The Pagan Witchdoctors send forth their girlie pawns
The science is so overwhelming they need 16 year old girls to evangelize for them. The girls are human shields sent to deliver the agitprop and protect it from scrutiny. If a man asks a girl a hard question they’re a misogynist, and if a women does, she’s rude. Grown-ups can’t even laugh at their transparent hypocrisy. That’s bullying you know, say the same people who call half the world “climate-deniers”.
Izzy Cook is the 16 year old version of Greta Thunberg in New Zealand. She unraveled spectacularly as a political leader and a climate star during a radio interview last September. Right after telling everyone that it wasn’t really necessary for people to travel to Fiji because of the climate crisis, Izzy Cook had to admit under questioning that she had just got back from a flight to Fiji. Interviewer Heather du Plessis-Allant laughed out loud at her vapor-thin dedication to the cause. As anyone would.
Apparently Izzy couldn’t really get out of the trip because her parents wanted her to go. Well, shucks.
But now some government Watchdog in New Zealand has declared it was an unfair joke and the broadcaster was reprimanded and has apologized. Apparently the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) thinks radio interviewers must not deter “passionate young people” from making fantasy declarations and issuing vaporous wish lists live to air. Who knew — thousands of listeners be damned — it’s the job of interviewers to train the next activists?
You, silly thing, thought you were listening to the radio to be informed…
It’s time to ask why New Zealand needs the BSA? Just another Big Government censor to tell journalists what they can say and interfere with what New Zealanders are allowed to hear as well.
Judge for yourself: Who is exploiting the children here? The one who set her up to play in adult politics or the one who asks the questions her mother should have asked…
Broadcaster reprimanded by watchdog for questioning travel methods of Izzy Cook, New Zealand’s answer to Greta Thunberg
New Zealand’s Greta Thunberg, who flew to Fiji for a holiday, was unfairly “ridiculed” by a journalist who questioned the teenager’s travel, a watchdog has ruled.
Ms Cook replies it was “ironic” but says she could not “really get out of it because my parents wanted to go”.
Her mother made her go to Fiji, forgot to tell her not to put the holiday shots on social media, then lined up the interviews and follows-up with “righteous indignation”. Perhaps she should be doing the interviews herself?
Ms Cook’s mother Rose Cook said it was her idea for her daughter to take the family holiday. She had “listened in horror” as the journalist “appeared to be bullying” her daughter.
Du Plessis-Allan viewed the teenage activist’s social media profiles to “discredit her personally and derail the conversation about climate action”, Mrs Cook said.
“Izzy does what she does because she cares… I try to help by proofreading and preparing her for media interviews where I can,” Mrs Cook said.
New Zealand Media and Entertainment [NZME], the owner of Newstalk ZB has apologized to Ms Cook.
The BCA want to scare talk-back radio hosts into softball promotion of the BCA’s favourite silly ideas, but they’ve just revived and spread the train-wreck interview, so even more people will hear it. The interview was played all over the world last September. That can’t be good for Izzy. But it might work out for Newstalk ZB.
On twitter, the most common reply is “and they want to give 16 years olds the vote”.
Young alarmists need lots of safe spaces,
To prevent getting egg on their faces,
As they quickly unravel,
Caught out on air-travel,
To exotic and faraway places.
It’s the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth and one country is building six times as much new coal power as the rest of the world combined. But no one cares.
Sinful Australia hasn’t even built a coal plant in 12 long years, but Saint China is approving a new one every three and a half days. One nation is theoretically destroying the world’s corals, creating droughts, floods and bad storms, and making reef fish reckless but no one is gluing themselves to the Chinese Embassy. The same universities who lecture us on carbon pollution are not even boycotting Chinese students. We have to ask — do reef fish matter? Are floods a bad thing?
Either CO2 is just a shiny amulet or everyone who cares about it is functionally innumerate. It could be both.
Meanwhile on the cat-walks of intellectual fashion shows the Western world’s elite competes to be more concerned than the next guy about the dire problems of CO2. President Xi cheers them on, promises to act, then builds another coal plant.
UPDATE: The pledge was to phase coal down between 2026 – 2030
China aims to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060
China has stated in the updated NDC that it will stringently curb coal-powered projects, set strict limits on the increase in coal consumption during 2021-2025 and to phase it down during 2026-2030.
