Why Industrial Wind Turbines, are a Waste of Time & Money!

January 8, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

11 Fatal Flaws with Wind Power

January 8, 2016 by stopthesethings

The wind industry is copping a flogging all over the World. Increasingly, as the industry’s lies and propaganda are replaced by facts, more and more are coming to the obvious conclusion: THESE THINGS DON’T WORK – on any level.

Getting there was only a matter of time.

What has surprised STT is not that journos, pundits and even Global Warming hysterics have sussed the wind power fraud for what it is; it’s that those that previously championed wind power have, instead, joined a chorus calling for serious investment in nuclear power.

Here’s a little ‘paint-by-numbers’ breakdown that reaches that very same conclusion, for much the same reasons.

Top 11 Problems Plaguing Solar And Wind Power
Daily Caller
Andrew Follett
25 December 2015

Despite President Barack Obama’s pocket veto Saturday of attempts to repeal the Clean Power Plan and recent increases in taxpayer support, solar and wind energy are in a tough spot, requiring an estimated $90 trillion of investment to meet carbon dioxide reduction goals.

The fundamental issues of solar and wind power are numerous, so let’s review the top 11.

1: Power Storage Is Incredibly Expensive On A Large Scale

It is currently impossible to economically store power for times when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Purchasing enough batteries to provide just three days of storage for an average American household costs about $15,000, and those batteries only last for about five years and are very difficult to recycle.

This is true for home power storage as well, even with the latest batteries. A Tesla power-wall capable of powering a home costs $7,340 to buy. A conservative analysis estimates that a power-wall can save its owner a maximum of $1.06 a day. Such a system would take approximately 25 years to pay for itself, according to the same analysis.

One of the world’s largest and most powerful batteries, located in Fairbanks, Ala., weighs 1,300-metric tons and is larger than a football field. It can only provide enough electricity for about 12,000 residents, or 38 percent of Fairbanks’ population, for seven minutes. That’s useful for short outages, which happen a lot in Alaska, but isn’t effective enough to act as a reserve for solar and wind.

The best way we have of “storing” power is pumping water up a hill, which actually accounts for 99 percent of all global energy storage.

2: The U.S. Power Grid Is Older, And Has Trouble Handling Solar And Wind

“Our power grid works well today. Some complain, but blackouts are rare and large-scale blackout are really rare. The power grid was set up for the [electrical] generation we have. Building a lot of new wind and solar requires much greater expenditure on the grid,” Vice President for Policy of the Institute for Energy Research Daniel Simmons told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

According to the Department of Energy, 70 percent of the transmission lines and power transformers in the country are at least 25 years old.

In order for the power grid to function, demand for energy must exactly match supply. Power demand is relatively predictable and conventional power plans, like nuclear plants and natural gas, can adjust output accordingly. Solar and wind power, however, cannot easily adjust output. They also provide power unpredictably relative to conventional power sources.

On an especially cloudy or windless day, the electrical grid can’t supply enough power from solar or wind alone. Wind and solar also run the risk of producing too much power which can overload and fry the power grid. This is why electrical companies will occasionally pay consumers to take electricity.

3: Rebuilding The Power Grid To Handle Solar And Wind Is Absurdly Expensive

The three power grids that supply the United States with energy are massive and expensive pieces of infrastructure. The power grids are valued at trillions of dollars and can’t be replaced in a timely manner. It takes more than a year to manufacture a new transformer, and transformers aren’t interchangeable, as each one must be individually built specifically for its location. At a time when the U.S. government is more than $18 trillion in debt, building power grids that can handle solar and wind may not be feasible.

Merely building a 3,000-mile network of transmission lines capable of moving power from wind-rich West Texas to market in East Texas proved to be a $6.8 billion effort that began in 2008 and still isn’t entirely finished. Building the infrastructure to move large amounts of solar or wind power from the best places to generate it to the places where power is needed would be incredibly expensive and could cost many times the price of generating the power.

4: Solar and Wind Don’t Provide Power At Useful Times

“Solar is better than wind for providing electricity when electricity is used,” says Simmons. “But during much of the year in, for example, peak electricity demand comes after dark. For example, [on December 17] in California peak electricity demand was at 6pm. But peak solar was at 12:36 and by 6pm, solar production was a zero.”

Power demand is relatively predictable. The output of a solar or wind power plant is quite variable over time and generally doesn’t coincide with the times when power is most needed. Peak power demand also occurs in the evenings, when solar power is going offline. Adding power plants which only provide power at intermittent and unpredictable times makes the power grid more fragile.

5: Solar And Wind Can’t Keep the Lights On By Themselves

Solar and wind power systems require conventional backups to provide power when they cannot. Since the output of solar and wind plants cannot be predicted with high accuracy by forecasts, grid operators have to keep excess reserve running just in case.

But natural gas, coal-fired, or nuclear plants are not simple machines. They can require days to fully turn on from a dead stop. This means that solar and wind power require conventional sources in “stand-by” mode, which means they’re still generating electricity.

Despite this, environmental groups like The Sierra Club still call for “100 percent” solar and wind power.

6: The Best Places For Solar And Wind Are Usually Far Away From Consumers

The places with the highest potential for generating solar or wind power are typically relatively far away from the people who will consume power, according to the Department of Energy. The government agency even maintains maps of how unfeasible long-range transmission can become.

The vast majority of people who use power do not live in deserts or consistently windy areas. The kind of high voltage power lines needed to transport even relatively small amounts of power cost $1.9 to 3.1 million per mile built. Additionally, the kind of “smarter” power systems which can be adjusted to varying energy production created by wind and solar power can cost up to 50 percent more.

7: Solar And Wind Are A Very Small Percent Of The Power Grid Despite Years of Subsidies

“The first 8 months of 2015 wind and solar combined to produce 2.3% of the energy the U.S. consumed. Also wind production is down this year compared to last year,” says Simmons.

Solar and wind have been heavily subsidized since at least the 1970s. In 2010, wind power alone received $5 billion in subsidies, swamping the $654 million oil and gas received in subsides. One in four wind suppliers have gone out of business in the past two years.

In 2014, solar and wind power accounted for only 0.4 and 4.4 percent of electricity generated in the United States, respectively, according to the Energy Information Administration. The total amount of energy created by solar and wind is relatively small even though both systems are heavily subsidized.

8: The Solar And Wind “Low-Hanging Fruit” Have Already Been Taken

The locations where solar and wind power make the most economic sense generally already have a solar or wind power system. Since solar and wind power are only effective in a limited number of locations, “green” power sources are difficult to expand and are simply not practical in some areas.

9: Natural Gas Prices Are Very Low In The United States

Natural gas prices are currently incredibly low in the United States, making it much more difficult for solar and wind power to become cost competitive. Natural gas is already passing coal power as the most used source of electricity. Additionally, natural gas is quite environmentally friendly.

The Department of Energy agrees with research organization Berkeley Earth that “the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation has probably been the single largest contributor to the … largely unexpected decline in US CO2 emissions.”

10: Nuclear Energy Has Enormous Potential

The United States just approved its first new nuclear reactor in 20 years. New nuclear reactor designs are much safer and emit less radiation than the coal plants they replace. Nuclear plants take up far less space than wind or solar and do not emit any carbon dioxide.

Recent breakthroughs in fusion could also potentially restart the atomic age when nuclear progress was lauded as a pinnacle of human achievement. Operational fusion power will put most other forms of electricity generation permanently out of business and could occur very soon. Fusion power could easily be “too cheap to meter,” meaning that the cost of generating new power would be below the cost of determining how much power an individual was using, effectively making electricity generation nearly free.

11: Encouraging Wind And Solar Creates Incentives For Massive Corruption

Attempts by governments to encourage solar and wind power have created incentives for corruption even environmentalists acknowledge. The recent Volkswagen scandal illustrates that regulatory attempts to force a specific technology, in this case the adoption of cleaner diesel engines, create incentives that lead to sophisticated cheating by companies. The main incentive of the regulatory agencies is to make rules while avoiding bad publicity, not to actually solve the problem.

The push to encourage “green” systems has already led to serious corruption, such as the Solyndra scandal. Such corruption “crowds out” investment dollars that could be better spent on more workable solutions.
Daily Caller

Wonderful news for the Aussies!

