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Worst Sydney hailstorm in 20 years declared catastrophic
Jessica Cortis and Sascha O’Sullivan, The Australian
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Go on. Prove how much you love the planet, or maybe just outdo the Jones’s and get yourself a $2,000 automatic designer cat door that is draft free, radio controlled and evens opens the door for the cat in case your cat is intellectually challenged. How many storms will this cat door prevent? Couple pay $2000 for a cat door to help fight climate changeThis story was first reported on CBC by Greg Rasmussen. What else are public broadcasters for? Sometimes being energy conscious can mean geeking out on gigawatts, or studying the latest heat exchanger technology. But in this case, it involved splurging on a $2,000 cat door. The super-insulated, radio-frequency-controlled designer cat passageway is one of many energy saving features in a super energy efficient house being built in West Vancouver. I thought climate warriors weren’t supposed to have a cat? Just three million dollars to build a passive “net zero” house: Costing about $3 million to build, it’s not far out of line in pricey West Vancouver. James said he kept close watch on the extras and said it only cost about 4 per cent more than it would have to build a similar home that meets existing building codes. They didn’t want the dingy small windows common to “passive houses”. So they got large windows, even floor to ceiling windows. And then they flew these floor-to-ceiling, triple glazed windows across the Atlantic: … the huge triple glazed windows had to be brought in from Europe because no one could supply them locally. Wonder what the lifetime emissions are on that? Note the fine print: “We’re going to be what’s called net zero energy, so we’ll generate more electricity over the year, and sell it back to BC Hydro, than we use,” said Dean What he really means is that they will be 100% dependent on the Grid to be there when they need it. Net freeloaders on the system? The designer cat door is apparently a “PetWalk” one. I fear it’s going to lead to mental health issues in Pets: Within the same household, different pet’s chips can be set to different programs. So if, say, one of your dogs or cats needs a bit more exercise, you can program the door to let one pet back inside but not the other. This may seem either unfair treatment or a brilliant solution to pet obesity and indolence, but the people at Petwalk feel that it’s something pet owners might like to control. First world problem.
Tony Abbott won a 90 seat landslide based on a blood oath to Axe The Carbon Tax. In 2014 he was thwarted in the Senate from instigating his plans to clean out the green-machine burden, largely by Clive Palmer and cohort, a coal explorer and senator who was a skeptic til Al Gore visited the week before key legislation was voted on. The people who voted for Clive sure didn’t vote to bankroll the Renewables Industry but that’s what they got, and thanks to the Australia Institute we can see just how much the turncoat cost — about $1,000 per person. The Australia Institute is suddenly raving about the value of crossbench Senators — especially the ones who did the opposite of what their voters expected — “yay”, democracy. Then they’ve paired it with the release of a nothingburger survey that asked the wrong people no relevant or specific questions so the Institute could pretend Australians approved of the sell-out Senators who wasted $23 billion dollars on a pagan weather-changing plan. Do you like the Senate, then you love Renewables? Cheers Jiminy! Is the Australia Institute a research group or a PR Agency for Renewables? Saved By The BenchHow the Senate crossbench saved Australia’s renewable energy industry The Abbott Government’s attempts to abolish key renewable energy policies were foiled by Labor and the Senate crossbench. These efforts have supported $23.4 billion worth of clean energy projects during a period that saw renewable investment fall by up to 48% in some years. Bravo. Crossbenchers saved an industry which investors were running away from. Why? Because it was A/ an efficient provider of a valuable service and investors were stupid or B/ because no one wants overpriced, unreliable power? Hmm. Between 2013 and 2016, the Coalition Government attempted to abolish Australia’s three key renewable energy policies: the Renewable Energy Target (RET), the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). These three policies were saved in the Senate…. As a result, the CEFC continued financing, ARENA continued providing grants and other assistance and the RET continued encouraging renewable energy generation. In total $7.8 billion in government support has been provided to projects worth $23.4 billion, as shown in Figure 1:
