From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
The UK government wants nuclear power to be given parity with renewables in Europe, in a move that would significantly boost atomic energy in Britain but downgrade investment in renewable generation, according to a leaked document seen by the Guardian. The EU-wide target should be scrapped when its current phase – requiring member states to generate 20% of energy from renewables – runs out in 2020, according to a secret submission to the European commission. “The UK envisages multiple low-carbon technologies: renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage, all competing freely against each other in the years to come. For this reason, we cannot support a 2030 renewables target,” it reads. –Fiona Harvey and Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, 12 March 2012
The Government is poised to give the go-ahead for resumption of the controversial ‘fracking’ technique of mining that caused earthquakes near Blackpool last year. It is understood that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is likely to allow exploration by Cuadrilla Resources in Lancashire to continue on condition that the company introduces new safety methods to ensure mining stops on signs of impending tremors. —Mail on Sunday, 11 March 2012
The European Union’s ambitious low carbon plan collapsed yesterday when Poland vetoed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically after 2020. If the Europeans can’t agree on a climate plan, the prospect that the rest of the world can agree is less than zero. Every dime spent by climate activists on this goal was wasted. Every white paper on the subject was a folly. Every global conference was a grotesque and pointless boondoggle. Every pundit who supported this agenda was blowing smoke and every politician who endorsed it was either an idiot or a demagogue — or both. This dog won’t hunt. This pig won’t fly. This horse can’t win. This parrot is dead. None of this will stop green scam artists raising money from naive and goodhearted donors. It won’t stop bureaucrats who have a vested interest in eternal international processes and immortal, salary paying institutions devoid of all purpose or use. It won’t stop people who don’t understand the international system dreaming up new and equally unworkable unicorn catching devices. It won’t stop socialists, Malthusians and other anti-capitalist activists from using green rhetoric in attempts to whip up resistance to progress and change. –- Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 10 March 2012
A senior MP has demanded answers from Energy Ministers as support for the Green Deal appears to have started crumbling away. The Green Deal is scheduled to be launched on October 1 but reports this week suggest the full rollout may be delayed until next year in a wrangle over the payment mechanism. Critics are accusing the Green Deal of being a flawed policy, which could actually double the cost of installing energy efficiency measures, once a list of extra costs are factored in. —Green Click News, 11 March 2012
DECC have spent millions of pounds of tax payers money to arrive at a Green Deal scheme that is nothing more than a very expensive and complex ‘buy now, pay later and pay much more’ finance offering. A scheme that will lead to consumers receiving extremely poor value and that will harm the UK economy and destroy jobs. A way of using subsidies to destroy tens of thousands of longstanding non-subsidised jobs, that’s all that DECC have achieved, is it any wonder they are desperate to promote the Green Deal. –John Oddi, Green Click News, 11 March 2012
Wind power – more accurately wind impotence, since turbines operate at just 24 per cent of capacity – is the curse of Scotland. One of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe has been brutally ravaged, families have been driven into fuel poverty, pensioners have been presented with the lethal dilemma “heat or eat” – all to appease the neurotic prejudices of global warming fanatics. –Gerald Warner,Scotland on Sunday, 11 March 2012
I’m a big fan of Walter Russell Mead and the quotation above shows why.
“eternal international processes and immortal, salary paying institutions devoid of all purpose or use”
I love him too!.
It’s only a question of time now.
This is just the first toe in the water of scepticism. They’ll soon realise that no one gives a damn any longer about warming – not even greens really care any longer!
All this policy is doing is making governments more and more unpopular, as soon as the government realise that … it’ll fall apart.
I have written to my Lib Dem MP about this, but still waiting for a response.
I want people to go to jail for this. I want public investigations, court cases, and high profile scandals brought out all over front pages.
I want my money BACK!
I want years of propaganda to be rolled back, with a promise that such bullshit will never, ever, happen again.
Why would you “leak” this to the Guardain….