January 5, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Aussie Green Power Scheme Collapse

Eric Worrall / January 5, 2016

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t JoNova – “The Australian” newspaper reports that a rise in costs, climate “fatigue”, and a rise in green tokenism has caused a collapse in demand for an Aussie green energy scheme.

Climate change fatigue, cost hits renewable GreenPower scheme

GreenPower, a scheme run by state governments in which people and businesses pay more for their power to buy non-fossil-fuel electricity, has been hit by up to a 40 per cent increase in cost as retailers pass on the rising price of large-scale renewable energy certificates.

…

Even before the price jump, the willingness of customers to pay more for renewable energy has ebbed in line with the political debate over climate change policies.

The scheme has gone from more than 900,000 customers in 2008 who bought about 1 per cent of total generation to just over 500,000 who bought just 0.6 per cent of all the electricity generated in 2013.

Since, sales have dropped a further 21 per cent.

…

A report by UTS’s Institute of Sustainable Futures for the NSW Department of Resources and Energy — which administers the scheme on behalf of all the states — said the rise in roof- top solar panels had contributed to the demise of GreenPower. “It seems that once customers have ‘done their bit’ by paying for solar PV, they no longer see the need to pay extra for GreenPower.”

So why is the price of green power rising?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald;

“Retailers are making it more expensive than it needs to be for the consumer,” said Richie Farrell, group manager of investor relations and strategy at Infigen Energy.

“The consumer is entering into a contract with them to buy renewable energy and they are not taking action to enter into a contract with renewable energy providers to supply the electricity, they are just entering into short-term agreements on the spot market to meet the liability the customer has imposed on them through purchasing their product.”

Mr Farrell said it all comes down to supply and demand.

“For a long time the renewable energy certificate market was oversupplied. Everyone knew there was going to be an upcoming shortfall and to avoid that shortfall retailers were required to enter into long-term contracts with people like ourselves to ensure that more renewable supply came into the market.”
Unfortunately for consumers, he said, retailers have so far refused to do that.

“They have sat on their hands and not entered into these new contracts. Basically, by our projections, by 2017-18 we will have more demand than supply for renewable energy, and as such prices increase in that scenario.”

You can hardly blame energy retailers for being hesitant to commit to long term contracts. There simply isn’t an upside, to taking financial risks, to try to revive the already aneamic green energy market.

Australia is facing difficult economic conditions, and the Australian government is carrying a substantial and growing debt.

If the global economic slowdown worsens, Aussie government debt could very rapidly balloon to dangerous levels. In other countries, a public debt crisis was the trigger forretroactive, uncompensated cuts to green subsidies.

When individuals, businesses and governments tighten their belts, unnecessary luxuries like expensive green energy are often top of the list of costs to be cut.

Scotts Finally Waking Up to the Wind Scam?

January 5, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Scots Demand an End to Government’s ‘Un-Democratic Fixation’ with Unreliable, Insecure & Unaffordable Wind Power

January 5, 2016 by stopthesethings 2 Comments

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It took a little under a decade, but the message is finally getting out: THESE THINGS DON’T WORK – on any level.

There are 3 electricity essentials – that the power source and its delivery to homes and businesses be: 1) reliable; 2) secure; and 3) affordable.

Try to skimp on any one or more of those essential elements and you’re no longer talking about an energy ‘system’, you’re condemning your economy to social and economic ‘chaos’.

Reliability and security mean that power is delivered precisely when and where it’s needed; without exception – satisfying those critical requirements means the supplier doesn’t get off the hook by glibly claiming the wind didn’t blow, the Sun didn’t shine, or the dog ate my homework.

As to affordability, you can have the most reliable and secure system on Earth, but if the cost of what’s to be delivered is beyond the reach of households; or puts power hungry businesses to the wall, then reliability and security become irrelevant: suppliers without customers don’t last for very long, before they too are out of business.

Passing the ‘reliability’ ruler over wind power draws an obvious blank; so too with the idea that a wholly weather dependent power source could, somehow, earn the tag ‘secure’.

Then, on the totally unpredictable occasions when some of its capacity might become available, the cost to Australian retailers sits at over $110 per MWh (AGL, in its capacity as retailer, locked in a fixed price for all of the wind power produced by its suppliers at $112 per MWh, for which it collects a REC as part of the bargain, currently worth $72). That figure (the whole of which is added to retail power bills) compares with an average wholesale price of $35-40 per MWh.

In South Australia – Australia’s ‘wind power capital’, futures contracts on the ASX Energy market for electricity delivered in 2016-18 are between $86 and $90 a MWh. That compares to between just $37 and $41 MWh in Victoria and between $43 and $48 per MWh in NSW. Both NSW and Victoria draw the vast bulk of their power from coal-fired plant. And South Australia draws heavily on Victoria’s and NSW’s coal-fired plant via the Heywood and Murraylink interconnectors. Heywood has a notional capacity of 460MW and Murrylink a notional capacity of 220MW. A recent wind power collapse in SA overloaded the interconnectors, which shut down to avoid a thermal melt-down, and resulted in an almost State-wide blackout (see our post here).

Australia’s Large-Scale RET will add a further $45 billion to retail power bills in wind power subsidies and/or retailer fines between now and 2031 – all designed to be directed to wind power outfits (see our post here).

Already, tens of thousands of Australian households can no longer afford power (see our post here).

In SA, the number of permanently disconnected homes exceeds 50,000 (see our post here).

And one of its biggest employers, Port Pirie’s Nyrstar Smelter is considering its future, due to the phenomenal cost of wind power and the insane cost of running banks of highly inefficient Open Cycle Gas Turbines to cover wind power output collapses: when the wind drops out, on a totally unpredictable basis, the spot price rockets from around $50-70 per MWh (on average) to over $2,000 and often hits the regulated cap of $13,800 per MWh – all borne by power consumers, of course (see our post here).

Nystrar’s completely justified complaint about South Australia’s energy debacle is directed at all 3 of the fundamentals – thanks to its 17 wind farms and the haphazard delivery of any fraction of their notional capacity of 1,477MW – SA’s power supply is no longer reliable, secure or affordable.

And it’s the same 3 essential rules for a meaningful power supply that has Scots demanding an end to its government’s bizarre fixation on wind power; and, instead, has them pushing for reliable, secure and affordable nuclear power.

Former Dana oil chief urges Scot-Govt. to build new nuclear stations for baseload power and end its ‘fixation’ with wind power
Scottish Energy News
30 December 2015

A former North Sea oil company boss and now independent energy advisor has called on the Government to curtail its ‘fixation’ with wind power and to drop its moratorium on building new Scottish nuclear power stations to provide carbon-free baseload electricity generation.

Stuart Paton, former chief executive of Dana Petroleum, publishes his ‘new Scottish energy policy’ in a pamphlet due to be issued in January 2016 by the pro-market Edinburgh-based think-tank, Reform Scotland, where board members include a former Tory MSP.

In his chapter for “Reforming Scotland”, Paton says: “Scotland has to develop its energy policy beyond a fixation on wind power and point scoring with Westminster.

“The challenge of climate change does require a de-carbonisation of energy, but support for nuclear power, unconventional gas, and increased emphasis on reducing energy usage, are all required to meet the challenges of the coming decades”.

Paton is explicitly critical of the Scottish Government’s ‘un-democratic’ policy of continued expansion of wind power, stating that:

“The increase in wind generation is essentially increasing the amount of electricity that will be exported from Scotland.

“Although local campaigners against wind farms often use the ‘we are already generating more than we use locally’ argument, the national question of should we be building more windfarms in Scotland, with the impact on the natural environment, to export power to England has not been asked.

“This is a major energy policy that has been progressed without an explicitly democratic mandate.”

Geoff Mawdsley, Director of Reform Scotland, welcomed Paton’s contribution. He said: “With the challenges we face to our North Sea oil industry, as well as recent substantial changes to UK government support to the renewable sector, this is an ideal time to stand back and consider new approaches to our energy policy.

“Stuart Paton is a recognised expert in his field who makes a powerful argument for a new approach. His contribution to “Reforming Scotland” is a real challenge to this generation of energy policy-makers.

Paton recommends a four-pronged approach to strengthening Scotland’s energy policy, with a focus on alleviating climate change, reducing fuel poverty, establishing security of supply and continuing technological development.