In addition, the RET has assisted the installation of 806,000 solar panel systems and 226,000 solar hot water systems between 2013–2018 and the generation of 85m MWh of electricity from large-scale generators. Saving the RET and CEFC has resulted in emissions reductions of at least 334m tonnes CO2-e. This is more emissions reduction than the government’s policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund, is likely to deliver over its six years of operation (92m tonnes from its creation in 2014 to 2020) By contrast, the Emissions Reduction Fund is estimated to abate 192m tonnes, of which about 92m tonnes will be abated between its creation in 2014 and 2020, and the remaining abatement happening after 2020.37 Renewable energy subsidies; Six times as uselessSo the $23 billion dollars used by the crossbenchers saved 334m tonnes of CO2 (equivalent) at a cost of $70/ton. The Emissions Reductions Fund cost $2.29 billion and will save nearly 200 million tons at a cost of $12 per ton which makes it six times as effective. And if you believe reducing CO2 is important, Tony Abbott’s plan could save six times as many environments. The $23 billion dollar gift to the renewable industry thus wasted 83% of taxpayer funds — a cool $19.5 billion dollars that could have been used to help the poor or the spotted quoll, but was instead wasted propping up a freeloading industry that makes electricity more expensive, drives other industries away from Australia, and probably loses 3 jobs for every one it creates. On the upside, Australia saved 334m tons of CO2 — equivalent to five weeks of emissions from China. The senate sell-out cost every man woman and child in Australia about $1,000. Babies too. That’s $4,000 per family of four. That’s a family holiday the kids will never forget, because it didn’t happen. During Tony Abbott’s time as PM renewable energy investment returned to “a free market” and fell by half: In 2014 and 2015, while worldwide investment in the sector grew, Australian renewable energy investment fell by half. If the Senate crossbench had failed to save the CEFC, ARENA and RET, the decline would have been much greater and the rebuilding of the industry much more difficult. The future of Australia’s renewable sector was saved by the (cross) bench. The decline of renewables would have been greater, but so would Australian wallets and in so many ways. The Australia Institute obviously approves of governments interfering in the market, and picking winners (or rather “picking losers, but calling them winners”.) They even admit the Senators largely betrayed their voters: Having been typecast as ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’, the new minor parties on the crossbench were widely expected to vote with the Abbott Government – and, indeed, Day and Leyonhjelm proved to be fairly reliable votes for the government. But Xenophon, Wang, Lambie, Lazarus, Muir and Madigan, along with the Greens, ensured that the Senate crossbench served as an important check on the government’s power. Palmers team (bolded) didn’t so much serve as an “important check on the governments power”, but as an check on voters power. Not that The Australia Institute shows much concern. After the Palmer 2014 sell out, it appears half his voters voted for other people and the Palmer team (such as it wasn’t) won nothing ever again. The Australia Institute didn’t ask Palmer’s voters what they thought, because they already knew the answer. Instead they asked other voters generic questions about the Senate and whether it was useful and what color their seats were. ( Seriously, 40% knew the Senate seats are red). Hence the Australia Institute got a headline that bore no resemblance to reality by asking no questions about the carbon tax or any issue relevant to their press release. Spot the bait and switch with the word “which”: Majority of Australians support Senate crossbench, which saved $23b of renewables from Coalition cutsThe ‘Saved by the bench’ report is being released in conjunction with Australia Institute polling* which shows that a majority of Australians believe the country is better off because of the Senate and that better laws are created when the government has to negotiate with other parties
It’s great PR for the renewables industry but not so great for Australians who had $1000 stolen. The Australian Institute paper mentions no conflicts of interests nor donors. But with a $23 billion dollar carrot swinging through Australian Industry, there is potentially a nice river of tax-funded flowback that could have come their way. Who knows? That’s an awful lot of profits that are far more dependent on the mood of Parliamentarians than on providing something their customers need at a price they are willing to pay. h/t Pat REFERENCESaved by the bench, The Australia Institute, Dec 2018 CER announces eighth Emissions Reduction Fund auction results, 18 December, 2018 Global Carbon Project (2018) Carbon budget and trends 2018. …
“Clive Lewis admits broadcasting biased news“: In 2017 Lewis admitted to biased reporting whilst working for the BBC. At a Momentum rally he stated: “I was able to use bias in my reports by giving less time to one than the other. I reported on both but the angle and words and the language I used — I know the pictures I used — I was able to project my own particular political positions on things in a very subtle way.“ This is clearly in breach of the spirit, ethics and whole point of the BBC. Did he think the people of the UK needed his wise but hidden counseling because he’s been born so much smarter than everyone else. Naturally, we know where people struggling with reality end up in the climate debate. This is Clive Lewis, Jan 1 2019: Politicians must persuade consumers to make dramatic lifestyle changes if devastating climate change and mass extinctions are to be averted, according to … Clive Lewis. And we know where public broadcasting reporters go for their next job — The Labor Party. Clive Lewis is now their MP for Norwich South and the the shadow Treasury minister. He’s helped Jeremy Corbyn and is touted to become Shadow Secretary of State for Defence or as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport should the Labor Party