APRIL 6, 2014 – TURBINE PROTEST AT THEDFORD BOG, ONTARIO
Part One
Part Tw0
Part Three
“Whole community is…one huge wind turbine, industrial area”
not financially feasible
More Evidence, that the Wind Industry is in it’s Death Throes!
Infigen Signals Its Own Demise – as the RET Review Panel Gets to Work
May 18, 2014 by
Infigen is an all-wind-power-outfit that used to be called Babcock and Brown – which collapsed spectacularly in 2009 – taking $10 billion of investors’ and creditors’ money with it on the way out (see this story). The way things are headed – get set for a replay.
Infigen is bleeding cash (it backed up a $55 million loss in 2011/12 with an $80 million loss, last financial year). It’s been scrambling to get development approvals for all of its projects so they can be flogged off ASAP and the cash used to ward off the receiver. But, in the current climate, its chances of finding buyers are slimmer than a German supermodel.
With the RET Review Panel odds-on favourites to recommend that the mandatory Renewable Energy Target be scrapped altogether, Infigen are in more trouble than Ned Kelly was at Glenrowan. And they know it.
In an extraordinary move, the boys from Infigen have hit the media pleading for mercy – hectoring and attempting to bully the government, in a last ditch effort to save their skins.
STT puts their hysterical language down to the fact that they’re just working their way through the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
In this ABC radio interview Infigen’s Miles “Boy” George appears to be grappling with “anger” (stage 2); while engaging in a curious form of “bargaining” (stage 3); and coming to grips with mounting “depression” (stage 4).
Budget 2014: Clean energy bodies call for compensation as Government cuts green funding
ABC (Radio Australia)
Jake Sturmer, Alex McDonald
16 May 2014
Clean energy industry representatives have slammed federal budget cuts in the sector, calling for compensation if legislation is changed.
The Federal Government has taken the sword to renewable energy, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from various green programs.
“I think it’s a very depressing message for the industry and for the investors in it,” said Miles George, head of the country’s largest renewable energy provider, Infigen.
Among the changes is a decision to spread the Government’s $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund (direct action policy) over 10 years rather than four.
Funding for research into carbon capture and storage has also been targeted and will lose $460 million over three years, and a $100 million program to roll out solar energy systems in 25 towns and 100 schools has been slashed to $2.1 million over three years.
Other clean technology programs face a $44.7 million cut.
Last year the Government was promising hefty rebates to help install one million rooftop solar systems at a cost of $500 million. That commitment has also been dumped.
The $2.5 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will also be absorbed by the industry department – saving the budget $1.3 billion.
“If we actually throw away options, a fear for me is that the energy mix that we currently have just gets ossified,” said ARENA chairman Greg Bourne.
“Infrastructure is hospitals, infrastructure is schools, but infrastructure is also the energy system that you have within a country and without the energy system, your overall system begins to grind to a halt.”
Mr Bourne says the current reliance on traditional energy sources is “not fit for purpose in this century”.
The last significant piece of green energy legislation, the Renewable Energy Target (RET), is currently under review.
After investing billions in the sector, Mr George warns any changes would be a breach of faith.
“If the legislation is now to be changed we would expect to be fully compensated,” he said.
“If [they] took the RET away tomorrow … we would lose 40 per cent of our revenue and our Australian business would fail … along with nearly all wind farms and wind farm businesses in Australia.”
Mr George says Infigen has made investments over the past 10 years on the basis of legislation that had “bi-partisan support”.
“If the legislation is now to be changed retrospectively and that has a negative effect on our business, we would expect to be fully compensated,” he said.
“This is the way Australia does it. Australia does not wreck existing legislation without compensation.”
The Environment Minister declined an interview but maintains that tough decisions needed to be made in the current economic climate.
ABC (Radio Australia)
As head barracker for the soon to be extinct ARENA fund – and with the plug about to be pulled on his cushy, highly paid job – we wouldn’t expect to hear anything but panicked twaddle from Greg Bourne. And he doesn’t disappoint.
We just love Greg’s hilarious claim that traditional energy sources are “not fit for purpose in this century”. Now Greg can’t have been paying attention to happenings in Australia’s energy market, at all.
The ONLY energy source that has proven itself “not fit for purpose” is wind power: insanely expensive; delivered at crazy, random intervals; and which has demonstrably failed to reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector, simply because it can never be supplied on-demand (see our posts here and here and here and here and here and here). It’s the last point which is the only possible justification for the enormous stream of subsidies filched from Australian power consumers – but the wind industry and its parasites are yet to produce a shred of credible evidence that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in the electricity sector.
With such a tenuous grip on the realities of Australia’s energy market, it’s little wonder that Bourne and his beloved ARENA fund have been given the axe. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
And speaking of tenuous grips on reality, we couldn’t help but giggle at Miles George’s claim that Infigen is “the country’s largest renewable energy provider” – which will come as quite a surprise to Snowy Hydro Limited, which operates the Snowy Hydro Scheme.