…… you wanted to tip them off to ramp up the global warming hype
In 2006 the UK emitted 536 M-tons of CO2 while China INCREASED it’s emissions in the same year from 5058 to 5603 M-tons – a net increase greater than ALL UK emissions (data from IEA). DECC plans to spend 100s of billions all paid by taxes and increased energy bills just to reduce UK emissions by 20% in 2020 (& 80% in 2050) – thereby offsetting China’s increase by 2(9) months ! No wonder all our industries have moved production to China !
Ah, the “Lack of Huhne” Effect starts to become noticeable ;).
It’s ironic that the advertisement that comes up at the end of this article (for me in the UK anyway) is for installing solar PV on my roof – something that I get unsolicited telephone calls about on a regular basis (between the ones that want to speed up my computer, tell me I’ve won a lottery I never entered, or try to sell me some useless shares). I would love to think that the the first two items above mean that the government here is actually beginning to come to its senses but, sadly, I give the whole madness another couple of years yet.
Huhne has a face one could never tire of punching. Typical of many Westminster a********.
I sincerely hope he is hung, drawn and quartered after his upcoming trial.
Does that say that sanity is erupting? In the UK, or all places! (Lot of good stuff has started there, but they seem ashamed of it of late.)
The only reason this “fracking technique” is controversial is because media outlets such as The Guardian and various “green” agitprop groups create the controversy. They attempt to make people afraid of hypotheticals that have never appeared in real life. Basically, The Guardian helps create a boogeyman and I think more people are becoming aware of this fact.
“…the curse of Scotland” and indeed anywhere they are built.
There’s a lot of public anger in Scotland. But they have Donald Trump on their side against a Scottish administration which intends to build 3000 “ugly monstrosities”.
“It was reported earlier this week that Mr Trump plans to spend more than £10 million campaigning against offshore wind turbines and he reinforced his dedication to the cause on Thursday evening by sending his executive vice-president and legal counsel George Sorial to a meeting in St Andrews.
Also at the meeting was “Mr Stevenson, who is the chairman of the Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development Intergroup in the European Parliament. He said wind turbines only served to ”line the pockets of farm owners and foreign investors.”
”Tourists will not come to Scotland if it is littered with gigantic steel turbines,” he argued.
“Some members of the audience, mainly young men and women, said they were in favour of windfarms but were heavily booed which led to them walking out. ”
http://www.communitiesagainstturbinesscotland.com/
Whilst in England the father-in-law of the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, earns up to £350,000 from these ‘monstrosities’ erected on his 3000 acre estate and he has given consent for a further seven 400ft tall bird killers.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1296999
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038898/Samantha-Camerons-father-plans-wind-turbines-Britains-glorious-landscapes–YOU-helping-pay-it.html
March 10, 2012
Another EU Greenfail As Poland Vetoes Carbon Targets
The European Union’s ambitious low carbon plan collapsed yesterday when Poland vetoed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically after 2020. The move is the latest stage in the ignominious failure of EU carbon policy that has seen a grandiose carbon trading system bog down in a quagmire of scandal and price collapse. Europe will meet its current carbon reduction goals less because of any serious action than because the continent’s economic crisis brought on by the poorly constructed euro experiment has stalled economic growth.
Now the post 2020 picture is in near total disarray as EU law requires unanimous consent for new carbon targets to be set
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/03/10/another-eu-greenfail-as-poland-vetoes-carbon-targets/
All good news. I’m surprised at the UK government, given that it has LibDems in it, and they are Greener-than-thou enviro-moonbats. And the Conservatives are led by a man who said ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’ (note to US readers: in Europe Blue is right-wing; Red is left). Maybe some sense is permeating, finally.
Time was, people voted Conservative because they were the ‘stupid’ party. For ‘stupid’, read ‘unwilling to take peremptory action to meet the demands of the latest faddish, fashionable idea beloved of the faddish, fashionable intellectuals in the faddish, fashionable universities (and the Guardian)’.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives decided to become ‘smart’ and ‘hip’ just when the faddish and fashionable idea was the stupidest ever – AGW.