The following policies are extracts from the forthcoming Reforming Scotland pamphlet.

Climate change

First and foremost there should be a focus on achieving the target on carbon free electricity production.

However the Scottish government’s current approach which relies on onshore and, to a lesser extent, offshore wind farms is far too narrow. This does not provide base load capacity, is expensive and is re-distributive to wealthy land-owners.

Further, the huge pressure there is now on any new onshore wind farm development, both from an economic point of view given the removal of Renewable Obligations and local pressure, means this cannot be a significant further contributor to electricity generation.

The government should change its stance and support the construction of new nuclear power stations, most likely at the existing sites at Torness and Hunterston.

This will likely have to follow the British government’s approach and largely be dependent on foreign investment. However, the necessity of providing base load capacity makes support for nuclear electricity generation essential.

Continued use of gas for electricity generation and domestic heating is likely to be inevitable as a ‘bridging’ technology until alternative sources are found. However, support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) development in Scotland for the country’s own use and also as a basis for international leadership is important.

Given the removal of the UK government’s support for the CCS project at Peterhead, the Scottish government should step in with its support.

As discussed above, the challenge of climate change requires changes in domestic heating, domestic insulation and transportation as well as electricity generation. The Scottish government is already playing an active role in this area, through support for local generation, domestic heat generation and improved insulation.

This should be extended. These initiatives will also play a significant role in dealing with fuel poverty both through providing cheaper sources of power and allowing households to use less energy.

Fuel Poverty is a key issue for Scotland, particularly in rural areas where households often rely on oil for heating. Fuel poverty can be alleviated through some of the same approaches as for reducing carbon emissions.

Security of supply

Many of the issues and proposals identified above not only target the challenges of climate change and address fuel poverty, but also address issues of security of supply. Building two new nuclear power stations and the development of shale gas improve security of supply both in terms if reducing requirement for importing power but also in terms of base load supply.

Technological development

Within the framework outlined above, there should be three focus areas for technological focus. Onshore unconventional development and CCS development can benefit from existing expertise in the offshore oil and gas industry and the existing supply chain. In addition to the local impact, both technologies could generate significant export earnings. Thirdly, the construction of nuclear power stations in Scotland could invigorate the expertise already existing at Dounreay”.

Scottish Energy News

Wind Energy is NOT Suitable for Prime Time!

December 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Cruel Hypocrisy: West Drops Wind Power as it Forces ‘Fake Electricity’ on the World’s Poor

December 18, 2015 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

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After the Paris Climate Jamboree, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers are licking their chops at the prospect of having the rich world fund the construction of millions of these things in the dark corners of the Planet. Sensible first world economies have tumbled (albeit, belatedly) to the fact the wind power is patent nonsense.

Paris, aka ‘The City of Light’ has been lit up by nuclear power for over 50 years, and that’s not about to change any time soon.

Britain has seen the light and has scrapped subsidies to wind power, with the number of threatened wind farms going from a roar to a whimper:

UK Wind Industry Collapses as David Cameron Slashes Subsidies for Wind Power

The Spanish were beguiled for a while by the wind industry’s promises of millions of jobs and free power, in exchange for the €billions in subsidies thrown in hope at the four winds. But, funnily enough, reality has eventually caught up.

Spain slashed its massive wind power subsidy scam back in 2014, with retrospective and crushing effect. Since that change, during the whole of 2014 there was a piddling 27MW of wind power installed (think nine 3MW whirling wonders) and NO new wind power installed during 2015 at all:

Spain Puts its Economy Destroying Wind Industry to the Sword: ZERO MWs Installed in 2015

The wind industry’s Nordic ‘heroes’ have followed the same trend, with ‘investment’ in wind power collapsing this year; and the ‘trend’ means nothing short of inevitable doom:

Wind Power Investment Collapses in Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Norway

And the Germans, early and once eager wind voortrekkers, are back-pedalling fast, as this piece from the Australian shows.

German renewables revolution a ‘lesson in what not to do’
The Australian
Sid Maher
10 December 2015

As he pushes for Australia to rush towards a 90 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, Greens leader Richard Di Natale cites Germany as a “powerhouse” example.

Speaking from the Paris climate conference, his message was clear: Australia’s emissions reduction target is inadequate, coal is a fringe issue in terms of support for cutting poverty in developing countries, and renewable energy is the path to the future. Germany had “become a powerhouse because they’ve embraced the transition towards renewables. It’s jobs rich, it attracts international investment”.

Brett Hogan, the director of energy and innovation policy at the Institute of Public Affairs, says: “Yes, Australia should look to Germany — but as an example of what not to do in the electricity space.” He says Germany’s renewables revolution will cost at least €1 trillion by 2030 (after subsidies to solar and wind), but its electricity system is becoming more expensive and less reliable.

The Economist reported last week that in the first half of this year households in Germany paid €0.30 for a kilowatt hour of electricity whereas the French paid a mere €0.16. It cited a report from McKinsey that said Germany was likely to miss its self-imposed target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions because it had dropped a bid to regulate brown-coal-burning power stations out of existence.

Germany’s use of brown coal could well increase because it is phasing out nuclear power.

Other European countries that have embraced renewables are also less than economic powerhouses. Finland is finishing its fourth year of negative growth and Norway’s economy expanded its fastest pace in three years last quarter largely driven by higher petroleum exports.

One of the key problems faced by any large-scale move to renewables is wind and solar power are intermittent. This is why battery storage is a potential gamechanger. But after the cost of building them, which is subsidised by the government, the marginal cost of generating power is nearly free. This undercuts coal and gas power stations.

“Germany’s major energy companies are now losing billions of dollars each year as subsidised wind and solar power destroys returns on capital and the incentive to invest in more modern, less emissions intensive generators,” Hogan says. He also disagrees with Di Natalie on the future of coal.

“The consumption of coal, to make steel, and electricity, will continue to increase over the next 25 years,” he says.

“With 2.5 billion people expected to move from rural areas to cities in the developing world between now and 2050, coal will continue to be needed to build the homes, factories, roads, buildings and cars that these people are entitled to demand.”
The Australian

Sid Maher’s talk about battery storage being a ‘gamechanger’ and with it, the cost of wind and solar power undercutting conventional generation is childish nonsense.

As we’ve pointed out before – the wind industry’s claims about cost-effective storage of bulk electricity is pure fantasy:

The Patent Nonsense of ‘Storing’ Wind Power Smashed

Even Bill Gates has pointed to the bleeding obvious:

“There’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables,” he said, pointing out – aswe’ve noted on these pages before – that it’s necessary “to deal not only with the 24-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it’s cloudy and you don’t have sun or you don’t have wind.”

Germany is re-commissioning coal-fired plant and constructing new coal-fired plant as fast as it can. And, the Germans too have slashed subsidies for wind, with the same halt on wind power ‘investment’ as elsewhere:

Rocketing Power Prices see Subsidies Slashed, Bringing Europe’s Wind Industry to its Knees

By no stretch of the imagination can wind power be called a ‘system’ – it’s ‘chaos’, pure and simple. Here’s the output of Australia’s wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid (a notional capacity of 3,669MW spread over NSW, VIC, TAS & SA) during June.

With Westerners a wake-up to the wind power fraud, the wind industry is praying on the Third World as its next gullible target.

The real story behind the Paris global warming hysteria is that the wind and solar industries are looking to feast on the $100 billion designed to be ripped from the rich; and purportedly destined for the poor.

But the catch is that the currently unlit homes of Africa and India are going to be stuck with “fake electricity” and deprived of “real electricity”.

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Bjorn Lomborg made the point in a recent piece in The Australian, ‘Politicians in pursuit of the impossible‘, which included this tale about solar power being thrust upon unwilling Indians:

“[D]ishing out solar panels is a poor use of aid money. And it’s immoral that to make up the much-vaunted $US100bn fund, many governments, including Britain and Australia, are diverting money from existing development budgets.

Let’s look at a real-life example of climate aid in eastern India — not one involving governments but the international environmental group Greenpeace. On its website Dharnai Live, we see smiling people and solar-panel-covered roofs, and we’re told that after “30 years of darkness” green energy came to the rescue.