True it is that Infigen is a “big player” in Australia’s wind industry. Infigen operates 6 wind farms in Australia, with a total installed capacity of 556 MW. That represents about 18% of Australia’s total installed wind power capacity of 3,080 MW. But for Miles to call his little outfit Australia’s largest renewable energy provider is a monstrous stretch.
The Snowy Hydro Scheme was the first major renewable energy producer in Australia – and remains the largest, by a country mile. Infigen’s piddling 556 MW of installed wind farm capacity hardly compares with Snowy Hydro’s 3,950 MW. And even then, that’s to compare a pig’s ear with a silk purse.
The one critical and colossal difference between Infigen’s ageing fleet of giant fans and the Snowy Hydro Scheme, is that the former are lucky to deliver any power at all, on any given day (see our post here); whereas, the latter delivers truly clean, cheap, reliable power – at any time, of any day – and whenever there’s a demand for it.
Not only does young Miles have a deluded view of Infigen’s importance in the renewable energy sector, he clearly hasn’t read the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000.
To reduce or scrap the mandatory RET, the coalition does not need tochange the legislation retrospectively, as Miles moans. The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act itself makes it clear that the Government can increase or decrease the mandatory target (by any margin it chooses) every two years, at will. For Miles’ benefit, here’s s162 which says:
Periodic reviews of operation of renewable energy legislation
(1) The Climate Change Authority must conduct reviews of the following:
(a) the operation of this Act and the scheme constituted by this Act;
(b) the operation of the regulations;
(c) the operation of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Large-scale Generation Shortfall Charge) Act 2000;
(d) the operation of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) (Small-scale Technology Shortfall Charge) Act 2010;
(e) the diversity of renewable energy access to the scheme constituted by this Act, to be considered with reference to a cost benefit analysis of the environmental and economic impact of that access.
Public consultation
(2) In conducting a review, the Climate Change Authority must make provision for public consultation.
Report
(3) The Climate Change Authority must:
(a) give the Minister a report of the review; and
(b) as soon as practicable after giving the report to the Minister, publish the report on the Climate Change Authority’s website.
(4) The Minister must cause copies of a report under subsection (3) to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the review is completed.
First review
(5) The first review under subsection (1) must be completed before the end of 31 December 2012.
Subsequent reviews
(6) Each subsequent review under subsection (1) must be completed within 2 years after the deadline for completion of the previous review.
(7) For the purposes of subsections (4), (5) and (6), a review is completed when the report of the review is given to the Minister under subsection (3).
Recommendations
(8) A report of a review under subsection (1) may set out recommendations to the Commonwealth Government.
(9) In formulating a recommendation that the Commonwealth Government should take particular action, the Climate Change Authority must analyse the costs and benefits of that action.
(10) Subsection (9) does not prevent the Climate Change Authority from taking other matters into account in formulating a recommendation.
(11) A recommendation must not be inconsistent with the objects of this Act.
(12) If a report of a review under subsection (1) sets out one or more recommendations to the Commonwealth Government, the report must set out the Climate Change Authority’s reasons for those recommendations.
Government response to recommendations
(13) If a report of a review under subsection (1) sets out one or more recommendations to the Commonwealth Government:
(a) as soon as practicable after receiving the report, the Minister must cause to be prepared a statement setting out the Commonwealth Government’s response to each of the recommendations; and
(b) within 6 months after receiving the report, the Minister must cause copies of the statement to be tabled in each House of the Parliament.
(14) The Commonwealth Government’s response to the recommendations may have regard to the views of the following:
(a) the Climate Change Authority;
(b) the Regulator;
(c) such other persons as the Minister considers relevant.
Well, that couldn’t be much clearer.
The Act itself provides that reviews of the mandatory RET must take place every two years; taking into account the cost and benefits of any recommendation made, as part of the review. There is nothing in that section to suggest that the government is bound to maintain any particular figure for the mandatory RET; or to accept assertions by the wind industry that the “benefits” of wind power outweigh its “costs”. Indeed, the section is entirely to the contrary.
By reference to that section, the RET Review Panel would be completely within its rights to recommend that the mandatory RET be scrapped in its entirety; simply because the demonstrated and extraordinary costs of wind power (the key beneficiary of the RET) completely outweighs any of its purported benefits.
Moreover, as the wind industry simply cannot provide any credible evidence that wind power satisfies the key objective of the Act – namely, actually reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the electricity sector (see s3) – then a recommendation to substantially wind back or scrap the RET would not be inconsistent with the objects of the Act (see s162(11) above).
Such a recommendation is absolutely on the cards – and the Coalition is itching to implement it.
The next furphy pitched up by Miles is that there is some sort of “culture of compensation” in Australia; which requires companies benefiting from industry subsidy schemes to be compensated – in full – should that scheme be wound back or scrapped.