Remember that PM David Cameron has a Father in Law who has heavily invested in Wind Power. So don’t expect that the UK Government will stop any future wind projects [thereby saving us taxpayers a load of hard earned cash] for many years to come. No normal married man would dare trash the wife’s father’s investment projects would they?
I am all for a maximum effort on Fracking for UK sourced gas production and as soon as possible.
Now if the U.S. has enough sense to follow suit, maybe this global economy can finally start to pick up.
mfo 11:35:
I didn’t know that about Donald Trump. He’s just gone way up in my estimation. Thanks for that.
“‘fracking’ technique of mining that caused earthquakes”
How about causes minor tremors that relieve the stress that if allowed to build up over long time frames could cause Earthquakes with damaging magnitudes.
Sonald Trump is planning a resort and golf course. He thinks the windfarms will mess it up. I don’t know why because the golf courses I go on always have a windmill.
Wicked. I’ve got another phrase for all the deadly watermelon stuff.
“The chloroform solution”.
Chloros is Greek for green, not the nice green of leaves but the pale green of sick – and chlorine gas. It is the word used in the Book of Revelation to describe the last of the four horses of the apocalypse. The first is white, the second red, the third black… and the fourth, “pale” – pale indeed! Gangrene-coloured, more like.
mfo says (March 12, 2012 at 11:35 am)
“Some members of the audience, mainly young men and women, said they were in favour of windfarms but were heavily booed which led to them walking out. ”
—–
Good!
I wonder whether these youngsters were truly local? The wind industry, in cahoots (as ever) with the ecoloon Greenpeace/WWF/etc lobby groups, have apparently been bussing supporters to public meetings from up to 150 miles away.
Nuclear power given equal chances as wind and solar? That would be too funny.
I’m just afraid Greenpeace is ready to kill people to save them from nuclear power…
The Year Solar Goes Bankrupt
Get ready for a new round of green bankruptcies, as Europe trims back subsidies for solar companies and taxpayers lose their appetite for subsidizing green power.
“The mini-bubble resulting from the rush to cash in on solar subsidies in European and U.S. markets is ending, as feed-in tariffs drop in Europe while loan guarantee and tax credit programs tighten up in the U.S.,” says a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch according to CNBC.com.
Last week Abound Solar announced it would lay off half its workforce despite receiving a $400 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy last year. The rating agency Fitch’s hit Abound over failures to meet stated goals, old technology, calling the company “highly speculative” according to ABCNews.
In the second quarter of 2008 First Solar (Symbol: FSLR) briefly touched $300 per share. Today it trades at $27.49. That equals losses of about $24 billion in market capitalization in just four years.
In April of last year Trina Solar LTD (Symbol: TSL) was trading just under $30 and is now trading at about $7.31. Earnings estimates have gone in the last few months from Trina losing about 17 cents per share for 2012 to losing about 63 cents per share.
The Guggenheim Solar ETF (Symbol: TAN) has also moved down from around $300 per share in mid 2008, until it trades now at $27.02.
It’s important to note that the poor performance of the solar industry came at a time when government financial support has been at an all-time high world-wide. It only goes to show that politics and public policy are poor substitutes for free market economics.
Expect the solar industry to continue to crash and burn as government money continues to dry up along with public support.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/03/12/the_year_solar_goes_bankrupt/page/full/
“The European Union’s ambitious low carbon plan collapsed yesterday when Poland vetoed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically after 2020.”
If I recall it correctly it was a Polish commissioner to the EU that publicly stated he thought CAGW was not a proven fact (or something similar) and greenpeace said his statement was terrifying. Looks like he’s just held two fingers up to them. .
Actually, the pursuit of nuclear as a “green” technology could be the only good thing that comes out of this decade of global warming nonsense.
Check out the Weinberg Foundation: http://the-weinberg-foundation.org/
If only to recognize one of the great scientists of the 20th century.
