. They hold the balance of power. The carbon tax is still law. It may get voted on again by next Thursday, but if that fails, it won’t be voted on again til August, and millions in carbon tax payments are on the line.
There are at least three version of why the bill failed (the same thing happened the day Palmer met Gore). Sky News suggests PUP wanted to change their amendments. According to News.com, Palmer says the amendments put forward by the Coalition were older ones, and not the newer ones the Coalition agreed to, and he claims the government pulled a “swifty”. In an article in The Australian, it appears the problem was that the amendments were not circulated at 8.30 this morning. Given that Palmer has been known to feed scurrilous versions to the media, perhaps the confusion here is no […]
The evidence for man-made climate change is now so overwhelming and convincing that the BBC has written to a Green politician to apologize for airing alternate views (the dumb punters might get the wrong idea, eh?). The head of the BBC complaints unit told the Green politician it would not happen again.
Well obviously, it doesn’t help the United Kingdom to allow riff raff like the former Chancellor of the Exchequer to present his views — unless he agrees with the doctrine, of course. How could anyone expect listeners who are merely doctors, lawyers, teachers, and businesspeople to be able to understand a debate this complex? (Only certified government approved scientists, and BBC journalists have the mental ability to understand the nuances of an argument which uses large numbers, like 97%). Henceforth, British voters must be shielded from alternate views. Repeat after me: there is a consensus.
The nub of the matter is that the Lord Lawson says he’s banned on the BBC. The BBC, of course, says he’s not. But there is this odd official decision: “The ruling found a false balance was created in that the item implied Lord Lawson’s views on climate science were on the […]
Even if we can’t be there we can still watch it live. In years to come people will marvel that the true spirit of science was kept alive by a small independent think tank. Thank goodness for Heartland.
The live stream (and links to talks from Monday and Tuesday).
Please tell us in comments which parts you appreciate the most. Jim Lakey tells me that “Australian MP George Christensen gave a great presentation (starting at the 28:30 mark), though it was panned by the ABC.” Typical. – Jo
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[Official Heartland Release]
Day-Three Live Stream of International Climate Conference Features Lifetime Achievement Award to S. Fred Singer
Skeptic Conference Ends with Discussions of Latest Science Challenging UN Reports, Recognition of Professional Courage and Honesty
LAS VEGAS (July 9, 2014)— Today, the last day of the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change(ICCC9), will include the presentation of the “Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award” to Dr. S. Fred Singer, as well as 29 more presentations from leading “skeptic” scientists and policy experts of a human-caused climate crisis.
The live stream with full coverage of ICCC9 will begin at 8 a.m. […]
Dr David Evans, 8 July 2014, David Evans’ Notch-Delay Solar Theory and Model Home
At the introduction to this series of blog posts, we said we’d release the spreadsheet containing all the data, model, and calculations. All in one file for Microsoft Excel. Thanks for your patience.
The model, data, code and calculations are here: Climate.xlsm (20Mb).
Containing 44 datasets, 33 sheets, 90+graphs, and 15,000 lines of code
New Here? See this summary of posts. Evans looked at TSI (total solar irradiance) and Earths temperature, and discovered a mysterious notch filter. That implies some kind of solar effect occurs with an 11 year delay — or one solar cycle after the TSI. He built a model. See the hindcasts, and the prediction of imminent cooling. See the replies to critics.– Jo
(Click to download the Climate.xlsm file. 20Mb)
Why Excel?
I chose to do all the work for this project, right from the beginning, in a single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for pc. It’s not the fanciest or the fastest, but an Excel spreadsheet is the most ubiquitous, and one of the friendliest programming environments as well. It runs on most computers—any Windows […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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