But here’s what really happened: last year, under the slogan “Energy access simplified”, Greenpeace supplied Dharnai with a solar-powered micro-grid — not connected to India’s central grid. Greenpeace writes that “Dharnai refused to give into the trap of the fossil fuel industry”. That is a somewhat loose paraphrasing of what the people who lived there wanted for themselves.

Back in 2010, Dharnai’s inhabitants had collected $US680 in the hope of buying their way into the power grid, which in most of India is supplied by coal-fired power plants. Four years later, still with no electricity, Greenpeace swooped to the rescue with a solar system.

The day the electricity was turned on, the batteries were drained of power within a few hours.

A boy from Dharnai remembers wanting to do his homework early in the morning before leaving to work in the fields, but there wasn’t enough power for the family’s one lamp.

Today, power from the solar system costs up to three times as much as power from the central power grid, and it also requires the use of energy-efficient light bulbs, that cost 66 times more than normal light bulbs.

But fortunately for the people of Dharnai — if not for the Greenpeace narrative — the town today is connected to the central power grid. You see, Greenpeace invited the state chief minister to the inauguration of the solar system so he could meet the grateful inhabitants. When he showed up, he was met by a large crowd of people, with signs and songs demanding “real electricity” (the kind you can use to run the stove and the refrigerator) and not “fake electricity” (meaning solar energy).

A week later, a 100kWh transformer was installed, and Dharnai received modern electricity.

Today, two-thirds of the original recipient households have opted out of the solar-panel scheme, and the rest use it primarily as a backup when the central power grid fails.

This is a part of the story you won’t hear from Greenpeace — but it shows why it’s necessary to question when well-meaning people tell us that dishing out solar panels is a good way to spend development money.

And it points to a broader problem with the state of green energy.

Here in Paris, there are many well-meaning people who argue that we need strong carbon cuts and green-energy production subsidies now and for many years to come, to get the world to move towards tackling climate change.

But at the same time, these same people argue that solar and wind is already competitive and effective, or that this moment is just around the corner. The strange thing is that those two arguments are incompatible.

We are often told that green energy is competitive in developing countries, and particularly Africa. Green energy, especially wind, can indeed help African countries, for example, to get electricity to remote, rural areas.

But that is only a small part of the big picture. As we saw in Dharnai, the grid will do by far the most good for the most people. According to a 2011 World Bank study, renewable energy “will be the lowest cost option for a minority of households in Africa, even when likely cost reductions over the next 20 years are considered”.

Popular solar lights cost almost $US2 per kilowatt hour. Using hydro, gas and oil, the grid cost for the main population centres in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Kenya will likely be US16c to US25c a kilowatt hour. In South Africa, where coal powers 90 per cent of electricity, the cost is just US9c a kilowatt hour.

Green energy costs $US168bn in subsidies right now each year, and by 2040 we’ll be paying even more at $US206bn a year.

However, it is also interesting — and surprising to many — to note that even with these massive subsidies and green policies, doing everything governments are now promising, we’ll get just 2.4 per cent of our energy from green sources in 2040, according to the International Energy Agency.

You really have to put on a pair of green-tinted spectacles to see a world in which renewable energy is about to become competitive or already is.

It is for that reason that the Paris Treaty — to be signed today, if all the talking has gone to plan — will cost a fortune and do very little. Until there is a breakthrough that makes green energy competitive on its own merits, massive carbon cuts are expensive and extremely unlikely to happen.
The Australian

Greed and avarice among wind and solar power profiteers are driving the greatest wealth transfer in history. The concept of forcing electricity on impoverished nations of the kind that can’t be delivered on demand to millions of people, who have none, is not just cruel, it’s criminal.

To force taxpayers in developed Nations to fund such a monumental fiasco, only adds to the obscenity. For a handful of human-hating ideologues to determine that the poorest in the world will never have access to that which we take for granted can’t be explained as good intentions being lost in translation.

The West is abandoning wholly weather dependent wind power, for the obvious reason that it is meaningless as a power source; and, no matter how munificent the subsidies, will never have any commercial value simply because it cannot be delivered on demand.

And yet, the West’s leaders slap themselves on the back for a job well done: US Secretary of State, John Kerry calling what they’ve cynically conjured up “the most extraordinary market opportunity in the history of humankind”. Indeed it is, but for all the wrong reasons.

What Kerry and his ilk are crowing about is using other peoples’ money (ie yours) to enable wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers in America to profit to the tune of $billions, while delivering “fake electricity” to millions of people who are desperately crying out for the real stuff.

Ontario A Laughingstock Due to Wind Turbines & Liberals…

December 17, 2015December 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Insane Cost of Ontario’s Energy Calamity: Consumers Forced to Pay $170 Billion for Pointless Wind Power

December 17, 2015 by StopTheseThings

Ontario is the place where the most bizarre energy policy in the world has seen thousands of these things speared into the backyards of homes – in the most agriculturally productive part of Canada. When we say “bizarre” we mean completely bonkers.

Canada has one of the “cleanest” power generation mixes on the planet, with the vast bulk of its electricity coming from zero emissions sources such as nuclear and hydro.

Adding to the lunacy is the fact that wind power outfits are guaranteed to reap fat profits despite market conditions.

Where the wholesale market price for power in Ontario is between $30-50 per MWh, wind power generators pocket a fixed price of $135 MWh – even if there is absolutely no market for it and the Province literally has to pay neighbouring US States to take it.

Now, Ontario’s Auditor-General has run the ruler over the insane costs of susbdising an entirely meaningless power generation source, the product of which has no commercial value; save the subsidies it attracts. Not only has Ontario’s energy ‘policy’ destroyed the most productive agricultural communities in Canada, it’s cost unnecessary $billions, with the worst yet to come.

Ontarians paid $37-billion above market for electricity over eight years, Auditor-General’s report says
The Globe and Mail
Adrian Morrow
2 December 2015

Ontarians have paid $37-billion more than market price for electricity over eight years and will pay another $133-billion extra by 2032 as a result of haphazard planning and political meddling, a report from the Auditor-General says. The Liberal government has repeatedly overruled expert advice – and even tore up two long-term plans from the Ontario Power Authority for the electricity system – in favour of political decisions that drove up power costs for consumers, the report says.

What’s more, Hydro One is in rough shape, with ever-increasing numbers of power outages and aging equipment “at very high risk of failing” that needs $4.472-billion worth of repairs – even as the province is selling 60 per cent of the company to the private sector.

The revelations about Ontario’s expensive and aging electricity system were in Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk’s annual report released on Wednesday.

“We found that the electricity power planning process had essentially broken down over the past decade,” Ms. Lysyk said at a Queen’s Park news conference. “The [energy] ministry has made a number of decisions about power generation that went against the OPA’s technical advice. In addition, these decisions did not fully consider the state of the electricity market or the cost impact on consumers.”

Ms. Lysyk’s report put 14 different government policy areas under the microscope. Among other things, she reported that the province has doled out piles of corporate welfare behind closed doors, gone $90-million overbudget on a flawed computer system for managing social assistance benefits that has resulted in $140-million worth of miscalculated payments, has $500-billion worth of infrastructure that must be fixed and failed to make sure home-care providers look after their patients properly.

But it all paled compared to her criticisms of the government’s management of the electricity system.

By law, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), which has now merged into the Independent Electricity System Operator, was supposed to provide a long-term plan for electricity that independent regulators would vet. But Ms. Lysyk found that in 2007 and 2011, OPA produced such a plan only to have the Liberals overrule it and make ad-hoc decisions on the system by fiat.

As a result, electricity prices for consumers and small businesses jumped by 70 per cent – from 5.32 cents per kilowatt hour to 9.06 cents – between 2006 and 2014, she found.

The largest part of the reason for that is an increase to Global Adjustment Fees, which for the past decade have paid power-generating companies more than market price for their power as an incentive to set up in Ontario. Those fees amounted to $37-billion between 2006 and 2014, and are projected to add $133-billion from 2015 to 2032.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli defended the above-market prices as necessary. Before the Global Adjustment, he said, the government had trouble persuading private-sector generating companies to come to the province. “Wholesale market prices were not sufficient to attract much-needed investment in Ontario’s electricity generation sector. In other words, there wasn’t enough revenue coming to the generators, so they weren’t building generating capacity,” Mr. Chiarelli told reporters.

