Another award winning solar project collapses: it was a $105 million dollar scheme. One company, Areva, lost about $50m and so did the taxpayer. Everything went wrong, management, planning, cheap poor quality steel from China, industrial dispute that left 80% of the pipes rusting on a dock. Three thousand solar reflectors are sitting unused in what was a potato paddock in Dalby. Nobody wants to buy them. They’re obviously worthless. CS Energy is state owned power utility, and it spent $50m but pulled to pin to save wasting another $50m.
In 2011 Julia Gillard raved about how it was going to save 35,000 tons of carbon.
“Ms Gillard says the project could be one of many under the new carbon tax scheme.
“With the clean-energy future I want for our nation, I want it to be a norm,” she said.”
Fans of renewables will cite the management problems as the reason for the failure, not some inherent problem with solar. But the “Clean Energy Culture” is the problem — the same pathetic, uninformed and corrupt decision-making that subsidizes solar so unnecessarily also creates the same dud decisions in management, legal, and industrial relations. The environment that makes a complicated, uneconomic project look appealing because it might change storms a hundred years from now is the kind of culture that piles up toxic Green Tape, buys crappy steel, and can’t accomplish something as simple as getting pipes off a flooded dock. And that was six years ago and we are just hearing about it now thanks to the Clean Energy Media Brain.
‘Fast-moving clouds’: How CS Energy’s Kogan Creek Solar Boost project failed
It was supposed to supply cheaper, greener energy to up to 5000 homes but after six years and tens of millions of dollars, a cutting-edge solar energy project has produced nothing other than a large taxpayer-funded pile of scrap.
Only 5000 homes? That’s $20,000 per house which doesn’t sound like “cheap” electricity. Solar is so dismal that even bulk solar power in the sunniest spot in the world was going to take years to break even — and that’s if it worked.
Three thousand solar panels sit unused on a concrete pad after the pioneering Kogan Creek Solar Boost project was shelved due to rusting pipes and “rapidly moving clouds”.
Those are $100m pipes?
A veteran project manager with 30 years’ experience, Mr Canham detailed a litany of planning, management and communication failures, compounded by the “aggressive” management style of Areva Solar’s US-based executives.
Mr Canham said pipes had rusted when they were left uncollected at the Port of Brisbane during the 2011 floods because of a dispute between Areva and shipping company DHL. As a result only 20 per cent of them were useable.
Funds came from the Queensland Government’s Carbon Reduction Program and a Commonwealth agency, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
Typically, when people waste other people’s money, they don’t care much:
“ARENA never came to the site,” he said.
“They were supposed to come every three months. They were really into this solar thing and they never came once.
“With the state government – the same thing. Never saw anyone.”
Gave the prize a bit too soon, maybe?
The technology’s inventor, Australian scientist Dr David Mills, in 2014 received an Order Of Australia for his work on solar power from the Abbott government.
David Evans points out the media bias as pro-solar hype is yet again followed by silence:
Here’s what the article, in the left-leaning Sydney Morning Herald, doesn’t say: Another catastrophic failure in green energy and public money destroyed.
Did the ABC report it? I’ve searched their news website for “Kogan Crek solar” and found only an article from 2014 on the technical hitches being encountered, a 2009 article on the 600 jobs being created by solar power, a 2011 opinion piece extolling renewables, a 2011 article “Gillard spruiks massive solar power project”, and a 2010 article on climate and energy. No mention that it had failed, as far as I can see, let alone the headline articles about a catastrophic failure of a government-financed solar plant.
Since 1970 or so, one hyped solar project after another has been announced in awed terms. But when they flat-line, crickets.
h/t Andrew, Dave B, OriginalSteve.
On the previous thread I declared the battle lost with the closure of Hazelwood. So where now is the war? Too late for that battle, business is finally waking up. Don’t let it go back to sleep.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/business-lobby-dismay-as-energy-crisis-anger-boils-over/news-story/e7e7ebe72462fc96b130544d83453e75
Start a new cry. Kill the RET! Now!
I can’t see any aluminum smelter surviving under the status quo. What, then, will become the cost of power lines (which, for those who don’t know, use aluminum conductors) to service the rotting dishes at Dalby? And all the other dishes that will probably rot before the lines get there?
Make sure that “business” doesn’t fail to panic appropriately.
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The Green-Left will demand even more money to be poured into the RET. That’s the problem as they see it, not enough of other people’s money being ‘invested’.
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… and when their “projects” fail, their liability is total: a full refund to the taxpayer first and to all other contributing entities with the banks last.
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It took me a while to wake up but I finally figured out that if the green loons can get enough cash diverted into their useless projects, it cripples other projects that *could* provide some sort of stimulus to the economy but in so doing would reode their natural ( feral ) support base….
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Steve, there are many such. The NBN is a prime example. Foisted on our construction sector at a time when the sector was flat out servicing a mining boom, it maximized not only its own cost, but also the cost of every other construction job being undertaken in Australia.
80
At a cost at wholesale of $3Bn a year, the entire pink batts scheme, the cost to the retail public of the RET is $6bn a year for the right to buy coal energy. We are paying billions for nothing and for windmills and solar panels bought by others with our cash. This $50Million is only three days RET winnings. No one cares.
What is criminal and illegal is that this huge continuing money grab, bigger by far than the $6Bn over 4 years from the Banks, is entirely outside the budget! The government is not questioned about it. It is not a tax. No cost to the government, but it is buying solar panels and windmills with no conditions and if they do happen to work, they are owned by people overseas and you have to pay again!
I wrote to John Roskam of the IPA. His lawyers think an appeal to the High Court would be rejected on modern jurisprudence, which means the lawyers believe the government can do what it likes. That was what brought on Magna Carta. It was also the lawyers’ belief about Mabo.
We should not have to pay strangers for the right to use our own coal or gas or oil. Currently even if electricity was free, you would be paying 18c kw/hr. It is not a tax and so it seems we cannot even hold our government to account for it. It is a carbon tax by private people overseas. This is what drove BREXIT. Money flowing like a river to strangers for nothing.
Repeal the RET.
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The poor Tasmanians are paying $11 million a month to run hundreds of diesels? This is Malcolm’s battery for Australia? We are being shut down by the Greens.
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Tasmanians pay for very little. That money comes from WA.
60
So, it is the vibe then.
Tony.
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Transmissions towers remind me of man’s ability to generate electricity. You can never get enough transmission towers, especially windfarm ones which blow over in a high wind. That was never explained.
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Even well built transmission towers can fail when cables burn out. Standard ACSR transmission cables are great for baseload power, but connecting unreliables to the grid can destroy them.
The aluminium alloy used can anneal if the cable is overheated beyond 90C. In high winds this loss of strength can cause the aluminium conductor to fail and the remaining poorly conductive steel core to burn through. Cable failure can lead to suddenly unbalanced load on towers, causing them to collapse, well under design wind speed. Wind farms spooling up to 100% capacity then going into over-speed shut down can cause surges in the grid of hundreds of MW and overheat ACSR cables.
As annealing damage is cumulative, South Afailure has probably caused hundreds of millions more in damage to their transmission infrastructure with Big Wind subsidy farms than they care to admit.
30
They can lie about it and try to hide behind words as much as they like, but it is a tax.
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Well done. A start to get an informed opinion. It is only an opinion and you might find others with a different opinion.
If Finkel does not provide at least a framework for economic funding to build new coal fired stations then it will be clear that the alternate reality has won out over prudent deliberations.
I had a new experience at a dinner party on the weekend where a number of people clearly appreciate that intermittents are pushing power costs up and increasing risk of power outage. The solutions discussed were solar/battery to essentially provide self-sufficiency an/or a small generator to keep the freezer running. One already had the generator for his camping.
I figure that there are enough people in each state to get proportional vote to support a single policy candidate campaigning for ending the RET/end the subsidies/stop the lunacy. Just need to find suitable candidates and start End the RET Party.
60
In 1990 the Hawke government imposed on the Australian Wool Corporation a scheme of management which could not possibly have worked. Under that scheme of management the AWC was bankrupted. One of the elements of that scheme was a price cut which cut the value of the growers’ investment in the stockpile by a billion dollars, which became an unrecoverable loss.
Some growers called for a suit for compensation for this government imposed loss. The National Farmers’ Federation lawyers told us that you can’t sue the government, the government can do as it likes.
But since that time we have seen people suing governments with success, and governments making policies which run from that shadow.
In my opinion, the wool growers had a case. But it would have failed, because too few people understood the problem. The top end of town, including the NFF, had written that scheme of management. “The Vibe” that Tony mentioned above was against us. But “The Vibe” really and truly was at play.
10
Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard said recently that the RET should never have been raised above the 2 per cent trial original level.
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The trouble with “Socialism”is eventually you run out of”OTHER” peoples money.(Margaret Thatcher)
50
Clive,
Today a local doctor said (privately) of socialized medicine (ObamaCare):
1. If you die in a hospital, you will probably not know the physician in charge of your care
2. You will probably never see your primary care physician while in the hospital
3. The hospital physician is supposed to get you out of the hospital, as soon as possible, no matter by which door you exit!
60
Australia got Medibank with the the Whitlam government. It paid doctors, who till then had decided who they sued and who they didn’t, and rarely if ever sued anybody, nobody was turned away, 85% of fee for every service. For doctors this was a bonanza. There have been many changes since that error.
Soon after, when a mate’s daughter was born, Medibank paid all but $38 of the costs. Every payday he had paid into the top level of the health insurance fund. He took his papers down to the fund office to collect his $38, only to be told that the doctor had charged above scale, and they didn’t cover that.
The fund was taking money under false pretences. Forty plus years on I still haven’t forgiven them.
Our experience with Australia’s public health system, which included a child dying from cancer, has been mostly excellent, save once that ten years ago when our daughter had a problem with childbirth which required an emergency Caesarian, the hospital hunted her out with problems, including mastitis, from which she never fully recovered. For that we blame individuals, not the system.
10
I can’t stand whatever Julia says. Maybe it’s just me…..
372
I don’t know what Julia said, but I disagree with it intensely…
A la Electricity Bill….
272
She talks like a kindergarten teacher.
She obviously has contempt for “the working people” in the general population, and so aims her message at the bottom quartile of the IQ curve.
141
I don’t think she has ever had the capability to aim any higher.
Bottom quartile is where she belongs
152
And so it continues another collapsing solar project after another.
Just like a collapsing star, unstoppable.
220
Exactly, Melbourne Fox.
What I’d like to see is a running list of RE failures that includes the cost to the taxpayer and to the other investors (mugs).
Such a list would have great power!
Can you help?
Anyone?
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Hey, I’ve got a new face to go with my new laptop!
I did like my other one better.
90
That happened to me a while back Sceptical Sam. I later discovered that I had made a one-letter mistake in my email address and when I corrected that, lo and behold! the old one was back.
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So would I mate. But as the number of subsidies solar cell manufacturers that have collapsed and installation programs that folded when the subsidies were pulled just continues to grow, so does the huge price tag.
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The more of these solar projects that collapse, the better.
The sooner these solar projects collapse, the better.
The sooner we get a real political leader, the better.
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Toorightmate, re your last wish, I just cannot see anybody in our current crop of “politicians” who have got the personality, the courage, the knowledge, the understanding and most of all, the will, to do anything about the whirlpool that is dragging us down to a certitude of drowning. Sorry. Thank goodness I probably will not live to see the worst of it, but my Labor voting daughter and her children will. I see no chance of an Australian Trump, because our Westminster system does not allow for a wild card like him.
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I still support Abbot.
His 2014 Budget was what Australia needed.
The spineless politicians of all persuasions ran for cover.
The spineless Liberal group instead brought us this hopeless, gutless, piece of sh*t who is our current PM.
Like you, I am utterly concerned for the future to be faced by Australia’s young people and children by this irresponsible hoodwinking
80
The 2014 Budget was, without doubt, the watershed. It allowed the Teachers to shriek about Gonski, it allowed the the Left to shriek about the NDIS, It allowed the Greens to shriek about, well, shrieking, it allowed Bill Shorten to shriek about fairness, and, above all, it allowed Malcolm Turnbull to sneak around like a fish in a Spielberg movie, with predictable results.
And here we are. Shrieking.
10
Boondoggle? I can’t think of another term for it.More lies by omission from the Australian Brainwashing Collective.
100
It is interesting that Kogan Creek is the location of, as far as I know, Australia’s only super-critical power station, 750 MW, 40% efficient. The “solar boost” was supposed to supply 44 MW of the 750 MW, instead of using coal – less than 6% of the output.
150
That 44MW was nameplate so the real contribution would be much less than 6%, maybe half a percent (if that) if the nameplate capacity could be delivered for an average of 2 hrs per day over the year. Even that amount of output was unlikely to be deliverable.
52
It’s not even Nameplate. As I explained in Comment 8 below, it’s just an estimated contribution towards the total power generation of this coal fired plant.
Tony.
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An old saying (amongst old project managers) is that “Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.”
These projects always kick off with a great fanfare about how this will deliver . I see this all the time in government proposals but rarely do we see any follow up on the ones that were announced but never heard of again. The Qld Govt is famous for these disappearing projects.
220
Dismal project management within most public sector organizations does waste literally millions of dollars each yet, even before you take into the nonsense of the RET…
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The UK and Australasian Governments are taking steps to improve project management.
They are doing this, by sticking strictly to a phased approach, where each stage has to go through a formal “Gateway Review” in order to move onto the next phase.
The Gateway Review, is a structured assessment by a panel of experienced people, who are totally independent of the project itself, and the Agency or Agencies that the project is intended to support. They therefore have no skin in the game, other than being known for their honesty, and courage, in calling out potential problems.
I am not a reviewer, but I know people who are, and the quality standard of Public Sector projects does seem to be improving as a result of the independent reviews.
30
It’s taken a long time for this to come out.Why?
It’s a bloody disgrace!
As for the Gillard video I could not bring myself to open it.
And then the talk about ‘technical problems or whatever’ is rubbish. Solar water heating in order to generate electricity, is not rocket science – taxpayers money should never have be put into this untested venture. Arena and Queensland government ass’s should be kicked for this failure and heads should roll. Instead it is the taxpayers of Australia who have had kick in the guts! Regards GeoffW
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Geoffey:
This is an old story about the evil of leftists and greens. Not even counting the dishonesty, incompetence, etc., the biggest sin of the leftists & Greens are their hypocrisy. There are all about virtue and holier than though when they are spending other peoples taxes. When you ask them to spend their own money and take their own risk the howl like a baby.
It may be the same in Australia, but in the USA the conservatives give significantly more $ and time to legitimate charity than the leftists-Greens ever have, by far. Mean spirited and stingy lot they are.
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And when they get together they leave behind piles of garbage, Leonard.
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Correct john karajas.
The conservatives (Republicans) meet and clean up after themselves.
The loony left meets and leaves tons of garbage, feces, etc. behind. How ironic that they have the gall to call themselves environmentalists. Just another example that to the loony left-greens, the environment does not matter is is money, power, the Marxism, and the vice-like control of the people that they pursue with such noise and determination.
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I’ve just read Tony’s explanation of the process (at #8 below Thanks to Tony) This was a solar boost plant for a three stage turbine on a super critical coal fired plant-so I jumped the gun somewhat and although a little embarrassed I have learned somthing. Still as Tony explains it was always a cock-eyed green inspired failure that was never going to produce anything of worth.
GeoffW
90
I’m not here to embarrass anybody who leaves comments here.
My task is to heap scorn on the people who propose cr@p like this by shining a focussed light on how little they actually know about in the first place, and how they manipulate data to be something it isn’t. If anybody else were to do this, they would be taken up for false advertising. When it comes to renewable power, it seems they can get away with blue bl00dy murder.
Poor little Julia. She was just reading from a prepared script, without actually having the faintest idea of what was going on here, the wilful squandering of $105 Million for a process that was suspect from the outset.
Tony.
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Poor little Julia? She was expecting to have her centrally planned economy in operation by now.
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And don’t forget the plan to censor the internet that she and her minister for communications Conroy were hatching until they were found out and under much political pressure decided to withdraw.
Coupled to the NBN debacle that Conroy and Abbott dreamed up, another thought bubble.
63
Conroy and Rudd dreamed up the NBN, Abbott contributed to the mess by giving communication to Turnbull and what we (don’t) have today is the result of that.
All around no one should feel proud of what the NBN has failed to deliver for the money involved.
80
First offer to voters $4.7 billion and later became $40 billion revised version. By 2013 it was heading quickly towards $100 billion before the Abbott led government introduced cost cutting measures. At the time the government said that even the unfinished NBN was not worth what taxpayers had paid for it, meaning market valuation was lower than it had cost to that date.
50
As she did, reading from a prepared script the same accusation used in the UK against the then opposition leader David Cameron by UK Labour, when she accused our opposition leader Tony Abbott of being a misogynist.
72
Somebody at the time of that Gillard “Misogynist” slur against Abbott should have called her out directly as a full blown”Misandrist”.
Currently there are a lot more “Misandrists” getting a lot more airtime, in fact almost exclusive access to airtime than any”Misogynists”.
70
TonyfromOz May 22, 2017 at 4:22 pm
“I’m not here to embarrass anybody who leaves comments here.”
True, I’ve been checking!
Your presentation is always on the physical, never the political\religious 🙂
30
Not just me then …?
150
Definitely not just you. I couldn’t face it either.
80
Fancy a government project going ar*e up.
Unprecedented; unimaginable.
30
You would think that these”Lying,Do Nothing,Career Politicians”would like to get something as big as some of these projects to actually work.But unfortunately they seem to be”Racing”each other,to see who can come up with the biggest”Boondogle”Pauline Hanson may not be the”Brightest”star on the horizon,but”She Is”the ONLY won.