win. Lord help the UK. It’s exactly this kind of admission that shows why public broadcasters are The Swamp. Where was the outrage? UPDATE: Commenter Greg says”… but everyone is biased”.Jo replies: Everyone has biases, but there used to be a time the media would strive to overcome them. If a BBC reporter was called biased, that was embarrassing. Now, every little narcissist is openly biased and proud of it. As if it’s noble to put their own spin on the story while they pretend to be neutral. How’s the ethics work? One political party get a dedicated propaganda outfit paid for by the public dollar and disguised as non-partisan. Sell public broadcasters now. Give the money back. h/t Pat (PS Pat, meant to say thank you for your lovely card which I got just before Christmas, Merci!) MIT researchers think they have solved a bit of a mystery regarding Sahara dust, but if they’re right it means the Sahara Desert has already come and gone 3 – 5 times since humans walked the Earth. The Sahara is the largest desert on Earth, and this would be the largest and longest drought “ever” on the planet (as far as we know). UPDATED: Commenter Javier points out these drying cycles were known years ago. (See below) This would rather redefine the whole idea of “climate change” — 3.5 million square miles of Green Sahara turns into Dust-bowl Sahara — and it’s all thanks to sunlight. The drought doesn’t just last 7 years, but more like 7,000. And it’s happening over 9 million square kilometers, an area larger than Australia. The major climate models leaned towards the monsoonal cycle, rather than the longer ice age one. So this theory may have resolved one of the 495 contradictions in climate models. Or not. But the bigger message here is that the sun causes climate change and on a massive scale. h/t to Roger Tallbloke. The Sahara is the largest dust bowl in the world, dumping 10 million trucks of dust across North Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. The dust can end up as far away as Florida. People tracked the layers of this dust before but thought the highs and lows were driven by ice-ages on a 100,000 year cycle. This new work took a closer look at the layers on the ocean and say they see 20,000 year cycles, which fit with cycles of solar insolation (meaning the strength of sunlight as the Earth rolls around on its axis). It sounds like a long bow figuring out whether there were trees and rain in the Sahara based on layers of dirt on the ocean floor, so keep our skeptical hats on. It could turn out to be wrong. But then again, they are looking at 240,000 years of mud and it fits better with other proxies too, so it has some redeeming features.  solar insolation,Graph, Saharan dust.
Monsoons vary with the solar insolation, as does the level of the Nile River and other stuff: Keep reading → January 4th, 2019 | Tags: Africa, Desert, Dust, Holocene, Paleoclimate, Space-weather | Category: Atmosphere, Global Warming, Science, The Sun |  Print This Post | | … January 3rd, 2019 | Tags: Unthreaded | Category: Global Warming, Uncategorized | Print This Post | | It’s summer, so the BoM and ABC can’t help themselves.  Albany, Hottest Town in Australia Last week Marble Bar “hit an all time record”. This week, it’s Alice Springs. But the Australian BOM still haven’t used their own fabulous World Class ACORN Temperature data to find the hottest day ever in Australia. They’re still telling people it was in Oodnadatta, on Jan 2nd in 1960, but even dumb deniers know that according to ACORN temperatures hit 51.2C in Albany in far south WA in 1933. [Marble Bar Dec 28th, 2018] The high temperature occurred at 12:39 pm local time. At that stage, it appeared Marble Bar could crack 50 for the first time — and perhaps even threaten the all-time Australian record of 50.7 in Oodnadatta, South Australia. Chris Gillham pointed this out the strange anomaly of the cool coastal town that was hotter than a million square kilometers of desert, but four years later the BOM still haven’t resolved the situation. The 51.2C temperature is still there in the data, but the Top Ten Highest Temperature Records remain exactly the same. Is Albany, or is it not, the true record holder? Or is it that the ACORN adjustments are overwrought, unjustified fandangaling, that ignores 8 lane freeways, and brick walls and has errors so big they can be seen from space? Bureau of Meteorology Temperature RecordsHighest temperature
These records not only ignore their own ACORN super high quality data, they also ignore measurements from Observatories too. In 1939 the Windsor Observatory recorded 122F or 50.5C. Even further back in 1909 the BOM had a Stevenson Screen at Bourke Post Office which recorded the monstrous 125F or 51.6C. But that record didn’t count because it was done on a Sunday. The big question, (apart from why the BoM is so incompetent), is why the hottest ever days in Australia all seemed to occur back when CO2 levels were perfect. This is even after the BOM accidentally boosted all the modern temperatures by switching to electronic thermometers. These accept one-second long heatwaves that no old style thermometer could possibly detect. Not surprisingly, electronic thermometers all over the country have set new records with every gust of a 737. Despite this huge advantage, the old temperatures are still beating out the new ones. As for the Alice Springs record of 45.6C yesterday, I note that Alice Springs Post Office in on Jan 14 1883 recorded a whole degree hotter, 46.7C. That’s 136 years of global warming for you.
