Naughty! World’s 30 biggest Funds go “Net Zero”, but invest $550 billion in oil, gas, coal anyhow

So much for stranded assets then.

Is there any better proof that “believing” in climate action is just a fashion statement? For all the talk of the end of fossil fuels, the biggest and most powerful funds in the world sign up for their “Net Zero” clubs but pour money into oil, gas and coal, hither thither, anyway.

The 30 biggest funds in the world manage €42.5 trillion in assets. These funds are so big, they can move markets if they want too…

Soak in that hypocrisy

Larry Fink starred at Davos and other events pontification for years on the importance of “tackling climate change”, how it’s an investment risk, and on how “climate change will upend” the way we do business, and how we need to do “long termism“. But he’s the CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset management fund in the world and they don’t mind at all they profit from all the fossil fuels. They joined the Net Zero Asset Manager Alliance, but do almost nothing. Indeed, vocalizing about what bad investments fossil fuels are while investing in them, is like a reverse pump and dump. They’re just scaring off the competition.

In 2020 BlackRock virtuously promised […]

Trudeau invents license for “journalists” so readers know which ones are Government Approved Liars

Big Government is supposed to fear the free press who criticize it — When the press fear the government, it follows the press prints Fake News. It’s just an arm of Big Government.

Justin Trudeau has invented a Social Credit system for journalists. What could possibly go wrong — Apart from death. corruption and wasted money. It explains a lot — like why virtually none of the news media in Canada covered the Truckers Rally, the problems with vaccines, or discontent among the unacceptable working class people. Apart from Rebel News, the other media outlets were afraid of losing their QCJO, or their subsidies, their income tax breaks, and their right to get into government events.

It’s the oldest trick in the Dictators playbook — make the critics get a license. It’s as bad as it sounds. An anonymous panel sits in secret and assesses something called the Qualified Canadian Journalism Organisational Licence or a QCJO. Not surprisingly Rebel News did not get a license. The invisible bureaucrats claimed that only 1% of Rebel News is “news” and therefore it doesn’t qualify. Which means Rebel News are banned from government events, and punished and downranked on social media (even […]

Tuesday Open Thread

8.4 out of 10 based on 18 ratings

Australian electricity price doubles: CEO explains prices up due to lack of coal power

LaTrobe Valley Coal Plant

There’s been mayhem quietly running on the Australian electricity market this month. Shh. April used to be an easy month on electricity markets — it’s not summer and not winter, and nothing is stretched. At least not in theory. But this month prices have been running at $150 – $250 per megawatt hour. This is a big rise, even from last month when prices were often $70 – $120 in the big three states. To put that in perspective, six years ago in March, wholesale electricity prices were a tiny $30 – $60.

Last month a couple of units in a Victorian plant suffered a fire. Then on April 1, a single coal turbine at Liddell was retired, and then there was a wind drought, and now, lo, behold “we have lift-off”! Prices are now consistently running at $200-$300 per MWh, and often spend most of the day above $100. Hey, but it’s only been a few weeks.

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch

Prices are cooking …. AEMO (Click to Enlarge)

Don’t blame Russia: Less coal, means more expensive electricity.

The headline makes it sound like coal outages are to blame, when really the […]

Rafe Champion guest post. Hydrogen is not the new LNG

This was actually written by Mark Lawson. We are collaborating on a collection of papers covering the main problems with intermittent energy. He appears frequently in The Spectator and he is a published writer in his own right. His website.

Key points

The use of hydrogen as the medium of a power export market has an obvious, major flaw. Unlike coal or gas, hydrogen can be created anywhere where there is water, wind and sun. Why should any country import the gas when they can make it on their own territory?

Hydrogen is not like LNG. It is much harder to put into liquid form, is much more likely to leak and has different properties which make it a far more dangerous gas.

Hydrogen has been used as a feedstock in many industrial processes for decades, but the vast bulk of the gas is consumed in the same place it is made, from methane and steam. This is a cheaper method of manufacturing than by using electricity.

Energy losses from converting electricity from renewables into hydrogen and then back again at the other end means that it is less wasteful to use a transmission line. These can now carry […]

Rafe Champion guest post. The real cost of firming intermittent power in the grid

The real cost of backing up the intermittent provision of wind and solar power has been spelled out in a comprehensive model that has achieved virtually no coverage in the public discussion of energy issues. This is a scandalous situation that reflects the ignorance and virtually criminal negligence of the journalists and commentators of the nation. This is a short version of the report.

According to all the people who are supposed to know about these things the road to net zero is clear and the days of the coal power are numbered because wind and solar power are so much cheaper. How much cheaper? Well the inputs of wind and sunbeams come free of charge, so how much cheaper can you get!

