By Jo Nova
Green activists who sabotaged the Berlin grid last week may not have convinced anyone that carbon dioxide was a threat, but they have raised awareness that Germany needs more diesel generators, and thermal power plants.
On January 3rd, left wing extremists caused the longest blackout in Berlin since World War II leaving 100,000 people without heating or electricity for up to five days in midwinter. Suddenly local utilities have realized how vulnerable Germany is and are calling for a “national crisis reserve of mobile generators and heating systems.” And they want several hundred megawatts of it.
The association of local utilities (VKU) put out a press release calling for this new emergency reserve to be set up and spread around the country so it can restore power within 24 hours. They also for someone to clear away the bureaucratic red tape that slowed down the helpers, specifically mentioning the odd thing that must have delayed the response this time — like “responsibility, permits, liability, costs, labor rules and insurance.”
They paid homage to the “decentralized energy supply base on renewables” which could have (but didn’t) mitigate the damage. They probably had to write that. They also want to add in “grid meshing” or more interconnectors –presumably to make it harder for vandals to knock out one key line. But it will be “expensive” they say (isn’t it always). It’s just another bucket of money needed to be added to the renewables bills.
German utilities call for crisis electricity reserve following Berlin outage
, Clean Energy Wire
Germany’s municipal utilities are calling for a national crisis reserve of mobile generators and heating systems. These should be dispatched in an emergency to restore the electricity supply within 24 hours, argued industry lobby group VKU.
The VKU said the emergency reserve would enable the creation of temporary “island electricity grids” independent from the main supply system. These could be run by emergency power generators, which mostly run on diesel, combined heat and power plants, and gas turbines that could be activated with “a single phone call”. The association stated that this emergency reserve should have a combined capacity of several hundred megawatts.
In other lessons from Germany, Prof Vahrenholt points out that converting everyone on gas or petrol to electricity only makes a blackout so much worse and the nation more vulnerable.
Who could have seen that coming…?
Pierre Goselin at NoTricksZone: Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
By Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt (Newsletter)
Frontier Economics estimates the total cost of the energy transition until 2045 at an unaffordable 4,800 to 5,400 billion euros.
But now, the attack in Berlin demonstrates to us that such an energy system, based solely on electricity, is highly vulnerable. We are learning that when the power fails, the heat supply also fails—at least when it is supposed to be generated by heat pumps. And to make matters worse, we are learning that in freezing temperatures, heat pumps face total loss due to bursting pipes. This particular “warning label” was certainly not included in the “Habeck heating law,” which the CDU-SPD federal government intends to continue seamlessly. The content of the law will remain the same, but to ensure citizens don’t quite realize it, the name of the law is to be changed.
We are also learning that during a large-scale power outage, electric vehicles can only help if they happened to be charged before the “bang.” Otherwise, this utility also fails.
Home batteries and electric cars won’t be much use if the terrorists attack just before they get recharged.
“In the greed for energy, the earth is being depleted, sucked dry, burned, ravaged, burned down, raped, destroyed,” the group, which is listed by Berlin’s intelligence services as a left-wing extremist organization, said in the letter.
“The aim of the action is to cause significant damage to the gas industry and the greed for energy,” its authors wrote. The group has used similar means to communicate in the past, and Berlin police believed the letter to be genuine.
They love the term “energy transition” but it is as non-sensical as “gender transition”.
You simply cannot run an industrial Civilisation on wind, solar and unicorn flatulence.
A subsistence lifestyle, what the Left want for us non-Elites, is certainly doable with a dramatically reduced standard of living. I’ve seen it in the Himalyas. You can have a 10w solar panel, a battery and an LED light globe in a mountain shack. Plus wood or dung cooking fires. You might even have enough surplus power to charge a cell phone to receive government propaganda and for state-approved entertainment.
But if you want to live an affordable and comfortable lifestyle for everyone, not just the Elites, be warm or cool, have manufacturing, you need coal, gas, nuclear (gasp) or real hydro (not SH2).
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You simply cannot run an industrial Civilisation on wind, solar and unicorn flatulence.
I agree about wind and solar but I’m still optimistic about unicorns. Great beasts!