A “peak” before 2030 means a permanent reduction. If you were planning a permanent reduction from Dec 2029, would you be building 100 coal plants a year, just seven years before then, or would you be lying…
But a tactic of pretending to be Green whilst doing the exact opposite — as your adversaries wreck their own industrial bases — would make you a bad citizen, but a good strategist, if you can get away with it. Remember the research group that says pro-China groups are posing as fake green protestors to try to stop rare earth mines in the US.
China last year approved the largest expansion of coal-fired power plants since 2015, according to a study published Monday, despite its vow to begin phasing down use of the fossil fuel in just three years.
The coal power capacity that China began building in 2022 was six times as much as that in the rest of the world combined, the report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) in Finland and the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) added.
China needs these coal plants for “when renewables fail”
Local officials say new coal plants will serve as a backup to ensure stable supplies when renewables fail.
So the West is demolishing coal plants, and hoping to use batteries and pumped hydro for back up power, but China is using coal, and if it accidentally finds out that coal is cheaper than coal-plus-wind they can just keep running the back up plants can’t they, while someone slowly restores the trailing edge on the wind blades. The slower the better.
It’s one of those rare times when the more maintenance you do, the cheaper it gets.
What an honor. I am just so humbled to win the Dauntless Award of 2023. I mean apart from the towering giants of the Climate Skeptic world who have already won it, to be on the same page as Walt Cunningham, one of the three Apollo 7 astronauts, who risked their lives for science, is a career highlight. Walt Cunningham helped make NASA what it is, and he could have said nothing, but he became an outspoken skeptic of the way NASA was abusing the trust of the public, and abusing science. He was a fighter pilot and a physicist who flew on the first manned launch after the tragic fire that killed all three astronauts on Apollo 1. Sadly the world lost Walt only weeks ago.
Thanks to Ric Werne for the photo. Click to Enlarge.
Other Dauntless winners include Dr Jay Lehr (who helped set up the US EPA fifty years ago and then spent decades working to undo that) and legends like Marc Morano (Climate Depot), Professor Fred Singer, and Christopher Monckton. People who I have learnt so much from.
Craig Rucker announces the award from 25.20. From 28 minutes Heartland and CFACT went to so much trouble to make a mini documentary of yours truly. From 33 minutes I accept live from Perth Australia, the other side of the world. Isn’t technology great?
Redpill the world — The NASA heroes the media buries
In 2013 I wrote about Walter Cunningham and pointed out four Apollo Astronauts then were outspoken climate skeptics, yet the ABC, BBC and mass media would not even pick up the phone to call them and ask “why?” This is a great RedPill moment to share with people who still think journalists are still journalists, instead of obedient propaganda hacks and weak minions of the powers that be. Where were the real reporters who interviewed Buzz Aldrin or Harrison Schmidt (2 of the 12 men who walked on the moon), or Phil Chapman (Apollo 14) and Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7)?
I asked Walt Cunningham then about journalism. He replied:
Donn F. Eisele, Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and Walter Cunningham.
No one in the media has ever asked if I was a “skeptic,” although it has always been rather obvious. I have been writing and speaking on the climate and environment since about 2000. The frequent reaction to my writings is: “What can he know about climate science? He’s just an astronaut.”
I was a founder of an environmental concern organization back in 1970. I also spent 5 years on the board of NREL.
Don’t miss the first ten minutes of the video above — a tribute to the excellent men we’ve lost in the last year, not just Walt but also Jay Lehr, Tom Wysmuller, Pat Michaels, and Tim Ball.
I was booked to do a podcast with Jay Lehr in May this year, sadly he too died a week or so after Walt Cunningham in January. I will do one with Tom Nelson soon instead, details coming.
CFACT generously offered to fly me to Florida to accept the award, which I would have been delighted to do, however the US still requires full vaccination for entry. Hard to believe, but true.
Subscribe to the Youtube channels for Heartland and CFACT.
PS: Special thanks to Stan in the Netherlands who sent a card with a heartwarming message but no return address. Message received. 🙂 Bedankt.
My post box is: PO Box 1931, Malaga, Western Australia 6944.