The CSIRO GenCost study is regarded as the last word on the matter and who can challenge the authority of the CSIRO? It is disappointing to find that the study is full of holes and dubious assumptions. The biggest hole of all is the failure to account for the full cost of firming the intermittent inputs. This is currently provided by the much maligned coalers and it comes free of charge to the wind and solar industries. […]

The warming trend in Australia since the end of 2012 is nothing.

Across the continent downunder, “the new pause” in temperatures is now 9.6 years long as measured by the most reliable system there is — UAH satellites.

If and when we hit the Ten Year Pause, the National Climate Alarm Centres will all issue press releases, just like the other headline events, right? Just like the “Worst bleaching since last year”, “Hottest day since records began” in 1993. Six hot days in a row in one city of Australia.

Which model predicted that temperatures in Australia would do “net nothing” for a decade?

Thanks to Charles for the graph! (His explanation of calculating the “zero slope” is at #14.2.1)

The length of the zero slope pause line is now 9.6 years.

Technically, temperatures have been falling according to the UAH Satellites since May 2016.

Satellites are obviously better for global and continental temperature trends

Assuming we care about trends that is, and not just one-second records. The UAH satellites circle continuously, and cover the entire continent. They don’t just measure 100 small points with thermometers, next to airports and incinerators, but 7 million square kilometers of area.

Some smarty pants will say UAH is bad, because it doesn’t match […]

Sunday Open Thread

7.5 out of 10 based on 15 ratings

Sunday Unthreaded

8 out of 10 based on 10 ratings

Rafe Champion guest post. The Dark Side of Wind and Solar Power

We are now alert to the failure of the green energy transition and even more alarming for genuine environmentalists is the fact that “decarbonization” policies are wreaking more havoc on the planet than global warming ever will. That has been going on for decades in plain sight and Michael Moore gave a glimpse of that ugly picture in his documentary film Planet of the Humans. No wonder that the usual suspects tried to close him down, happily without success. Still I have not seen it mentioned lately, certainly not in the “progressive” press.

Bill Stinson of the Energy Realists of Australia has compiled a record of environmental and human rights devastation through ten phases of wind and solar power production, from sourcing minerals to the disposal of work out windmills and solar panels and the remediation of damage (what remediation did you say?)

Phase 1 – Raw material sourcing – Environment Destruction. Phase 2 – Raw material mining Phase 3 – Raw material processing – Environment Destruction, Human Rights Abuse, Toxic Waste Phase 4 – Approval – Supply Chains – Modern Slavery, Human Rights Abuse Phase 5 – Fabrication – Large Scale Environment Destruction Phase 6 – Transportation […]

Weekend Unthreaded

9.9 out of 10 based on 9 ratings

Guest post by Rafe Champion. Trouble in RE paradise

I have been expecting a shakeout in the RE industry for some time because in Australia more and more providers are feeding into a static market. In recent years the demand in the grid has possibly even declined due to the flight of power-intensive industries although the demand for power is projected to increase a great deal in future due to population growth and the anticipated explosion of numbers of electric vehicles (not to be confused with the explosion of the EVs themselves.)

I think the inflated projections of the rise of EVs are rubbish but that is another story.

RE developers in Australia are frustrated by delays in connection due to inadequate infrastructure (poles and wires) and they want the taxpayers to kick in $20 billion of capital expenditure to get them out of trouble. According to our planners in AEMO and associated lobby groups this will pay for itself many times over in a decade or two. In their dreams. Long before that the industry will implode when the impossibility of the transition becomes impossible to conceal when Liddell and Eraring go off line.

The big news about the travails of the wind industry overseas is the increase […]

Guest post by Rafe Champion. Energy security on the edge of a cliff

We are approaching a tipping point in the electricity system where there will not be enough dispatchable power available to get through windless nights. When solar and wind power are both out of action at the same time, clearly the lights will go out unless there is 100% backup from conventional power. Forget about grid-scale storage, there is none in sight for the foreseeable future that is feasible or affordable.

The RE enthusiasts get excited every time they record more penetration of wind and solar into the grid. They don’t appear to notice that the same AEMO data that record increasing penetration, also show zero penetration on windless nights. That is especially clear in South Australia where there is always a deficit when the wind is low overnight. They depend on brown coal power from Victoria to keep the lights on, and no amount of additional RE capacity will help.

Those periods of zero penetration are like the holes in the wall of a dam, or gaps in the fence around a paddock of sheep or cattle, or gaps in a flood protection levee. If the dam has a gap in the wall it ceases to function as a dam, […]

A corrupt invasion ruined by Corruption

Character is destiny Daniel Hannan explains that Putin was undone by corruption

Bribery is no way to build an empire. Putin’s intelligence and military bureaucrats didn’t believe in the Russian Empire, and they kept the cash they were supposed to use for bribes in Ukraine. Then lied about the bribes and ultimately left Putin in a precarious position. But they too are vulnerable. Indeed Ukrainians are suffering. Russians are suffering. There are few winners and many losers.