10
No due diligence, aunty will be right onto this.
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Bear with me as this takes a bit of explanation.
When I first saw this proposal, I laughed out loud, and it was a really long long laugh.
Why?
Read this very carefully.
It was designed as a Solar Boost plant only, and here’s where the technical explanation comes in.
Kogan Creek is a Supercritical coal fired power plant with one unit of 750MW, the largest single unit in Australia.
Coal fired process, crush coal to powder, inject into furnace with forced air, heat to humungous heat, boil water to supercritical steam, yeah, blah blah blah, and here’s where you need to pay attention the next part of the process, the turbine itself, the thingie that drives the Generator.
That turbine is in three stages, the high pressure turbine, the medium pressure turbine, and the low pressure turbine, all along the one shaft. At the end of the high pressure turbine, some steam is diverted back to the furnace/boiler to get heated again, while the remaining steam, now a little less pressurised, and a tad cooler goes to the mid pressure turbine, and again, then some back to the furnace/boiler, and the remainder (a little lower in pressure and temperature) to the low pressure turbine, than some back to the furnace boiler and some to the pond under the cooling tower, where after a while, it too is recycled back to the boiler.
Got all that.
Okay, this solar booster plant was ONLY going to be used to make more steam, and this steam was to (hopefully, if the temperature and pressure got high enough) then be injected at the mid pressure stage, effectively meaning that the coal fired part of the plant (in theory anyway) would need to make, umm, a little less steam. (says Tony, now feeling the laughing arising from my gut)
Yeah, right! Of course. I can see that.
So, we have a solar booster, making only steam. It takes hours after the Sun rises to have that steam at the required amount, and well before Sunset, that steam drops back to a mere puff.
So, for all other periods of time, the turbine needs its full amount to run correctly, and then, umm, the solar part comes in and drops out, and any time outside of those few hours around Midday then the FULL amount of coal fired steam is required.
So, umm, how are you ever going to know when that time arises, and when we have some of those fast moving clouds, then the steam drops off. Oh dear!
Not one watt of power would have been generated by this solar plant. They just guess as to how much power it may mean to the overall total, say 44MW of the 750MW total from the generator. Clever manipulation of figures there let me tell you, and as the blurb itself says, just an estimated contribution towards the total generation.
Can you now see why they get a politician to explain it to the public in terms of homes supplied and Carbon (Dioxide) saved.
I’m not quite certain, but I think I can hear some of you laughing along with me.
Tony.
641
Thanks Tony.
So that is why it was called a “Solar Boost project.”
It should have been called a Steam Boost project.
And these folks wonder why we don’t trust them!
180
A ‘wallet boost’ project – which, depending on ones application of English, works to describe what happened to taxpayers just as well as it describes the benefit to the culprits.
150
So, can we deduce from that that somebody always knew that this project would impede more production than it generated? That it could never fly?
160
From the PDF linked at #27, p. 5:
“Funding for the project included a $70 million contribution from CS Energy, and a contribution of $34.9 million from the Australian Government through its Renewable Energy Demonstration Programme. CS Energy received funding from its owner, the Queensland Government, via a contribution of $35.4 million to the company’s Carbon Reduction Program which enabled funds to be directed to the project.”
So that’s $70.3 million (34.9+35.4) of tax payers money down the drain. Well, apart from the “lessons learned”. Expensive lessons!
P. 11, they discovered a significant technical issue after project approval, mentioning the “fast moving clouds”:
“However, a significant technical issue, relevant to the integration of the solar thermal addition materialised post that risk assessment, being the impact on the Kogan steam turbine from a sudden reduction in solar steam flow caused by rapidly moving clouds. The emergence of this issue heightened CS Energy’s concerns regarding the risks associated with integrating the solar boost addition with the power station.”
I interpret that to mean the system could be very difficult to control, or even that the sudden reduction in steam could cause physical turbine damage.
10
And then there is this;
Reuters; [ may 10th 2017 ]
German Sun King’s SolarWorld to file for insolvency
————-
And the flow-on to the USA;
ENERGYNEWS [ May 11th 2017 ]
Largest US Solar Panel Maker Files for Bankruptcy After Receiving $206 Million in Subsidies
——–
It really says that something about the ethics, morality, integrity and honesty or total lack of those attributes in the main stream media and a deepening indication of the now completely rotten and corrupt atmosphere within the Australian and the USA MSM when Climate Skeptic Blogs like Jo’s here in Australia and the small right wing Daily Caller in the USA and others of a similar skeptic background seem to be the only media outlets that are willing to publish items that are critical in any way of the green / climate alarmist’s socially and economically disastrous renewable energy catastrophes that is now unfolding almost daily and are becoming close to routine across the whole of the western world.
311
This seems to be the norm with… what do we call them here in Australia?
Anyway, the Obama peace prize was the epitome of gullibility. The crowning glory in a world living on Hope of something unstated, and Change what’s worked for the last 200 years into something that can’t possibly work.
Our Urban Design unit won an Australia prize for the design of the Mooloolaba streetscape. The civil guys just looked on stunned; they won a prize for the design? it’s not even built yet.
160
Mooloolaba streetscape?
Is there a new one?
They spent 2 million about 10 years ago, and claim it was completed.
70
That’s the one.
The award is still floating around the office like a sore point. Perhaps I’m just jaded.
70
Realistic government energy policies will require NAS members to admit, deny or debate this obvious logical error in public:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Nuclear_Energy_Error7.pdf
62
We now live in an international web of deceit that investigative reporter, Jon Rappoport, is exposing despite continuing “technological problems” of web site:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/new-ebola-outbreak-or-is-it-a-hoax/
Did Al Gore really build the internet?
50
Of course not. It was our Malcolm Trumble. Just ask Tones.
20
Whoever designed it made certain it would only promote globalist propaganda !
10
Unrealistic fiction like this popular movie, “Alien Covenant.”
10
I am pleased to report and to endorse, Dr. Norman Page‘s analysis of climate:
https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2017/04/trump-and-pruitt-are-right-natural.html?showComment=1495469114499#c2498578351
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The man who claimed credit for “building the internet to warn the public about the “Dangers of Global Warming,” Al Gore warns President Trump today to “stay in the Paris Climate Agreement
http://eheadlinespolls.com/breaking-al-gore-threatens-to-stop-trump-video/
Too late, Al, the public already figured out the internet is the globalists’ international web of deceit.
30
Jon Rappoport has started a now blog on the vision and pitfalls of technology:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/the-vision-of-technocracy/#comments
10
I wonder if Willard invested?
53
Go long on A. Salt & Battery!
100
Good question.
20
Usually a project of this sort will have a “groundbreaking” ceremony. All the important people show up. They stand in a semi-circle with shiny new shovels, and toss a bit of dirt in the direction of the camera.
I cannot find pictures of this activity.
If there was one, who was there and where are the shovels?
60
I hindsight, it wasnt dirt that was on the shovels….
70
Too right Steve, but whatever it was stinks!
GeoffW
40
The shovels are locked away safe, somewhere, as being the only tangible assets.
20
That solar project was for mirrors to focus the sun into a heat beam, not photovoltaic.
The similar California project is notorious for “smokers” and “flamers”, birds which fly through the beam and either depart with smoking feathers or crash in flames, depending on how much of the beam they pass through.
If this project had been finished, it would have been the environmental duty of any true bird lover to sabotage it. Of course, no greenie would have felt obliged to do so, as none of them are genuine enviromentalists.
321
.
OK ; here goes!
And it is just the tip of a google iceberg of similar announcements [ googled / “Wind turbine companies file for bankruptcy” ]
——————-
Mar ; 10/ 2017
Another taxpayer-funded energy company files for bankruptcy
Willard ! where art thou?
———————
Windreich files for bankruptcy
——————-
Times of India;
Siva’s wind turbine maker files for bankruptcy
————–
Award-winning Surrey supplier of global wind turbines goes bankrupt [ Nov / 8 / 2016 ]
“The Canadian company has gone into bankruptcy … and is working through what’s going to happen with the other operations,” Bardua said. “They don’t have a long-term supporter.”
—————–
Renew Economy [ 16 Mar / 2017 ]
Pioneering solar firm Sungevity files for bankruptcy
—————
The list from that google search term above just goes on and on!
230
Great blog ROM, Aquion Energy;
‘North American Company of the Year’
Can’t stop laughing!!
GeoffW
70
That swamp seems to be draining at pace!
80
I knew things were bad in the Solar panel area, and I knew wind turbines had [expensive!] gearbox problems (gearbox bearings collapsing after three to five years use requiring whole new replacement gearboxes at about $100,000 [2008 dollar value] a time) but I hadn’t paid much attention to the turbine manufacturing, so I didn’t see just how bad their situation was.
I guess I was too pre-occupied watching the wind farm operators sink under increasing litigation for noise (sub-sonics) induced health problems to track the manufacturers.
What a litany!
Must be Green Mould. 🙂
Thanks ROM.
100
Are there any Chinese manufacturers in the same trouble?
40
I have just came across a site dated December 2014, “Discover the answer” that has asked a very similar question to that being asked here;
I will leave it to the readers here to try and estimate just how much wealth, tax payers funds and nearly all being what ever the source, OPM on a huge scale was destroyed in this list of wannabe “World Leaders in Renewable Energy”.
This is a very long list / post. Links to each specific company can be found in the original article;
———————
Q. Show me a list of solar manufacturers which have restructured, left Australia or gone bankrupt over the past years.
150
Ye Gods and Little Fishes.
And then we get, “This list is not complete.”, to rub the salt in.
20
Keep a track of the executives and major investors in these failed companies. I’m guessing you’ll see the same names turn up to the government trough in a few years when all the infrastructure: turbines, PV panels, etc., needs to be dismantled, carted away and scrapped at great taxpayer expense for environmental reasons.
80
“ at great taxpayer expense”
Often the creditors want to unload the entire project as quickly as possible, thus getting the loss off the books.
Some of the “originals” will set up new companies — if you can keep track of the names, good luck –, then:
The new companies will buy the carcass of the belly-up company and then sell the parts, land, patents. They buy for pennies on the dollar and sell for dimes. They make money and then disappear.
This may be 5, 7, 10 years after the taxpayer money vanished.
It will get reported in very obscure court and financial publications.
Who will notice?
70
The Directors are on permanent government record in the countries where the company was registered.
It is the Directors who are answerable to their investors, and the Directors are responsible for their Executive as well.
Put heat to the feet of the Directors, and they will give full disclosure of the Executive and Investors, because once the company has gone, they are not bound by any confidentiality agreement, that may have existed with the company itself.
10
Aquion Energy
Go to the Co.’s site and learn about the product.
They sound great. There are lots of pretty pictures, diagrams, and charts.
Click on “Where to buy” – – and the result is:
404 Not Found
and this: Please forward this error screen to aquionenergy.com’s WebMaster.
I did not bother.
40
Any Goldman Sachs money invested in those firms?
50
How would you know? Goldman Sachs invests through proxies.
00
Google shows this story was posted “1 day ago” yet it never showed up when I specifically searched for failed wind/solar late last nite.
then it is such a strange story…it would seem the project failed some time ago, yet nothing til now!
meanwhile,
AUDIO: 9mins30secs: 20 May: WorldNetDailyRadio: Greg Corombos: ‘Swamp considerations’ holding U.S. in Paris deal
While Trump campaigned against climate agreement, ‘those interests are considerable’
Some and industries are at the forefront of protesting climate-inspired restrictions, but Horner says much of big business is on board with the climate agenda for multiple reasons. He says a lot of big companies are eager for the federal subsidies that come with compliance with the Paris accords.
“The reason is simple. When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you’re guaranteed Paul’s enthusiastic support and sometimes it was Paul’s idea. So you’ve got this base of industry support, the ones who would benefit,” said Horner.
He says those same businesses also see more restrictive policies as an advantage against the competition.
“They love instituting policies that are barriers to entry to new participants or that smaller competitors can’t handle as well. Some businesses were publicly saying in news reports that, ‘We’ve planned for this so we need this to happen,’” said Horner…
“We’ve got it on pretty good authority what the president still thinks. He wants out and wonders aloud why he can’t just keep his promise. He’s surrounded by influencers saying, ‘You can’t do it for the following reasons.’ But some people are saying, ‘You have to (withdraw) for these reasons, the same reasons you said you would,” said Horner.
If Trump relents, Horner says President Obama’s promise that our electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” will come true and the cost of everything related to energy costs will also shoot up.
“The price will go up, leaving you with less disposable income and a less resilient lifestyle, less healthy because you’re less wealthy. There’ll be more hypothermia, more of seniors and the vulnerable dying from energy poverty. That’s what it’s going to mean for you,” said Horner.
Horner fears that if Trump was going to withdraw the U.S. from the agreement, he would have done so already. However, he is not giving up hope given Trump’s adamant campaign promises…
If Trump doesn’t make good on that vow, Horner says it will be a strong example of how difficult it is to reverse the tides in Washington.
“It means the swamp isn’t as easily defeated as a lot of people hoped,” said Horner. “This is really, so far, the ultimate test of his battle against the swamp.”
http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/swamp-considerations-holding-u-s-in-paris-deal/
80
The marked linked doesn’t work- Here is the current one.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/fastmoving-clouds-how-cs-energys-kogan-creek-solar-boost-project-failed-20170516-gw5p2u.html
40
“I’d be wanting someone’s balls on a plate if I was to end up in such a predicament,” Mr Canham said.
Its time gentlemen, please.
60
18 May: Washington Times: Ben Wolfgang: State Department under Obama made U.S. participation vital to Paris climate pact
Newly released documents show just how badly the State Department wanted to get the U.S. into — and now to remain a party to — the Paris climate agreement that President Trump opposed in his campaign.
As Mr. Trump meets next week with other world leaders at the Group of Seven summit, the emails and cables underscore how the Obama administration’s State Department consulted with outside liberal groups and other allies to push the deal across the finish line.
The documents were released after legal prodding by Chris Horner, a lawyer and a senior fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, amid an ongoing fight inside the administration over whether to exit the deal, which commits the U.S. to significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions over the next decade….
“We are happy to be able to contribute to advancing the administration’s climate agenda, and now that we [are] staffing up with expertise, we are eager to get the ball rolling on some specific work that will be relevant for you,” Rodney Ludema, a chief economist at the State Department, wrote in a February 2015 email to Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s lead climate negotiator.
In other messages, officials discuss possible economic repercussions of the deal to European countries, acknowledging that U.S. involvement is necessary to make the entire deal work. The cable focuses on how European nations are banking on the U.S. to make a similarly ambitious emissions commitment…
As the terms were being negotiated, State Department officials and progressive allies of the Obama administration expressed bewilderment that Chinese officials seemingly ***weren’t concerned with the details of the deal.
“The [Chinese] foreign ministry folks coming through our doors lately report that as far as the summit goes, top brass wants a climate deal and they ***don’t particularly care about the details. That is a first in my experience,” Melanie Hart, director of China policy at the Center for American Progress, wrote in an October 2014 email to Mr. Stern…
The conversation began with Mr. Stern reaching out and asking for input on what advantage Chinese officials may be looking to gain from the agreement, which asks much of the U.S. and little of China…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/18/obamas-state-department-made-us-key-to-paris-clima/
40
Trump needs to hurry up and do what he promised the voters………..
PULL OUT OF THE PARIS GLOBAL WARMING SCAM ASAP !
00
Were they fast moving clouds, or flying pigs?
70
If the flying pigs went through the beam, we’d have had bacon at least…..
Every publically funded foul-up has a silver lining…..
#Fast-Cloud-Fail
60
🙂 just pass the salt please!
40
4th November 1909 … The first pig to fly …
https://twitter.com/historyepics/status/855669252807942144
40
‘If you build it, they will come’, but if the government subsidizes it, they won’t build it properly.
90
Government subsidized schemes are always
'BUILT DOWN TO A PRICE, NOT UP TO A SPECIFICATION!'80
Good one Tom, I’ll borrow that sentence for the battles ahead.
60
‘I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of 2 million parts — all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.’
Attributed to John Glenn, American astronaut
70
reported on 14 months ago for “stakeholders”!
21 March 2016: Renew Economy: CS Energy pulls plug on world’s largest “solar booster” project
By Giles Parkinson
The Queensland government-owned coal generator CS Energy has pulled the plug on a troubled and protracted effort to add a 44MW “solar booster” to its Kogan Creek power station, likely bringing an end to any plans by the coal industry to use solar as a way to extend the life and reduce the emissions of their power plants.
CS Energy announced late on Friday that the $100 million project, which was to use solar linear fresnel technology to generate additional “clean steam” for the coal-fired generator near Chincilla in South West Queensland, would not be completed, even though nearly $40 million had already been spent.
The decision is not a surprise, given that the project had been at a standstill since late 2013 – because of “technical” difficulties now identified as issues with the solar thermal addition boiler tubes – and after the owner of the technology effectively walked away from it…
(from CS Energy chief executive Martin Moore’s statement”: “The solar thermal addition could not be commercially deployed without substantial financial investment – and there is no prospect of ever getting a positive return on that investment. The business case for this project simply no longer stacks up.”…
The decision at Kogan Creek adds to a long list of project failures under the Renewable Energy Development Program, which allocated large sums of money to a group of ambitious projects that failed to develop.
These included the Solar Oasis solar project near Whyalla, and the wave energy project involving OPT in Victoria, along with several geothermal projects.