UPDATE: Jo Nova honoured to be awarded the Dauntless Purveyor of Climate Truth Award for 2023. Previous winners include NASA Astronaut Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7), Dr Jay Lehr, Marc Morano, Christopher Monckton and Prof Fred Singer. More information soon!
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More Presentations Livestreamed from Florida thanks to Heartland and CFACT
Breakfast Keynote – 8:00am – 9:45am ET
Marc Morano is the founder and publisher of ClimateDepot.com. He is expected to give an address about how the global elites are exploiting fears about the climate to gain more power and control over our lives.
Lunch Keynote – 1:00pm – 2:10pm ET
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is a member of the House Resources Committee.
Dinner Keynote – 6:30pm – 8:00pm ET
This is planned as an “Oxford Style Debate” on the question: “This House Believes There Should Be a Tax on Carbon Dioxide Emissions.” Dr. Peter Hartley will begin with the argument in the affirmative, and Dr. William Happer will bring the argument in the negative. There will be opportunities for rebuttals and questions, and then a vote of the house.
…
Panel 5A – 9:00am – 10:30am ET
Killing Agriculture to Save the Planet
Patrick Moore will give a presentation on “How Net Zero Is Killing Whales and Betraying the Purpose of Greenpeace.” Gregory Wrightstone will present on “America’s Breadbasket and Climate.” David Legates will talk about the link between nitrous oxide and agriculture.
Panel 6A – 10:45am – 12:15pm ET
Today’s Extreme Weather Is Not That Extreme This panel will discuss the actual data about tornadoes, wildfires, “historic” and “extreme” temperatures, and hurricanes.
Panel 7A – 2:30pm – 4:00pm ET
Climate, Energy, and Animals (including Humans)
H. Sterling Burnett will present on “The Use and Abuse of Species in the Climate Debate”; David Stevenson will present on “The Threat Wind Power Presents to the Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale”; Francis Menton will present on lawsuits against the EPA.
Panel 8A – 4:15pm – 5:45pm ET
The Right Climate Stuff Team on Energy From a climate crisis to an energy crisis The Right Climate Stuff Team of scientists and engineers has refocused its efforts from the impact of industrial greenhouse gases to the challenges faced by a transition away from fossil fuels. This session will examine aspects of Net Zero, grid instability from excessive weather-dependent power sources.
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Panel 5B – 9:00am – 10:30am ET
Green Energy and Exploitation
Vijay Jayaraj will present on “Developing Countries and Climate Colonialism”; H. Sterling Burnett will present on “Green Energy Technology is Built on Forced Labor, Sickness, and Environmental Destruction”; E. Calvin Beisner will present on “Energy Policy, and the Conquest of Poverty.”
Panel 6B – 10:45am – 12:15pm ET
Advancing Reliable Energy
Kevin Dayaratna will present “Trading an Energy-Scarcity Agenda for Energy Abundance”; Jason Hayes will talk about the “Seven Principles of Sound Energy Policy”; and Karr Ingham will talk about how “Markets Are the Key To Abundant, Affordable, Reliable Energy.”
Panel 7B – 2:30pm – 4:00pm ET
Why NetZero is Impossible: The Continuing Need and Value of Fossil Fuels
Rob Bradley will present on what it takes to maintain our fragile power grid; Linnea Lueken will talk about how biofuels are not a true “green energy” option; and Wolfgang Müller will explain from Germany’s perspective how Europe’s “green energy” mania has been a disaster.
Panel 8B – 4:15pm – 5:45pm ET
Government Overreach, or Tyranny?
Myron Ebell will talk about “Decentralized Totalitarianism”; Jeff Clark will talk how he fought to rein in the EPA when he was in the Trump administration, and how it operates with a president in the thrall of the climate cult.
Lunch Keynote – 1:00pm – 2:10pm ET Ian Plimer is a geologist and will give a science presentation. Marlo Oaks is the treasurer of the state of Utah. He will be speaking about his efforts in his state to fight ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) efforts.
Dinner Keynote – 6:30pm – 8:00pm ET Alex Epstein will speak about energy policy. Ken Haapala of SEPP will present the Frederick Seitz Memorial Award to Christopher Essex. Craig Rucker of CFACT will present the Dauntless Purveyor of Climate Truth Award to a mystery guest.