January 3rd, 2019 | Tags: Australian temperatures, BOM | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | South Australians have so much wind power, too much, that in Quarter 3 last year the AEMO had to intervene to cut off excess wind and solar generation. Ever since the Great Blackout of 2016 new rules mean that there must be enough back up power running to cope with the fickle vagaries of intermittent energy. (Obviously, this wasting of sacred green electrons wouldn’t need to happen if people weren’t so persnickety about blackouts!) This graph is from the Quarter 3 AEMO report for 2018. It is technically about both wind and solar, but it appears to be mostly wind. Solar is not a star player in Q3 because it’s winter. Would we put up with any other industrial output that had such a dismal performance. Imagine this was your car….  AEMO Quarter 3 report page 7 Synchronous generation is the kind that comes from machines that spin at 50 Hz (like coal, gas, hydro, nukes). These keep the system stable. Happy happy hertz. But ten percent of all the wind and solar power had to be thrown away in SA because there wasn’t enough reliable back up power to guarantee the stability of the system. During Q3 2018, total curtailments of non-synchronous generation (large-scale wind and solar farms) in South Australia increased to around 150 GWh (or 10% of South Australian non-synchronous generation) (Figure 6), with curtailment occurring for 26% of the time during the quarter. This was the highest amount on record and around 70 GWh higher than the next highest quarter (Q3 2017). Key drivers were record high wind generation (Section 1.3.4) and insufficient synchronous generators being available to meet system strength requirements. The reliable generators had gone home for the day (so to speak) because they couldn’t make enough money in a screwed market where intermittent and unsynchronised electricity is preferentially subsidized. So in order to make up for the damage done by a subsidy designed to drive fossil fuels out of business, we added another subsidy to keep them running. As you would. The extra subsidy to counter the first subsidy cost $7m that quarter. We may have the illusion of free market competition but increasingly the government controls more and more of the industry. “Fascism is an economic system in which the government controls the private entities that own the factors of production.” Antifa, where are you? Keep reading → January 2nd, 2019 | Tags: Renewable Energy, SA (South Australia) | Category: Electricity, Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | Best wishes to everyone for 2019. Back at the desk soon! …
To put that in perspective, the GWP (Gross World Product) is around $100 Trillion dollars. So, all that inflated climate damage rained upon us and 99.9% of the global economy wouldn’t even notice. Climate change-induced disasters cost nations at least $100 billion in 2018, says watchdogNews, AFP, AAP, BBC, maybe ABC, CBC, CNN, CBC, everyone with a channel. As reported by the same people who say “If you want heart surgery, ask a doctor.” The bill for climate-linked disasters in 2018 is estimated to be more than $100 billion according to a leading UK relief organisation. A Relief Charity added up these numbers. They couldn’t possibly have anything to gain by inflating them, could they? From floods to extreme heat, 10 of the worst climate-linked disasters in 2018 caused at least $A120.8 billion worth of damage, says a study released by the charity Christian Aid. I don’t think they meant to tell us that Antarctica was fine… Extreme weather driven by climate change hit every populated continent this year, the British relief organisation says, warning urgent action is needed to combat global warming. “This report shows that for many people, climate change is having devastating impacts on their lives and livelihoods right now,” said Kat Kramer, who heads Christian Aid’s work on climate issues, in a statement on Thursday. Yes, it was the strongest storm since an even stronger one hit 50 years ago: Topping the list were hurricanes Florence and Michael, which caused an estimated $A24 billion and $A21 billion worth of damage, respectively. Michael was the strongest storm to hit the continental United States since 1969, and killed 45 people in the US and at least 13 in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. In 1969 CO2 