The REDP program – largely chosen by Canberra bureaucrats – was subsequently managed by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which sought to make greater use of private industry experts. However, the Coalition has tried unsuccessfully to dismantle ARENA and to bring it back within department operations…READ ALL
http://reneweconomy.com.au/cs-energy-pulls-plug-on-worlds-largest-solar-booster-project-16737/
50
as with almost all negative wind/solar stories, here it is tucked away,unattributed, in The Chronicle in Toowoomba, Qld:
18 March 2016: The Chronicle Toowoomba (NewsCorp): Solar Boost project will not be completed
Work stopped on site in 2013 due to issues with the solar thermal addition boiler tubes. In August 2014, AREVA announced that it would withdraw its operations from Australia and exit the solar thermal business worldwide.
CS Energy’s Chief Executive Officer, Martin Moore, said it was a commercially responsible decision to halt the project at this stage…
Mr Moore said that Solar Boost was no longer the right project or technology to advance CS Energy’s renewable energy future.
“The version of the technology in the Solar Boost project has become outdated in the years since the project’s inception as a result of advances in CLFR technology.
“CS Energy will redirect its efforts to ensure that it is positioned to capitalise on the growing renewable energy market. We are already in discussions with a number of potential partners as to whether they could use the Solar Boost site.”
ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said ARENA’s role was to support the development of new renewable energy technologies and, while not all would be successful, each added to the energy industry’s knowledge and skills base…
Mr Moore said that the decision to close the Solar Boost project would not result in any job losses and the Kogan Creek Power Station and mine will continue to operate at full capacity, which together employ around 150 people
https://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/solar-boost-project-will-not-be-completed/2969095/
ARENA: Kogan Creek Solar Boost project
(Project closed 8 March 2016) The Kogan Creek Solar Boost Project set out to install a 44 megawatts of concentrating solar power (CSP) at CS Energy’s 750 megawatt coal-fired Kogan Creek Power Station…
Benefit
Valuable insights gained during the project will be used to strengthen future renewable energy developments…
Final report
CS Energy has produced a final report which captures the lessons learned in undertaking this project. Kogan Creek Solar Boost Final Report (PDF 590KB) (LINK)
https://arena.gov.au/projects/kogan-creek-solar-boost-project/
they won’t give up…and the pollies won’t put an end to the RET!
80
Perhaps they ran out of puppy dogs and rainbows?
60
Again with using ‘homes’ as the Unit of Measure.
Gives a nice large looking number – in this case 5000 – and Mr and Mrs Casual Observer can sit around the breakfast table making approving noises.
No one ever willingly offers up the conversion tables for ‘homes’ into ‘local supermarkets’, ‘small offices’, ‘street lights’ or even (shudder) ‘factories’ or decides to point out just how many ‘homes’ exist in Australia.
‘Homes’ isn’t a unit of measure, it’s a distraction.
180
The process and what fast moving clouds means.
Go and look at the diagram at this link. This is a chart for solar insolation, in other words how much power is being generated, and while this is for a solar PV installation, the graph will be similar in nature, because it indicates when the solar starts, how high it gets, and when it stops ….. the insolation process, in other words, how much Sun it gets.
I’ve purposely selected a good Winter’s day for solar to explain the process, and this is a midwinter day from 2016, if only to show you how poorly these do in Winter, which after all, is a goodly part of the year.
Note first the Nameplate at left, 5796, and now note how high it gets at best in Winter, around 4000, so that’s only 60%, and even then it’s a short time peak before falling away again. The actual time when it becomes operational, in other words when there is enough heat to make the steam is around the 50%+ mark, so here, 50% of (Nameplate) is 2900, so only between 10 and 2PM in Winter, barely 4 hours, if it makes it to that mark at all, because this is a bright sunny day I have chosen.
Those vertical drop spikes are the fast moving clouds flitting across the face of the Sun. Note the sudden and steep drop and the time then taken to get back to where it was.
The engineering for something like this as a ….. Solar Boost would have been difficult at best, and that would be an understatement.
How to get steam from the solar component into the medium pressure turbine only, at the correct temperature and pressure, and when, and how much, and when to lower the steam from the coal fired component, which then affects the high pressure turbine as well, now with less steam called for. I suppose it could be done with some sort of computer program, but why would you even bother when the exact amount of steam is already being supplied from the coal fired component.
Can you see now why this made me laugh so much.
Why oh why would you try and integrate something so complex into what is basically a simple process, when the slightest thing (fast moving cloud) could end up doing major damage.
Also of note in the video, see at the 27 second mark, well that has zero to do with solar power. That’s the actual coal fired installation you see there.
Tony.
242
Why are there never any engineers working on these projects that can do a simple analysis to demonstrate that such proposals won’t work?
112
The projects were not intended to produce energy or anything else useful to the people who ultimately pays for the project. They were superficially intended only to transfer wealth from those who produce it to those who don’t, can’t, or won’t.
The not so superficial purpose for all this wealth consumption was a not yet but soon to be fatal blow to the world’s economy. The fall out of that will be an end to the life giving scientific and industrial revolution that keeps over 99% of the world’s population alive with a good fraction thriving. A return to a primitive hunting and gathering tribal existence will soon follow for the less than 1% of the current world’s population who still survive.
Principal: When you see something absurd, don’t question the absurdity, look for what it produces. When you find it, you will have found the purpose for the absurdity.
QED: Their not so hidden purpose is darker than the darkest purpose exposed since the beginning of recorded history: the extinction of the mind of man and its products.
Global conquest, theft of wealth, and enslavement of the productive are but way stations on the path to achieving their ultimate purpose.
Question: Why have we allowed this monstrosity to have happened?
130
“We The People”didn’t.The”Lying,Do Nothing,Career Politicians”are responsible for ALL of this mess we are in.
10
We the People believed their lies, expected to benefit from their actions, voted for them, and allowed them to stay in office. In spite of 10,000 years of recorded history of governments doing the same things, we continued to expect the next government to be different. Government IS the problem because We the People expect to get free things from it.
20
TfO,
That was a cool link. I played around with it looking at some of the other days. the 1st-3rd were completely clear. in contrast, I liked this from the 4th:
http://solar.uq.edu.au/user/reportPower.php?dts=2016-07-05&dtra=day&rds=1
If yours was “fast moving cloud,” I guess this could be described as “fast moving sun.” 🙂
50
Actually, that was from july 5, but you get the idea.
40
Phil R,
as you can see from the day that you linked to, that insolation would mean that the working temperature would never reach the stage where it could make the required amount of steam, and that day you showed is just one of many days just like that.
Now, note at the left the stats that they offer as best etc. Note the Installed Capacity, and that’s the Nameplate, shown here as 5796kW, and that’s 5.796MW.
Note below the best energy day and that is 41377kWh, and that’s the same as 41.377MWH. Now while that was generated during daylight hours only, that equates to a 24 hour Capacity Factor (CF) of 29.75%, the absolute best case they have.
Keep in mind here that the Industry Standard for CF is calculated across the whole year, and the CF for this installation comes in at 15.4%, and really, that’s around the usual for a Solar PV array, (between 12% and 17%)
That CF can be looked at in two ways: (1) this installation produces 15.4% of its full rated power across the year, or (2) this installation produces its full rated power for 15.4% of the year, or, distilled down to a daily average of 15.4% of the day, and that equates to an average of 3.7 hours a day, averaged across the whole 365 day year.
So, extrapolating that back to this Solar Boost plant at Kogan Creek, it effectively means that the plant will only be making the required amount of steam (to get to the operating temperature for the steam) of around perhaps 3.75 to 4 hours a day, so between 10AM and 2 PM. In Summer it will be higher, and in Winter lower, so that four hours is the year round average, because there will be days, as you have shown, where it will never reach the operating temperature.
And keep in mind that here I have simplified it, because to be exact, which would be what this type of plant requires, it would need to be so carefully monitored and controlled, that the whole process would become almost technically impossible from an engineering standpoint, because anything less would cause horrendous damage to the turbine itself which requires exacting amounts of steam at the perfect operating temperature all the time, not just at the whim of the Sun, and fast moving clouds.
This Solar Boost plant utilising this technology would have been near impossible to get right, hence the proponents walked away from it, using the rusting pipes as a convenient excuse, because the general public, with no understanding of those engineering requirements would not understand it, and they could get away with the rusting pipes excuse.
Tony.
Post Script: And please, someone tell me how anyone else could get away with saying this is only 15.4% operational to its full capability. Sir, your nice new (Holden, Ford, Toyota, any car at all) will only get you to your destination one time in 6 on average. This new train or bus or plane will only run at design for one time in six. This new elevator in this 40 storey building will only operate one time in six. This new traffic control system for your city will only operate as designed on time in six, and on and on and on, and you never know when that one time in six will be. They would never get away with it, and no one would ever buy them. Now perhaps you can see that all they say is that this plant will supply (x) homes, which, effectively is the same as quoting that Capacity Factor when you work it out. When was the last time you heard at an opening of a new renewable power plant where the operator stands before the gathered crowd, and proudly proclaims that this plant has a CF of (x) and then explains it. Never happen. That’s why the public believe that these renewables are okay and can replace coal fired power, because something like that is never explained, just cleverly hidden away in double talk.
101
A guy did some calculation on German wind energy for 2015, 2016
I can’t remember the exact figures (at work at the moment), but output was below 16% of nameplate for over 50% of the time
and below 50% capacity about 90% of the time.
just the random peaks where it got over 50% capacity
POINTLESS, and UNRELIABLE !!
72
I think that the Chinese understand the western green oriented media better than anyone, especially the concentration on Installed Capacity, which is Nameplate.
Everywhere you look you see how China has the largest Nameplate for any Country on Earth, and that’s around 150GW. When the sums are done, that’s almost 10% of China’s total Nameplate Capacity from every source.
That headline figure of almost 10% looks impressive.
However, China has a Capacity Factor for wind power that is on the low side, and that is barely touching 18%.
So, when you see the total power generated by wind in China, it comes to 241TWH, and that’s only 4% of all generated power.
Almost 10% sounds a helluva lot more than 4%, eh!
People look to China as an example based around that 10% Nameplate, and China just smiles.
Incidentally, and I know it’s not really a good comparison, but that Chinese total for generated power from Wind, 241TWH, is almost the same as the total generated power here in Australia from every source, so if that comes from all that wind power, then it stands to reason Australia could get all its power from wind, eh!
Chinese Nameplate – 149GW
Australia’s wind Nameplate – 4400MW (or 4.4GW)
So just multiply Australia’s nameplate by, umm, 34. So, just construct every existing wind plant in Australia thirty four times over.
Easy peasy, eh!
Tony.
91
Germany’s on land wind turbines average about 18% capacity factor and falling as more wind turbines are installed in less and less favourable to wind locations.
However there is now an increasing indication that Germany’s “Transition to Renewable Energy”, the “Energiewende” that is so beloved of the German Greens [ who have been nearly wiped out in some very recent German state elections with around 6% of the vote versus close to 15% at their peak a couple of elections ago ] and Merkel and the leftist politicians of Germany and Europe are now running into an increasingly vocal and furious, generally locally based and severe backlash.
The German people are coming to realise what the so called Renewable Energy is costing them economically and socially but most of all environmentally as the turbine promoters and scammers are allowed by the german politicians to just mow down some of Germany’s most prized natural forests and install even more turbines where a lot of the forests once stood only a couple of years ago.
And quite a number of even left wing politicians along with the odd green politician are becoming very vocal about the stupidity of it all in imagining that Germany can be powered by solar with its couple of percent capacity factor over the 4 or 5 months of the winter period and with completely unpredictable and uncontrollable wind turbines generated power.
Germany is also arousing the intense ire of the surrounding European nations as it dumps its unpredictable excess wind generated power into their grids creating very large, hard to handle surges in other surrounding nation’s grids .
Countered now by phase shifters now being installed on the surrounding nations grid borders which prevent Germany from dumping excess wind generated power across its borders into other national grids.
So the Germans pay again to the turbine owners for the turbines to be shut down when strong wind conditions exist and there is an excess of wing generated power.
As their nuclear reactors are phased out over the rest of 2017 the Germans are now building a number of very advanced lignite, ie brown coal [ of which Germany has a lot of ] burning generators as back up and basic power supplying generators for when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine.
And all for no visible or conceivable advantage to man, beast or the holy environment of the green scum as Germany’s emissions of CO2 continue to increase.
The non-holy, real world environment of course benefits significantly from the increases in CO2 from the near CO2 plant starvation levels of a claimed 285 ppm prior to our species making life comfortable for itself and the global plant life as well, by burning all that 130 to 250 million year old plant life deposits aka coal beginning some couple of centuries back in time.
50
TfO,
Thank you very much for your response. although my response was supposed to be humorous in part, your response was very informative and I’ve learned a lot from your posts.
10
The massive subsidies available in the UK has led to corruption on a massive scale. In observing the renewable energy industry for about 10 years, I have observed that it is full of incompetents and all the corrupt low life that are drawn to other peoples’ money, given away by incompetent politicians.
150
Subsidies, tsk! – Constraints on genuine competition,
encouraging cronyism ‘n vote buying, pick-pocketed from
prol, and serfs,’ honest labor.
‘The dead hand of guv-uh-mint’ and ‘yer taxes at werk.’
100
There will be an economic crash soon. (It might even be October this year …)
Gross corruption leading to the embezzlement and mis-investment of large sums is one of the main causes of these economic dislocations.
But the Northern hemisphere is facing a potentially worse problem. Food becoming scarce. Watch food prices sky-rocket, esp. in the USA. The US grain harvest has collapsed to 35% of last years, so they won’t have any reserve to bail out the rest of the world.
North Africa and Europe are still in the grip of winter with fresh snow and ice as of a couple of weeks ago. May is their last month of Spring. So far it’s been just a Winter as usual. Grain production across Europe is a wipe out, as is winter vegetables. In the US, an early and warm spring was predicted, so farmers replanted. They got a late and Cold continuation of winter, so their replanting has failed. That’s hard times coming in.
North Africa and Europe are going to erupt into widescale rioting as food prices soar creating widespread hunger. That’s what hungry people do best: Riot. The Syrian refugees are likely to be the earliest to suffer. Which one will be first—North Africa or Europe—is moot.
Oz had a bumper harvest. Oz producers will be able to name their prices when Europe et al come knocking. Local Produce prices will soar too.
I think this may all play out over the rest of this year.
Enjoy.
110
There was a world record in size grain harvest from 2016 and lots of grain left in the open under temporary covers as the storages were bursting with new seasons grain.
So there is a buffer of some sort there for the first season of shortages if they eventuate.
Shortages in modern agriculture are usually short lived as the old farmer’s saying goes; “the cure for high prices is high prices: ie; everybody and his dog get on the production bandwagon when shortages lead to high prices and the resulting surge in production rapidly brings everybody back to earth again very quickly.
———————
Interesting point sophocles about our Oz producers and one I have been thinking on for the last few months.
We had truly incredible seasons and incredible prices back in the early to mid 1970’s when the climate scientists, and they were quite genuine in their beliefs based on the lingering effects of the LIA in their youth, that the world was well down the route to a new Ice Age.
And the cold seasons but mostly too short growing seasons for crop growth in cold conditions and therefore lack of time to mature did lead to global grain shortages in the NH due to crop failures or inability of farmers to plant early enough to guarantee that the crop would reach maturity, ie; ripen, before the next fall and winter cold set in.
Those cold years and the winters were bloody cold out here on the wide open near dead flat Wimmera plains north of Horsham in west Vic but we had rainfall in, for us humungous amounts for three or four of those years in the early 1970’s.
Average rainfall over a century of measurement at the Longerenong station about 10 kms NW of Horsham is around the 400 mm mark.
Our farm raingauge in 1973 saw around 800 mms of rain and 1974 about 700 mms of rain .
1974 / 5 was the only wet drought I have ever seen in my almost 79 years when we only got half our crop acreage sown as that was about the amount of our farm land that was literally above water over a 4 month winter / spring period.
So specifically applying to SE Australia and not necessarily anywhere else, it might well be that SE Australia will again see seasons of above average rainfall as the planet continues to cool and the great weather controlling jetstreams and standing frontal type systems in the South Pacific and Antarctic Ocean and Great Southern Oceans and Indian ocean shioft and vary in strength and thereby reset the Southern Hemisphere’s weather systems into another pattern yet again.
Always bearing in mind of course, the 1930’s Danish physicist’s Niels Bohr’s dictum; “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it is about the future“
121
Judah Cohen (AER) is looking ahead.
‘…with mostly positive pressure/geopotential height anomalies across Greenland and Iceland the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is negative.
‘As expected during a negative NAO, temperatures are below normal across western Eurasia including parts of Europe as a strong block/high pressure has developed in the eastern North Atlantic including Western and Central Europe with a cool, northerly flow downstream of the block across Eastern Europe and Western Asia.’
In the southern hemisphere the ‘blocking high’ is in full view and producing a warm anomaly along the eastern seaboard.
10
The Southern Annular Mode is a major player.
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/styles/node_lightbox_display/public/key_figures/climate_data_set/Marshall-SAM-F2.png?itok=SfM6AroV
If you squint your eyes its possible to see the start of the hiatus, who knew?
10
‘Food becoming scarce. Watch food prices sky-rocket ….’
At least nobody will starve, we’ll ship food into Europe at a premium price.
Chinese investment in Africa will blossom and apart from the usual wars, which prevents aid reaching starving people, nobody need starve.
10
The steel Areva imported from China’ was of such poor quality it had to be buried as scrap.’
‘Areva flew 40 workers to the site from the US but they arrived without appropriate safety gear or training. “They had no safety boots, they thought it was alright to go on site with normal shoes. I said: ‘Pack them back on the plane’.”