Allan Savoury is a farmer from Zimbabwe who used to believe that livestock were destroying the land. He still believes the CO2 scary narrative, but even despite all that, he’s an ecologist who now argues we need large herds moving nomadically to stop desertification.
Years ago he was one of the scientists advising the Zimbabwe government to get rid of lifestock to save the land. In a great moment of ecology they even shot 14,000 elephants for land restoration which didn’t work. That was the saddest blunder of my life, he says. And when he went to the US he found national parks were desertifying too even though they had not had livestock on them. “Clearly we didn’t understand what was driving desertification”. He now claims that the soil of grasslands ends up encrusted with algae, which leads to water runoff and evaporation “and that is the cancer that leads to desertification”.
I’m sure cows don’t change the climate either way, but this sure flies in the face of the idea that livestock create deserts and eating meat destroys the land.
He points out that the soil and vegetation in Africa evolved with massive groups of herding animals being chased by lions and what not. The large masses of herbivores play a vital role in ecology — they return the grass to the land as fertilizer. In turn the booming plant-life boosts carbon and microbes in the soil, and changes the microclimate, keeping temperatures and humidity more constant than bare sand does. Without plants, the rain that falls on the sand evaporates and blows away instead. Grass alone is all very well, except that each year the remnant dry grass needs to decay. If it doesn’t, it smothers the soils and there’s a shift to woody scrubland with bare earth instead. Mere oxidation of grasses is too slow to keep up. The other alternative is fire, but it doesn’t fertilize crops and soil the way cows do, and may not be the best for the microflora either. Savory calls his technique Holistic Management, though there are obviously many details he doesn’t describe.
It turns out this TED Talk was from 2013. Apparently it has attracted millions of views. It has mostly disappeared like a stone. In farming circles there are ardent fans and critics, but possibly very few detailed scientific reviews. George Monbiot dismissed it in 2014, but The Guardian also published a reply from fans. Probably the truth is that it works in some environments and not in others, and because it has no billionaire friends, it hasn’t had the investigation it really needs. I post it here for discussion because it pokes the sacred cow that all livestock “are bad”. Readers may know more…
Soil scientist, Dr Elaine Ingham, a microbiologist and until recently chief scientist at Rodale Institute, described how healthy soil, the underpinning of civilization throughout history, is created in interaction between grazing animals and soil microbiology. Peer-reviewed research from Rodale has shown how regenerative agriculture can sequester more carbon than humans are now emitting.
…Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms… was made famous in UC Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan’s book Omnivore’s Dilemma, which explores his success using Savory’s approach. Salatin explains how Savory’s approach enabled him to turn an uneconomic farm into an operation that now supports 35 prosperous agricultural ventures. From selling grass-fed beef and pasture-raised eggs to health-conscious connoisseurs and teaching interns how to replicate its successes, Polyface Farms is leading an agricultural revival.
I can attest from personal experience that Savory’s approach works. …. In our case, we restored cattle to the ground, managed as Savory advised, and within two years watched the water table rise, wetland plants returned and the economic value of the property increase.
In Australia, for profit company Sustainable Land Management says it has more than doubled stocking rates of cattle over historic rates on seriously desertified Australian range, achieved superior weight gain, doubled plant diversity, restored the grasslands, while buying no feed, even despite severely deficient rain.
In the great Covid backpedalling of 2023, even the Australian ABC has finally admitted that natural immunity from Covid “lasts as long as vaccination” which is still false and misleading (because it lasts longer and is higher) but must have caused angst at the office. They go on to say their holy rosary incantation: “but experts have cautioned that vaccines are still the safer option”. Safer than what now, though? The new meta-review in the Lancet says nothing at all about side effects of vaccines or new variants, but people-who-believe-experts and people who think they are “good journalists” need to say their medical Hail-Marys, otherwise they have to admit to themselves that they were wrong and sometimes obnoxiously, insufferably, stupidly so.
The new Lancet metastudy looked at 65 studies from 19 countries. They found the reinfection rate of people who caught Covid was lower than people who were given Pfizer or Moderna. About a year after catching Covid, people with natural immunity still had about 37% protection against getting Omicron BA.1, about four times higher than people who had two Moderna doses. Yet the people with the better protection were locked out, punished, and sometimes even banned from treatment like organ transplants.