“…a move that would significantly boost atomic energy in Britain but downgrade investment in renewable generation, according to a leaked document seen by the Guardian.”
Whoever decided that atomic energy is not a “renewable” energy” must have forgotten about that huge nuclear reactor in the sky. Would solar, wind, or any other “renewable” energy be possible without it?
Slipping nuclear into the renewable mix is a bit sneaky. In Ontario (Canada) we have reduced our CO2 emissions from electricity generation by 66% since 2003 (from 39.9 to 13.5 megatonnes) and our hydro rates have probably only doubled. This was accomplished by the virtual elimination of coal (from 21% to 3%) and the addition of renewables all while our electricity production went up an average of 3% per year. I can’t bring myself to believe this (they don’t count the CO2 emissions from the gas-fired plants on idle to take up the slack in wind energy for example) but, if true, that is pretty impressive stuff and represents CO2 emissions equivalent for all the cars on the road in our province.
http://www.thestar.com/business/cleanbreak/article/1143692–coal-an-easier-target-than-oil-sands-in-alberta
Pleased to hear that shale gas fracking might start again… I’ve never understood why fracking was such a no-no but carbon capture and storage was ok- both involve pumping liquids at high pressure into rock units.
Global warming is a real threat.
Wasting money, sinking capital on dubious solutions, before those solutions are viable
is worse than inaction on climate change. Wasted action, flailing about in fear, is worse
in the long run than inaction.
you want to spend money to curb c02. educate poor women.
John West says:
March 12, 2012 at 11:54 am
John, are these even tremors? I used to work in a mining town where you could feel the underground blasting of the stopes. They weren’t tremors but energy direct from the initial explosion, measurable by seismographs.
Does this explain why the oil companies are so happy to open their cheque books to fund climate scientists and their research.
steven mosher says:
“Global warming is a real threat.”
Yes, it is. The fact that there is no evidence of accelerating global warming is a real threat to scientists and other rent-seekers feeding at the public trough. They must be terrified that the natural warming since the LIA isn’t accelerating.
If society wants to spend money responsibly, it could prepare a defense against the inevitable asteroid strike instead of wasting $billions of a non-threat.
Sanity slowly creeps to the surface dragging a trillion pound lead weight called renewable energy!
Steve from Rockwood says (March 12, 2012 at 1:04 pm)
“Slipping nuclear into the renewable mix is a bit sneaky.”
———————-
Not to doubt it Steve. However, according to Wiki and latest ieso figures….
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_supply.asp
..Ontario’s electricity mix has changed from 2005 to January 2012 thusly:
2005 Jan 2012
Nuclear 37% 34%
Hydro 25% 23%
Coal 21% 10%
Oil/Gas 16% 28%
Wind/Bio 2% 5%
So nukes still seem to be strong, and the main change has been substituting gas for coal. And they don’t count the emissions from gas? And how are your electricity prices now?
I’m confused. And a long way away from Ontario! What renewable revolution have you had, other than less coal and more gas?
How will this play out against the UK Climate Act of 2008 which calls for an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions relative to 1990 by the year 2050?
steven mosher says:
March 12, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Global warming is a real threat.
… you want to spend money to curb c02. educate poor women.
============
You forgot to include Dr, Nocera’s comment about Global Warming 😉
http://youtu.be/Rh7nHtFhceg
Steve from Rockwood says:
“John, are these even tremors? I used to work in a mining town where you could feel the underground blasting of the stopes. They weren’t tremors but energy direct from the initial explosion, measurable by seismographs.”
My understanding is that fracking doesn’t use explosives; it’s high pressure water/steam and corrosives that increases the porosity and forces the NG out. So, I suppose these are tremors; perhaps the increased porosity decreases the rocks’s stress/tension resistance.
James Sexton says:
March 12, 2012 at 11:51 am
Now if the U.S. has enough sense to follow suit, maybe this global economy can finally start to pick up.
___________________________________________
You have to get the USA out of the blasted World Trade Organization first and second quit giving all our technology to China.