Wentworth
60
The original media release about not completing the project was first released by CS Energy in March 2016 but this has only just been picked up by the lamestream media.
http://www.csenergy.com.au/download.php?file_id=387
Here is a report on “lessons learned” by CS Energy as submitted to ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
https://arena.gov.au/assets/2016/09/Kogan-Creek-Solar-Boost-Final-Report.pdf
72
Its subtle!
Its incremental
Its happening right before our eyes.
Renewable energy particularly wind turbines being such obvious and outstanding visual and audio monstrosities are beginning to cop the blame for quite a number of unfortunate happenings particularly when it involves the Holy Environment or parts of that Environment.
And the “Experts” are right in there although from a different branch of science, that of marine science which is a very legitimate science compared to “climate science.”
Three whales that washed up on the Suffolk coast may have died after becoming disorientated by offshore windfarms, marine experts believe.
[ more “experts” ]
101
The noise is certainly having a disastrous effect on the staff at East Anglia Uni.
They are becoming crazier by the month.
80
Will they have to be shot to put them out of their misery?
30
I tell everybody who buys my home designed and built sparrow traps at the local farmer’s markets to use the “Deep Immersion Hydro Therapy Treatment” before relocating aforesaid sproggies down to the fertilizer patch near the back fence.
Even the greenies laugh!
40
Oh, blessed be….
20
Why would off-shore wind turbines put out more noise than on-shore ones ?.
20
Ask the fish.
10
.
StefanL @ # 28.3
Off shore wind turbines don’t make more noise than land based turbines.
It is just that the ocean waters are far better transmitters of low frequency noise, the most damaging noise and vibrations from wind turbines to the audio processing parts of mammals of which whales, porpoises and etc, the Cetacean order of species are members of, over very long distances
Most of the now basically both observed and measured and proven health damaging noise frequencies below 20 Hz and down to a measure 8 Hz of wind turbines, in an ocean situation such low frequencies are transmitted into the ocean from the infrastructure vibrations of the turbines rather than a direct air to ocean transmission of the VLF turbine generated noise.
You need to read a couple of quite different sources to get some idea on how and why turbine infrasound in ocean based turbines is likely to be very damaging to the likes of the Cetacean species such as the whales and etc.
The first source explains how sound travels for very long distances in the oceans ie; Sound Transmission in the Ocean
A specific and extreme but real world example from this source is quoted below;
———–
The second reading source is quite devastating when it comes to explaining the effects of turbine produced infrasound that is way below the accepted thresh holds of human response [ or the mammalian Cetacean. ie “order of whales” species ] to frequencies at below 20Hz and down to as low as 8 Hz which can’t be measured by conventional acoustic meters.
Wind Turbines can be Hazardous to Human Health
Alec N. Salt, Ph.D., Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis.
And much more on the damaging and often severe effects of turbine infrasound on human health and hearing
—————-
For a developing legal problem for the wind industry as a whole through out western nations, the Blog The Law is my Oyster by an Irish lawyer.
The Irish wind industry has just had a huge legal loss and has avoided the courts by paying up to the claimants so as to reduce public exposure to some very damaging evidence of extreme health issues arising from wind turbine noise syndrome.
Research into Wind Turbine Infrasound
This site has a number of links to research articles that deal with the effects of turbine infrasound and its impact on human health and no doubt a similar or potentially even more serious impact on the ocean’s Cetacean life due to the very long range low frequency noise transmission characteristics on the world’s oceans.
[ September 16, 2015 ]
60
ROM,
Thanks for the informative reply.
00
How odd that Australia is leading the world in what not to do with energy fund allocations yet her voters still keep the same barking mad folks in office.
110
That’s because most Australian voters are non thinkers. We get the government we deserve.
80
That’s because most Australian voters are non thinkers. We get the government we deserve. Which came first….????
60
Because you have the ABC, sympathetic journalists, Left wing teachers (are there any Right wing teachers?) and the eco-warriors very successfully transferring their paranoia to the populace in a constant bombardment of propaganda.
100
‘….are there any Right wing teachers?’
I recently heard there was one in the local high school and all the other teachers were both amazed, horrified and extremely angry when he picked correctly the Brexit and Trump outcomes. His views on gorebull worming has not yet reached my ears, but I’m assuming he is one of us.
90
That’s because most Australian voters are non thinkers. We get the government we deserve.
Which came first???
40
Australian voters are discerning, but there is no political diversity and they have little choice in their voting habits.
The majors have a stranglehold and the MSM maintains the swamp, keeping interlopers down.
This is the 21st century, we are a technologically advanced nation state, a small population on the smallest continent on earth. Do you think its time to give up the Federal sphere, retaining only the States and Local Council?
30
Politicians at all levels are the same. Getting rid of the Federal will not make any difference. Besides, the voters are the same so why would one elected lot at one level be any better than another? The power to make change is the in the voters’ hands. They won’t use it until things get really bad at which time it will be easy for them to change their voting pattern. One the dust settles then changes at the political level required to put us back on the right track will be huge.
40
If politicians in a democracy are all the same, then they won’t change after the dust settles.
Bob Hawke wanted to get rid of the states, too much duplication at great expense for no apparent gain, but that would be unwise.
In the run-up to the next Federal election I think Turnbull will pull a rabbit out of the hat and the Coalition romp home to secure a comfortable win.
12
The Fake Stream Media: “It’s Our Job to Control What People Think.”That BS meter is clanging away and nobody is taking any notice.
50
I hear you Clive, the professions have been brainwashed along with the bogons, our numbers here are small and its basically up to us to turn things around.
Never before in the field of human history has the task been mightier, so few know the truth and this is essentially our predicament.
20
.
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
Winston Churchill
20
Australian voters discerning! I can only disagree with that. They may have developed B.S meters and a contempt for authority and the political class,but that’s it.
41
You maybe right Glen, but because there is no diversity of opinion on climate change from the majors. then we may never know if 90% of Australians park their political brains in the bottom draw.
Anyway I’m not too concerned, we are sitting pretty for a Beijing takeover.
30
22 May: Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga, Fairfax): Shane Manning: Caution needed in solar frontier for Riverina farmers, says lawyer
A prominent lawyer is warning Riverina farmers to exercise caution when pursuing solar farms as a revenue stream.
It comes as a number of solar farms in the Riverina area, including a 150 megawatt solar farm near Coleambally, have been approved or are being assessed by the state government.
The Riverina has been touted as one of the most ideal areas in the country for solar farms, but Aitken Lawyers partner Andrew Aitken said those looking to take advantage of sunny days ahead needed to make sure energy companies weren’t ripping them off…
The best advice he could give to farmers was to communicate with each other and create a syndicate…
He said any landowners looking to go down the path of renewable energy needed to understand the contract details, saying a lot of companies talked up the dollars, but didn’t elaborate on the risks.
“It’s not just the reflectors, it’s the other costs such as pest (control), fire (prevention), and traffic movements,” Mr Aitken said.
“Lots of people have signed a document where it needed a lawyer to look at it.
“Sometimes it’s about what’s not (in the document) rather than what’s there.”…
http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/story/4678489/caution-needed-in-solar-frontier-for-riverina-farmers-says-lawyer/
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read all:
22 May: The Hindu: K.E. Raghunathan: Before sunlight turns shadowy
(The author is MD, Solkar Solar Industry Ltd. and National President, All India Manufacturers’ Association)
The per unit price of solar power in India has dropped from Rs. 15 to Rs. 2.44 in 5 years In fact, it has fallen from Rs. 4.50 within one year. Has the technology improved so much in the solar sector to facilitate this fall? Has solar become commercially viable and attractive for everyone? Have government incentives enabled this price fall? How much further will prices fall in the next five years? Is this sustainable?
If this sector is in profitable growth mode, why have giants like Sun Edison, Solar World, Sungevity Beamreach, Climate Energy and Mark Group filed for bankruptcy in the past year? Also, Yingli Green Energy, a former world leader in solar panel volume, recorded a loss of $267.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2016 on $294 million in revenue.
So, all is not hunky dory with the industry…
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-business/before-sunlight-turns-shadowy/article18521160.ece
22 May: The Hindu: Solar city project still a non-starter
The solar city project of the Kochi Corporation remains a non-starter even a year after the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy extended financial assistance to the civic body.
The Ministry had transferred ₹19.42 lakh to the corporation a year ago for popularising the concept of tapping solar power, formation of a Solar City Cell for implementing the project, and preparation of a master plan document…
Responding to the developments, Mayor Soumini Jain admitted that there had been a delay in releasing funds and taking the project forward.
“An earlier attempt to release funds did not succeed as then Secretary had raised objections to the proposal,” she said.
A meeting of the officials concerned, including the Corporation Secretary and those at C-HED, will be convened shortly for implementing the project, the Mayor added.
Ms. Jain was of the view that attractive incentives, including tax sops, should be offered to people who came forward for setting up solar power plants in the initial phase.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/solar-city-project-still-a-non-starter/article18521112.ece
20
21 May: TelegraphIndia: Rooftop lag in solar power flop – India fails to reach even half of target, blame on Centre’s policies
by Jayanta Basu
A report by the ministry of new and renewable energy says the country increased its capacity for solar energy production by about 5.5GW (gigawatt) between April 2016 and March 2017, against a target of 12GW.
India, whose total solar energy capacity is now about 12GW, has set itself a target of 100GW by 2022, which many consider “over-ambitious”…
Overall, the country generated just 11.3GW of grid-connected renewable energy in the 2016-17 financial year, less than 70 per cent of its target of 16.7GW. The ministry report says that apart from wind power and waste-to-energy, India did poorly.
“Implementation of rooftop solar is taking place at a much slower pace and it seems unlikely that the government would achieve its 40GW target by 2022,” a report by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry and credit rating agency Care Ratings, released at the National Solar Summit 2017, warned.
It advocated specific policy initiatives to support rooftop solar power generation, including incentives to attract investments.
India’s total rooftop solar installation stood at 1.247GW on December 31 last year, which is just over 3 per cent of the targeted 40GW by 2022…
Some experts also blame the coal lobby for the tardy growth of solar energy in coal-rich eastern India.
“Clearly, the coal lobby is pushing back solar energy growth in these states as coal is available there,” said solar energy expert Santipada Gon Choudhury.
Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal have together installed hardly one per cent of their combined target of achieving a capacity to generate 12GW solar energy by 2022.
Bengal power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, however, blamed the state’s poor performance solely on the “Modi government’s abolition of solar energy subsidies, including solar rooftop subsidies, from 2014″…
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170522/jsp/nation/story_152876.jsp
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22 May: Bloomberg: GE Said to Face Probe for Misleading EU Over $1.7 Billion Deal
by Gaspard Sebag and Peter Levring
The European Commission is reviewing whether GE misled EU officials examining a deal to buy LM Wind Power, a maker of wind-turbine blades, for 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion), said the people, who asked not to be named as the case is confidential.
The company may be in trouble for telling regulators it didn’t have any plans to develop a new giant offshore wind turbine when the company did have such a project on hold, said one of the people. The EU began to suspect it had been misled shortly after giving its stamp of approval to the deal in March and GE is now scrambling to explain that there was no intention to misinform regulators, the person said…
The punishment for breaking the EU’s rules is as high as 1 percent of their annual sales…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-22/ge-said-to-face-probe-for-misleading-eu-over-1-7-billion-deal
22 May: Financial Times: Ed Crooks: US solar power groups await ITC ruling on higher tariffs
Call from bankrupt panel maker threatens to have devastating impact on jobs
US solar power businesses are braced for an imminent decision from the country’s International Trade Commission on whether to start a process that could lead to a sharp contraction in the market and thousands of job losses.
The ITC is considering a call from Suniva, a bankrupt Chinese-owned manufacturer of solar cells and panels in the US, for higher tariffs on imported products to stop low-priced foreign competition…
If the tariffs sought by Suniva are imposed, they would sharply increase the price of panels, also known as modules, and the silicon cells used to make them, and it would be harder for solar power to compete against other energy sources…
Suniva argues that the US industry making cells and modules is “disintegrating”, with 4,800 jobs lost since 2012, over which time the market share taken by US producers has dropped from 21 per cent to 11 per cent. Suniva itself went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April…
That tariff would cut the expected market for solar photovoltaic capacity in the US by about 60 per cent over 2018-21, according to IHS Markit, the research group. That prospect has horrified businesses that use imported panels, such as rooftop solar providers…
https://www.ft.com/content/fd5b290e-3c45-11e7-821a-6027b8a20f23
30
reg reqd:
22 May: UK Times: Gurpreet Narwan: Green campaigners come to blows over offshore wind farm
A battle over the right to build wind farms off the east coast of Scotland has caused a falling out among environmentalism campaigners, fracturing the green lobby.
An appeal by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) against four huge turbine developments in the North Sea was overturned last week, despite the charity’s claims that the projects would harm thousands of migratory birds.
RSPB Scotland has long supported the development of renewables but its director, Stuart Housden, said it was “hugely disappointed” by the decision and would continue to oppose projects that “posed a major threat to Scotland’s wildlife”…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/green-campaigners-come-to-blows-over-offshore-wind-farm-dtf33cp3c
22 May: Daily Mail: Thousands of puffins, gannets and kittiwakes are under threat after
Scottish government allows developers to build 335 wind turbines in the North Sea
Scotland’s most senior judge Lord Carloway ruled in favour of the developments
Developers say projects could produce enough energy to power 1.4m homes
The most advanced of the schemes is the £2 billion Neart Na Gaoithewind farm
By Harvey Day
Stuart Housden, Director RSPB Scotland: ‘These could be amongst the most deadly windfarms for birds anywhere in the world. It was with great reluctance and as a last resort, but in these circumstances, it was clear that RSPB Scotland had to make a stand.
‘While we are deeply disappointed with today’s decision, given the huge threat to Scotland’s wildlife from these projects, we do not regret our actions so far.
‘We will now need to take some time to consider this judgment in detail and consider its wider implications before commenting further.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4527190/Scottish-government-allows-developers-build-turbines.html
40
$105 million for some cheap chinese pipes and a few solar panels. Sounds like there’s a fair whack of money unaccounted for. Wonder where it went.
110
Better news in the UK – maybe?
http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/rutland_cement_works_powered_by_9mw_solar_farm_2356
It looks interesting – but what are the pitfalls?
One for you, Tony? I’d value your input!
30
“…and allowing inverters to act as capacitor batteries at night.” Got to love it. The conventional power stations are the so-called batteries. As they will be for most of the time during the daytime too.
70
Estimated to provide 10% of annual power requirements.
20
.
“Estimated” & Experts
Those great and increasingly used universal cop out words that are so beloved of the climate alarmist fantasists and which gives them a free passage out of any follow up debacles where their oh so serious prognostications on the catastrophic future on some subject they are so “expert” on but which they have no known acquaintance or previous knowledge of, comes very thoroughly unstuck for entirely natural and foreseeable reasons and turns out to be directly the opposite to what they had “expertly” claimed.
[ie; Flannery of the endless drought and the hot rocks Fool ]
And when the blowback strikes and strikes hard at their credibility and reveals their abject ignorance of the subject they pontificated so long and earnestly on, “But it was only an “estimation” they will say and we relied on what the “Experts” told us.
00
I wonder what Menzies would have said about this and the climate change scam? I bet we would see most of the people in the Liberal Party have their faces turn fiery red. The Liberal Party in general and Turnbull in particular should be ashamed of themselves for having destroyed the Liberal Party ethos. Anyone who votes for that party from now on is a fool.
50
That “man-made climate change is cr*p” maybe?
His fan Tony Abbott did.
30
Peter, I am not disagreeing with you comment, but surely you would agree that the union controlled Labor Party, Electricity Bill Shorten led, would be worse?
Former Labor leader Mark Latham said recently that Shorten Labor in government would be worse than Rudd (Gillard) Labor.
60
Almost certainly and we will know soon enough. However, in the long run it makes no difference. We might as well have a more honest party in government so that we know what the people voted for is what they get instead of the fake Liberal Party. Personally I prefer neither party be in government but clearly the people of Australia are not willing to give another party a go. In the US they effectively did by voting for Trump who is not a true Republican but more of an independent. Too bad we don’t have someone like him to take over the LNP – but then I am willing to bet that if we did they would have no chance of the party winning not just because of the media bias (after all that was the case for Trump but despite all that he still won) but also because we have a heavy bias towards socialism in this country. This means we will have to suffer a lot more pain before we wake up. It’s going to end in tears I’m afraid but that’s how the ball bounces.
40
Comparing the US to Australia is irrelevant, they have a different type of political system. The Westminster system doesn’t throw up the occasional charismatic leader, we need to become a republic first.
‘….because we have a heavy bias towards socialism in this country. ‘
Not sure, I’ll try and find a link to support your claim.
11
By any definition Australia is not a socialist country, even though we have free health care for all our citizens, along with free education and pension.
They refer to Australia as a mixed economy, between government and the commercial world, we are probably closer to China than the US but we are still capitalists.
There has been no growth in wages for years and few strikes, does this indicate that we have become socialists?
11
I did not say it’s a socialist country. I said we have a bias towards socialism. Labor’s constitution states: “The Australian Labor Party is a democratic socialist party…”. Now the Liberal Party is moving ever so slightly in a similar way. Hence the bias.
10
Scott Morrison wants the big banks to absorbed this new tax and not pass it onto their customers. It smacks of socialism and the people applaud our pseudo Marxist government.
00
Denis.So,who the HELL can tell the difference between the two parties?
20
The workers against capital model may have reached its used by date, the majors are very similar and should morph.
00
Thought for the day: International Treaties signed between the United Nations and member nations ever since the UN was established.
This was proposed by an Australian Labor government Attorney General in the 1950s and was adopted. The proposal was to create as many treaties as possible that could each or any of them be used by governments to get around the laws of each nation if necessary, as in ignoring the wishes of the people.