He said the draft long-term plans that the OPA created and the province killed were too “cumbersome” and did not include enough consultation. When he became minister in 2013, Mr. Chiarelli said, he changed the planning process and created a new type of plan that will manage the system in the future.

“When I arrived as a minister, there was a consensus that [the OPA’s plan] was cumbersome,” he said. “We worked aggressively, consulted aggressively and we introduced legislation that provides a good framework for consultation.”

Mr. Chiarelli also contended that some of the higher electricity prices were a cost of weaning the province off coal-fired power and onto cleaner sources.

But Ms. Lysyk said Ontario pays more for green power than other jurisdictions. Compared to U.S. prices, the cost of wind power in Ontario is double and solar power is more than triple.

The 2010 Green Energy Act, Ms. Lysyk said, failed to take advantage of low electricity prices and instead mandated higher prices for wind and solar power companies than they had received previously. This added up to $9.2-billion more in renewables costs.

In another case, when the government closed a coal-fired power plant in Thunder Bay in 2013, it decided to convert the plant to biomass to keep it going. Energy experts at the OPA told the government the conversion was not cost-effective, but the government went ahead anyway.

Power from the plant now costs $1,600/megawatts per hour, which is 25 times the cost at other Ontario biomass plants, Ms. Lysyk found. Some of the biomass burned at the plant is imported from Europe, which undercuts part of the rationale for keeping it going, which was to help Ontario’s forestry industry.

In a third situation, in January, 2010, the OPA warned the province that the Lower Mattagami hydroelectric project was $1-billion over budget, but the government allowed it to proceed. As a result, power from that plant costs $135/megawatts per hour, compared to an average cost of $46/megawatts per hour for two other recent hydro projects, Ms. Lysyk found.

The province also produces enough extra electricity to power the province of Manitoba, an excess that costs consumers, Ms. Lysyk found. For instance, the province paid $3.1-billion to power generators between 2009 and 2014 for power that was not needed, plus another $339-million not to produce power. The province also paid $32.6-million to exporters to distribute the excess power to other jurisdictions.

Mr. Chiarelli said the government opted for the Thunder Bay biomass plant because of “tremendous economic lobbying” from the mayor and the local mining industry, which wanted a source of power nearby. He said the government is also hoping to create a biomass industry in the area.

“We made a decision to proceed with this particular contract, knowing that it had economic development potential, knowing that it was a reliability issue and a very, very strong comfort level to the mining industry,” he said.

Mr. Chiarelli said the government has made numerous improvements to cut costs out of the electricity system, including a new and more competitive process for handing out green energy contracts. Future projects, he said, would be less expensive than previous ones.

Ms. Lysyk’s criticisms come at a crucial time for the government, as it seeks to privatize Hydro One. The province sold 15 per cent of the company on the stock market last month and is planning to sell 60 per cent in total over the next few years.

Progressive Conservative energy critic John Yakabuski said the government must use a lighter touch with the electricity sector.

“The Wynne Liberals often went against the advice of experts, ignoring the long-term impact of Ontario’s electricity system on its ratepayers for its own short-term political gain,” he said. “Ontario’s energy sector should involve limited intervention by government. It should primarily be left to experts in the sector to ensure a cost-efficient, effective electricity system.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said: “This government has made a mess of our electricity system and a sell-off to the private sector will only make it worse.”
The Globe and Mail

‘Climate criminal’ blows whistle: ‘It’s just about the money!’

December 12, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

WND RADIO

‘CLIMATE CRIMINAL’ BLOWS WHISTLE: ‘IT’S JUST ABOUT THE MONEY!’

‘Wealth transfer’ is ‘gesture to redesign the global economic system’

Published: 12/12/15

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/02/gcorombos_avatar-96×96.jpg

author-image GREG COROMBOS About | Email | Archive

Secretary of State John Kerry told the Paris climate conference that ending all U.S. carbon emissions, or even those in all the industrialized world, would do nothing to impact the climate, leading one of the top critics of the climate-change movement to call the speech additional proof that the effort is all about wealth redistribution.

In another major development, the latest draft of the climate agreement does not include the creation of the International Climate Justice Tribunal, which would have been a U.N. agency that billed industrialized nations for the cleanup of natural disasters around the world.

In Kerry’s address to the conference, he made a push to get developing nations to make major commitments in reducing carbon emissions. However, his comments also gave considerable fuel to those who believe Kerry and others are on a fool’s errand.

“The fact is that even if every single American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what? That still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution from the rest of the world,” Kerry said.

He took a step further.

“If all the industrialized nations went down to zero emissions, remember what I said all the industrialized nations went down to zero emissions, it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world,” Kerry added.

Christopher C. Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of multiple books challenging the basis for the climate-change movement. He is in Paris as an observer at the conference, where he has been branded a “climate criminal.”

Horner said Kerry accidentally lurched toward the truth in trying to implore global cooperation.

“What he’s doing is inadvertently pointing out that this is all pain, no gain,” Horner said. “He won’t admit to the pain. They still say that if the state uses its coercive power and forces you into energy rationing and so on … it still wouldn’t impact the climate.”

Kerry used the hypothetical of zero carbon emissions, which is a far cry even from the hotly contested Obama environmental regulations calling for major carbon reductions by 2030. Horner said the real goals go much further and are plenty frightening.

“They’re talking 70-95 percent reductions in this document,” Horner said. “They really do think that they can bring us back to the renewable age, which we left over 100 years ago because we could. Suddenly we liberated hydrocarbon energy. We didn’t have to live on hydro power or solar power.”

While going back to renewables is the stated goal of climate-change activists, Horner said there’s a good reason we moved away from it generations ago.

“We’re not going back to that,” he said. “We left it. It was a time of much-shortened lifespans, disease, drudgery and mortality, crop failures leading to catastrophe and so on.”

Meanwhile, the scrapping of the International Climate Justice Tribunal marks a win on one of Horner’s highest priorities since he envisioned the panel blaming the U.S. and other advanced nations for the severe weather events throughout the world. It’s a charge he believes would have stuck at the tribunal because signatories at the conference will be expected to confess their responsibility for climate change in any final agreement.

But while Horner is thrilled, he said many others in Paris are not.

“It’s clearly going to leave the greens upset and some countries upset because it’s kicking the can down the road on a few issues,” Horner said.

Persistent sticking points are leading some climate-change activists to call for Pope Francis to come and demand unity in advancing a climate deal. Horner said the pontiff had better be ready for a debate.

“He’s going to couch this in terms of social justice, and as I have mentioned to you, that is truly perverse,” he said. “I’m not saying the pope knows this, but social justice, as they see it, is killing tens of thousands of the most vulnerable in every country.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Christopher C. Horner:

Horner said the explanation for that charge is simple. Implementing emissions reductions places major costs on energy providers, which pass the costs on to consumers. Soaring utility rates will then impact the poor most negatively and European nations that already do this see people having to choose between buying food and paying to heat or cool their homes.

As for the logistics of the conference and any forthcoming agreement, Horner said officials are twisting themselves in legal knots to avoid this being a treaty since they know Congress won’t approve it.

“The buzz here in Paris is that the U.S. Congress is the greatest obstacle to them obtaining the treaty they refuse to call a treaty,” Horner said. “That means the democratic process. There’s nothing democratic about this. If you allow Congress to get a crack at this, it’s over.

“Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, this would never fly. No free society would ever do to itself what they’re demanding of us,” he said.

Horner is one of seven activists opposed to any deal to have their face plastered around Paris on posters branding them climate criminals. After, first joking that activists could have picked a better picture of him, Horner said there is a message of intimidation involved with the posters.

“It’s getting a little long in the tooth, putting up all the bad guys’ pictures so everybody knows what they look like,” Horner said. “We can play the ‘What if Sarah Palin Did It’ game if you want, but they really want everybody here to now what we look like.”

In the end, Horner said the activists’ definition of climate criminal is really an indictment on those working to preserve freedom.

“We point out the policies, history, that it won’t effect the climate, that’s it’s about a wealth transfer, that it will kill the most vulnerable, that it’s a gesture about clearly what they’re openly acknowledging here – to redesign the global economic system,” he said. “When you point those things out, because they aren’t popular in the United States, you are a criminal.”