South Australia is always held out as the great ruinable energy source hope. According to AEMO at this moment wind is supplying 318MW and solar 241 MW in SA. That’s about 88% of demand. Sounds great until you realize the installed wind and solar amount in SA is 4200MW. So wind and solar are now operating at 13.3% of capacity. What a joke. It’s time the fraudsters and fools promoting this junk were put in jail. 13.3% CF!!
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Too true David, but the underlying issue here is that the political left doesn’t want a continuation of our industrialization progress under capitalism, they want to ruin it, hence this current sabotage.
However, more fundamentally, the whole energy transition question boils down to belief in human induced climate change. When are we going to get this ridiculous monkey off our backs and into the dustbin of history where it surely belongs. Climate physics makes it quite clear that CO2 is not driving modern climate change and has never done so in recorded history, in the tropics the sea surface temperature controls air temperature and CO2 content not visa versa. The greenhouse effect is real, but of minor consequence due to the solar driven hydrological cycle where water vapor is the dominant IR gas. It’s time the climate academics gave up their CO2 alarmism and accepted plain reality, what to lose but their tenure, but they might sleep better at night!
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I understand now. Back in the day, during the transition from horse to car, you needed extra horses just in case. As to the idea of building more interconnectors, when that was done in NSW you complained of ‘gold plating’ the grid, even though reliability was increased, most notably in the larger regional centres. Are you really against any and all change? Because, this is the logical conclusion of more than 10 years perusing your posts
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Wasn’t it the beloved wicked witch of the Left, Julia Gillard, that first complained about “gold plating” of the grid and blamed that for high power prices?
Oh, and look, there’s that magical $250 again, which Albo also promised but never delivered. (Albo said $275 but I assume somewhat adjusted for inflation.)
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And Milliband is promising £300 in the UK.
Are all these politicians delusional or have an alternative agenda?
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The transition from horse to car started with government opposition. Every car had to have a man walking in front of it with a red flag. The transition occurred because of the commercially viable advantages of the car and popular support. For the transition from fossil fuels to renewables to succeed, it doesn’t actually need government opposition, it just needs the government to get out of the way and let the people get it done, just as they did for the horse to car transition. It takes two simple steps: 1. Renewables demonstrate commercially viable advantages. 2. Popular support. – When step 1 is achieved, step 2 will naturally follow. Easy, and very cheap for the government.
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Yep.
If you really want to stuff things up, put the Grubbnmnts in charge.
Remember, this will really be the unelected bureaucrats.
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I believe this is the first time I’ve seen ‘cheap’ and ‘government’ in close proximity.
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John
I think you have but it usually has “skate” after the “cheap”.
Or more elaborate descriptions that don’t meet your requirements
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How many ‘extra’ wind turbines do you need to guarantee power generation?
The answer is no matter how many you install you can’t guarantee anything other than the than industry going broke and the country failing.
Over-building low efficiency wind technology does not guarantee anything when the wind doesn’t blow. Bowen is an idiot.
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Plus, even with millions of wind turbines evenly distributed over the continental landmass of Australia, the wind tends to be all blowing or not blowing over pretty much the entire continent.
It is a fallacy that “the wind is always blowing somewhere”. Aggregated wind farm date demonstrates this.
There is simply no way to guarantee electricity production from wind and solar without infeasibly large and expensive battery storage.
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“Plus, even with millions of wind turbines evenly distributed over the continental landmass of Australia,”
This one factor is enough to suggest substantial weakness in the system. So, bush and grass fires as recently as last week. My area. No electricity, no internet, no mobile phone coverage, no radio and no commercial television channels.
The solution to power generation, build more systems over huge areas and long distances, that will work. A proposed 700 acre solar factory in the district was under “leave now” instructions. I don’t know how the wind factory sites in the Cherry Tree range at Seymour or the new Strathbogie site fared. Whether they were burnt out or just shut down is irrelevant. Nothing working, infrastructure for Melbourne that may well draw resources from saying lives so the city folk can run their air cons, don’t know. The apparent madness of building weaknesses into any system is beyond this little black ducks comprehension.
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As you say David, solar and wind have a guaranteed output of 0 Mw.
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Even if the wind is always blowing somewhere you still need enough windmills located at somewhere to power everywhere and the transmission lines to get it there after losses. That is a massive massive overbuild and the result is still zero when the wind as demonstrated blows nowhere.