This may come as a disappointment to Infigen, but there is no such “culture” in Australia; nor, more importantly, is it the law.
Back in the late 1980s, the Commonwealth government amended tax legislation to provide huge tax benefits for investments in “Managed Investment Schemes”. During the late 1990s and 2000s, the tax change saw a flood of money pour into industrial scale vineyards; timber, olive and almond plantations. The MIS tax breaks were rightly considered amonstrous tax rort that allowed companies running Managed Investment Schemes to make obscene profits upfront at investors’ ultimate expense. In 2007, the government scrapped the tax breaks – a decision which led to enormous corporate collapses of MIS outfits – like Timbercorp andGreat Southern Plantations – with MIS investors collectively losing 100s of $millions. Thousands of MIS investors lost their shirts, but none of them received a cent in compensation from the Commonwealth; nor, quite obviously, did the dozens of MIS companies that went bust. So no evidence of a “culture of compensation” there, Miles.
As to the law, Infigen does not have a contract with the Commonwealth government to supply wind power at guaranteed rates – or in exchange for Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs); it is nothing more than the beneficiary of the mandatory RET and the RECs issued under it.
An outfit called Australian Woollen Mills Pty Ltd took on the Commonwealth chasing “lost” subsidies, taking their case all the way to the High Court.
In 1946, the government announced it would pay a subsidy to manufacturers of wool who purchased and used it for local manufacture, after 30 June 1946. Australian Woollen Mills purchased and used wool for local manufacture between 1946-48; and received some payments under the scheme. The government subsequently stopped its subsidy scheme and Australian Woollen Mills sued the government for the subsidies it claimed it was due.
In 1954, the High Court dismissed Australian Woollen Mills’ claim that the offer to provide subsidies amounted to a contract between it and the government (on the ground that there was no consideration for the “promise” to provide the subsidies); and also concluded that there was no intention on the part of the government to create legal relations. The High Court held that the subsidy scheme was nothing more than a government scheme to promote industry; and, as such, there was no legal basis for Australian Woollen Mills to recover the subsidies promised (but not paid) under the scheme.
And so it is with the mandatory RET/REC scheme. If Infigen are out to overturn a High Court decision – which has been routinely applied for 60 years – we wish them the best of luck. They’ll need it.
Which brings us to our final observation on Infigen’s declaration of surrender.
We think Miles has understated Infigen’s potential losses if the mandatory RET is substantially reduced or scrapped in its entirety, when he talks about a 40% reduction in revenue.
STT thinks that – in the event the mandatory RET is substantially reduced or scrapped outright – Infigen will need to declare itself insolvent, there and then. The retailers with which it has Power Purchase Agreements are hardly likely to consider themselves bound by those agreements; as the Renewable Energy Certificates they receive as part of the deal would instantly collapse in value – and may well become worthless.
As night follows day – faced with mounting losses due to a collapse in the REC price – those retailers will seek to avoid any ongoing obligations to Infigen under those agreements – whether by reference to the terms of their agreements; or under the doctrine of contractual “frustration”. Thatwell-settled doctrine allows a court to release the parties from their obligations to continue to perform a contract where – through no fault of their own – a supervening event renders performance of the contract something fundamentally different from that anticipated by the parties.
So, if Infigen is looking for compensation for “losses” suffered if the RET is scrapped, it’s unlikely to get any joy from a Coalition government facing a voter backlash for bringing an end to the “age of entitlement” in its first budget. And it may end up in a position where its retail customers have torn up their PPAs, leaving it at the mercy of its mounting list of creditors.
Meanwhile – back in the real world – real businesses that employ thousands have hit the RET Review Panel with submissions detailing the real jobs that will inevitably be lost, unless the RET gets the axe now. Here’s The Australian on the risk created by the RET to Australia’s real economy.
Smelter pleading for concessions on Renewable Energy Target
The Australian
Annabel Hepworth, Matthew Denholm
17 May 2014
THE Coalition faces fresh pressure over the Renewable Energy Target as an aluminium smelter warns it could have to sack workers without major changes to the scheme and a key regulator warns that it is hitting consumers with “unnecessary and avoidable” costs.
In a submission to the RET review panel headed by businessman Dick Warburton, the NSW IPART says renewable energy has a “relatively high cost” compared with the Coalition’s proposed emissions reduction fund and existing carbon price.
The RET added about $107 to a typical electricity bill in NSW in 2013-14, but “these costs are unnecessary and avoidable if the same amount of emissions reduction can be achieved through less expensive means,” IPART chairman Peter Boxall says in the submission.
It comes as Tasmania’s Bell Bay aluminium smelter warns it will have to sack workers unless trade-exposed manufacturers are granted a full exemption from the imposts of the scheme.
Owners Pacific Aluminium yesterday said the southern hemisphere’s first smelter, in Tasmania’s north, had lost $48m in extra energy costs under the RET since it started in 2001.