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Stop the Climate Insanity….It’s a HUGE Scam!

December 8, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Bjørn Lomborg: Wind Power ‘Tree’ Symbolises Futility of Paris Climate Jamboree

December 8, 2015 by stopthesethings

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As a baggage train of some 40,000 climate-cultists get set to jet their way home from Paris – burning up a gazillion gallons of (what they normally rail about as being atmosphere incinerating) kerosene – the fair question has to be asked: ‘and all for what?’

The belief that China and India were going to sign up to terms guaranteed to keep more than a billion people (between them) locked in permanent Stone Age poverty was pure infantile nonsense.

Pragmatist, Narendra Modi is quite right to care a whole lot less about Western anti-humanity, eco-zealots, and a whole lot more about the 300 million or so of his constituents who subsist in world of dirt-floored shanties, without so much as the hope of enjoying an affordable supply of around-the-clock electricity.

****

The cultists fumed in Paris, as India and China put the needs of their people ahead of demands from selfish lunatics; equipped with little more than ideology, Macbook Airs and Twitter, as an outlet for their self-possessed rantings. So much easier to pontificate about how the poorest in the world should live (now and forever) with a belly full of Veuve Clicquot and Foie Gras while sitting in 5 star, centrally-heated comfort.

China and India aren’t about to deprive their people of an opportunity to have light at the flick of a switch; and they aren’t about to entertain the insane costs of solar and wind power to get there (save at the symbolic margins): between them, India and China are building, and planning to build, hundreds of new coal and nuclear power plants; designed to drag their people out of the darkness and into well-lit homes and bustling new factories (see this article).

Back in reality land, the childish symbolism that is wind power, copped a spray from the wind industry’s loudest critic, Bjørn Lomborg.

STT takes a different view to Bjørn about the ‘connection’ made between wind power and CO2 emissions:

Bjørn Lomborg: Believe in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy? Then You’ll Probably Believe Wind Power Replaces Fossil Fuels, Too

He also falls for the lazy-language trap of referring to CO2 gas (a naturally occurring trace gas essential for life on Earth) as ‘carbon’: the black sooty stuff that makes a mess of white linen.

But Lomborg is right on the money where he points out the ludicrous costs and pointlessness of a wholly weather dependent power source.

Blowing a chance to help the planet
The Australian
Bjørn Lomborg
5 December 2015

‘Wind tree’ sums up the futility of the Paris climate talks

Outside the Paris climate conference centre, organisers have erected a “wind tree” (arbre a vent), which produces electricity using the power of the breeze. In doing so, they have summed up exactly what is wrong with the conference.

The tree will only produce 3500 kWh a year and it costs about $37,100. So, at a production price of about 11c a year, it will take 89 years to make up just the capital cost. Or, put differently, the cost is 300 per cent more expensive than even traditional wind power, which still struggles without subsidies.

The Conference of Parties (COP21) is about feeling good: spending a lot of money to do very little good, and not about making the choices that will make any difference.

This summit is “the last chance” to avert dangerous temperature rises, if we listen to the Earth League or a bunch of others. It’s going to be “too late” if a meaningful treaty isn’t negotiated here in the next few days, says the French President. It’s a familiar script. Doom-laden warnings about the “last chance to save the planet” date as far back as the earliest climate summits 20 years ago. Time magazine declared 2001 “a global warming treaty’s last chance”, and in 1989 the UN Environment Programme’s executive director warned that the planet faced an ecological disaster “as final as nuclear war” by the turn of the century.

Amid this alarmism, for 20 years well-intentioned climate negotiators have tried to do the same thing over and over and over again: negotiate a treaty that makes an impact on temperature rises. The result? Twenty years of failure with no significant effect on climate change.

These summits have failed for a pretty simple reason. Solar and wind power are still too expensive and inefficient to replace fossil fuels. The Copenhagen-Paris approach requires us to force immature green technologies on the world even though they are not ready or competitive. That’s hugely expensive and inefficient.

Thanks to campaigning non-governmental organisations, politicians and self-interested green energy companies that benefit from huge subsidies, many people believe that solar and wind energy are already major sources of energy.

The reality is that even after two decades of climate talks, they account for a meagre 0.5 per cent of total global energy consumption, according to the International Energy Agency.

And 25 years from now, even envisioning everyone doing all that they promise in Paris, the IEA expects we will get just 2.4 per cent from solar and wind. That tells us that the innovation that’s required to wean the planet off reliance on fossil fuels is not taking place.

That’s why the one glimmer of hope in Paris has been the announcement by Bill Gates, along with Australia, China, India and the US, of a multi-billion-dollar fund for green R&D.

The $27 billion fund is just a first step, but it’s a vitally important one. Just as massive support for research and development got us to the moon, the aim is for a massive focus on green research and development to make climate-friendly forms of energy competitive. This is precisely what the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and I have been arguing for more than eight years.

In a recent peer-reviewed research paper, I looked at all the carbon-cutting promises countries committed to ahead of Paris (their so-called intended nationally determined contributions, or INDCs) for the years 2016-30.

These are what the Paris global treaty will be based on (along with a lot of claims about what might happen outside those dates — something that’s easy for politicians of today to talk about, but that we just can’t take seriously).

What I found when I looked at the national promises was that they would cut global temperatures by just 0.05C by 2100.

And even if every government on the planet not only keeps every Paris promise, reduces all emissions by 2030 and shifts no emissions to other countries, but also keeps these emission reductions throughout the rest of the century, temperatures will be reduced by just 0.17C by the year 2100.

And let’s be clear, that is incredibly — probably even ridiculously — optimistic. Consider the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, never ratified by the US, and eventually abandoned by Canada and Russia and Japan. After several renegotiations, the Kyoto Protocol had been weakened to the point that the hot air left from the collapse of the Soviet Union exceeded the entire promised reductions, leaving the treaty essentially toothless.

The cost of these policies? Extraordinarily, UN officials provide no official estimated costs for the likely treaty. So we are left to make an unofficial tally, which we can do easily enough by adding up the costs of Paris promises submitted by the US, European Union, Mexico and China, which together account for about 80 per cent of the globe’s pledged emissions reductions.

In total, the Paris promises of these four countries/groupings will diminish the global economy by at least $1 trillion a year by 2030 — and that is in an ideal world, where politicians consistently reduce emissions in the most effective, smartest possible ways.

But that won’t happen. It never has in history.

Politicians have a habit of wasting money on phenomenally inefficient subsidies for solar and biofuels. And based on the EU experience, such waste can double the costs of carbon-cutting policies to $2 trillion. That’s $1 to $2 trillion that won’t be spent on global challenges such as malnutrition, poverty and communicable diseases.

We are spending a fortune to make ourselves feel like we are saving the planet. The “wind tree” is an excellent symbol of what’s wrong with Paris.

Bjorn Lomborg is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and directs the Copenhagen Consensus Centre.
The Australian

Earlier in the week, The Australian’s Editor had the following take on Lomborg’s message on energy innovation; a message that makes it fairly clear: wind power is an abject failure – for fairly obvious reasons – here’s the output from all wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid (installed capacity of 3,669MW – spread over NSW, VIC, TAS & SA) during June:

And, if there is to be a true alternative to fossil fuel power generation sources, then we should stop praying to the Wind Gods, and find something that’s recognizable as a ‘system’, rather than a lesson in total ‘chaos’.

Climate change demands innovation, not subsidy
The Australian
2 December 2015

Faith in clean energy technology has a long pedigree

No need to get hot under the collar — Malcolm Turnbull’s climate policy is fundamentally the same as Tony Abbott’s. The targets that the Prime Minister took to Paris — emission reductions of 26-28 per cent by 2030 — are those adopted by Mr Abbott in August.

These targets are proportionate to Australia’s economic weight and our small contribution to the world’s greenhouse gases. They are consistent with the precautionary principle that Australia should not get ahead of the northern hemisphere’s big polluters. It’s true that Mr Turnbull has left open the possibility in the future that Australia would concur in a collective agreement to pursue deeper cuts. By definition, this would not involve Australia going it alone.

There is a pseudo controversy over climate mitigation and foreign aid. In Paris, Mr Turnbull announced a five-year diversion of at least $1 billion from the foreign aid budget to climate mitigation projects in the Pacific. Labor’s complaints ring hollow. Only last month Bill Shorten toured the Pacific (remember the prophesied climate refugees?) to talk up the threat of climate change.