60
heard this McGowan ***quote on the radio last nite – and it still shows up under several results for the story today:
WA facing power price hike of 15% – Yahoo7
https://au.news.yahoo.com/wa/a/35593103/wa-facing-power-price-hike-of-15/
19 hours ago – West Australians are facing an electricity price rise of as much as 15 per cent to be announced in coming weeks, says Premier Mark McGowan. … ***”Each and every year that’s a reality that water prices, electricity prices, bus fares and train fares go up … I would ask everyone to understand that,” Mr McGowan …
but it has wsince been removed from every media story, including cached versions, and McGowan is now out of the picture completely, & Wyatt is in!
who’s protecting McGowan, if he did, in fact, say the above?
22 May: news.com.au: AAP: Greg Roberts: WA facing power price hike of 15%
However, Opposition Leader Mike Nahan has pointed out that Premier Mark McGowan said as opposition leader a year ago that a rise of only three per cent imposed by the previous Liberal National government was “mean-spirited penny pinching from a government that simply doesn’t care”.
The price hike will be announced before June 30.
***”Power bills will have to increase effectively to allow Synergy to compete in a competitive environment,” Mr Wyatt told 6PR radio.
“Competition can have a much better outcome (for) power bills than a state-based concession regime.
“There is a peculiar scenario we have where power bills will need to increase ***over the next couple of years to get there.”…
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/wa-facing-power-price-hike-of-15/news-story/11ae1696b25c79a155cacc81c570d7b8
10
Sins of omission challenge to Beeb medja audience. Watch their
reaction. I luv it so.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qPy051z_PE”
10
Try agin! Really want yr to see this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfajEW_BNSo
10
True innovation does not need and can not stand government intervention.
40
Well said – and excellent point and so true. The trouble here though is we are heading in the wrong direction with bigger and bigger government. Unless it is reversed quick smart it will smash this once great nation, thanks to both Labor and LNP. The only way it can be avoided is to have a totally new government that thinks along similar lines as what Menzies did. I can’t see it happening give the likes of Turnbull and Shorten, especially now since Turnbull has given up on true Liberal values and has moved even more to the left since the budget news. If Menzies were alive today he would most likely have resigned from the Liberal Party a long time ago to form a new party (again).
40
I understand that Menzies in his later years voted DLP.
10
In this 2006 SMH article Menzies daughter says he voted DLP at least once.
10
I had always voted Liberal until Turnbull appeared on the scene.
I have been voting for 72 years.
30
22 May: Herald Sun: Adam Morton: Direct action fund would cost $23b if used to meet Paris targets
Taxpayers would pay up to $23.6 billion for Australia to meet international climate targets if the Turnbull government were to continue with its “direct action” emissions-reduction fund as its main policy.
Following a request by the Greens, the federal Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the cost of using the fund to meet the target the Coalition submitted at the Paris climate summit – a 26 to 28 per cent emissions cut compared with 2005 levels by 2030.
The fund pays businesses and farmers through an auction process, with the cheapest bids winning contracts to cut emissions.
Contracts worth $2.23 billion have been awarded over the past two years, much of them to companies planting trees or stopping vegetation being cleared.
Despite this, government greenhouse accounts released in December showed national emissions were rising. There is only $300 million remaining in the fund, and no extra money was committed in this month’s budget.
The budget office analysis found that using the fund alone to meet the emissions target would require $559 million over the next four years, and about $23 billion in the decade from 2020-21…
Greens climate spokesman Adam Bandt said the Parliamentary Budget Office analysis showed the emissions reduction fund was “an empty vessel built to appease the Trumps in the Coalition”.
“The government should dump [former prime minister] Tony Abbott’s emission reduction fund and put in place a proper mechanism for cutting pollution, such as a carbon price, and extend the renewable energy target,” he said.
Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said asking the budget office to cost the emissions reduction fund as the only mechanism to reach the 2030 target was “a ridiculous notion, and quite ignorant”.
He said the government had several other measures to cut emissions, including a plan to boost national energy efficiency, steps to phase down hydrofluorocarbons??? and the 2020 renewable energy target…
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4679451/direct-action-fund-would-cost-23b-if-used-to-meet-paris-targets/
30
I am very skeptical in another sense. I found the same with venture capitalists here and in the US. They buy for failure. Failure means no questions are asked and the money is gone. That is actually preferable.
The way venture capital works is that superannuation funds invest. There is always the chance of another Apple or Microsoft or Google, they put 2% of their investment in high risk, high return and they want 50:1 odds even 500:1.
As one of two young men said to me in Las Vegas and they were planning to invest $160Million, if you only plan to make $10Million profit a year, we are not interested. You would think that was a good return but there is nothing is more deadly for these men than to just break even or succeed a little. They want ONLY the crazy 500:1 shots and if they fail, they lose the lot which is their expectation. However they have to make out it was worth the risk and failure happens. Next year they get another pile of money to lose.
I saw the same with Flannery’s Hot Rocks (“the technology is straightforward” from a PhD in dead kangaroos) and this mad scheme where obviously nobody cared if it failed. Hot rocks lost say $100million of public funds and $93Million from Gillard. $200Million just gone. However a quick check of the board at the time showed people on $400,000 pa, more than the PM. Academics too. Consultants. The money flowed like a river until it was gone. They failed but you question whether a company which expected to do so well would pay such high salaries to fail? Surely you could pay such people otherwise employed with share in the boom times to come? No, cash please.
So consider that these projects were never meant, never expected to succeed. They were just milking the investors and the government and spent more time on press releases than worrying about what happened to the cheap steel on the wharves. Then you get CRCs, especially for Climate Change. Always with a concentration on attention grabbing press releases like Ian Dunlop’s (former chairman of the Australian Coal Association and now Chairman of Safe Climate Australia) prediction this week of 6.5 Billion dead due to ‘climate change’ and a temperature increase of 4-5 degrees. You can only think he is serious, which is sad.
It seems outrageous to intentionally fail, but that is common and very often what happens with IPOs. Having taking big fees to assure investors that the plan is good and as guaranteed as million in consultancy fees can determine, such schemes should really have warmings, Investors beware, Failure is likely and half the money is already gone. Cerainly no public money. Sad that it failed. As if.
In fact failure is so common, it is seen as a risk which had to be taken, that investors did the right thing, that they tried to change the world and perhaps make good profits doing so. There is another view and it produces many rich people. Money does not vanish. It just changes hands.
60
Slip of the finger, but funny. “such schemes should really have warmings”
30
The point about the cheap steel on the wharves was exactly that. You saw something for the money. You wondered about whose fault it was that the steel was left to rust and how it undermined the viability of the project, how it all fell apart from the lack of diligence of some individual. That however may simply have been the magicians’ trick, the diversion. As Tony from Oz points out, the project was never going to work. Consider only that buying a pile of the cheapest, least appropiate and potentially wrong steel and leaving it on the wharf was a cheap diversion. It shifted blame to incompetence of anonymous individuals. That is a far better and blame free way to fail than being exposed as utterly useless.
60
Even so that’s a bloody expensive Potemkin’s village.
10
Yes, but as Grigory Potemkin is a real hero of mine, the story of his fake villages was fake news at the time spread by his enemies. Potemkin did build a great Russian fleet to impress his wife, Catherine II and he did add the whole area later known as the Ukraine to Russia. Having finally evicted the remnants of the Goldern Horde, he advertised widely for settlers in the vast steppes which were now nearly uninhabited. Read Prince of Princes by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Amazing character who really changed the world. Polish originally, as Catherine was German. He also introduced the potato to Russia, which seems less significant. Like a lot of monarchs, memory of his reign was erased by his stepson, Paul I.
10
The RET scheme is a giant scheme to make money. No one can suggest it is there to do any good for anyone. Coal is free too and a lot cheaper to use and we had enough power before any windmills which will make no difference to anybody’s climate.
So who cares if the windmills and solar do not work? You get 9c kw/hr for power even if no one buys it, more if they do. All from the end user, who pays double this because it goes through the retailer, so you do not even get the blame. No one knows they are paying it. The government in particular as they pay nothing, do nothing, raise not taxes and it is not a receipt or budget item. Completely off budget.
Consider that the RET is currently running at half the total of all council rates, Nation wide at $12Billion. Three times the GST revenue for Western Australia. Plus no one asks any questions in parliament or the press.
All for windmills and a whacking profit by government edict. Then if the windmills actually do work, which they generally do not as they do not affect base load requirements anyway, you get to keep the income from the ‘renewables’ without using your own money.
Of course they will fail. No one thought otherwise. The RET is the biggest tax given that it is not even a tax. It is there to make overseas proponents of Global Warming rich. Give generously. Like their ABC. Whether you like it or not. Legislated highway robbery.
80
‘Adani has cancelled a decision on its $16.5bn Queensland mine after Labor’s left revolted against a royalties deal.’
Oz
50
Who needs enemies when we have union controlled Labor and their internal faction wars behind the scenes.
31
The Adani/Qld Govt fiasco is courtesy of a very sly Jackie Trad who is wooing Green preferences in her inner city seat.
Ms Trad is right up there with Gillard for being sly and sleazy.
31
.
TdeF @ @42.2
I think you are making a fundamental and very basic mis-analysis with that last post of yours above.
You are assuming they have enough intelligence between the lot of them, a very doubtful probability to say the least, to actually figure out a strategy that despite having a blatant “rip off the tax payer” shysterism about it, would let them off the hook of responsibility for the whole debacle and the “tax payer fund” mining scheme.
50
ROM, there are smart people, dedicated people, generous people. Then there are cunning people and crooks. In Australia we have had famous rich bankrupts, Christopher Skase, Alan Bond, Geoffrey Edelsten, Joe Gutnick and many more. At present Joe’s wife has just testified that while her husband has only $16,000 she cannot explain her half million dollar salary or why her husband owes her $30Million. Bond had nothing and after release from jail, started his own bank. He still owned that castle with the attached village. Skase retired to his private island. Geoffrey was broke as his mother owned all the money and he had nothing. Last year his mother died and he became very rich suddenly. Read ‘the rise and fall of Alan Bond’. A laugh per page. Unbelievable. Still a few years ago his two sons objected to being listed in Australia’s rich 200. Obviously intelligent people who made it on their own.
So consider that people sit around wondering how to make a lot of money with other people’s money. Christopher Skase started as a stockbroker. Alan Bond was arrested for breaking an entering at 18. These are not people of whom we can be proud, but we all know the names. “enough intelligence” is not the criterion for these schemes. Enough cunning is and a total lack of principle, not principal. Now we can get back to solar and wind and tidal and hot rock schemes. Forget the failures. Consider the successes.
40
Seems like this project was almost as well managed as Pauline Hansons One Nation and their attempted rip of of candidates and electoral commission??
Much popcorn to be consumed as we watch them spinning and squirming in public, reaching for ever larger shovels. 🙂
32
They’ll need to wait for the lefties to finish with their
abcgovernment-funded, gold-plated shovels, before using their OWN shovels to remove the what the bull leftied…etc,11
The Hansonites may take a hit at the ballot box on this, which would give Cory the opportunity to capitalise.
21
Be interesting. Corgi has been very quiet of late.
00
Corgi can afford to be quiet.
Shorten, Turnbull, di Natali and Hanson are providing him with a steady stream of new followers.
22
Yeah, does his party need an extra phonebox now to hold their meetings in??
14
Phil its fairly obvious looking forward that corgi will gain grass roots support over the next couple of years, at the expense of the majors and Hansonites.
The msm ignore him now, but they will fire into action when he begins sprouting ‘its the sun stupids’. At the moment big nose is only waiting for Donald to get his act together and then the game will be on.
01
Hope so.I don’t like Ashby at all. [snip]
10
LoL! Sen Roberts advisor going down as well. PHON just can pull a trick at the moment. Wheels on their bus falling off at a rapid rate. 🙂
11
philthegeek.The Fake Stream Media: “It’s Our Job to Control What People Think.”Don’t believe ANYTHING that the MSM tell you.It will be a total FABRICATION.
10
O/Topic – look out Perth the
climate alarmistsflooding, is coming:https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/coastal-wa-faces-dire-threat-from-rising-seas-ng-b88482997z
I wonder if articles like this are on a regular calendar rotation. They seem to get trotted out whenever the alarmism has dropped for a couple weeks.
70
two gods of the CAGE mob, incl theirABC and all the FakeNewsMSM!
21 May: Heat St: Emuly Zanotti: Obama Speaks on Global Warming, Then Spews CO2 With Private Jet, 13-Car Motorcade
Obama and his wife Michelle are in Italy this week on vacation, after the former President spoke to the Institute for International Political Studies in Milan on the importance of addressing climate change, to preserve the world’s food supply and protect its underprivileged…
On Friday, the Obama’s jetted into Tuscany on a private – not a commercial – plane, escorted into a small Florentine airport by six additional military jets, according to Italian state television…
Once on the ground, the Obamas slipped into a black SUV and drove to the private Tuscan villa, Borgo Finocchieto, where they’ll be staying in all week, escorted by a 13-car motorcade.
The Villa, of course, is no mere motel, nestled in the Tuscan countryside just a few miles south of the city of Florence. They’ll be taking over an entire Tuscan village, where they’ll have their choice of 22 bedrooms, a library, several private spas and steam rooms, and wine-tasting room…
It usually goes for $15,000 per night, but luckily for Obama, it belongs to his former ambassador to Italy, so no doubt the pair will get a deal…
In just his trip back and forth to Italy, for his presentation and his vacation, Barack Obama has emitted more than 16 metric tons of carbon – just shy of what an average American emits in a year. Add to that the motorcade, the internal travel in Italy, and, of course, the villa, and Obama and his wife have easily emitted more carbon in one single week than most Americans will in 2017.
Last week, Obama implored those same Americans – and their compatriots across Europe – to cut down on their carbon emissions in order to draw global warming to a standstill.
“When it comes to climate change, the hour is almost upon us,” Obama told the audience at his IIPS keynote. “I do not believe that this planet is condemned to ever-rising temperatures. I believe these are problems that were caused by man and can be solved by man.”…
If it were such an imperative, however, perhaps Obama, like other famous environmental activists, should be reconsidering his own personal habits.
https://heatst.com/politics/obama-speaks-on-global-warming-then-spews-co2-with-private-jet-13-car-motorcade/
22 May: AFP: Schwarzenegger says you can have four Hummers and still save planet
Arnold Schwarzenegger has four Hummers and likes nothing better than getting up at 5am to ride his Harley Davidson to the beach for breakfast.
Yet “The Terminator” star insists that should not stop him being an environmental evangelist.
“Saving the planet is also about technology,” the former California governor told AFP, putting his foot on a chair and wagging a skull-ringed finger to make his point.
Three of his Hummers run on hydrogen, vegetable oil and bio-diesel and he’s hoping to put an electric engine into the fourth.
“You know one day soon we are going to have hydrogen-fuelled planes. We can get rid of this dirty diesel tomorrow.
“I hate it when environmentalism comes down to ‘you can’t do this and you can’t do that’. There’s a bad habit of shaming, guilt and finger pointing. ‘Don’t smoke this, don’t take a jacuzzi and don’t take a plane.’ Everything’s bad.”…
Asked about turning 70 in July, Schwarzenegger joked, “Are you asking because you want to send me a birthday gift? I like Montecristos (cigars), No. 2s.”…
“One month I make a movie, fly to South Africa for a bodybuilding conference, pump up some students and get my eighth honorary degree.
“Then you make a few more million dollars in a real estate deal and get up at 5am and ride your motorcycle to Santa Barbara for breakfast. How can you not feel good about your life?”
“Imagine not enjoying what you are doing. That’s terrible. That’s the reason for depression,” he said.
Only when you mention Donald Trump does Schwarzenegger’s incredible positivity flicker…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/schwarzenegger-says-four-hummers-still-save-planet-095238298.html
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oops…meant to start “two gods of the CAGW mob” not “cage”…
20
And the beat goes on (climategate)
If we can get onto this quickly enough, IFRs could also eliminate the need for all but the most minor carbon tax (or its cap and trade equivalent).There is some very disturbing stuff in the Blees book, not least the possibility that, through the lies and misdirections of Clinton, Gore and Kerry, we may have lost the opportunity to solve the problem cheaply. History nay well judge these guys
as much worse than Bush Jr.
Best wishes,
Tom.
Tom.
20
too funny not to post:
22 May: WashingtonFreeBeacon: Alex Griswold: Reporters Fall for Fake Document of Trump Making Absurd Demands in Israel
Reporters on Monday fell for a fake “White House” document that supposedly showed President Donald Trump making unusual demands of his Israeli hosts during his trip abroad.
The Twitter account Rogue White House Senior Advisor on Friday shared what it claimed was Trump’s demands ahead of a trip to Israel, including roughly a metric ton of sugary and non-kosher junk food
While the account’s motive remains unclear, its shtick is to share shocking and outlandish “insider” stories about Trump while providing no evidence. The account has never provided verification that it is actually run by a White House staffer.
Some elements of the purported demands were obvious jokes. The demand that microwaves remain unplugged was a mocking reference to White House advisor Kellyanne Conway’s bizarre comment that the appliance could be used for spying, and the request for electoral maps to be posted on each walls mocked Trump’s tendency to allude to his victory.
Nonetheless, Jerusalem Post journalist Anna Ahronheim saw the image and believed it was legitimate…
Other reporters at the Jerusalem Post, Business Insider, the Nation, NBC News, the Washington Post, and Mother Jones soon shared Ahronheim’s tweet…
**One of the reporters to retweet Ahronheim was Glenn Kessler, editor of the Washington Post‘s Fact-Checker blog. Kessler deleted his retweet when the error was pointed out and began correcting the record.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/reporters-fall-for-fake-document-showing-trump-making-insane-demands-in-israel/
30
You have to enjoy Aronheim’s ver telling post. “It seemed too good to be true.”