Bell Bay Aluminium general manager Ray Mostogl said that Australia’s aluminium industry already faced “unprecedented challenges to its immediate viability” linked to depressed aluminium prices and the high Australian dollar.
The Australian
Bell Bay Aluminium employs close to 500 people; produces around 190,000 tonnes of aluminium annually; and has been at it since 1955.
Dick Warburton and his colleagues on the RET Review Panel are acutely aware of the negative cost impact that the mandatory RET is having on real businesses – like Bell Bay Aluminium and thousands of other energy intensive businesses, including Australia’s manufacturing sector.
There can be no justification for the retention of an insanely expensive and utterly ineffective subsidy scheme, which has done nothing more than prop up profligate, corporate cowboys like Infigen.
The mandatory Renewable Energy Target must go now.
Climate has Become a Tool for Extorting Money from Taxpayers…
I was victimized for challenging zealots,
says Professor: Poison, plots and a battle
to neuter climate change critics
- Professor Bengtsson’s research suggested carbon dioxide may be less damaging to the planet than feared
- Says he’s been subjected to ‘unbearable’ pressure from other researchers
- Has warned of increasing politicisation of the once ‘peaceful’ science
- Others describe a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ fueled by plotting researchers
Speaking out: Professor Lennart Bengtsson
A leading academic says activists are trying to block scientific reports that question the dangers of climate change.
Professor Lennart Bengtsson said he had been subjected to ‘unbearable’ pressure from other researchers and warned of the increasing politicisation of the once ‘peaceful’ science.
Others described a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ in which researchers plot behind the scenes to block the publication of work that queries the danger posed by climate change.
Prof Bengtsson, a top meteorologist attached to Reading University, spoke out after some of his research was rejected by a leading scientific journal.
His study suggested carbon dioxide may be less damaging to the planet than feared – effectively challenging the political consensus and the urgency of the taxpayer-funded drive towards green energy.
An unnamed academic who was asked to help decide if the paper should be published, denounced it as ‘harmful’. The reviewer also warned it would generate bad publicity and have a ‘high’ but ‘strongly negative’ impact on the field of climate change science.
Prof Bengtsson said having research rejected was ‘part and parcel of academic life’, but added that it would be ‘utterly unacceptable’ for an academic to advise against publishing a paper on the grounds that it might bolster the views of climate sceptics.
He told the Times: ‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of climate activist.
‘The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models. Therefore, if people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system, we must have much more solid information.’
Prof Bengtsson’s remarks came just days after he resigned from the advisory board of a think-tank that questions the amount of money being poured into combating climate change, after being subject to a ‘witch-hunt’ by fellow academics.
The 79-year-old said the pressure had become ‘virtually unbearable’ and made him fear for his health and safety.
Prof Bengtsson, a top meteorologist attached to Reading University, spoke out after some of his research was rejected by a leading scientific journal.
In his letter of resignation to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he said: ‘I would never have expected anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.’
Benny Peiser, of the GWPF, said the professor’s case was just one example of a ‘poisonous atmosphere’ pervading climate change research.
He said many scientists with dissenting views were having their research rejected by the editors of scientific journals, and young scientists were censoring their work out of fear for their careers.
‘It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views’
Prof Bengtsson
Prof Bengtsson
Dr Peiser said: ‘Over the last few years, the editors of many of the world’s leading science journals have publicly advocated drastic policies to curb carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, many have publicly attacked scientists sceptical of the climate alarm.
‘Instead of serving as open-minded broker of the contested fields of climate science and climate science, most science editors have opted to take a dogmatic stance that no longer allows for open research.’
David Gee, an emeritus professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, said the pressure on Prof Bengtsson ‘simply confirms the worst aspects of politicised science’.
The Institute of Physics, which publishes Environmental Research Letters, said the decision to not publish Prof Bengtsson was based solely on the paper not meeting the journal’s high standards.
Editorial director Nicola Gulley said: ‘Far from hounding “dissenting” views from the field, Environmental Research Letters positively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.’
Wind Power Never Became Competitive! It’s on the way OUT!!!
Why It’s The End Of The Line For Wind Power
It’s the end of the world as we know it. That’s what the U.S. wind power industry is saying to itself these days. And they aren’t talking about some Mayan doomsday nonsense.
On Jan. 1 the federal production tax credit on wind investments expires. For the past 20 years the credit has offset about 30% of the cost of building wind turbines. Add to that the “renewable portfolio standards” for green energy mandated by 29 states, and as a result we’ve seen wind farms spring up across the country. Since 2007 nearly 40% of all the new electricity capacity built in this country has been wind. Wind now generates roughly 3.5% of U.S. electricity.
Don’t expect wind’s share to climb beyond that level any time soon. The end of the tax credit could very well mean the end of the wind industry.