levels were 322ppm, a wonderful 80 ppm lower than today. If only we could return to that and get storms …just like Michael. The BBC even found some tea leaf statistics: Research published at the time showed that the rains accompanying Hurricane Florence were made 50% worse than they would have been without human influenced warming. But the rains could have been 50% better if they were calculated on models that worked. We’ll never know. Notice how the “warmest years on record” have ballooned out from the “hottest single year” to the hottest five, hottest ten, now top 20: The 20 warmest years on record have been within the past 22 years, the United Nations said last month, with 2018 on track to be the fourth hottest. Imagine hypothetically that the last warming was cyclic. To keep using the word “hottest” PR hacks would have to create an expanding progression as the warming peaked, plateaued, then ebbed. Just sayin…  Channel Seven News. Unintended consequences: When your insurance to stop the planet burning burns down your house instead.Storing all that energy in a small box at home. What could possibly go wrong? Fire crews are warning that solar powered batteries may cause fires that move fast and burn with “ferocity”. Solar home battery warning after Brisbane house fireBrisbane Times, Toby Crockford The homeowner told reporters they had solar panels connected to lithium-ion batteries and suspected the fire started nearby, a view shared by firefighter Malcolm Muscat. “[There were] approximately three battery banks so lithium-ion, lead-acid batteries, they burn with a ferocity that moves through the house quickly,” Mr Muscat said. Remember: When the future of the planet is at stake, there’s no such thing as too much insurance. We just hope the owners had plenty. Friends and family can be consoled that the house has been sacrificed for a Note this is the “suspected” cause in this fire, but solar panels have been linked to many other house fires. Does your home need a “fire bunker”?‘Years to understand’ fire risk of solar power systemsFrom July 12th, 2017, Greg Brown, The Australian Victoria’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade has responded to more than 40 fires caused by home solar power systems in the past five years and warned that it would take years to understand the fire risk posed by lithium ion battery storage. The MFB said the solar installations were vulnerable to faults across their systems, including isolation switches, inverters and installed wiring, and from deteriorating components. The alarming figures come as the solar battery storage industry pushes to kill new regulations that would force homeowners to build a separate “fire bunker” housing for battery installations. Crikey! Check out the wording on the draft safety standards:Under draft rules released by Standards Australia, lithium ion batteries are classed as “Fire Class 1” and would not be allowed inside or within 1m of a domestic dwelling. The industry will have until August 15 to respond to the draft regulations. Energy Safe Victoria director Neil Fraser said at least eight solar panel models had been taken off the market in the past five years because of fire concerns. What happened to those draft AS/NZS 5139 rules from 18 months ago? After a bit of a panic from the industry and complaints Standards Australia agreed to review things, then in December last year adopted “international standards“. It’s not like we are in a fire prone country with extended fire risk seasons, large houses, and lots of solar panels, I guess… Apparently, Standards Australia was accused of “complete overkill” for suggesting that people installing a known fire hazard should put it in a bunker. Ben Potter, Australian Financial Review Standards Australia could be stripped of its authority to set standards for home batteries such as the Tesla Powerwall 2 after the battery industry dismissed a draft standard requiring lithium ion batteries to be locked in concrete bunkers as “overkill”. The standards setting body has been working on the standard for a year year but its draft standard is so onerous that battery installers reckon it could kill off their industry and German battery-maker Sonnen has shelved plans for local production until the impasse is resolved. Imagine being accused of overkill by the same team that want to save the Earth with light globes, panels and windmills.