So like so many she actually wishes Trump was as coarse, uncultured, insensitive and ignorant as this silly list makes out, just so she and her friends could sneer. Really 9lb of raw bacon? The idea that the US President is an uncultured loadmouth oaf is ridiculous. A deplorable elected by deplorables.
In fact he has achieved more in a lifetime than a building full of arrogant reporters looking just to criticize. Even as a television presenter he has been exposed more to to more US people than any previous US president. So the deplorables knew who they were elected. Only Hillary’s people have no idea. They cannot accept losing and will never accept being wrong.
20
Thats loudmouth. Sorry. Still, it’s in moderation anyway. I would love it if ‘deplorable’ was the reason.
20
Or bacon. Perhaps a kosher moderation?
10
subscription reqd:
22 May: WSJ: Board of Scientific Conformity
Join an EPA advisory panel and get an EPA grant
Time was when a newly elected American government could appoint its people to run it. These days that’s a source of controversy, as Trump cabinet officials seek to name new science advisers.
Administrator Scott Pruitt is replacing half the members of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Board of Scientific Counselors, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has suspended some 200 science panels pending a review. To listen to the critics…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/board-of-scientific-conformity-1495494734
20
***WaPo fails to mention Sophie is a CAGW activist from Carbon Brief:
22 May: WaPo: ***Sophie Yeo: Trump told he risks ‘lasting damage’ to ties between U.S. and Europe
The Trump administrations risks causing “lasting damage” to relations with key European allies if the the United States abandons the Paris climate agreement, a key German official has warned.
Shortly before Trump is due to join G-7 leaders for a summit in Sicily, Germany’s environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, said in a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that the U.S. would face serious repercussions if it chooses to leave the landmark deal…
In her letter, Hendricks argued that it would be economically prudent for the U.S. to remain a party to the deal, as the world makes progress on renewable energy, creating jobs and other opportunities.
Hendricks also noted the U.S. could help shape the details and implementation of the deal, and had latitude to adjust its own targets, without having to withdraw from the deal…
The administration is likely to face further pressure this week at the Petersburg Climate Dialogue, an annual ministerial event hosted by the German government. The U.S. will number among the 35 nations present in Berlin, expected to be represented by a low-level official…
Meanwhile, efforts on the part of the Italian hosts and other G-7 members to craft a climate-friendly communique to conclude the Sicily summit are faltering, as nations struggle to find the compromise language acceptable to all participants…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/22/trump-risks-lasting-damage-if-u-s-pulls-out-of-paris-climate-agreement/?utm_term=.570a69aa8f53
20
22 May: Economic Times India: US ambivalence casts shadow on Petersberg Climate Dialogue
By Urmi Goswami
NEW DELHI: The United States ambivalence towards the global climate agreement cast its shadow as eighth edition of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an annual informal ministerial meet, opened in Berlin on Monday.
Ahead of the formal opening of the two-day informal ministerial meeting, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks and China’s Special Envoy for Climate Xie Zhenhua stressed on the importance of implementing the commitments made at Paris and urged the United States not to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement…
“We call on the US to remain within the Paris Agreement, as we believe that this is important not only for the agreement itself but also for the US economy,” Hendricks said addressing the media.
Hendricks says Germany is trying to engage with United States at all levels. She says the foreign minister has met with the US Secretary of State to negotiate, and she has been in conversation with the US Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been in telephonic communication with US President Donald Trump.
The Petersberg Climate Dialogue provided China yet another opportunity to reiterate its willingness to provide leadership to the global efforts to tackle climate change. China is among the countries providing assistance to Fiji to host the annual climate negotiations…
The Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an informal ministerial meet, has become an annual feature of the international climate calendar…
The annual meet is co-hosted by the German government and the incoming chair of the year’s UN-sponsored climate talks.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/us-ambivalence-casts-shadow-on-petersberg-climate-dialogue/articleshow/58791957.cms
20
focusing on excerpts I didn’t include when I posted this on an earlier thread:
17 May: Bloomberg: Jess Shankleman: How Scottish Wind Power Beat Trump But Lost the War
Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former first minister who oversaw the original renewable energy target, said delays to offshore wind may be a good thing, though. They allow Scotland to take advantage of ***newer technology, like floating platforms, designed specifically for deep waters, he said.
“We need offshore, not onshore wind in a puddle,” Salmond, who quit in 2014 to be replaced by Nicola Sturgeon as Scottish National Party leader, said in an interview in London before the latest election campaign got going.
Vattenfall, for example, will use suction bucket technology borrowed from the oil and gas industry to plant its giant 8.4 megawatt turbines. Twenty miles north of Trump’s golf course, Statoil ASA is building the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, called Hywind, off the coast of Peterhead…
Scotland is currently the only country to offer support for floating wind, though that aid is due to come to an end next year. Last month, Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm Ltd. said it would create as many as 200 jobs at Kishorn dry dock in the Highlands to build another floating wind farm out at sea. Investment in the 2 billion-krone ($230 million) Statoil project was spurred by higher subsidies offered to floating offshore wind technology.
“We would love to do more in Scotland,” said Stephen Bull, a senior vice president at Statoil. “The tricky part of it is from a policy dimension.”
The U.K. government already ended new subsidies for onshore wind. New wind farms can’t get built and existing wind farms may not be replaced when they come to the end of their lives, says Paul Cooley, director of generation at SSE Plc, a British electricity company based in Perth, Scotland…
There are also elements out of the control of ministers and executives. Despite its unrivaled wind speeds, Scotland has struggled to match its English neighbor in realizing its offshore potential. Scotland’s deep waters and craggy underwater rocks push up costs, while its rich marine wildlife delayed or even blocked planning permission for some projects.
“If it comes to a cost of energy competition then they’ve lost,” said David Matthews, manager of renewables marine strategy at ship broker Clarkson Plc. “It’s simple economics.”…
Ministers would be better off focusing on the practicalities of scaling up renewable heat or electricity storage than “bragging” about targets that ultimately are unrealistic, said Ian Arbon, professor at the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering.
“It’s okay nowadays for politicians to make extravagant claims,” said Arbon, who is also a fellow at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. “And not be held responsible for their fulfilment.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-17/scotland-fights-to-keep-its-renewable-energy-dream-alive
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***RED/GREEN ALERT:
NOTE: ACSI is a collaboration of 30 Australian profit-for-members superannuation funds and six major international pension funds. Its Australian member funds manage over $450 billion in assets on behalf of over eight million superannuants and retirees.
Its combined membership manages over $1.5 trillion and own more than 11 per cent of every ASX200 listed company. It is a member of the Investor Group on Climate Change .
***The New Daily is owned by a group of industry super funds.
22 May: TheNewDaily: Rod Myer: RSuperannuation investors call for strong government climate action
The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors has called on the Turnbull government to take concerted, economy-wide action on climate change, saying Australia’s climate policies are inadequate and will not drive the investment required to enable a smooth and efficient transition to a low carbon economy.
“Investors are frustrated at a decade of policy uncertainty and the failure of government to deal with climate change in a manner that reflects its systemic economic implications. Long-term investors need long-term policy certainty,” ACSI said in a submission to the Department of Energy’s Review of climate change policies.
“The mid-term reduction in the RET target is a clear example of the impact of policy shifts directly resulting in a significant drop in investments flowing into renewable energy projects.”
“A global economic transition is underway, focused on reducing the emissions intensity of economic activity to stabilise global warming at less than 2°C and move towards a net zero emissions economy by the second half of the century.” But achieving this goal would require strong policy leadership from Canberra, ASCI’s submission said…
“Australia’s climate policies must be able to translate at a global level so that Australian businesses remain competitive and can fully engage with global carbon markets to best meet the Paris Agreement goals,” the submission said…
“In 2017, Australia’s climate policies appear inadequate to meet these goals and will not drive the investment required to enable a smooth and efficient transition to a low carbon economy. Investors are frustrated at a decade of policy uncertainty and the failure of government to deal with climate change in a manner that reflects its systemic economic implications,” ACSI said.
ASCI made the following recommendation on climate policy…READ ON
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/superannuation/2017/05/22/superannuation-investors-call-for-government-climate-action/
20
Bored?
Sad?
need a good laugh?
Look no further – New & Improved Climate Change!!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-23/coastal-areas-at-risk-new-climate-study-reveals/8549934
Those models again……hey – extreme water frontage – whats not to like?
Gosh – I wonder how the Dutch cope? Dykes and all….maybe Sydney needs dykes?
“Sydney’s iconic Circular Quay and Botanic Gardens, Brisbane Airport, Melbourne’s Docklands and Perth’s Elizabeth Quay will all be underwater in dramatic new climate modelling.
The projection used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States which revealed global sea levels could rise by 2 metres by 2100 if emissions remain at their current levels.
It is substantially higher than the 74-centimetre increase proposed in a 2013 Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.”
31
John Church.Serial twit.Wasnt he dropped from CSIRO?. Thinks he can wave a wand and selectively prevent the worst of SL rises. What a clown.
32
Professor Church.
A name to remember?????
He must be a professor of the same ilk as Gillard, Flannery and Palmer.
Why not give Flannery a red highlighter to show us where the bushfires will be on the same aerial pics?
42
I thought Sydney had plenty of “dykes”…….
01
ABC concerned about fuel poverty for solar customers:
23 May: ABC: Solar meter delay adding hundreds to household bills, analysis shows
By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge
There are fears some solar owners in NSW could be unable to pay their electricity bills because of a metering bungle that’s leaving consumers out-of-pocket.
New analysis shows solar-powered households in NSW waiting for new smart meters to be installed could pay more than $500 extra for their electricity this year.
Surging complaints to the NSW Energy and Water Ombudsman have prompted calls for consumers to ask for credits to be added to their bills…
Why are residents out of pocket?
More than 275,000 households were affected when generous government solar tariffs stopped in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria last year.
Under the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme, 146,000 households received 60 cents for each kilowatt hour of energy fed into the grid, designed to offset expensive panels and encourage solar uptake..
After the schemes ended, households were supposed to receive the market rate of between 6 and 12 cents per kilowatt hour to feed into the grid.
To get the best value out of their panels, most people in NSW needed new meters installed by the time the scheme ended on December 31…
But thousands of people have been left waiting for months for the new devices due to issues such as connectivity, old wiring in some homes and a lack of skilled technicians to install the meters…READ ALL
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-23/solar-meter-delay-adding-hundreds-to-bills-analysis-shows/8547808
30
Ah yes – 60 cents/KWH
The same impost applied selectively to fuel based on vehicle type could make a Rolls Royce a better buy than a Toyota Corolla.
If you think this analogy is stupid – it is not. It is precisely what is happening with renewable energy.
The real world FACT is that it is horrendously expensive.
51
22 May: Daily Caller: Chris White: Major Solar Company Accused Of Manipulating Sales Data Before Initial Public Offering
Former managers with solar panel giant Sunrun say they took part in manipulating troves of sales data before the company went public in 2015.
The former managers say superiors told them to wait on reporting data showing hundreds of customers who canceled contracts during a roughly five-month period before the initial public offering…
“The big internal push was to cram as many sales as we could through the pipeline,” Darren Jennings, who says he was a Sunrun regional sales manager in Hawaii before the IPO told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month.
He said employees in Hawaii didn’t process nearly 200 cancellations, a number representing about 40 percent of total orders in Hawaii between May 2015-October 2015. Three other managers claimed they also took part in the delays…
Jennings and Stockdale’s claims comes as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues investigating whether Sunrun and competitor SolarCity have done enough to disclose to investors the number of customers who canceled contracts for solar energy systems.
SolarCity, for its part, has sought to tamp down concerns that might prop up as a result of the investigation…
SolarCity has been accused of increasing mortgage defaults as well…
Some solar panel customers believe companies are selling them a bill of goods.
Hundreds of solar panel customers, for instance, have complained to attorneys general in areas throughout the South that their utility bills have increased, not decreased as promised, according to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by watchdog group Campaign for Accountability.
Customers also complained solar panel companies threatened to sue them if they didn’t proceed with solar panel purchases. Still others say representatives threatened so-called mechanic’s lien on their homes — a measure used to force a homeowner to pay for a home-improvement project.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/22/major-solar-company-accused-of-manipulating-sales-data-before-initial-public-offering/
30
23 May: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: France lobbied EU to cut forests without counting climate impact
France has partially succeeded in watering down EU carbon accounting rules to give countries a free pass on depleting forests, leaked documents show.
Ahead of an Environment Council meeting on 19 June, member states have been proposing tweaks to the framework drawn up by the European Commission for measuring greenhouse gases.
One of the biggest line items relates to forest management. By 2030, the amount of carbon stored in EU forests is predicted to decrease by 112 million tonnes from 2005 levels, a 30% cut, according to the European Commission impact assessment. That is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions from 100 million cars.
A French amendment proposal, seen by Climate Home, would allow countries to harvest more trees for bioenergy or toilet paper without recording the climate impact of reducing forest carbon stocks.
A draft Council text dated 17 May shows that the French lobbying has partially succeeded. The compromise, to be discussed by an expert working group on Tuesday ahead of the ministerial meeting, would only count half the decline in carbon storage…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/05/23/france-lobbied-cut-forests-without-counting-climate-impact/
30
23 May: EconomicTimesIndia: GST may push up cost of solar power projects
By Debjoy Sengupta
The goods and services tax may increase solar energy project costs by 12%-18% and generation costs by 40-50 paise per unit, some industry leaders said, although the government said the new taxation regime won’t have much of an impact on them.
However, officials said even if costs increase, it won’t affect project economics because the additional charges can be passed on to customers. “Following GST, solar projects will be about 18% costlier on an average, while cost of generation would go up by around 20%.
We have estimated the incidence of GST to be around 23%-25% on various inputs for the segment,” said Ratul Puri, chairman, Hindustan Power Projects.
“It would require project developers to go back to banks for additional funding for projects under construction. It might require a minimum of three months to get additional funding, thus delaying projects.”…
Sunil Jain, CEO at Hero Future Energies, said solar modules, which weren’t taxed earlier, will have an 18% levy, while inverters – a major component in solar projects used to convert direct current into alternating current – would now be taxed at 28% instead of zero. Taxes on cement and other materials have been increased, he added…READ ON
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/gst-may-push-up-cost-of-solar-power-projects/articleshow/58797154.cms
30
Here is another small example. Local Ballarat Solar Park opened in Nov, 2009.
Great fanfare, promise of more!
Less than 8 years later? Nothing! Website for the farm is dead!
I visited the park a few weeks back. The meter still works and shows an output of. wait for it! Zero!
I contacted the local paper to see if they would investigate/report on the current state of the solar park……………….crickets!
80
When they couldn’t kill birds with the pathetic panels attention shifted to turbine blades, in that respect a great success!
61
Germany continues to fascinate as the likely widespread failure of its plans for RE set in from bad to worse.
Now picture yourself as a German politician, perhaps a minister. There was a decision made a few years ago to exit nuclear. This was indeed puzzling. I have not yet found a deep discussion of the logic, but it seems to defy any good logic. Put it down to seeking voter popularity post-Fukushima, combined with anti-nuke propaganda.
Now the German pollie is realising the the great hope of RE is going to leave him and Germany in the lurch. The only logical decision for him is to approve frantic new investment in coal fired plant.
But pollies look ahead a couple of election cycles. What does the German pollies see? First is the realisation that nuclear must be revived. Second is that RE must be junked, third is to do that without losing many votes.
Now RE in concept is greatly loved by German voters. If you are going to kill it, you have to be able to proclaim “We tried every way to make RE work. We did not spare a mark to test every idea put up to us. We tried everything at hugecost, but you have to agree that we have to shut RE down, as soon and swiftly as possible.”
So I think that is where Germany is now. There will be an increase of non-attributed news about nuclear revival, possibly linked to new technology being developed in China. Likewise, ff burners will start getting vilified more intensely. It will be a crazy ride over the next 5 years, until a logical energy mix is installed in principle, while trying to minimise voter loss.
Point is, don’t worry too much about current high spending levels for RE. It has to be there, prior to killing it dead by showing there is no other option. Put your interest into watching the nuclear revival.
Geoff.
90
Isn’t that a bit like paying for ten years of long term care for someone who is in cardiac arrest and brain dead? The body is there but no amount of expenditure is going to bring his life back. I understand that politicians don’t care about anything but getting re-elected and maintaining their ability to spend other people’s money. All the while making everyone but themselves jump through still more rules, regulations, and oppressive red and green tape.
For some strange reason We the People keep voting for politicians to “save the day”. All that happens is that we change the names on the doors. The policies remain and grow in number, complexity, and damage. Strange thing, We the People, it seems we haven’t a clue what is really good for us. We keep expecting free things from government even while we repeatedly find it costs us everything that is worth having. Up to and including our lives.
Hopefully, some day, we will learn the free lunch given to us by governmental pickpockets is being paid for with wealth we earned and will earn by spending our lives to make it.
Do we really think our lives are worth so little? Apparently so.
Like it or not there is no such thing as a free lunch. The universe automatically enforces the Three Laws of Thermodynamics. There is no loophole. Fantasy, lets pretend, and human sacrifice (aka government) only increases the cost.
60
all of the following appear to be designed to eliminate complaints from environmental groups that wind turbines are killing birds…read all for further detail:
19 May: BBC: Matt McGrath: UN looks to protect birds from green energy threats
At the UN climate conference in Bonn, researchers said wind turbines and power lines were a particular problem for migratory soaring birds.