Now, in consultation with Pacific nations, Australia is dedicating funds to climate mitigation projects in the region. As for the effect on foreign aid spending more generally, it was Labor that inflated the budget to win a seat on the UN Security Council.

On climate change Mr Turnbull’s point of difference with Mr Abbott is his emphasis on innovation as a tool for mitigation and adaptation. Innovation is a theme of the Turnbull government but it takes on special significance at the Paris climate meeting. Australia has promised to double its clean energy research and development as part of the 20-nation project known as Mission Innovation.

In his Paris speech, Mr Turnbull said: “We firmly believe that it is innovation and technology which will enable us both to drive stronger economic growth and a cleaner environment. We are a highly social and innovative species and so the more we share innovative technologies, the better they will become.” This commitment coincides with the unveiling in Paris of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition spearheaded by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and other entrepreneurs. They will invest in clean energy projects in sectors such as electricity generation and storage.

As Macquarie University’s Jonathan Symons says, the impetus to innovate sometimes has been misrepresented by environmentalists as a manifesto for inaction. “It is true that the cost of wind and solar are falling rapidly and both can now be competitive at low levels of grid penetration,” Dr Symons says. “However, associated system costs and technical challenges increase with the market share of intermittent energy. Without accelerated innovation, it is clear that existing renewable technologies will not support deep decarbonisation of the global economy.”

He also points out that notwithstanding Mr Turnbull’s timely gospel of climate innovation, this has been a faith subscribed to by figures as diverse as John Howard, Barack Obama, British economist Nicholas Stern and commentator Bjorn Lomborg.

In 2005 Mr Howard joined the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Known as AP6, this was an initiative of George W. Bush and one that emphasised voluntary climate mitigation through the sharing of clean energy technology. It shows that the conservative side of politics has long recognised the need for climate mitigation by innovation.

Dr Lomborg’s championing of innovation is central to his view that the Paris meeting, like the meetings before it, is likely to generate alarmist rhetoric (anyone like another last chance to save the planet?) but fail to advance the cause of climate mitigation.

“For twenty years, we have insisted on trying to solve climate change by supporting production of mainly solar and wind power,” he says in a blog for this newspaper. “The problem with this approach is that it puts the cart in front of the horse.

Green technologies are not yet mature and not yet competitive, but we insist on pushing them out to the world. Instead of production subsidies, governments should focus on making renewable energy cheaper and competitive through research and development. Once the price of green energy has been innovated down below the price of fossil fuels, everyone will switch.”

Dr Lomborg greeted the Mr Gates-led coalition as a positive sign confirming innovation as the key to climate mitigation. But he points out that today’s favoured subsidies do not encourage innovation, instead making companies stick to inefficient but subsidised technologies such as solar and wind power.

After two decades of climate talks, solar and wind account for just 0.5 per cent of global energy. “And 25 years from now, even with a very optimistic scenario, envisioning everyone doing all that they promise in Paris, the International Energy Agency expects that we will get just 2.4 per cent from solar and wind,” Dr Lomborg says.
The Australian

More Evidence of the Wind Scam!

December 6, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Power: Not ‘Cheap’, Not ‘Clean’ and Not ‘Green’

December 6, 2015 by stopthesethings

The central, endlessly repeated lie upon which the wind industry seeks to ‘justify’ the colossal and endless subsidies upon which it critically depends; the destruction of wind farm neighbours’ health, wealth and happiness; and the slaughter of millions of birds and bats, is that wind power causes substantial reductions of CO2 emissions in the electricity sector.

STT has been slamming that myth since we cranked into gear nearly 3 years ago. It’s a topic that attracts plenty of interest.

Our post – How Much CO2 Gets Emitted to Build a Wind Turbine? – has clocked over 11,000 hits; and still attracts plenty of attention.

One petulant retort is that building a coal-fired power plant (or, heaven forbid, a skyscraper) using thousands of tonnes of concrete and steel adds mountains of CO2 gas (incidentally, an odourless, colourless naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on Earth) to a soon to incinerate atmosphere. Ah, but the distinction, lost on these ‘wits’ is that those building meaningful power generation sources (or high-rise buildings in densely packed cities) don’t make any claims to reduce/abate CO2 emissions in the electricity sector, or at all.

Out on its own, the wind industry claims – as the ‘justification’ for the $billions in endless subsidies and the excuse for the fact that it is meaningless as a power source – simply because it cannot be delivered on demand – that wind power makes very substantial reductions in CO2 emissions, when, in fact it does no such thing.

This little piece from Christine Whitaker shows that the ‘wind power is saving the planet’ mantra has lost whatever persuasive power it may once have had, save amongst infants and the intellectually lazy and/or dishonest.

Wind power as a form of “green energy” is far from green
Leader-Post
Christine Whitaker
29 November 2015

We are climbing on the wind power bandwagon just as other countries are jumping off.

As suggested by recent announcements by Premier Brad Wall and SaskPower, we are likely to see more wind farm projects in Saskatchewan in the near future.

There are many reasons why wind power has fallen into disrepute. It is not the most reliable source of electricity. Turbines are only 30 per cent efficient at best and they must be taken offline in adverse weather conditions, which cause malfunctions. At one wind farm in Britain, diesel-powered generators are on standby to cut in when the turbines are shut down.

Wind power is also extremely expensive. Governments have poured millions of dollars into the construction of wind farms, in the form of subsidies and other incentives, resulting in high power bills for consumers — as Ontario residents know well.

Turbine blades are very efficient killers of bats and birds. One British environmentalist claims that 200,000 bats are killed every year in Germany; tens of thousands of eagles in America. As Saskatchewan is on a major flight path of migrating birds, we should consider the consequences to species such as whooping cranes and many others.

The main reason, however, is that this form of “green energy” is far from green.

The manufacture and construction of wind farms contributes more to global CO2 emissions than they will save in their useful life (which is approximately between 15 and 20 years).

The construction of one typical turbine involves the use of heavy equipment to create roads to the site; dig a hole 10 feet deep and 100 feet wide. Into this are deposited 53 truckloads of concrete and 96,000 lbs of steel rebar.

Then eight truckloads of components arrive: a base tower weighing 87,450 lbs; a mid-section of 115,500 lbs; a top tower of 104,167 lbs, and then the rotor assembly and blades.

The transportation and erection of these components require the use of heavy machinery and large cranes. These facts are taken from a video produced by a wind energy company. The total CO2 emissions to build one turbine is estimated at 241.85 tons.

The supreme irony is that in Baoding, China’s most polluted city, the major industry is the production of turbine towers and blades. The power for this industry is supplied by several large coal-fired plants. By attempting to cut Canadian emissions (currently 1.6 per cent of global totals), we are adding to China’s emissions, at 24.1 per cent and growing.

A Leader-Post article (Nov. 21) promotes the advantages of wind power, as perceived by its supporters. One refers to all the “space” in Saskatchewan where turbines could be built. I live in rural Saskatchewan, and can look at this space through every window of my home. Rather than seeing a place for wind farms. I see land that produces essential food ingredients, such as wheat, barley, lentils and canola, and pastures where cattle graze.

Many of my rural neighbours are opposed to the destruction of our agricultural land and the desecration of our landscape by hosts of monstrous engines striding across the countryside like white giants with arms flailing wildly.

There are many other problems for those living near wind turbines. There are the emotional and physical effects of listening to the constant hum, 24/7. There is also the depreciation of property values.

Nobody will buy a home or farm close to turbines. There are well-documented cases of rural Ontario residents who have walked away from their property because they can no longer live with the effects of the wind farms on their health — but cannot sell their homes.

Landowners who signed leases to allow turbines on their property eventually will discover that when the useful life of the wind farm is over, nobody is responsible for dismantling the turbines and hauling them away. Instead, these towers will remain as eroding monuments to the misguided energy policies that put them there in the first place.

Christine Whitaker is a freelance writer from Edgeley.
Leader-Post

Time For the Windweasels, to Swim, or Sink….No more Financial Water Wings!