According to the federal Energy Information Administration, the “levelized cost” of new wind power (including capital and operating costs) is 8.2 cents per kWh. Advanced clean-coal plants cost about 11 cents per kWh, the same as nuclear. But advanced natural gas-burning plants come in at just 6.3 cents per kWh.
But it could be getting a lot worse for wind. A fascinating new report by George Taylor and Tom Tanton at the American Tradition Institute called “The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity” asserts that the cost of wind power is significantly understated by the EIA’s numbers. In fact, says Taylor, generating electricity from wind costs triple what it does from natural gas.
That’s because the numbers from the EIA and wind boosters fail to take into account a host of infrastructure and transmission costs.
First off — the windiest places are more often far away from where electricity is needed most, so the costs of building transmission lines is high. So far many wind projects have been able to patch into existing grid interconnections. But, says Taylor, those opportunities are shrinking, and material expansion of wind would require big power line investments.
Second, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so power utilities have found that in order to balance out the variable load from wind they have to invest in keeping fossil-fuel-burning plants on standby. When those plants are not running at full capacity they are not as efficient. Most calculations of the cost of wind power do not take into account the costs per kWh of keeping fossil plants on standby or running at reduced loads. But they should, because it is a real cost of adding clean, green, wind power to the grid.
Taylor has crunched the numbers and determined that these elements mean the true cost of wind power is more like double the advertised numbers.
He explains that he started with 8.2 cents per kWh, reflecting total installation costs of $2,000 per kw of capacity. Then backed out an assumed 30-year lifespan for the turbines (optimistic), which increases the cost to 9.3 cents per kwh. Then after backing out the effect of subsidies allowing accelerted depreciation for wind investments you get 10.1 cents. Next, add the costs of keeping gas-fired plants available, but running at reduced capacity, to balance the variable performance of wind — 1.7 cents. Extra fuel for those plants adds another 0.6 cents. Finally, tack on 2.7 cents for new transmission line investments needed to get new wind power to market. The whole shebang adds up to 15 cents per kwh.
Ouch.
As Taylor figures it, natural gas would need to cost upwards of $20 per mmBTU before gas-fired power would cost as much as wind.
Granted, the American Tradition Institute is a right-wing nonprofit that in the past has railed against climate scientists and sought to discredit Global Warming fear mongering. That doesn’t mean Taylor’s calculations are wrong, just that everyone on the pro-wind side ought to read the report and chime in with their critiques.
The American Wind Energy Association says that the wind sector employs 37,000 and boasts 500 factories building components. Even with new anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese makers of wind turbines, the AWEA says that if Congress fails to extend the production tax credit for wind, many of those jobs could be eliminated and factories closed in early 2013. That’s how important these tax credits are to wind’s viability.
Taylor and Tanton figure that at the current price of natural gas, and before counting any subsidies or transmission costs, ratepayers are paying about $8.5 billion more this year for electricity from wind than they would have paid if it were gas-fired power. That amount doesn’t even include the cost of the direct federal subsidies.
What’s more, ratepayers will have to shoulder that cost for as long as the turbines are in operation. That’s $8.5 billion a year that ratepayers are forking over to subsidize a less efficient, more expensive technology; $8.5 billion that could otherwise be invested in natural gas electricity, or better yet, nuclear.
Just think, in South Carolina, power company Scana and its partners are investing about $11 billion to construct two 1,100 mw nuclear reactors on roughly 1,000 acres. To get the same amount of electricity out of wind (remember that turbines operate at an average of less than 50% capacity because of wind’s intermittancy) and you’d need more than 1,700 turbines stretched across 200,000 acres, for an upfront investment of $8.8 billion. The nukes might cost more upfront, but they last longer, they provide reliable base load power and they emit zero carbon.
The wind lobby has proposed that congress extend the tax credits, then gradually phase them out over 6 years. This could happen, but the plan has its antagonists. Senator Lamar Alexander (R.-TN) said in a floor speech last week: “This government in Washington, D.C. is borrowing 42 cents out of every dollar we spend. That is why I come to the floor to point out a proposal that has been made to fleece the taxpayers out of an additional $50 billion over the next 6 years. This is a proposal that is as brazen as a mid-day bank robbery on Main Street. It is a proposal by the wind developers of America to say to the taxpayers: ‘Please give us $50 billion or so more dollars over the next 6 years to phase out the federal taxpayer subsidy for wind power.’”
Natural gas power plants do not require any kind of taxpayer subsidies. Gas is plentiful, and it’s far “greener” than the coal-burning plants that are being phased out every day. Wind has a place in the generation mix, and if consumers are willing to pay through the nose for 100% wind power, then they should be free to do so. But it’s hard to justify wasting more taxpayer dollars propping up a technology that has had more than a decade to establish itself and yet still can’t stand on its own.
Climate Alarmists are Using Fear as a Sales Gimmick for Faux-green Energy!