***Shutting down wind farms on demand is one of the methods being tested to protect these birds from collisions.
Other ideas being tried include placing highly visible deflectors every 20m on power lines…
The country’s rapid uptake of renewables particularly wind have seen a speedy growth in the number of pylons and wires being used to carry power from the north where it is generated to the south and west where it is mainly consumed.
According to Eric Neuling from conservation campaigners Nabu, more than 1.5 million birds smash into electric wires every year.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39954427
21 May: AP: Michael Casey: Land around powerlines could be boon to birds
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Transmission lines may be eyesores for most people but for songbirds, the forest around them might just be critical habitat.
A team of researchers want to see if these birds are populating land cleared along the route of a powerline – as well as areas that have been recently logged – in New Hampshire and Maine.
In other parts of the country, the shrubby habitat of these younger forests have been found to offer much-needed protection for the birds from predators, as well as a steady diet of insects and fruit.
One of the researchers says these habitats are “incredibly important” for the songbirds in those parts of northern New England…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BANDING_BIRDS?SITE=SCAND&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
18 May: Bloomberg: Jess Shankleman: Bird Radar May Help Reduce Wind Turbine Deaths
The 200-megawatt Gulf of el Zayt wind warm (in Egypt) is testing a system that uses radar to minimize bird-turbine collisions, according to BirdLife International, a U.K.-based conservation group.
“There’s a bottleneck at the Gulf of Suez, where all the birds pass,” BirdLife’s ***(Edward) Perry said Wednesday in a presentation on the Migratory Soaring Birds Project, at United Nations climate change talks in Bonn, Germany. “This happens to overlap with prime real estate for wind energy farms so there are significant challenges.”…
Egypt has committed to secure a fifth of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, with 12 percent from wind, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The current figure for renewables is two percent…
***Perry seems more CAGW activist than bird-lover:
Twitter: Edward Perry, Biodiversity and Climate Change Policy | ecosystem-based adaptation | REDD+
https://twitter.com/emjperry?lang=en
Birdlife International hosted one of the side events for the UNFCCC at the Bonn talks.
Zoominfo: Edward Perry
Employment History
Consultant, Division of Climate, Biodiversity and Water, OECD
Researcher, Department of Geography & Environment, University of Oxford
10
23 May: RenewEconomy: Pacific Hydro raises $670m in multi-currency facility to fund wind, solar
By Giles Parkinson
Pacific Hydro, the Australian-based renewable energy developer and operator now owned by a Chinese state company, says it has raised $670 million in a rarely used “multi-currency” facility to help finance new and existing projects in Australia and Chile.
Pacific Hydro is currently building the 28.7MW Yaloak South wind farm west of Melbourne, but has numerous other projects in the pipeline, including several wind farms and the massive 500MW Haughton solar farm in north Queensland.
It is also looking to develop new wind farms in Chile, where many of its wind and hydro assets are based, and in Brazil…
***The facility is funded by the Commonwealth bank of Australia and National Australia Bank, along with China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, and DNB Asia.
The company, which was bought by State Power Investment Corporation of China last year, has wind and hydro capacity totalling around 850MW across Australia, Chile and Brazil, around 100MW under construction and another 1.7GW in the development pipeline.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/pacific-hydro-raises-670m-multi-currency-facility-fund-wind-solar-29704/
10
imagine trying to dismantle this bureaucratic CAGW architecture:
22 May: AllAfrica: Anthony Morland: Africa: Climate Change and Adaptation Finance
Developing countries need tens of billions of dollars a year to meet their adaption needs, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)…
There are currently ***more than 50 funds providing adaptation finance. Here’s an overview of some of the biggest and most relevant to smallholder farmers…
Green Climate Fund (GCF)
Established in 2015 and headquartered in South Korea, the GCF is now the UNFCCC’s main finance channel. It has some $10.1 billion in its coffers, about half of which is meant for adaptation…
UK International Climate Finance (ICF)
…this $5 billion fund became operational in 2011. It is managed by a board comprising officials from several UK government ministries, with most of the money coming from the foreign aid budget.
ICF disbursements are channelled through national governments in developing nations, regional organisations, and a range of multilateral bodies such as the World Bank and the UNFCCC…
Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR)
This is a $1.2 billion adaptation funding window of the $8.3 billion Climate Investment Funds, which were designed by both developed and developing countries and are run by multilateral lenders such as the World Bank, the Asian and African development banks, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Inter-American Development Bank…
Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF)
This $1 billion fund set up in 2001 by the UNFCCC and managed by 18 international organisations under the Global Environment Facility (GEF)…
Adaptation Fund
Also part of the UNFCCC architecture, the Adaptation Fund became operational in 2001 to support specific projects in developing countries that are especially likely to be badly affected by climate change
Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF)
Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP)
ASAP, a grant-based trust fund, was set up in 2012 by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)…
http://allafrica.com/stories/201705230765.html
525 results, scroll down, click “show more results”!
NDC Partnership, Bonn, Germany: NDC Funding and Initiatives Navigator
Welcome! The NDC Funding and Initiatives Navigator is a searchable database of financial and technical support that can help countries to plan and implement their NDCs. It includes open funds and technical support as well as existing assistance on the ground that will help coordination of new support.
525 RESULTS…
bottom
http://www.ndcpartnership.org/initiatives-navigator
About NDC Partnership
In 2015 the world endorsed the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the landmark Paris Agreement to address climate change. In order to implement the commitments reflected in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries must devise new approaches to overcome barriers that stand in the way of achieving these goals…
Launched at COP22, the NDC Partnership’s objective is to enhance cooperation so that countries have more effective access to the technical knowledge and financial support necessary to deliver on their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and related SDG commitments…
The Partnership will be guided by its members and assisted by a Support Unit hosted by World Resources Institute. The Partnership is initially co-chaired by the governments of Morocco and Germany.
10
compare the tone of “spooky” VOA and Dettmer (who also writes for Daily Beast & has worked for UK Times, Newsweek, Sunday Telegraph, Washington Times, New York Sun, the Scotsman and The Hill, according to his Daily Beast bio):
22 May: Voice of America: Jamie Dettmer: Trump to Make Understated Vatican Visit
ROME —
When U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive Wednesday at the Vatican for a planned 20-minute audience with Pope Francis and Roman Catholic Church leaders they will be received with far less pomp than in Saudi Arabia.
Their arrival at the Vatican will be via what’s in effect a side-entrance to the Holy See, Porta del Perugino, a consequence of the pope’s request the faithful not be disturbed in St. Peter’s Square on the eve of Ascension Day. The pope is scheduled to hold his regular general audience in the square shortly after meeting Trump.
The understated arrival, though, is reflective of an eagerness by both the White House and the Vatican to ***lower expectations. American and Vatican officials have been nervous in the run-up to the meeting…
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-going-to-meet-the-pope/3864914.html
with that of a seemingly more informed O’Connell:
22 May: American Magazine: Gerard O’Connell: Optimism in the Vatican on the eve of Trump’s visit to Pope Francis
The Vatican has gone out of its way to accommodate President Trump by arranging for him, at very short notice, to have a private audience with the pope at 8:30 on a Wednesday morning. Normally, Francis holds a public audience in St. Peter’s Square at 10:00 a.m. every Wednesday; before that, at 9:30 a.m., he drives among the faithful in the square. This time, however, the Vatican has announced that the public audience will begin a half-hour later, at 10:30 a.m. That is two hours after Trump arrives in the Vatican, thus allowing plenty of time for his conversations with the pope and his top advisors.
Given that there are normally tens of thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square for the Wednesday public audience, the Vatican and the U.S. organizers of the visit have agreed that President Trump will not enter the Vatican city-state under the Arch of the Bells that is on the left hand side of St. Peter’s Square. Instead his motorcade will pass through the Porta del Perugino, near the Domus Santa Marta where Francis resides, and drive behind St. Peter’s Basilica to the Cortile di San Damaso, where he will be saluted by a platoon of Swiss Guards and then escorted to the Second Loggia of the Apostolic Palace for his audience with the pope.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/05/22/optimism-vatican-eve-trumps-visit-pope-francis
20
22 May: Reuters: Sarah Mills: Trump can’t stop American progress on climate, Al Gore tells Cannes
Gore: “I do believe that there is a better-than-even chance that he will surprise many by keeping the U.S. within the Paris agreement. I don’t know that he will but I think there is a chance that he will.”…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-filmfestival-cannes-gore-idUSKBN18I2IO
22 May: ClimateDepot: Marc Morano: Climate Depot’s New ‘Talking Points’ Report – A-Z Debunking of Climate Claims
Read Full report Here (LINK TO CFACT DOC)
http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/05/22/climate-depots-new-talking-points-report-a-z-debunking-of-climate-claims/
10
gore is a Traitor to humanity and should be either jailed or executed…..
01
Biomass madness.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/eu-nations-set-to-wipe-out-forests-and-not-account-for-emissions/
60
And you can absolutely BET that not one single “environmentalist” will stand in the way !!
53
From reading Jo and all the comments I would have thought no one would even give Julia Gillard the time of day, much less follow her no matter what the subject was.
40
I prefer the term “stalking” to following. It seems a bit more personal.
🙂
20
You are aware that “stalking” is a crime?
🙂
10
O/T
World’s largest subsidy farm opens.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/23/icymi-worlds-largest-wind-farm-gets-rolling/
Australia to lose fsmous tourist sites underwater because – climate change.
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-23/coastal-areas-at-risk-new-climate-study-reveals/8549934?pfmredir=sm
21
23 May: Washington Examiner: John Siciliano: Mulvaney: Trump budget pulls back from ‘crazy’ climate stuff
President Trump’s budget gets away from the “crazy stuff” former President Barack Obama prioritized to fight climate change, such as climate change musicals, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Tuesday.
“We are simply trying to get things back in order to where we can look at the folks that pay taxes and say look, we want to do some climate science but we aren’t going to do some of the crazy stuff that the previous administration did,” he said at a briefing to release Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018.
Mulvaney said the budget doesn’t “get rid of it [climate funding],” entirely. “Do we target it? Sure. Are a lot of the EPA reductions aimed at reducing the focus on climate science? Yes. Does it mean we are anti-science? Absolutely not.”…READ ON
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mulvaney-trump-budget-pulls-back-from-crazy-climate-stuff/article/2623913
this headline:
All the ways Trump’s budget screws over climate research
In-Depth-Mashable-2 hours ago
has been changed to:
23 May: Mashable: Andrew Freedman: On the bright side, Trump’s budget will keep some climate research going, but not much
Shots fired.
President Donald Trump may be 6,000 miles away from Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, but that didn’t stop him from launching an all-out assault on climate science and related energy research. The weapon of choice? His fiscal year 2018 budget proposal.
The cuts are staggering in scope, and the consequences are already starting as federal employees and contractors — spooked by the figures out this week — begin job searching in earnest.
Every single agency that touches climate change research, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the Department of Energy, NASA, and especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), would see sharp reductions and eliminations of climate research programs…
One budget cut at NASA would hit an instrument meant to improve scientists’ ability to monitor the amount of solar radiation entering and exiting the atmosphere, which is a foundational measurement needed for keeping tabs on and projecting climate change…
Another would eliminate a mission known as CALIPSO, which is a satellite instrument aimed at increasing our understanding of how clouds and particles known as aerosols affect the climate.
This would address one of the biggest uncertainties in climate science, but hey, Trump and his cabinet members do like citing uncertainty as a reason not to act on global warming…READ ALL
http://mashable.com/2017/05/23/trump-budget-harms-climate-research/
10
UNCERTAIN!!! You mean there have been trillions of dollars spent on solving Climate Disruption and there is uncertainty. Climate model couldn’t be wrong – could they? All the money might have been wasted? This could be waste of epic proportions.
30
Rick Will May 24, 2017 at 12:25 pm
“UNCERTAIN!!! You mean there have been trillions of dollars spent on solving Climate Disruption and there is uncertainty. Climate model couldn’t be wrong – could they? All the money might have been wasted? This could be waste of epic proportions.”
Waste indeed! But not uncertainty, instead deliberate SCAM! Thermal electromagnetic power transfer cannot possibly work in the manner that is claimed by the skyentists! Thermal electromagnetic power transfer does work in manner that would allow any increase in atmospheric CO2 “only to decrease surface temperature by a wee bit in this Earth’s atmosphere! This can now be and has been demonstrated!! Bye bye deliberate SCAM. “waste of epic proportions.”
All the best!-will-
41
“Mulvaney said the budget doesn’t “get rid of it [climate funding],” entirely. “Do we target it? Sure. Are a lot of the EPA reductions aimed at reducing the focus on climate science? Yes. Does it mean we are anti-science? Absolutely not.””
Interesting! Can the folk that claim “climate science’, the skyentists, demonstrate any use of science or the ‘scientific method’?? All seems some political\religious gamble for profit!! 🙂
31
more reason for President Trump to pull out of the Paris Agreement:
23 May: CarbonPulse: Lawyer up: More lawsuits being filed against governments for climate inaction
Lawsuits seeking to hold governments to account for their climate-related commitments are on the rise, with over 650 filed in the US alone – almost three times the number recorded in the rest of the world.
23 May: Toronto Star: Alex Ballingall: Could governments and oil companies get sued for inaction on climate change?
Experts predict a coming era of “climate litigation,” which is slowly emerging around the world and could soon come to Canada.
The clunky term for it is “climate change litigation.” The legal field is in its infancy, but many feel it will inevitably make an impact, given the estimated costs of new infrastructure and economic disturbances expected from climate change — some of which are astronomical. A 2012 report from the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of international researchers, pins the global cost at $1.2 trillion in 2010, a figure they predict will quadruple by 2030…READ ON
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/05/23/could-governments-and-oil-companies-get-sued-for-inaction-on-climate-change.html
20
“more reason for President Trump to pull out of the Paris Agreement:”
American people and the US government were never a participant in that so called ‘Paris Agreement’! Let BO’bummer handle ‘his agreement’!..Notice:
With The Donald, he implies agreement from the people, which he has, but he commits only his own personal integrity, no committees! How Presidential!
All the best!-will-
21
23 May: ClimateChangeNews: Kenya signs China deal for coal plant beside Unesco site
By Daniel Wesangula in Lamu
A Kenyan delegation has inked a $2bn deal with Chinese company Power Global to finance a new coal plant adjacent to a Unesco world heritage site.
The deal was signed despite an ongoing court case in Kenya over its potential environmental and social impacts…
Environmentalists raised concerns this week that the implication of government support for the project would prejudice the findings of the tribunal, effectively rubberstamping the project…
But there are powerful geopolitical winds behind the 1050 MW Lamu plant, which is backed by a consortium that includes East Africa’s leading investment company Centum Investments and a group of Chinese companies.
The deal was signed in Beijing during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The Chinese government is looking to spend almost $1trillion funding infrastructure projects as part of the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and the ’21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, a vascular network of trade spreading from China over land and sea into Europe, Asia and Africa…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/05/23/kenya-signs-china-deal-coal-plant-beside-unesco-site/
23 May: ClimateChangeNews: Karl Mathiesen: Small-scale renewables cheapest for rural Africa, says Dutch report
In the race to electrify Africa, wealthy governments and donors are ignoring the cheapest ways to reach the continent’s most remote communities, according to a Dutch government report.
In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 600 million people live without power. In 2015, UN countries signed up to a commitment to make electricity accessible to every household on earth by 2030.
Switching the lights on across the world’s poorest continent, a report (LINK) by the Netherlands government’s Environmental Assessment Agency said, would require an extra $9-33bn in investment each year until 2030…
Private investment tends towards wealthier customers and larger projects…
For villages far from existing grids, or very poor communities that can only pay small premiums, or sparsely populated areas with only a few potential consumers, the best option is often off-grid solar or wind or a mini-hydro plant in a stream.
Distance to the existing grid is a critical factor in determining the best approach for electrifying any community because of the cost of building transmission lines – between $5,000 and $28,000 per kilometre depending on the voltage…
Monday’s report, coming from a European government, will provide fuel for those arguing for an investment strategy for Africa that focuses ***public money on more difficult, smaller scale projects.
The report also looked at the effect that total electrification would have on Africa’s carbon emissions. As well as a boom in renewable energy, fossil fuel use is also predicted to increase.
Overall CO2 emissions from sub-Saharan Africa’s residential sector will rise between 0.2% and 27% by 2030, the report found. The final amount would still be “negligible” said the report, accounting for 0.2% or less of global emissions from electricity.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/05/23/small-scale-renewables-cheapest-rural-africa-says-dutch-report/
20
In the US “scheme” is a synonym to “scam”. Any scheme that hat to do with climate related issues would be better called “scam”.
60
Thank you – filed away for future reference
20
May 24, 2017, 12.53pm:
“Households are facing price a ‘price spike’ running into hundreds of dollars a year, one consumer group has warned, in the wake of a federal court ruling which has blocked government efforts to limit power price rises.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/households-facing-price-spike-as-regulator-loses-key-court-case-20170523-gwbrjv.html
40
Indeed Australians are in for a rude shock of their lives over the coming years. Also any thoughts of budget surpluses down the road can be thrown out the window just as was the case with Swan’s fiasco. In fact Morrison’s budget now appears to be as bad if not worse than Swan’s budget fiasco. Why bother with elections? Both major parties are leading this country to financial oblivion as whoever is in government will have no option but to raise taxes significantly. Cutting spending is too hard not just for the Senate but for the growing numbers of voters getting more from the government than what they are paying in taxes if any.
60
Thanks to the HIDDEN CARBON DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD) TAX the RET !
00
China makes ‘flammable ice’ breakthrough in South China Sea
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/19/news/china-flammable-ice-sea/index.html
10
Why are they now calling methane hydrates / clathrates “flammable ice”?