h/t Pat December 28th, 2018 | Tags: Battery, Solar Energy (PV) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | …  Image by pixel2013 Thanks to readers who responded to the request to respond to the Carols against Coal. After the gripping thrill of “We Wish You a Steady Climate“, get ready for a treat. Here’s draft one of Christmas Carols to Warm the World. Forgive the odd blasphemy, there are some absolute gems lines here. With a little more fine tuning I see lots of potential — a book for next Christmas? Thank you to the star contributors, and please keep them coming! Merry Christmas to everyone. — Jo Tides of Mudgee: O Come All Ye WarmistsOh come all ye warmists
One big government agency quietly admits renewables make electricity more expensive, and another big gov media agency hides it.The new AMEC report tells us renewables will make electricity prices go down a tiny 2% in the short run but make electricity more expensive in the long run due to forcing out cheap baseload players. What matters most to Australians — that we can expect our electricity costs to be 2% less than “obscene” for the next couple of years, or that the artificial transition we are forcing on the grid will indirectly make electricity more expensive? Which message does the ABC headline? Say hello to Trivia!Renewables set to drive down power prices, new AEMC analysis shows A flood of new renewable energy projects is likely to drive down household electricity bills, according to new analysis by government policy adviser the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC). On a national basis, household bills are set to fall by 2.1 per cent — but price falls in the eastern states and South Australia are offset by increases in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT. We pay the ABC three million dollars a day so they can parrot press releases. Unpaid bloggers only had to read to paragraph 24 to find the report says that the renewable subsidy may lead to higher wholesale prices (page V, summary, para 24). The qualification “may” applies to the renewable schemes that don’t “incentivize investment in firming technology”. In other words the “may” might as well be a “must” in Australia. There are no cheap options for “firming technology” that the RET is not actively forcing out of the market. There’s always a way to blame coal:The price reductions will go some way to reversing big power bill hikes driven by increased cost and market volatility driven by the retirement of two brown coal power stations — Northern at Port Augusta in SA, and Hazelwood in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.  Look what happens when renewables increase and coal decreases… The big picture is all a bit complicated for big-welfare-journalists. See the graph above. The carbon tax increased the price. The closure of coal plants increased the price. Renewables have increased through the whole duration of this graph and so has the price. What will make electricity cheaper … ABC says “renewables”. Sure. In the long run, renewables increase the cost of electricity three different ways:Firstly the subsidy itself costs money, secondly it indirectly it drives out reliable, cheap supply, then thirdly, it adds an unreliable supply that makes the other generators on the grid less efficient and higher in cost too. The direct costs of the large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) are included in the environmental component of the cost stack. However it is important to also recognise the indirect impact of this policy. The LRET provides incentives for increased quantities of renewable generation to enter the market, even when demand is flat or falling. This is because the revenue that these intermittent generators receive from the scheme is additional to that available.
Over time, to the extent to which the LRET contributes to the exit of thermal generation but does not incentivise investment in firming technologies, it may result in a tighter supply-demand balance and lead to higher wholesale prices. from the wholesale market and the LGC penalty price is higher than the expected long-run cost of investing in new intermittent generation.
The overall impact of the LRET has therefore been to drive down wholesale prices in the short term but, in the absence of policies and incentives to encourage investment in replacement generation and firming technologies, it contributes to periods of more volatile and potentially higher wholesale prices. (page 44)
The AMEC committee has been saying the same thing about the LRET since 2015. (2.2 p 31 and 2.2.5 p38)
More solar rooftop PV means higher wholesale prices, not lower:While the ABC tells Australians that renewables make electricity cheaper, the AMEC report makes it clear that more rooftop panels make electricity generation more expensive for the reliable generators on the grid. • In the WEM in Western Australia, wholesale costs are estimated to increase throughout the reporting period. This is due to increasing gas and coal prices. Changes in the residential demand shape related to increased penetration of rooftop PV also contribute to an increase in wholesale costs. See fig 6.1 In the WEM, wholesale costs were estimated based on a Long Run Marginal Costs (LRMC) approach for the electricity system. The LRMC approach estimated that wholesale costs are expected to increase in the WEM from 2017-18 to 2020-21 due to:
The direct costs of renewable energy targetsThe direct costs of the Renewable Energy Target are between $50 – $250 a year and rising. But the real costs are the indirect costs. The price of wholesale electricity has tripled in the last three years. Bear in mind, these are averaged costs. Those with solar panels have much smaller electricity bills and therefore pay a lot less RET.