Environmental Research Letters strikes back at: ‘Scientists in cover-up of ‘damaging’ climate view’
Environmental Research Letters has published a statement on the growing Bengtsson Climate McCarthyism scandal, now a front page issue in The Times, claiming their innocence over the accusation that it rejected Bengtsson’s paper because of his connection to climate scepticism. Here’s the part of the reviewers report that is at issue:
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
Now that Bengtsson has been put on “double-secret probabtion” in the peer review world, and the ERL peer review has become the center of the maelstrom, of course ERL would issue a statement essentially saying “nothing to see here, move along”.
Here is the statement:
============================================================
Statement from IOP Publishing on story in The Times
16 May 2014Bristol, UK
Dr. Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director at IOP Publishing, says, “The draft journal paper by Lennart Bengtsson that Environmental Research Letters declined to publish, which was the subject of this morning’s front page story of The Times, contained errors, in our view did not provide a significant advancement in the field, and therefore could not be published in the journal.”
“The decision not to publish had absolutely nothing to do with any ‘activism’ on the part of the reviewers or the journal, as suggested in The Times’ article; the rejection was solely based on the content of the paper not meeting the journal’s high editorial standards, ” she continues.
“The referees selected to review this paper were of the highest calibre and are respected members of the international science community. The comments taken from the referee reports were taken out of context and therefore, in the interests of transparency, we have worked with the reviewers to make the full reports available.”
The full quote actually said “Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”
“As the referees report state, ‘The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low.’ This means that the study does not meet ERL’s requirement for papers to significantly advance knowledge of the field.”
“Far from denying the validity of Bengtsson’s questions, the referees encouraged the authors to provide more innovative ways of undertaking the research to create a useful advance.”
“As the report reads, ‘A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.”
“Far from hounding ‘dissenting’ views from the field, Environmental Research Letterspositively encourages genuine scientific innovation that can shed light on complicated climate science.”
“The journal Environmental Research Letters is respected by the scientific community because it plays a valuable role in the advancement of environmental science – for unabashedly not publishing oversimplified claims about environmental science, and encouraging scientific debate.”
“With current debate around the dangers of providing a false sense of ‘balance’ on a topic as societally important as climate change, we’re quite astonished that The Times has taken the decision to put such a non-story on its front page.”
Please find the reviewer report below quoted in The Times, exactly as sent to Lennart Bengttsson.
We are getting permission from the other referees for this paper to make their reports available as soon as possible.
REFEREE REPORT(S):
COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR(S)
The manuscript uses a simple energy budget equation (as employed e.g. by Gregory et al 2004, 2008, Otto et al 2013) to test the consistency between three recent “assessments” of radiative forcing and climate sensitivity (not really equilibrium climate sensitivity in the case of observational studies).
The study finds significant differences between the three assessments and also finds that the independent assessments of forcing and climate sensitivity within AR5 are not consistent if one assumes the simple energy balance model to be a perfect description of reality.
The overall innovation of the manuscript is very low, as the calculations made to compare the three studies are already available within each of the sources, most directly in Otto et al.
The finding of differences between the three “assessments” and within the assessments (AR5), when assuming the energy balance model to be right, and compared to the CMIP5 models are reported as apparent inconsistencies.
The paper does not make any significant attempt at explaining or understanding the differences, it rather puts out a very simplistic negative message giving at least the implicit impression of “errors” being made within and between these assessments, e.g. by emphasising the overlap of authors on two of the three studies.
What a paper with this message should have done instead is recognising and explaining a series of “reasons” and “causes” for the differences.
– The comparison between observation based estimates of ECS and TCR (which would have been far more interesting and less impacted by the large uncertainty about the heat content change relative to the 19th century) and model based estimates is comparing apples and pears, as the models are calculating true global means, whereas the observations have limited coverage. This difference has been emphasised in a recent contribution by Kevin Cowtan, 2013.
– The differences in the forcing estimates used e.g. between Otto et al 2013 and AR5 are not some “unexplainable change of mind of the same group of authors” but are following different tow different logics, and also two different (if only slightly) methods of compiling aggregate uncertainties relative to the reference period, i.e. the Otto et al forcing is deliberately “adjusted” to represent more closely recent observations, whereas AR5 has not put so much weight on these satellite observations, due to still persisting potential problems with this new technology
– The IPCC process itself explains potential inconsistencies under the strict requirement of a simplistic energy balance: The different estimates for temperature, heat uptake, forcing, and ECS and TCR are made within different working groups, at slightly different points in time, and with potentially different emphasis on different data sources. The IPCC estimates of different quantities are not based on single data sources, nor on a fixed set of models, but by construction are expert based assessments based on a multitude of sources. Hence the expectation that all expert estimates are completely consistent within a simple energy balance model is unfunded from the beginning.
– Even more so, as the very application of the Kappa model (the simple energy balance model employed in this work, in Otto et al, and Gregory 2004) comes with a note of caution, as it is well known (and stated in all these studies) to underestimate ECS, compared to a model with more time-scales and potential non-linearities (hence again no wonder that CMIP5 doesn’t fit the same ranges)
Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.