U.S. Commercial Technology Transfers to the People’s Republic of China: http://www.bis.doc.gov/defenseindustrialbaseprograms/osies/defmarketresearchrpts/techtransfer2prc.html
End WTO Job Loss: http://economyincrisis.org/content/end-wto-job-loss
Costly Trade With China, Millions of U.S. jobs displaced with net job loss in every state: http://www.epi.org/publication/bp188/
Seems that Breeder reactors should count as “renewable” energy to me.
Earthquakes and Oil-Gas-Fracking might be linked via Waste Water Disposal Wells
Google “Rocky mountain arsenal injection well” for a list of documents that investigate a series of Earthquakes that Denver experienced from 1964 to 1968. USGS Earthquake records indicate they were shallow (about 5 km). The Rocky Mountain Arsenal had a 12,074′ well to dispose of waste water into the deep Denver strata. In 18 months from 1965 to 1967 they disposed of 165,000,000 gallons. Because of the earthquake activity, they sealed the well.
Where I think the story gets most interesting is that about 6 months, 11 months, and 18 months AFTER the well was sealed, Denver experienced its three biggest quakes: Magnitude 5.1, 5.3 and 5.5. These were shallow (5 km) and within a few miles of the well. The activity then declined. (This can be verified on the USGS Earthquake Archive). In 1968 the well was briefly reopened and some liquids were pumped out to formation pressure.
I think it likely that earthquakes can be tied to disposal wells. So it would be an industry blunder if the fracking gets a public black eye when the problem can be made to disappear with better disposal practices.
Latitude says:
March 12, 2012 at 12:32 pm
The Year Solar Goes Bankrupt
Get ready for a new round of green bankruptcies, as Europe trims back subsidies for solar
companies and taxpayers lose their appetite for subsidizing green power.
——————————————————————————————————————
Time to do some dd and look at shorting some of these.
On another topic.
Let’s say that wind power was brought in by oil companies and various other capitalists and that Greenpeace took them to task for say–I know, mincing bats and birds, driving people crazy with LFN, spoiling beautiful views and lining the pockets of wealthy land barons. Of course, you can’t leave out exploiting the poor. How many of these turbines would still be standing considering what they do to whaling ships, coal plants etc…They are in the middle of nowhere, easy to access and it would be very impressive if one fell down.
I would be more interested if PETA took on the turbines they always have sexy super models telling us what to do!
Any MSPs reading this?
If so, someone tell Mr. Salmond.
Lest Any Forget the statement :-
“Every dime spent by climate activists on this goal was wasted.”
and Every Dime or Pound Wasted has been Ours, the Tax Payers’.
“The UK envisages multiple low-carbon technologies: renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage, all competing freely against each other in the years to come. For this reason, we cannot support a 2030 renewables target…”
The word “envisages” is appropriate as it conotates “imagines”, “visions” and “dreams”. What sort of energy policy assumes a non-existent technology — carbon capture — will be in use well before 2030? And there is no guarantee that it will ever be workable.
Maybe it’s time for the Polish to start making up English Jokes.
Old England says:
March 12, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Lest Any Forget the statement :-
“Every dime spent by climate activists on this goal was wasted.”
and Every Dime or Pound Wasted has been Ours, the Tax Payers’.
…….
You need to add the tax payers of most of the industrialized countries. The amount of money raked in from this fraud is truly MINDBOGGLING!
The U.S. WWF gets 20% of its revenue from government tax money… $24,589,994 in 2001. http://www.undueinfluence.com/wwf.htm
Michael Mann is good for almost $6 million in Tax payer money… http://spectator.org/blog/2009/12/02/manns-mad-money
And then there is the $737 Million Green Jobs Loan Given to Nancy Pelosi’s Brother-In-Law
“Despite the growing Solyndra scandal, yesterday the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies — including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve…. “Ronald Pelosi, a San Francisco political insider and financial industry polymath who happens to be the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi…”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/crony-capitalism-737-million-green-jobs-loan-given-nancy-pelosis-brother-law_594593.html
And in case you wonder how those “Loans” work….