Keep reading → December 24th, 2018 | Tags: ABC, Media bias, Renewable Energy, RET (Renewable Energy Target), Solar Energy (PV) | Category: Cost, Global Warming, Media-matters, Renewable | Print This Post | | …. Here’s a problem coal fired plants don’t need to worry about. Sydney’s ‘catastrophic’ hailstorm happened on Thursday, the damage bill said to top $125 million. How much of that damage is to rooftop Solar PV? The last massive hail storm in Sydney was in 1999 — but there were hardly any solar panels then. There are wild scenes and images everywhere. At least 50,000 homes remain without power in northern Sydney and more than 1000 calls for help are waiting to be responded to by State Emergency Services after Sydney and the NSW central coast were yesterday rocked by the worst hailstorms in almost 20 years. Before anyone yells “Climate Change”, Reader, Pat, found stories about hail the size of Eggs in Sydney in November 1929. Hail the size of Tennis Balls fell on Reids Creek near Brisbane in 1934 and hail the size of Tea Cups fell on Brookville in 1902. Paddington had “ice inches deep” on Nov 1, 1931. There are scores more Hail-the-size-of… Maybe building 2 million solar panels on a continent with hail the size of tea cups was not such a good idea? It’ also quite difficult to tell just how bad the solar panel-related storm damage has been, but judging by the size of these hail stones, what solar panel wouldn’t break? If anyone can take photos for us that would be great. From Twitter
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… December 22nd, 2018 | Tags: Hail, Solar Energy (PV), Storms | Category: Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | Opportunity costs are the most invisible costs in the world.Purely hypothetically, if you wanted to nobble a competing country, you could pay 350.org… “We know what it takes to stop this industry,” said 350.org’s May Boeve. “It is not a mystery, it is not magical. Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times Climate protests cost $91 billion in lost economic activity, chamber study findsClimate activists fighting to derail pipelines and other energy projects have blocked $91.9 billion in U.S. economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to a new report.
See more at: https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/infrastructure-lost There is no Economy B. Once we have wrecked this one…. The report analyzed 15 targeted projects, including the hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline, Constitution Pipeline, and Oregon LNG terminal, as well as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2014 fracking ban. In addition to $91.9 billion in lost economic activity, the protests cost nearly 730,000 job opportunities and $20 billion in tax revenue to federal, state and local governments. …the U.S. surpassed Russia this year to become the world’s largest crude oil producer and has led the world in natural-gas production since 2009. REFERENCESInfrastructure Lost: Why America Cannot Afford to “Keep It In the Ground” Got Solar PV? Don’t let the kids play on the roof Would you like a 240Volt shock with that? In Australia, shonky fly-by-night installers are botching the wiring and not screwing the panels on properly. As many as a quarter of solar panels pose a high or severe “electrical safety” risk. Since there are two million households with solar panels, that’s half a million homes sitting under a live problem. By mismanagement and delusional climate-changing schemes the government has entirely and artificially created the solar bubble. Hopefully people won’t die like they did in the Pink Batts Bubble. Back then, to stop droughts and storms and save the nation from the Global Financial Crisis, the government decided to rush out home insulation. The artificial bubble brought in poorly trained workers and four people died. Kevin Rudd (former PM) now says he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known the risks. But heck, way back in 2010 no one could have realized that artificial government industry bubbles wouldn’t mix well with 240 Volts. Sure. Australia’s big advance seems to be to stop unnecessary deaths under roofs, and start doing them on top. Warning of deaths over solar panel installations
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has written to his state counterparts to warn that lives could be at risk from unsafe or sub-standard solar panel installations, with a national audit report finding up to one-quarter of all rooftop units inspected posed a severe or high risk. The national audit of the Renewable Energy Target has revealed that between 21 and 26 per cent of small-scale rooftop solar installations inspected every year since 2011 had been found to have faulty wiring and unsecured panels. Some posed a “severe risk” where wiring was exposed. This required units to be shut down immediately and remediated. A total of 35 licensed installation contractors have been warned they face the possibility of suspension… There are so many upstart sharks in the solar installation industry that the faulty panels they leave behind are known as “solar orphans”. Fly-by-night operators installing faulty solar panelsSam Buckingham-Jones, The Australian Keep reading → December 20th, 2018 | Tags: Renewable Energy, Solar Energy (PV) | Category: Big-Government, Global Warming, Renewable | Print This Post | | |
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