One cannot and should not simply interpret the IPCCs ranges for AR4 or 5 as confidence intervals or pdfs and hence they are not directly comparable to observation based intervals (as e.g. in Otto et al).
In the same way that one cannot expect a nice fit between observational studies and the CMIP5 models.
A careful, constructive, and comprehensive analysis of what these ranges mean, and how they come to be different, and what underlying problems these comparisons bring would indeed be a valuable contribution to the debate.
I have rated the potential impact in the field as high, but I have to emphasise that this would be a strongly negative impact, as it does not clarify anything but puts up the (false) claim of some big inconsistency, where no consistency was to be expected in the first place.
And I can’t see an honest attempt of constructive explanation in the manuscript.
Thus I would strongly advise rejecting the manuscript in its current form.
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Source: http://ioppublishing.org/newsDetails/statement-from-iop-publishing-on-story-in-the-times
Bishop Hill notes this about the reports:
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Regarding the scientific issues, the journal says it is trying to get permission to publish the referees’ reports and indeed the first of these appears at the bottom of the statement. As far as we can ascertain from this, Bengtsson’s paper focused on similar ground to the Lewis/Crok GWPF report, namely the stark difference between GCM estimates of climate sensitivity and those derived from the observational record and energy budgets. The referee quoted seems to object to this approach because of claimed inadequacies in the nergy budget approach. He says in essence that you wouldn’t expect consistency because the energy budget approach is flawed.
People closer to the climate sensitivity debate need to look at the full review, but noted something rather interesting among the list of objections to energy budget models. This is the paragraph that caught my attention:
Even more so, as the very application of the Kappa model (the simple energy balance model employed in this work, in Otto et al, and Gregory 2004) comes with a note of caution, as it is well known (and stated in all these studies) to underestimate ECS, compared to a model with more time-scales and potential non-linearities (hence again no wonder that CMIP5 doesn’t fit the same ranges).
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It seems to me that Climate Science is reaching a tipping point. After Climategate, we were told that all of those nasty emails were taken out of context, and that “real climate scientists” don’t really act like that, and it is shameful for climate skeptics to label these instances as indicative of systemic problems that are endemic to climate science and the peer review process.
And now, here we are, right back where we started at Climategate.
High Energy Costs Destroying Ontario’s Economic Growth
ONTARIO’S GREEN ENERGY ACT LIMITS ECONOMIC
GROWTH THROUGH RISING ENERGY COSTS
Policies that raise energy costs limit economic growth
Ross McKitrick — Fraser Institute — May 15, 2014
TORONTO—Limiting the availability and raising the cost of energy can hurt Canada’s overall economy and weaken future growth, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
The study, Energy Abundance and Economic Growth, examines the long-term relationship between economic growth, energy availability and energy consumption with evidence from Canada and around the world.
“Energy use and economic output grow together over time, and the evidence shows that if you limit energy use you damage future economic growth prospects,” said Ross McKitrick, study co-author, Fraser Institute senior fellow, and economics professor at the University of Guelph.
Since 1980, notes the study, Canada’s energy use grew by about 50 per cent while Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled. During that same period, global energy use almost doubled while global economic output increased six-fold. Evidence from around the world indicates that energy use triggers growth and is not simply a by-product of growth.
So what does this mean for policy-makers?
Because the best available evidence suggests that promoting energy abundance helps sustain strong economic growth, policies that deliberately increase energy costs will likely have negative economic consequences now and in the future.
“It’s obvious—energy drives economic growth. Yet policy-makers across Canada continue to treat energy consumption as a bad thing, and act as though cutting energy use is an end in itself. They need to understand the long-term costs of this thinking,” McKitrick said.
For example, policies that increase energy costs or limit its availability (i.e. renewable energy mandates or the required use of biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel) diminish competitiveness, reduce rates of return on investment, and reduce economic growth. Moreover, conservation mandates and strict appliance standards (i.e. water heaters, refrigerators) often have no conceivable environmental benefit but are justified simply because they cut energy use.
“The Ontario government, for instance, claims that the Green Energy Act, which increases energy costs, thereby making it less abundant, is part of the province’s economic growth strategy. The evidence points in the opposite direction—the Act will limit future economic growth,” McKitrick said.
More Liberal Lies….by Kathleen Wynne!
Liberals have learned from their mistakes: Wynne
Thursday, May 15, 2014 4:14:39 EDT PM
Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne gives her prepared remarks during a campaign stop in Walkerton, Ont., on Thursday, May 15, 2014.
Premier Kathleen Wynne may have been in Walkerton Thursday morning to announce her party’s support for the Walkerton Clean Water Centre, but inevitably she was asked about the contentious issues of wind turbines.
Wynne said the wind turbine placement process has improved since she took office.