For some reason that no one can explain, despite millions of people using Pfizer vaccines, there were apparently no useful studies lasting beyond 30 weeks against reinfection.
But there is no apology, and no admission that they should have been collecting and publishing the data on natural immunity all along. There’s no admission that vaccines were never the right tool to use in a coronavirus pandemic, especially when results were so uncertain and there were so many safe alternatives.
Figure 4 Comparison of protection efficacy from past COVID-19 infection versus protection from vaccination (by vaccine type and dose) against re-infection… for omicron BA.1 variants
Our immune systems can tell the difference between a real infectious threat and a pretend virus
It makes sense that a true infection generates a longer stronger response than a fake one. We evolved from people whose immune systems didn’t waste protein and energy on things that don’t matter. Our personal defense force can’t be bothered staying in DefCon 1 when it’s only the Avon lady at the door again and not the Vikings. So it’s no surprise that usually the antibody protection varies according to the threat. The older nastier SARS-1 virus killed about 10% of those infected, and T-cell immunity was still there 17 years later. Its dark cousin MERS killed about 35% and is not as well studied, but antibodies were still present three years after infection.
On the other hand, protection against the tame common cold sort of coronaviruses is a big “so what” for our immune system. Immunity wears off in months which means we can catch the exact same dang virus the next year, and year after year. Since vaccines are (supposedly) safe, the hard part in vaccine design is to trick our immune system into caring at all about something that isn’t very scary.
In this graph below we see the waning of protection against not just reinfection but “getting sick” or being symptomatic. The result is much like the graph above, with a few more variants of vaccines. I added the labels on the lines in these graphs to hone the point that the top line in every graph was natural immunity. (It wasn’t always obvious which lines were which, especially for anyone who was colorblind).
Figure 4 (D) Comparison between waning of immunity with time of the protection conferred by SARS-CoV-2 infection against symptomatic disease with omicron variant versus vaccine protection against primary infection with omicron by type of vaccine and dose.
“Risk of COVID death or hospitalisation 88 per cent lower for those previously infected…”
The headline conclusion of the ABC story is shown in the graph below. Most people who caught Covid have good protection against getting a severe case of Covid on the second round. But try looking at this graph and reading the ABC description with a straight face: “…natural immunity [is] “at least as durable, if not more so” than two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines… “
At least indeed… natural infection had higher efficacy than all the vaccines for 50 out of the last 60 weeks.
Figure 4 Comparison of protection efficacy from past COVID-19 infection versus protection from vaccination (by vaccine type and dose) against re-infection… for omicron BA.1 variants
Hallelujah. 18 months too late we get the big admission — those who had natural immunity should be treated as equivalent to being “vaccinated”
One day we might even hear that the unvaccinated should be treated as equivalent to being human. We live in hope.
For the moment at least researchers are saying what we’ve known for a hundred years: We should take natural immunity into account when making policies.
Our findings have several important policy implications. … restrictions of movement and access to venues based on immune status and vaccine mandates for workers should take into account immunity conferred by vaccination and that provided by natural infection. Countries have taken different approaches to this; for example, immunity from past infection was considered as part of eligibility for the EU COVID certificate but not in countries such as the USA or Australia.
People with natural immunity are still to this day — barred from entering the USA unless they get a vaccine. I’ve turned down an expenses paid trip to Florida this very week. Hawaii too! — (Thanks Craig and thanks Stephen.)
Hypothetically: If the entire medical system were a mafia cabal designed to create Pfizer profits by banning cheap drugs and useful tests, while guaranteeing indemnity in secret contracts and forcing drugs on people who didn’t want them, what exactly would our Minister of Health have done differently?
And ignorance is no excuse. When there was only a few months of data on the efficacy of vaccines, there was already a whole year of data with natural immunity. In fact, doctors were saying natural immunity worked very well in the BMJ as early as September 2021:
Infection generates immunity. The “SIREN” study in the Lancet addressed the relationships between seropositivity in people with previous COVID-19 infection and subsequent risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome due to SARS-CoV-2 infection over the subsequent 7-12 months (2). Prior infection decreased risk of symptomatic re-infection by 93%. A large cohort study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at 3.2 million US patients and showed that the risk of infection was significantly lower (0.3%) in seropositive patients v/s those who are seronegative (3%) (3).