Solyndra Loan Default
“….an Energy Department memo that outlined the legal basis for its decision to restructure the $535 million loan to Solyndra….a 6-page memo, dated Feb. 15, 2011, outlining the legal basis for the Energy Department’s decision to ensure that investors who provided additional funding to Solyndra would be repaid before the federal government if the company defaulted on the loan….” http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-10-14/solyndra-loan-restructuring/50769058/1
Considering 80% of new businesses go belly up it is nice to have the Federal government guarantee your investment returned if the business fails…
It seems bizarre for an organization named “Greenpeace” to be supporting the return of the “dark Satanic Mills”. William Blake’s coffin probably sounds like a turbine at the moment.
Elephant * Room * Fusion
From the Telegraph March 12 2012, by James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9137213/Consumer-watchdog-Which-condemns-green-tax.html
This parrot is dead.
‘E’s restin’.
No green policies needed:
Abiotic Oil: http://ep.probeinternational.org/2009/09/14/endless-oil/
Here an interview with Professor Vladimir Kutcherov about ABIOTIC OIL
http://soundcloud.com/leopoldopapi/vladimir-kutcherov-interviewed-at-esof2010
It seems bizarre for an organization named “Greenpeace” to be supporting the return of the “dark Satanic Mills”. William Blake’s coffin probably sounds like a turbine at the moment.
We should harness the energy of dead actual scientists, statesmen, and others as a renewable source. XD
cui bono says:
March 12, 2012 at 1:38 pm
So I’m even more confused because I live in Ontario. Coal has largely been replaced by gas so I would assume a 50% reduction of 23% (39.9 reduced to 39.9 – (0.23*39.9*0.5) ~ 35 and not 15 . I think the government is lying to us. Where did you get the numbers from?
Cheers,
Steve
[snip. Read the site Policy. Insulting WUWT readers by calling them “deniers” is not acceptable. If that is how you “debate”, expect to be snipped. ~dbs, mod.]
Adolfo, my dad once drew up the molecules of a hydrocarbon and an organic carbon and swore to creation that one couldn’t become the other.
Old England says:
March 12, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Lest Any Forget the statement :-
“Every dime spent by climate activists on this goal was wasted.
and Every Dime or Pound Wasted has been Ours, the Tax Payers’.
_____________________________________
I think this is the key to the whole issue of waste of public monies, I have always like the idea that taxpayers should have a direct say in how at least a portion of our tax is spent. Citizen Directed Taxation gives every taxpayer the right to say where you want a discretionary portion of your tax directed and targeted.
Then we might have lobby groups trying to convince us of the validity of their case i.e. please tick this box on your tax form, rather than just bypassing us, heaping scorn on us, calling us d****ers and worse.
The discretionary portion could be adjusted for social bias against groups like elderly care, medial access or other social, gender or self interest, but the government overall take for such experimentation and abrupt change agenda could be curbed by the economic need to live within a limited budget.
I kind of like the idea of pressure groups begging us to support their cause, instead of slagging the hand that feeds them.
Darn Medial should be medical !! dangfangled computers can’t spell!!
Can someone ask David Cameron how much electricity his household wind turbine generated, before he was forced to take it down?
How can Britain ever have a considered and rational energy policy, with cognitively challeneged imbeceils like Cameron in power?
.
Sorry boys and girls. False alarm. We’re gonna have to call it off.
Blackie explains it all here.
Its because its ‘French’ you see, we can’t go just handing our electrickery over to them pesky frogs, or so say former ‘Friends of the Earth’ Jonathan Porritt, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper.
They may claim to be FoE but its they obvious they don’t visit the place very often or even the balancing mechanism website that using tells us that the UK is always importing electricity from France, typically 1GW, sometimes 2.