21
When a large concentration of methane is trapped in water’s structure is forms a solid that looks like ice.
20
I know, but they are using a dumbed down term. They should use the correct scientific term.
Similarly, when they talk about “carbon” they really mean carbon dioxide.
The dumbing down of the terminology is part of the problem.
31
Did you really expect the swamp creatures and associated MSM to use precise terms?
30
It gives a whole new perspective on the (so called) problem of Methane Clathrates in the Arctic Circle, and you can bet that both China and Russia are working on just that.
I’m beginning to think that all this sudden (last eight to ten years anyway) concentration on Natural gas finds may lead to renewables taking a back seat.
What with Hydraulic Fracturing in the vast U.S. fields, and now something like this, it explains the almost exponential growth of Natural gas as a power plant fuel.
It happened in the U.S. where they began replacing their old coal fired power plants, not with renewables, but with Natural Gas fired plants. Over the last eight years in the U.S. they have replaced more than the closed coal fired plants generated power with Natural Gas fired power. In fact, ten years ago, Natural Gas fired power generation in the U.S. was only 44% that of coal fired. Now Natural gas generates almost 12% more than coal fired power. When it comes to the need for real power, then there are only three sources, Coal Nukes, and NG. All the renewables are just mere window dressing.
In China though, Natural gas fired power makes up only 3.1% of the total generated power, even less than wind power generates. If China finds its own gas, you can bet they’ll be ramping up that figure. Either that, or just keep going with coal fired power and sell the Gas. Why replace something (coal fired power) that has a life span so far into the future already.
And here we have politicians putting moratoriums on gas field finds for fear of losing their green preferences at the next election.
Tony.
61
When it comes to Science, I’ll leave that to others who know way way more than I do, but I wonder privately about something here.
If, like we are told, the World’s oceans act as a great soak for CO2 and Methane, we now have a case where China is mining this ….. from the bottom of the South China Sea.
Would not the oceans soak up the Methane which then sinks to the bottom and forms up into vast deposits of clathrates like this?
Just sayin!
Tony.
52
TonyfromOz May 24, 2017 at 3:38 pm
“When it comes to Science, I’ll leave that to others who know way way more than I do, but I wonder privately about something here.”
Tony,
You are not skyintest, but engineer, who does not ‘believe’ anything except very own measurement! Many times ‘engineers’ accept measurement of well trained ‘others’. This does not result in ‘belief’ of the measurement of others.
“If, like we are told, the World’s oceans act as a great soak for CO2 and Methane, we now have a case where China is mining this ….. from the bottom of the South China Sea…Would not the oceans soak up the Methane which then sinks to the bottom and forms up into vast deposits of clathrates like this?”
Yes perhaps! The work of those others can be accepted, with no need for ‘belief’. The work of others that produce measurable ‘results’, must be considered more highly than any claims of those that can only ‘profess’! 🙂
41
The methane clathrates are thought to form not from methane absorbed by the ocean but by seeps of methane that arise from vents and faults in the ocean floor where the gas combines with cold water upon its emission and which then crystallises and precipitates.
51
.
Breeding ground for methane hydrates: The sea floor
————
Methane Hydrates in Permafrost;
&
.
30
aka Sunray
Thank you Jo, but will we hear about on FreeTV?
20
Hey a bit OT I know, however I found this bizarre, but timely….
It begs the question whether people are being belted into line to accept the UN as their overlords?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/climate-change-global-warming-nuclear-war-asteroid-pandemic-volcano-global-catastrophe-a7752171.html
“Nearly seven out of 10 people in the UK support the creation of a form of world government that would be able to force countries to deal with major risks facing the world such as climate change and nuclear weapons, according to a major new survey.
And 62 per cent said they considered themselves to be “a global citizen” in addition to being British, which will likely disappoint Theresa May who told the last Conservative conference “if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere”.
The ComRes survey, commissioned ahead of the G7 Summit in Sicily by the Global Challenges Foundation, interviewed 8,100 people in eight countries, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, South Africa, the UK and US, which are collectively home to half the world’s population.”
10
That poll is unbelievable.
31
“major risks facing the world such as climate change and nuclear weapons”
Just who gets to decide anything of “major risks facing the world”?…..Any young mommy wants relief from my brat that spits out that wonderful Gerber “pea something”. Is that not a “major risk facing the world”? 🙂
31
OriginalSteve.The Fake Stream Media: “It’s Our Job to Control What People Think.”Don’t believe anything you hear or see that comes from the MSM.
10
So people people want to be ruled by unelected overlords eh ?
Sounds like COMMUNISM !
NO THANKS !
00
OriginalSteve links to the Independent article on a ComRess survey commissioned by Global Challenges Foundation, written by CAGW activist Laurie Goering for Thomson Reuters Foundation:
Wikipedia: ComRes: It won the Market Research Society’s Public Policy & Social Research Award in 2014, for its research on behalf of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
Global Challenges Foundation was formed by Sweden’s George Soros, who just happens to also be a Hungarian émigré:
Wikipedia: László Szombatfalvy
In March 2013, Szombatfalvy started the Global Challenges Foundation whose aim is to increase awareness of global catastrophic risks and improve the world’s capacity to solve future crises.[10] Szombatfalvy is currently the Chairman of the Global Challenges Foundation Board, which also includes the former Fourth National Pension Fund’s CEO and sustainable investment advocate, Mats Andersson, and Climate Professor ***Johan Rockström…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Szombatfalvy
24 Apr PIK Potsdam: Making the Planetary Boundaries Concept Work: Conference in Berlin
More than 400 researchers and representatives from politics, businesses and society will discuss the concept of Planetary Boundaries this week in Berlin. Environmental pressures are rapidly increasing worldwide, with mounting risks for sustainable development. To allow future generations to live in dignity and peace, humanity needs to operate within a safe operating space delineated by the Planetary Boundaries. Keynote speakers include German Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks, Heinrich Bottermann, General Secretary of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) and ***Johan Rockström, Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre…
Hosted by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU), the conference focuses on the practical implications for society, economy and politics…
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/in-short/making-the-planetary-boundaries-concept-work-conference-in-berlin
10
it is Global Challengers Foundation who wants a world government:
23 May: Local Sweden: Miriam Blade: Why a Swedish billionaire is giving away millions to help save the world
What would you do with five million dollars? Buy a football team or a Caribbean island perhaps? László Szombatfalvy, who came to Sweden as a Hungarian refugee in 1959 before becoming a successful businessman and investor, has decided to do something different. He wants his money to save the planet…
In 2012, he established the Global Challenges Foundation (GCF), which recently announced their “A New Shape” prize aimed at remodelling global cooperation. Come up with a world-changing idea, and you could be given up to $1m. It’s that simple – provided you can find solutions to the biggest challenges of our time.
GCF’s vice chairman Mats Andersson has worked with Szombatfalvy for 35 years, and he told The Local contributor Miriam Bade that he’s optimistic about what the prize can achieve…
So why, in over 70 years of existence, has the UN unable to adequately address these problems? One of the biggest issues according to Andersson is vetoing – the goals of the 193 member states differ greatly, which makes it difficult to achieve anything at all.
***”We need another global government structure to deal with it. The UN do a great job in many respects but it was founded 70 years ago,trying to mitigate the risks we had at that time. So, we need a new set, a new toolbox,” he insists.
That’s what the prize hopes to find, “great, implementable ideasand a new toolbox “to remodel global cooperation and communication”…
“Conscious among people has never been bigger than today. László and I are crossing our fingers that there are smart people who come up with a great idea. It would be fantastic. We are agnostic on who will compete, agnostic about in which field, in what way. So, let a hundred flowers bloom”.
https://www.thelocal.se/20170523/why-a-swedish-billionaire-is-giving-away-millions-to-help-save-the-world
10
Global Challengers Foundation Board member, Mats Andersson:
1 April 2015: Environmental Finance: Personality of the Year: Mats Andersson
Companies: Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund, AP4, Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition, Amundi, CDP, Bank of England, BlackRock, Northern Trust
People: Mats Andersson, Ban Ki-moon, Nicholas Stern
The softly spoken Swede has been a driving force behind the Portfolio Decarbonisation Coalition (PDC), which aims to significantly reduce the carbon intensity of $100 billion of institutional investors’ investments, and disclose the carbon footprint of $500 billion of investments by the Paris climate summit in December.
The initiative is a partnership between AP4, Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi, NGO the CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project), and the Mats Andersson UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), all of which deserve recognition for their work.
But it is Andersson who scoops this year’s award, for his active role in promoting the initiative.
used Ban Ki-moon’s September Climate Summit to launch a rallying call to the wider investment community.
And he has put AP4’s SEK276 billion ($38.6 billion) of assets under management where his mouth is, by beginning the process of decarbonising all of its equities portfolio…
AP4’s work was acclaimed by renowned economist Nicholas Stern. Speaking at a Bank of England conference, he described its approach as “a much more intelligent way of motivating behaviour than divesting out of oil, which is like a blunderbuss”…
“We are getting there slowly but surely, new members are coming in,” Andersson tells Environmental Finance. “We are doing our best to shed some light on what we are doing when we meet other pension funds.”…
And decarbonisation has the potential to safeguard portfolios against significant downside risk that fossil fuel assets are left ‘stranded’ by the shift to a lower carbon economy…
A fund launched by BlackRock to track the portfolio of ‘carbon efficient’ US firms has outperformed the wider S&P500 by 10 to 15 basis points since inception, says Andersson…
After decarbonising its equity portfolio, Andersson will turn his attention to fixed income.
https://www.environmental-finance.com/content/deals-of-the-year/personality-of-the-year-mats-andersson.html
10
March 2016: AP Fund Press Release: Mats Andersson to leave the Fourth AP-Fund
“Now I look forward to new challenges that are not operational, such as László Szombatfalvy’s offer to work more actively with the Global Challenge Foundation, which feels like an engaging continuation to the climate work that we at the Fourth AP Fund have conducted in recent years together with the ***UN and international pension funds.”…
http://www.ap4.se/en/2016/3/mats-andersson-to-leave-the-fourth-ap-fund
Global Challenges Foundation: Annual Report on Global Risks
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT
https://www.globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/annual-report
10
just realised Ian Johnston wrote the Independent piece; here is Laurie Goering’s version:
23 May: Thomson Reuters Foundation: 8 in 10 people now see climate change as a “catastrophic risk” – survey
by Laurie Goering
Nearly nine in 10 people say they are ready to make changes to their standard of living if it would prevent future climate catastrophe, a survey on global threats found Wednesday…
http://news.trust.org/item/20170523230148-a90de
11
I pointed out the article to show that scaring the population enough can make them want the awful UN……
The comment that those who trade liberty for safety deserve neither still applies.
If leftists wrote the article, that wouldn’t surprise me.
30
Pat,
That article just broke my Bullshit Meter…….
00
I wonder if this will go through?
State Department, USAID, and Treasury Department — $1.59 billion
Green Climate Fund and Global Climate Change Initiative
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-23/here-are-66-programs-trumps-budget-eliminates
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Well intentioned communities get in this loop as well. At least many of them get to production even if real output is perhaps deflating. A current example is “Totally Renewable Yackandandah” in Victoria that plans to be 100% renewable by 2020 and achieve energy sovereignty (whatever that means)
Much talk of batteries and integrated power sharing mini grids, but no clue on whats next after getting panels on some roofs. I suspect as reality sets in they will end up with a mixed bag which is probably indicative of the general population, and a few people “off grid” declaring it all a great success. It will be interesting to see how things progress.
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This totally spurious “Off Grid” claim that regularly appears from some self righteous, self promoter and we have seen a few such claims posted here on Jo’s blog, is complete and total crap.
How if these poseurs are right, can they proclaim to all and sundry that they are Off Grid and do it in spades over the fossil fuelled internet?
[ the digital data and computer industry and electronic communication industries now use about 10% of the globally generated electrical power.]
Do they have fossil fueled produced copper wire or a fossil fuel produced steel tower nearby to run their fossil fueled internet connection and to be able to use their fossil fuel produced smart phone and fossil fuel produced computers?
How do they get from A to B other than by walking or animal or do they use a manufactured, using lots of fossil fuel created energy to build, vehicle and head down to the local filling station for the fossil fuel for their vehicle and still have the obscene gall to claim they are entirely “Off Grid”.?
Do they have a graded or gravelled or a sealed road running past and to their dwellings, all made using fossil fuel powered equipment.
Are their dwellings built using steel and bricks and cement and plastics and copper and plastic piping all made from and / or using fossil fuels to create?
How do they clothe themselves and feed themselves and what with other than fossil fueled production systems and collect their fossil fueled powered and produced medical requirements and alcoholic drinks and communicate with others if they are so pure in their “Off Grid” claims?
How do they travel to other destinations hundreds or thousands of kilometres distance other than in fossil fueled airliners if they are so definite that they are Off Grid and therefore entirely virtuous and above criticism ?
In short I am getting rather sick of the poseurs who claim they are very virtuous by being Off Grid but are completely self delusional because they think they are “saving the planet” by being “Off Grid”.
In today’s world if you are in the back blocks of some powerless and backward African sink hole you might just have a reasonable claim to being “Off Grid” literally.
Otherwise you are merely being entirely self delusional indeed to claim that if living in a developed nation anywhere on this planet today you are “Off Grid” in today’s fossil and nuclear fueled energy driven world.
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you draw quite a significant rant from people who merely dont connect to the electricity grid. Many times they turn a necessity into a alleged virtue. A couple near me were quoted $50k to get connected so they rolled their own, including a generator (I can hear your cork pop)
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Nope! Yarpos!
There are times, places and situations where people cannot get grid power due to inaccessibility or can afford grid power as you have just pointed out due to the stupidity of the costs associated with the connections to grid power.
There are a couple and family who are only a kilometre outside of Horsham’s town boundaries who have been running their household on diesel power for maybe a couple of decades now .
The SWER line also runs to neighbouring properties only another kilometre or so distance.
The cost connection set by the grid owners to bring the line to them and connect them were so high they went down the independent diesel powered household self sufficiency route and have stayed there for probably what is now close to twenty years.
But they like others in a similar situations around the region don’t pretend to make a virtue of their choice.
They don’t claim to be Off Grid as though that was a virtuous choice of theirs to save the planet.
Or to pretend they can do without coal or fossil fueled fired electrical power by being Off Grid.
They don’t come onto forums and claim they are totally self sufficient and don’t need grid power or fossil fueled power anymore and then lecture / hector everybody else on how they should abandon grid power as they have proven they don’t need grid power at all at any level as I have seen claimed by more than just a couple of odd individuals on a couple of other forums I use to frequent.
They like others in similar situations have done the economic sums and have worked out for themselves that for their immediate household out in a rural situation [ just ] it was and still is more economical for their own household use to generate their own power .
Everything else they do and they are not alone around here in being self sufficient in a diesel powered household supply situation in what could be described as a relatively closely settled rural / farming area with an extensive and long established SWER line grid system, they rely on the Grid bringing the power needed to provide the services and the goods and fuel / energy and communications and etc required to keep their lives and the lives and standards of the entire community ticking over in what has become a totally distributed energy through a grid, reliant civilisation.
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I have been to this town…its been taken over by every stripe if feral and alternative lifestyle welf-faries…..and seems to be turning into aa throwback to medaevil times….typical leftist cluelessness at work .
Pity, it’s a lovely town…
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What a surprise that this town in in Victoria, a FAILED STATE just like South Australia and Tasmania…….
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btw the “Global Challenges” survey is, quite simply, propagands for the G7 meeting.
24 May: UK Independent: Ian Johnston: Donald Trump’s climate change stance under fire from world leaders as Theresa May keeps ‘pact of silence’
‘I am trying to convince doubters. There is still work to do,’ says Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders – but not, apparently, Theresa May – will try to convince Donald Trump that the US should remain part of the international fight against climate change when they meet at the G7 summit…
A petition by Greenpeace urging Ms May to “use your influence to save the Paris climate deal” has attracted more than 155,000 signatures…
Speaking at a meeting of about 30 nations in Berlin before meeting Mr Trump at the G7 summit on 26 and 27 May, the German Chancellor said dealing with climate change must be an international effort.
“We are responsible for each other,” Ms Merkel said. “I am trying to convince doubters. There is still work to do.”…
But the US President seemed happy enough to receive advice from Pope Francis during his visit to the Vatican.
Francis gave Mr Trump a signed copy of message of peace, called Nonviolence – A Style of Politics for Peace, and a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the need to protect the environment from the effects of climate change.
“Well, I’ll be reading them,” Mr Trump said…
Reuters contributed to this report
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/donald-trump-climate-change-world-leaders-theresa-may-paris-agreement-angela-merkel-emmanuel-macron-a7753001.html
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“and a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the need to protect the environment from the effects of climate change. “Well, I’ll be reading them,” Mr Trump said…”
Did P45 ask Pontiff if his ‘claim of climate change came from GOD or from slavers’?
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Pope WATERMELON THE FIRST (and hopefully the last)..
His “encyclical” is only good for one thing – Fire Starters.
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“24 May: UK Independent: Ian Johnston: Donald Trump’s climate change stance under fire from world leaders as Theresa May keeps ‘pact of silence’”
England has demonstrated to the US be the most staunch ally, with Israel second. The King of Jordan is like attached to P45 in the quest to destroy terrorism, the Saudis maybe! Putin must be handled with a great deal of respect! Why would the Donald give a rat’s a*s of what some so called EU ‘leaders’ might wish? They are trivial\nonsense!! 🙂
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Brace yourself for a wet Perth winter all… BoM is predicting low rainfall (75% chance):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-25/perth-heading-for-drier-winter-bureau-of-meteorology-says/8555202
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