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Peter, the logical conclusion from reading Jo’s posts isn’t that she is against “any and all change”.
Jo is against unreliable and/or unaffordable electricity. Not change. The issue is the only change being offered is unreliable and/or unaffordable electricity.
“Gold plating” is a term used to describe expenditure on features that are not required, or go beyond a return on the cost.
You’ve seen European countries walking back their energy decisions. Having to unchange the change. Re-open coal and nuclear plants. That’s not because change is bad. Just dumb change is bad.
The interconnectors were/are being built to reach and transfer energy from the new “renewable” energy zones. You say they’ve increased reliability.
Google AI describes the interconnectors:
Reliability? Note the word “intermittent”.
The interconnectors are needed to try and transfer energy around when the renewables fail. As they do every time the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. We have week long wind calming events all up the eastern states.
The only stability ensured is actually via the coal plants still in operation.
It’s gold plating when dumb decisions are made to transition to renewables in locations far and wide, needing new interconnectors for reliability, when the reliability is actually coming from the old infrastructure. Connecting renewables to renewables for reliability is insanity, given the renewables are not reliable.
Jo seems quite open to nuclear energy. So clearly your assertion about opposing change is wrong.
And I think she’d happily change the government. 😉
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Peter Fitzroy quips that we needed more horses during the transition to cars.
Some advice, Peter. Research your history before putting your foot in it.
There WERE more horses during the transition.
So, society could not have needed what was already there; in this case, in over-supply.
Geoff S
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The transition from horses to cars really is a good comparison albeit the reverse of our current situation. So, horses required looking after. Being fed, housed, maintained etc etc.
The first job any farmer did with his horses in the morning, before the horses started work, was feed them check shoes and harness work get them in the traces. All this BEFORE the work started. Work them for a limited time so they didn’t get injured or to tired, start the process again. Then came tractors. Farmer gets up in the morning, turns the key ( well spun the crank handle) start work. What an improved situation.
Horses took eight to twelve hours to “recharge” tractors took ten minutes to refuel.
The big “Change”. a farmer could sell his crop in totality if he had a tractor. The horse owner, as his first job at harvest, was to reserve 30% of his out put to feed his horses for the next 12 months.
So, the change from a system thad had worked reasonably well for centuries transitioned to a system that was so improved that it has been adapted where ever fuel is available.
Only the hobbyist uses horses today.
Lets not let the electric supply go back to the days of the horse.
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PF, the argument isn’t about change, but how change is determined and managed. “Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” could be classed as change. Change has to have a real purpose, and it has to be affordable. Renewables are just going backwards to something we used in the past, but was replaced by better and more useful technology.
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At least the grubbiment didn’t have to build ‘recharge centres’ using the public purse.
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I just watched a video regarding one of Ed Millibands brain shorts in the UK.
He wants to replace all HGV trucks in the UK with electric trucks by 2040!
Wow!
HGV classified vehicles in the UK are those having a gross weight of 3.5 tonnes to 44 tonnes.
Figures vary but there are anywhere between 450,000 to 600,000 HGV vehicles in the UK.
Milliband has absolutely zero understanding of the power required to charge that number of vehicles or the infrastructure upgrades that would be required.
Waiting for our Chris Bowen to say that it’s a great idea in 3…2…1…
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Some years ago, when the NSW gobmint first starting spruiking nothing but electric cars by X date an engineer ran the numbers.
Just to replace the petrol driven cars only in NSW would require doubling the electrical generation. That number did not include diesel usage in the state. So no trucks, buses, farm vehicles, trains, generators, etc., and it also didn’t include petrol, diesel, or fuel oil powered boats and ships.
Going all electric and getting rid of HC fuels across the board would require at least quadrupling the electricity output.
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Thats total rubbish !
There are approx 20 m cars /vans registered in Australia.
Even if you say 10 m of those are in NSW, the average daily usage is 35 km accordinf to the ABS.
So, 350 m km driven daily with an average of 1kWh required per 5 km,
That would be 70 m kWh , or 70 GWh required for daily use.
Current grid daily DEMAND is about 600 GWh
So that would only increase demand by 17%
…which i suspect actually is within the existing generating CAPACITY of the grid ?
…And you could not put 10m electric vehicles on the road within 10-20 years anyway.