NB The bmreprorts web-page doesn’t seem to work in Chrome
James Ard says:
March 12, 2012 at 5:24 pm
“Adolfo, my dad once drew up the molecules of a hydrocarbon and an organic carbon and swore to creation that one couldn’t become the other.”
Don’t algae like Botryococcus Braunii produce oils that are next to indistinguishable from Diesel?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_applications_of_botryococcene
I’d be surprised if individual countries can continue to pay for these Green obligations until 2020. If they can stick with it that long and their economies don’t completely implode in the meanwhile, there won’t be much left to stage a recovery anytime soon.
If renewables lose credibility, much mainstream support for CAWG will evaporate, because many supporters of mitigation do so primarily because they have been sold on the idea that renewables are–or soon will be, when oil becomes more expensive–practical, reliable, wise-in-the-long-run, etc. This is our opponents’ greatest weak point, and we should pound it hard–although in a way, it’s not necessary. The emptiness of the promises made about renewables cannot be concealed for long, and the politicians who are watching the numbers will begin to cool to the whole crusade and backpedal to nuclear.
This whole mitigation business hasn’t been about CO2, but about establishing a Green utopia and a permanent green veto-power over the world’s countries (via treaties and the UN). Thy aimed to hit a home run, and as a result they may wind up striking out (becoming a global laughingstock).
Personally I think that more money should be spent on catching Unicorns (their poop is apparently very beneficial), and converting rainbows into useful energy…
(Whoops – channelling my inner Warmist for a moment…)
If you listen carefully, he says the planet will be fine, but the people will have a really hard time living on it. He’s hard-core warmista. With his own techno-fix to sell.
The big clue is that he calls himself “the Honest Broker”. No honest man calls himself honest, because he’s too honest to do so. Nocera is obviously not.
@roger Knights says:
March 12, 2012 at 11:24 pm
Hi Roger,
WRT peak oil – ref Shale Gas and Gas to Liquid technologies.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/03/china-finds-the-odd-200-years-worth-of-fuel/
and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904353504576568872584676488.html
As oil production winds down, the world will shift to Gas. (No Mad Max – Road Warrior scenarios required).
The UK including CCS in its “competing” “low-carbon technologies” is a total crock, of course. CCS is a 40% or so dead weight added cost on hydrocarbon combustion of any kind, and cannot “compete”. It can only be subsidized or larded onto energy bills.
Thanks to the Canadian lead, it looks like the UK ‘s politicians may be growing some balls at last.
This today on the BBC news site: The beeb’s resident eco-fascist Richard Black is resorting to the RACE CARD to oppose nuclear energy in the UK, showing his desperation at the unravelling of the watermelon agenda:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17344263
Title: “UK nuclear plans ‘put energy in French hands’ “
So if nuclear cant be shown to be uneconomic or unsafe, it can be attacked if it is FRENCH!
Appealing forlornly to Fukushima, he talks about “policy failure”: he needs to have his nose rubbed in the fact that his darling technology – wind power – is shaping up to be the technological-economic policy failure of all time in the UK and elsewhere. Wind-power has succeeded in making nuclear power look cheap!
The problem with nuclear in the UK is that we have lost nuclear engineering expertize. Our new nuclear stations are to be built by those cheese eating surrender monkeys the French. We sold Westinghouse, our nuclear reactor designer?builder, to some foreigners for peanuts. Just proves what stupid governments we have had in the UK for the last 40 years.
Steve from Rockwood says (March 12, 2012 at 5:19 pm)
“Where did you get your numbers from”
———
For 2005 (or 2006 – there are 2 sets of figures, but they don’t differ substantially):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_electricity_policy
For 2012:
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_supply.asp
All I noted was the shift from coal to gas, and the relative constancy of nukes & hydro.
Maybe this is apples vs. oranges, but shifting c. 12% of electricity production from coal to gas hardly seems revolutionary, however desirable it may be.