But the study, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation comes too late to help thousands forced into vaccinations they didn’t want, and we have to wonder whether the purpose of the study is not just a belated nod to a reality which has become obvious, but as the Defender suggests — to tacitly still endorse vaccine passports, now with the minor, fairly useless proviso that people with natural immunity would have qualified “if only we’d known”. But they knew this was likely. And they had enough data 18 months ago.
The vaccines promising immunity,
Could be seen as a sly opportunity,
To sell boosters to follow,
Which would also prove hollow,
And all this was done with impunity.
Simon P. Michaux calls it “Minerals Blindness” — the inability to see that there are just not enough metals to get to Net Zero.
He is an Australian working for the Geological Survey of Finland. He’s an Associate Professor of Mineral Processing and Geometallurgy, and has added up the tonnage required to convert the first generation of the fleet needed (theoretically) to get to Net Zero. So that’s just 25 years worth of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries.
And then we need to do it all again?
Michaux estimates that we need 944 million tons of lithium alone to go Net Zero (the first time). But at the moment every year we dig up about 100,000 tons a year, or 0.01% of what we need to reach the Net Zero target. Current total known reserves of lithium throughout the world in 2022 are just 26 million tons. Total known (best guess) resources are 98 million tons).* Obviously as the price of lithium rises, we will find a lot more. We haven’t been looking for lithium very long so we may even find ten times as much. But at our current rate of production it will take 10,000 years to dig up enough lithium — a figure that ought to light a barge of fireworks over the reality of the 2050 targets. Politicians and Green magic wish fairies may not realize what kind of galactic upscaling is required.
And of course, we need so much more than just lithium — there’s copper, nickel, cobalt, vanadium and germanium too. And we’ve been mining copper in a big way for a century and the deposits found now are deeper and lower grade than before. Copper discoveries have been declining for the last couple of decades but we’re hoping to dig up five times the entire known global reserve and speed up production from 190 years to just 30? (And remember, we’re using that current copper production for other things, which we still need as well.) Prices are set to go through the roof, and all the forecasts of “affordable” clean energy are just so much flying faerie lore.
Western society has taken one hundred fifty years of progress to achieve a fantastically complex energy system using the dense source of cheap hydrocarbon energy, the master resource. Yet the net zero devotees believe that the complex energy system can be dismantled with minimal disruption and replaced with a low-density renewable energy grid that is intermittent and non-scalable, in less than thirty years. — Robert Bishop
Consider the minerals required just for transport…
EV’s use six times more minerals than conventional vehicles
We are supposedly going to convert 1.5 billion vehicles to electric motors and batteries?
Simon P. Michaux | Click to Enlarge
Known reserves of metals:
Click on the tables to enlarge them.
… Click to Enlarge
Production of metals in 2019
…… Click to Enlarge
…
The price of lithium has risen by a factor of 8 since 2020. Total known global reserves have risen by 30% in the same period. Obviously we are just getting started in discovery and production increases. But all those estimates of car battery costs in 2035 need to forecast the price of lithium, which involves guessing how much we’ll find and how much it will cost, and how many crazy nations will force their unwilling citizens to buy a car they don’t want in an era where electricity prices are on fire.
How high will the fever pitch prices go, or will reality bomb the market as EV sales decline, the economy crumbles, and it dawns on everyone that no amount of mandates will blink cars into existence or produce megatons of minerals?
*Reserves are rocks in the ground that we are sure (in a legal sense) we can mine economically. Resources are the rocks we think are there, but they’re either not economic to dig up, or not worth drilling enough holes to know for sure just at the moment.
A PowerPoint summary of his thousand-page study can be downloadedhere. Delivered as a seminar last year in Queensland:
Tantangara Resevoir: A whole ecosystem to fill with invasive feral fish and a necrosis virus too.
The Snowy 2.0 Pumped hydro scheme will cost families big money, spread pests, endanger fish, and kill trees but it will allow some renewables investors to make a profit, and that’s all that matters right?