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Why did you get a red thumb?
Your figures seem to add up to me.
The only problem I can see is peak usage times from 2pm up to about 9pm.
If people can wait until after 9pm to charge up it should be ok. This won’t suit everyone.
From 9pm on there should be power available.
Are Chads calculations wrong? Did I miss something?
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Make that six !
Some folk just want to hear of disasters and dont check the facts.
The reality is it will be a long time before we even get 5 million EVs on the road, and most of those will be city/ urban users for daily run abouts , shopping, school runs, etc. probably charged from RT solar, because those are the class of owners who adopt new tech.
If/when the price of EVs gets equivalent to ICEs and charge times etc are reduced, they may be worth considering.
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The grid doesn’t work on averages. I agree it’s a bit of a non problem, as it isn’t going to happen , at least with the current technology set.
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In 1923 my grandfather bought a Fordson tractor, and immediately sold all his draught horses.
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The transition from fossils to renewables is not like the transition from horses to the car; rather it is a reversal like going back from the car to the horse.
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I just heard that Chris Bowen wants to inject another $33 billion into the useless renewables rollout so he can meet his 2030 goal of 82% renewables. The man is mad and extremely dangerous. Just think of the number of reliable coal plants that could be built for that money. Think also that all that money will be borrowed, it will be paid to Chinese manufacturers and the guaranteed profits will go to many overseas companies plus a few very rich Australians. That is one very deep trough.
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33 billion?
I didn’t know Black-Out had that much assets.
Simply amazing, eh.
Oh, I get it.
He means OUR money.
Very generous of him on our behalf.
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As I keep saying, I’d be willing to bet many, if not most politicians would be unable to write billion in numerals. Especially Bowen and Chalmers. I am not joking.
And it’s always easy to spend other people’s money (ours), especially when they have no idea of the magnitude of the numbers they are playing with.
And Australian total government debt now over $2.2 trillion and rising without restraint or limit and no effective opposition party to complain about it, which they haven’t.
http://australiandebtclock.com.au/
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The Opposition has so much ammunition but so few rifles.
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WE are the opposition, there is no other!
The lion and the leopard are arguing about who will eat the springbok, but we will get eaten reguardless…
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Pre-emptively handed in their “rifles” at the “buyback”.
They are like that.
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And they’d put that .303 ammo into a 12 gauge shot gun to use it.
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DM,
Spelling out the dollar magnitudes.
Geoff S
Base, 1 dollar
Tens. 10 dollars
Hundreds. 100
Thousands. 1,000
Millions. 1,000,000
Billions. 1,000,000,000
Trillions. 1,000,000,000,000
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That would be the CIS.. Capacity Investment Scheme…intended to encourage investors to finance 40 GW of renewables by guaranteeing minimum returns on supply contracts.
But of course , being renewables that 40GW will be “Nameplate “capacity ,…
…meaning even if it is achieved it will only be 10 GW of intermittent supply at best.
https://www.ecoflow.com/au/blog/capacity-investment-scheme
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Just as they pass laws to stop people from taking to the streets we may have to take to the streets.
Surely they can’t wreck that much more before it all comes unstuck.
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Where have all the green jobs gone? Gone to China, every one.
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Now we can see where this could end for Aussies, more and more toxic super expensive W & S and when they fail or have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years everyone has to suffer the consequences.
We could’ve spent much less and had RELIABLE BASE-LOAD energy until 2100 and more guaranteed National Security as part of the deal.
Why do Labor, Greens + Teals hate their country so much that they also want to destroy thousands of klms of our eastern Australian wilderness every 15 to 20 years forever?
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More madness as the UK pays some toxic Scottish wind energy disasters for energy that can’t be used on the grid.
When will the voters start to think and wake up?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/01/07/scotlands-biggest-offshore-wind-farm-wasting-three-quarters-of-energy/
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Talk about an own goal. You have to give to climate activists. They may be completely lacking in intelligence and education, but they have passion LMAO.
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The German Greenie-Loonies have done the World a great service by exposing just how vulnerable a society heavily dependent on grid supply becomes. Following the rule of unexpected consequences, there will be a sharp increase in the use of fossil fuels in the Berlin area as a result of this attack. I wonder if they had any electric ambulances standing idle during the 5-day blackout.