November 28, 2015November 28, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Wind Industry: After 30 Years, It’s Time to Remove the Training Wheels

November 28, 2015 by stopthesethings

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At an economic level, subsidising the production of a good or the provision of a service makes sense where there is complete market failure, such that the good or service will never be supplied (or only at a price which is practically un-affordable to the majority of consumers); and where the total benefit to the welfare of consumers equals the cost of the subsidy.

As to the supply of electricity, there is NO market failure; affordable power is available around-the-clock in all developed economies; and has been so for half-a-century or more. So that point of ‘justification’ for endless wind-welfare goes nowhere.

Short of true ‘market failure’, another potential justification for subsidies paid to producers is where an ‘infant industry’ needs a ‘kickstart’ to get going. The argument is that the ‘new’ industry will ‘create’ new jobs; and, therefore, justify the subsidy, which can be withdrawn after a period sufficient to allow the industry to develop to a point where the subsidy is no longer needed, at all.

That’s where wind power scores two strikes: the wind industry has been telling us it can ween itself off subsidies (but just not now) for over 30 years.

The third – and final – strike is that wind power (despite being able to slosh in a massive subsidy trough) simply cannot provide meaningful power (ie, power available on-demand) – as they’re learning to their horror in Britain:

Another Wind Power Collapse has Britain Scrambling to Keep its Lights On (Again)

And in South Australia:

Wind Industry’s Armageddon: Wind Farm Output Collapse Leaves 110,000 South Australian Homes & Businesses Powerless

Never to be accused of consistency, the wind industry in the US is – under that old adage about ‘being careful about what you wish for’ – about to face up to its own internal inconsistency.

You see, on the one hand its parasites and spruikers keep trumpeting about how their marvellous product is ‘free’ – and getting cheaper all the time; but the minute there’s the merest hint that the subsidy gravy-train might be derailed, they start wailing like demonic banshees.

Americans can prepare from some panicked, high-pitched screaming, as its Congress gets set to finally remove the longest-serving set of ‘training wheels’ that ever rolled into action.

Maine Voices: It’s time for Congress to end the wind production tax credit (again)
Press Herald
Rand Stowell
11 November 2015

SOUTH FREEPORT — As winter approaches, Congress is being overrun by wind industry lobbyists (again). Their annual year-end money dance has become routine as we have seen the 1992 energy production tax credit die more deaths than the proverbial nine-lived cat.

Just as routinely, we have become accustomed to picking up the newspaper on New Year’s Day to read that in the cold, dark holiday night, Congress has revived the production tax credit (again).

Over time, most of Maine’s congressional delegation has supported throwing additional taxpayer money at the expired or expiring production tax credit, often at the eleventh hour. It stands to reason that aggressive wind developers in Maine have influenced the Maine delegation’s decision to support the production tax credit.

“Subsidy” is a lightning rod word. But subsidies can be justified when they contribute to the public good. In the general public, wind energy’s positive benefits are regularly overstated, while conversely, wind’s negative impacts are understated. Because of this flawed value equation, wind energy has enjoyed the public’s favor and gratuitous federal subsidy dollars (in addition to state mandates).

For the sake of Maine’s environment and economy, it is time for Congress to finally let the production tax credit subsidy die. The Maine delegation can help make this happen by ending its historic support.

Maine’s wind energy buildup in the last decade has been dominated by one developer: First Wind (now SunEdison). In a 2012 Recharge News article, “First Wind chief executive says life without PTC is possible,” First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor discussed the production tax credit:

“I know the industry has needed it. I think the question for all of us is, ‘Do we need it any more or forever?’ I believe the answer is no.”

In a Bloomberg News article, “U.S. tax breaks that clean power doesn’t seem to mind losing,” Ahmad Chatila, CEO of SunEdison (which is now in financial difficulty), discussed the production tax credit just a few weeks ago:

“If the (production tax credit) expires we will be fine, we can get by.”

The wind production tax credit expired (again) in December 2014. Because the wind lobby inserted a “begin construction/safe harbor” provision into the law, and thanks to loose Internal Revenue Service rules that allow it, wind projects we don’t even know about yet can still sneak in as production tax credit-eligible even if they have not turned a shovelful of dirt.

The wind industry is losing its window for starting projects, so the wind lobby is back in holiday mode, applying pressure in Congress (again).

Last summer, the Senate Finance Committee voted out a $95 billion tax extender bill that included a two-year extension of the wind production tax credit (2015-2016). The production tax credit was the third most expensive provision in the bill at $10.5 billion.

In October, U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., submitted a bill to end the wind production tax credit. In the House, the Production Tax Credit Elimination Act offered by U.S. Reps. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, and Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., is still pending, and new co-sponsors have signed on every month since the bill was introduced.

We might see action on the production tax credit by year’s end, and it won’t be a surprise if votes finally occur while the rest of the country is sipping eggnog at holiday parties (again).

The wasteful production tax credit has become politically toxic, gaining the nickname “wind welfare.” We cannot afford more billions to spur the growth of a mature industry that does little good.

With the Department of Energy and the American Wind Energy Association regularly crowing that wind is cost-competitive with (or more competitive than) conventional generation sources, there is no justification for further subsidies. The wind training wheels have been on the bike since 1992. They have done their job and it is now time to remove them.

The production tax credit has rarely been considered in the House or Senate as a stand-alone vote. The last time was 2012, in New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez’s amendment to the transportation bill. It failed.

If the Senate and House consider the wind production tax credit in the eleventh hour (again) this year, it must be as a stand-alone vote in each chamber. That way, the wind lobby cannot gain a free ride by attaching to the more beneficial tax credits seen as “must pass.”

If Maine’s wind development leaders are telling us they don’t need all that production tax credit money, then why would the Maine delegation throw it at them (again)?

The Maine delegation should not endorse spending billions more to spur the growth of a mature industry that does little good for the U.S.
Press Herald

Speaking of the Paris Climate Conference…Spain’s Largest Solar Company goes Bankrupt!

November 28, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Inconvenient timing: On eve of Paris Climate Conference, Spain’s Abengoa Solar goes bankrupt

EZRA LEVANT REBEL COMMANDER

All the fancy people are about to hop on jets and fly to the Paris Climate Conference so they can express how much they don’t like things like, uh, jet fuel.

http://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FA3h9BrDFsz4%3Fwmode%3Dtransparent&wmode=transparent&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DA3h9BrDFsz4&key=e1208cbfb854483e8443b1ed081912ee&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

And one of the things we’re going to hear is how we need to be more like Europeans when it comes to green energy.

Here’s one headline:

“Spain Got 47 Percent Of Its Electricity From Renewables In March”

There’s more:

“People visit the Santa Coloma cemetery, outside Barcelona, Spain, The city council has installed 462 solar panels on top of the grave niches.”

Gross, right?

But they’re all getting rich off it! Abengoa, one of Spain’s wealthiest companies, has solar plants all around the world.

Yeah, why can’t we be more like them?

Except today, this is the number one news item in Spain: Abengoa is bankrupt.

Nine billion Euros in debt — that’s about $14 billion. 27,000 employees.

The largest bankruptcy in Spanish history.

And because Spain has amongst the highest power prices in Europe — about triple what we pay here in Canada — driven out a lot of manufacturing.

Do you know what the unemployment rate is in Spain now? 22%. And that’s the lowest it’s been in years.

So, yeah, Spain. That’s you’re role model.

Especially for Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne — and now Alberta’s Rachel Notley…

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Wonderful news for the Aussies!

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Scotts Finally Waking Up to the Wind Scam?

Scots Demand an End to Government’s ‘Un-Democratic Fixation’ with Unreliable, Insecure & Unaffordable Wind Power

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The Cruel Hypocrisy: West Drops Wind Power as it Forces ‘Fake Electricity’ on the World’s Poor

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The Insane Cost of Ontario’s Energy Calamity: Consumers Forced to Pay $170 Billion for Pointless Wind Power

‘Climate criminal’ blows whistle: ‘It’s just about the money!’

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Stop the Climate Insanity….It’s a HUGE Scam!

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The Wind Industry: After 30 Years, It’s Time to Remove the Training Wheels

Speaking of the Paris Climate Conference…Spain’s Largest Solar Company goes Bankrupt!

Inconvenient timing: On eve of Paris Climate Conference, Spain’s Abengoa Solar goes bankrupt

EZRA LEVANT REBEL COMMANDER