Great civilizations are built on trust. Millions of people work most efficiently when they all know the rules, and everyone has a voice. We used to have that.

Comments here by David Evans on the article by Daniel Hannan

The details are only now emerging, and they help explain why Russia is losing in Ukraine and, indeed, why autocracies are often terrible at fighting wars.

By annexing Crimea and taking Donbass, in 2014 Putin tipped Ukraine into becoming majority western-oriented:

Until 2014, Ukraine was fairly evenly split between, to borrow 19th century Russian terminology, Westernizers and Slavophiles. Some Ukrainians wanted to join the institutions of the free world, including NATO. Others preferred, if not a merger with Russia, at least a special […]

Thursday Open Thread

10 out of 10 based on 8 ratings

The year of collapsing athletes: 890 athletes collapse or die and counting…

There are people tracking all the reports of athletes suddenly collapsing and dying in their prime, or heartbreakingly, even in their teens. This isn’t a definitive study, but where are the answers and why don’t we know them? There are a hundred million reasons to supply data that shows vaccines are “safe and effective”. If our health really did matter, and the incidence of sudden deaths in athletes was the same as every other year, where are those studies? Why aren’t we discussing this on the news?

Some of the collapses and deaths listed here may have nothing to do with vaccines, the anonymous researchers admit and declare that. They want the full data, we all want the data. But it’s nowhere to be found. The medico’s and football clubs, and the Department of Health have gone from bragging about getting their boosters on Twitter to saying nothing. They are not so keen anymore to report or declare vaccination status.

The rise in mid 2021 start at the same time a massive experimental medical program starts. It might be coincidence, but if it’s normal, they would be saying so, with open statistics and data, not shutting down the conversation, and […]

Don’t miss Benny Peiser speaking in Australia: The Energy Crisis

As a director of The Australian Environment Foundation I am delighted we were able to bring Benny Peiser out from the UK.

Bookings need to be done in the next few days!

Australian Environment Foundation

Dr Benny Peiser who heads up the London based The Global Warming Policy Foundation, is visiting Australia and speaking at three major events in Sydney 26 April, Brisbane 27 April and Melbourne 28 April.

Benny Peiser

Dr Peiser has written extensively on domestic and international climate policy and has appeared on numerous media outlets to contest global warming alarmism and demonstrate the cost of policies being proposed to address it.

His visit is especially timely given the European – indeed global – energy crisis and the key issues of energy and the environment that are prominent in the Australian federal election campaign.

 

Sydney – 26 April 2022 Northern Sydney Conservative Forum – “The Energy Crisis’ – Moderator Rowan Dean – Tuesday 26 April

The Sydney Event includes Rowan Dean and Ian Plimer as well.

The event includes a two course meal and wine. Tickets are $110

Book by next […]

Killing eagles is fine, just get your permit first

Dead birds save the world kids!

Welcome to Your Green Dystopia. The wind turbines at ESI Energy killed 150 eagles in the last ten years and last week the company was fined $8 million dollars “or $53,300 per carcass”. Which sounds someone cares about these birds. But don’t think the The Fisheries and Wildlife Service (FWS) are outraged at the deaths of eagles. The real problem was not the slaughter, but that ESI didn’t fill out the paperwork first. If they had only got their permits to kill, it would have been fine.

The new FWS permitted “take” limits of bald eagles has just been increased to 15,800 a year.

Do Eagles Lives Matter? It depends on who kills them.

Fact pic.twitter.com/EA2XmLhsPi

— Paul Thacker (@paulthacker11) April 12, 2022

As Gregory Whitestone says: The government is funding this knowing the birds are dying in the name of Clean Energy

The DOJ press release further stated: “ESI and its affiliates received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax credits for generating electricity from wind power at facilities that it operated, knowing that multiple eagles would be killed and wounded without legal authorization.”

The […]

Tuesday Open Thread

9.1 out of 10 based on 12 ratings

How did that happen? Two minutes of open discussion of vaccine side effects on National TV

What’s remarkable is that a conversation had by so many on the internet has finally made it, for a moment, onto television. No surprise it happened on a footy show. It certainly wasn’t going to happen on The 7:30 Report, Four Corners, or 60 minutes.

A star Australian football player had a “scary” incident with nausea, dizziness, and heart irregularities and missed a lot of the game this weekend. The hosts of the show casually asked if it was the booster shot — saying “that’s obviously the word going around.” Possibly they were relaxed about discussing it because one of the shows hosts even has Bells Palsy, and they had discussed it off camera with him. So they let down their guard:

“Exactly, heart issues and Bell’s palsy has gone through the roof since the boosters and Covid issues,” Lloyd said.”

“We had (sports journalist) Michelangelo Rucci on (3AW) on Friday night and he said that there’s a ward in Adelaide filled with people with similar symptoms to Ollie Wines – nausea, heart issues – so there has to be something more to it.”

 

This is the biggest news story on the planet. […]