Windpower was, unfortunately, shown as ‘generation capacity’ (4.4% in Jan 2012) which we all know overstates the actual contribution to the energy mix (in the coldest day of 2012 in the UK, the actual wind energy produced was < 10% of 'capacity'). See:
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/siteshared/windtracker.asp
It states:
"Unlike some other generation resources, wind farms cannot be called upon to generate specific amounts of megawatts on demand. Wind power generation is dependent on weather conditions, temperature and even the season."
"From month to month, wind capacity (the amount of energy actually produced compared to the amount the turbines are capable of producing given perfect conditions) can vary. In April 2009, the average wind output was 41 per cent of capacity, while in June it was 14 per cent, reflecting the fact that the summer months aren’t as windy."
So, 14% of 4.4% capacity = 0.61%. 41% of 4.4% = 1.8%.
If the government is saying Ontario has had some sort of wind energy revolution, the only response would be 'meh'!
And why not rely more on nuclear? I always thought Canada had the best and safest designs in the world in the Candu plants.
It’s not bad news for everybody: across the UK a dozen landowners (including the Prime Minister’s father-in-law) are sharing £850 million in subsidies for wind turbines. Some people claim to regard turbines as beautiful; that aesthetic prejudice is understandable if you are the owner of a turbine earning £250,000 in subsidies to generate £150,000 worth of electricity.
A study by Professor David MacKay, of Cambridge University, estimated it would require an area the size of Wales completely covered with wind turbines to supply just one-sixth of the UK’s energy needs.
Brian H says:
March 13, 2012 at 12:10 am
If you listen carefully, he says the planet will be fine, but the people will have a really hard time living on it. He’s hard-core warmest.
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You heard what you wanted to hear. That’s not what he means, his concern is energy and the inability to provide it in the future.
View the other posted video, it’ll open your eyes.
Brian H says:
March 13, 2012 at 12:10 am
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Agreed.
He is clearly a warmist. You could tell from his pitch that he has his own agenda.
phlogiston says:
March 13, 2012 at 2:40 am
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What a stupiod argument. Does Richard Black not know:
(1) Much of the UK energy suppliers are are foreign; and
(2) Wind is foreign; and
(3) There is all but no UK manufacturing.industry left, so it follows that any new industry will very likely be foreign.
His argument does support the case for shale gas. The UK has plenty of this mineral reserve and one of the few industries that The UK still has is the petro-chemical industry.
Bring on shale gas.
John from CA says:
March 13, 2012 at 7:40 am
…. You heard what you wanted to hear. That’s not what he means, his concern is energy and the inability to provide it in the future.
View the other posted video, it’ll open your eyes.
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It is all based on the Population Explosion myth and his assertion that it is up to me to provide energy for some African country.
See Falling World Population Much Bigger Than The Banking Crisis And Scientists predict global population to fall
Sorry we have been through that a zillion times with over 60 years of U.S. Foreign Aid and over 2.3 trillion $US spent (not including the $300 billion to the World Bank). The money just goes into some dictators pocket and is spent on guns or tazers or whatever to keep his people in abject poverty. Or it is used to the benefit of the banks and their corporate cronies. See http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html
…. Foreign countries completing the 2010 Top 15 List include: Egypt $1.269 billion, Haiti $1,271 billion, Iraq $1,117 billion, Jordan $693 million, Kenya $688 million, Nigeria $614 million, South Africa $578 million, Ethiopia $533 million, Colombia $507 and West Bank/Gaza $96 million.
More of the foreign aid recommendations for 2012 are most disturbing. The repressive regimes of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Omar al-Bashir in the Sudan are recommended for $109.9 million and $518.2 million respectively.
Further, Russia $64.6 million, Mexico $333.9 million, Cuba $20 million, Somalia $82.3 million, and China $12.8 million are once again on the list for foreign aid next year…. http://www.hillarynme.com/2011/06/24/why-is-a-cash-strapped-u-s-giving-away-billions-in-foreign-aid-to-some-of-the-worlds-richest-countries/
Nope. Immediately following the statement ~1:05 that “she will adapt”, there is a quick string of words: “You won’t be living on it very well, but …”
You were babbling?