Overseas readers are invited to submit more stupid schemes, with points for delays, cost, incompetence, environmental damage and sheer lack of any public benefit.
Ted Woodley does the best synopsis of the Snowy 2.0 debacle I’ve seen, pointing out how it sets all the worst kinds of records, being delayed 300% with costs up 1000%. It was supposed to be built in four years and cost $2 billion, but will end up taking 12 years (at least) and probably cost $20 billion by the time the cost of the extra transmission lines is added in. As readers here know, the boring machines are the slowest on Earth, one having made it only 200m and being paused for months under a pile of sand.
It was supposed to pay for itself, and make electricity cheaper, but is already chewing through a $1.4 billion taxpayer “injection”, with more to come and even the Snowy Hydro team admit public electricity prices will rise because of Snowy 2.0. And above all, it was supposed to be renewable and save the environment, but it’s just a big inefficient battery that will infect the top lake with feral perch and other pests, and sacrifice some forest for high voltage transmission lines. It will breach all the usual environmental regulations but that’s OK say The Greens who’ll destroy the environment any day if it keeps their big business and banker pals happy.
To put this is perspective, the invasive redfin perch“is a declared notifiable pest under the Biosecurity Regulation 2017. It is illegal to possess, buy, sell or move this pest in NSW.” But the Snowy 2.0 Scheme will pump the eggs and larva by the gigaton. If you do it, you’re breaking the law, but if the Snowy 2.0 scheme does it, they are environmental heroes.
Ever get the feeling the Environmental Movement is just a mafia cabal?
Jo says — make all the renewable energy generators pay the costs themselves, since they are the only beneficiaries, and obey the laws we all obey, and if the project collapses, which it will, we’ll all be richer. That’s how the free market works…
Just picking out the costs and environmental damage:
Record three: underestimated cost – $2bn to up to $20bn
Snowy 2.0’s $2bn estimate increased to $3.8bn-$4.5bn in the business case, to $5.1bn for the main contract (only), to $5.9bn now. It is important to note these estimates don’t include all project costs, such as capitalised interest and suppressed dividends during construction, hedging, exploratory and other works, design, project management, and trans-mission. Also, the allowance for contingencies would have been exceeded by $2.2bn of contractor claims, with more to come. The final cost of Snowy 2.0’s main works is likely to exceed $10bn.
Then there’s a further $9bn-plus for 1000km of 500kV transmission connections to Sydney and Melbourne (Sydney Ring South, HumeLink and VIC/NSW interconnector), primarily for Snowy 2.0’s pumping and generation. Snowy Hydro initially estimated $1bn to $2bn. If Snowy Hydro is not compelled to contribute its fair share of the cost, arguably the majority, NSW electricity consumers will face a doubling of transmission tariffs.
An all-up cost for Snowy 2.0 approaching $20bn represents a tenfold increase, surely a record for cost underestimation.
Record six: inducing the NSW government to grant exemptions from environmental legislation
The claim that Snowy 2.0 will incur minimal impact on Kosciuszko National Park is demonstrably false. Vast construction sites across 30km of the park have been cleared, blasted, excavated, reshaped and compacted. Hundreds of kilometres of roads and tracks are being constructed/ widened, and 20 million tonnes of excavated spoil will be dumped (when the TBMs get boring). But it’s the NSW government’s granting of exemptions from statutory protections that sets a record for environmental vandalism.
Snowy 2.0 has been exempted from the statewide ban on transferring noxious pests between waterways. This condones the movement of invasive Redfin perch, among other declared pests, from Talbingo Reservoir to Tantangara Reservoir and then across the alps into the Murray, Snowy, Murrumbidgee and Tumut headwaters, overwhelming native species and devastating trout fishing. Also, Snowy 2.0 has been exempted from the obligation in the Kosciuszko Plan of Management for any additional transmission to be located underground. Four 330kV transmission lines on two sets of 70-metre towers will traverse 8km of the park over a cleared easement swathe up to 140m wide. This will be the first time transmission lines are erected in a NSW national park for 50 years.
Ted Woodley is former managing director of PowerNet, GasNet, EnergyAustralia, GrainCorp and China Light & Power Systems (Hong Kong).
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