“There needed to be a change in the way those wind turbines were sited,” she said. “I believe that it’s very important that communities have more input.”
Wynne noted since she was elected Liberal leader, there have been changes regarding the way turbine contracts are finalized.
“Communities must opportunity to have a say and have much more buy-in,” she said.
She also expressed regret for the way the Green Energy Act was implemented.
“If I could roll back the clock and we could have a better process from the beginning, I would do that,” Wynne said. “But I can’t do that. All I can is make sure that, going forward, we have a much better process in place and that communities are consulted.”
Wynne was in Walkerton at the 14th anniversary of the Walkerton E. coli outbreak.
Some opponents of Brockton’s involvement in the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s deep geological repository process have raised the spectre of another public health crisis if the municipality is selected.
While nuclear waste management is a federal jurisdiction, Wynne said she believes the same principles of community buy-in apply.
“The issues around nuclear waste . . . they need to be, again, done in consultation with communities and with all the safety precautions in place,” Wynne said.
“It’s another example of us . . . (needing to) consider all the consequences and work with the communities to make the best decisions possible.”
On the subject of nuclear, Wynne also took time to praise Bruce Power.
“We’re in a riding with an exemplary nuclear facility,” she said. “The Bruce workers have demonstrated over and over again what a fine organization they are.”
Speaking from prepared notes, Wynne said the promise by Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak to cut 100,000 public sector jobs would be more than double than the government jobs eliminated under the Mike Harris government in the 1990s.
The comparison of Hudak to Harris is similar to the ties drawn by her opponents to former premier Dalton McGuinty`s administration.
“I have been taking responsibility for a government I was part of and I have made changes based on decisions I believe were not the right decisions,” Wynne said. “If you talk about the siting of . . . gas plants or wind turbines, we have changed the rules based on lessons I have taken, my government has taken, from decisions that were made by the previous government.
“We have to learn lessons and governments have to make changes based on those lessons,” Wynne said.
Donald Trump Knows Not to Invest In Wind Turbines or Areas Infested with them!
Donald Trump vows investment if turbines scrapped
Trump, 67, said he was willing to restart work at the £750 million Menie Estate course if Aberdeen City Council chiefs “took the windfarm off the table”.
The US businessman touched down at Aberdeen International Airport yesterday morning before heading off to the links at the Menie Estate in the afternoon.
He was due to fly out to Dubai later to oversee another of his golf projects.
Trump has objected to the proposed 11-turbine development off Aberdeen Bay since it was first put forward in August last year, saying it will ruin the view for people playing on the Aberdeenshire course.
He axed plans for a luxury hotel and a second course at Menie Estate and vowed to never invest in the course again after the Scottish Government rejected his appeal against the turbine plan in February. His legal team are planning a fresh appeal.
He arrived in Ayrshire earlier this week to visit the £35.7 million Turnberry course he purchased last month.
But he said he stands by his decision not to invest any more in his resort at Menie Estate, near Balmedie, unless he wins his wind-turbine fight.
He said: “We far exceeded the promise we made to Scotland.
“We have delivered a very special golf course. People all over the world are talking about it and we are getting record bookings.
“I look forward to continuing the development – as soon as that windfarm is taken off the table.”
Vattenfall, the 75% stakeholder in the windfarm project, is looking to sell its share and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, which holds the remaining stake, last month handed over the running of the project to Aberdeen City Council.
Trump also plans to invest up to #36million in a golf course he has bought in the west of Ireland.
He visited Doonbeg Links, in Co Clare, before travelling to Turnberry.
The American tycoon said yesterday he was “sad” to see Scotland, where his mother was born, being “destroyed”.
He said: “Scotland is a beautiful country, but it has a death wish. Wind turbines are destroying the country.
“The council in Aberdeen should do its people a great favour and abandon this scheme, which is doomed to lose money.”
Watch this video, to hear Tom Adams discuss the Frasier Report on Energy!
Dangerous Wind Turbines Were a “Bust”, from the Get-go!
Council blew cash on wind turbines that don’t work
Milton Keynes Council paid £170,000 for the giant turbines at Oakgrove School at Middleton .
But shortly after the school opened in 2005, the structures were switched off for health and safety reasons due to a manufacturing defect.
A source told the Citizen: “It all seems to be an extraordinary waste of money. None of it is the fault of the school itself – they’ve just been stuck with these huge things that have proved useless.”
The turbines were provided by a German company which has since gone into liquidation, leaving the council unable to get compensation.
But this week there was finally a sunny outcome to the sad saga. The council has negotiated with another contractor to remove the turbines for free and replace them with solar panels.
A council spokesman said: “These wind turbines were the subject of a nationwide recall and the school was advised by the Health and Safety Executive to turn them off and keep them switched off.”
He said the turbines would be removed during the summer holidays.
He added: “Obviously Oakgrove has very high eco-credentials so this is not an ideal solution but the removal is at nil cost to either the council or the school.”