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Phew!! Thank heavens this got done in the days before ‘stupidity’ took over in that Country
The Neurath power plant in Eastern Germany added two Units to its plant in 2008. (these two units are the only ones still operational at this what was once a very large plant) These two units are 1060MW, (that’s EACH unit is 1060MW) so a Nameplate of nominally 2200MW. They use UltraSuperCritical (USC) technology, and here, think about that.
This plant uses Lignite as the source fuel, so ….. brown coal. (when for so long we’ve heard (have we?) that USC is the main province for black coal only) The Germans perfected the use of brown coal using this USC technology, and these two units ‘hum along’ at ‘full whack’, delivering Base Load power to the German grid.
Now, I could direct you to Wikipedia for some, umm, in depth and honest analysis, (really?) but let’s go to the real facts eh!
This link details the technical things about the plant, and hey, I don’t expect any of you to read it, but it is interesting for just one small paragraph. The plant uses WTA technology, and this solves the supposed brown coal ‘problem’, (the moisture content of the brown coal itself) by using the waste ‘superheated air’ to dry the brown coal before combustion, thus dramatically increasing the efficiency of the plant, approaching the same levels as the usage of black coal.
Scroll almost to the bottom of the text, and it’s ten paragraphs up from the bottom of the text, where it says this:
Oh dear! Would that constitute a missed opportunity, one that if brought to the notice of a certain Minister might draw this response ….. “Yeah, we sorted out that long ago. We blew that plant up, thank you very much! Say look over there. Isn’t that a Royal Commission?”
Tony.
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That didn’t happen and Hazelwood got canned because Dickhead Dan doubled the royalties and so the money the owners had accumulated to retrofit and upgrade Hazelwood went to pay the royalties.
No bank with any sense would lend money to a coal fired powerplant under the current idiocy and so they had to shut down.
Years of intelligent, long term planning down the drain because of Dickhead.
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Most of these people are professional terrorists for hire. They are mercenaries and will deploy anywhere in the world the Marxist Left wants them. They are not interested in the cause, just the money and thrills. No doubt financed by blob evil masterminds like George Soros, and the WEF.
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Remember the old saying, ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’.
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Don’t mention the fossil fuels!
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QUESTION:
Did they catch the alleged criminal terrorists or was the offence considered a peaceful lawful protest and warranted no further action except to prosecute any who dared to call these persons criminal terrorists as that would be a serious HATE CRIME under German law. 👨⚖️🥴👨⚖️🥴👹🔥
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We’re all laughing as we should be but as you state saying “hurty words” in certain countries can get you arrested, convicted and imprisoned.
Keir Starmers version of “free speech” for all bears no resemblance to any sane persons view.
We await for Albos new laws in Oz re guns and hate speech which are due to be announced today.
I’m sure our very own E Kommissar will be very pleased.
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The Climate Terrorists proudly admitted what they did. The VolcanoGroup apparently has been active for years. Though why some of them are not in jail is mystery…
I posted their manifesto statement in the first post, but it’s so radioactive loony I added it to this post again. Look for the Addendum to the post.
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Thanks for all your work Jo.
Much appreciated.
I’ve just sent a box of fancy chocolates your way.
Enjoy! 🙂
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The story since 1988 is that CO2 is growing because of the burning of fossil fuel. Fine. So what is the objective?
Why does no one care about CO2?
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Why is there no cost justification for anything? This is not a Green movement, it is nonsense. And yet across the world, it is legislated without any business plan, any objective which makes sense even if Al Gore was right.
The only plausible explanation is the destruction of Western Industrial capacity by China. And the crippling of all energy sources, reduced to a single grid, a single power source, electricity.
In a world where Israel put bombs in every pager, all power systems are being made in China, a country which sees all other countries as potential enemies for conquest. How certain are we that China does have instant control over our entire grid?
And the leftist politicians clearly do not care about Africa or Venezuela or Iran . It’s not about right and wrong. Saving the planet. It’s only about destroying Western democracies in the name of Climate Change. There is no other explanation for the economic hari Kari of Chinese replaceables and National Grids.
How long will it be before Australians are forced by law to buy Chinese electric cars?
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Because it’s not science, it’s religion.
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It’s The Art of War
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