Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Leading Australian Politicians and economists are piling in against renewable political favouritism, comparing renewables to the Bernie Madoff and Enron scandals. The following from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott;
Tony Abbott calls for climate pushback as CET goes cold
8:55AM October 10, 2017
SIMON BENSON
Tony Abbott has doubled down on his scepticism of climate change science, reigniting a decade-old debate in a major speech in London after the Turnbull government moved yesterday to rule out proceeding with a clean energy target proposed by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel.
The former prime minister has labelled the likely backdown on a CET a “belated” gesture and warned that the Coalition is courting a “political death wish” if it fails to put cost of living and protection of jobs ahead of reducing emissions.
In a speech delivered early today that will further test the political fault lines over energy policy in the Coalition party room, Mr Abbott resurrected his 2009 declaration that the so-called settled science on climate change was “absolute crap” and claimed that any effort Australia made to reduce emissions would be futile in a global context.
In his most controversial speech on climate change since the 2009 speech to a country Victorian gathering, Mr Abbott told London’s centre-right Global Warming Policy Forum that climate-change policies had done more harm than climate change itself, suggesting global warming was “probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm”.
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“Belatedly, the government is now suggesting that there might not be a new CET after all,” Mr Abbott said. “There must not be — and the government still needs to deal with what’s yet to come under the existing target.
“At last year’s election, the government chose not to campaign on power prices even though Labor was promising a 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target, requiring a $50 billion overbuild of wind farms, and a 45 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, requiring a new carbon tax.
“After a net gain of 25 seats at the previous two elections, when we had campaigned on power prices, we had a net loss of 14 when we didn’t. And subsequent events have made the politics of power once more the central battleground between and within the two main parties.”
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Read more (paywalled): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/tony-abbott-calls-for-climate-pushback-as-cet-goes-cold/news-story/6568708f050e62c8d33b2190b7e7fbd7
This comes on top of a MSM story a few days ago by noted economist Judith Sloan, comparing renewables to the Bernie Madoff and Enron scandals;
Taxpayer support for renewable energy simply cannot be justified
12:00AM October 7, 2017
JUDITH SLOAN
Move over, Ponzi; forget Bernie Madoff; ignore Enron; and dismiss collateralised debt obligations associated with subprime mortgages. Without a doubt, the biggest scam perpetrated against taxpayers and consumers is renewable energy.
And if you think this scam is just an Australian phenomenon, think again. With very few exceptions, governments all over the world have fallen into the trap of paying renewable energy scammers on the basis that it is necessary, at least politically, to be seen to be doing something about climate change.
But let’s take the Australian figures as an example of the vast sums of moneys being redistributed from ordinary consumers and taxpayers to the renewable energy rent-seekers. It is estimated that more than $2 billion a year is handed over to renewable energy operators by virtue of the operation of the renewable energy target and the associated renewable energy certificates.
But this is just the start. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency shovels out hundreds of millions of dollars annually to subsidise renewable energy companies, many of which are overseas-owned. Then there is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which was given $10bn in equity by the Gillard Labor government to lend or grant money to renewable energy companies. Evidently the long-suffering taxpayer might receive a return on this “investment”, but I wouldn’t suggest you hold your breath.
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Consider what has happened in Germany. In a fit of panicked madness, Chancellor Angela Merkel decided the country’s nuclear power plants should be shut down, to be replaced with renewable energy. The plan is that by 2050, between 80 per cent and 95 per cent of electricity will be generated by renewables. The target for 2030 is 50 per cent — the same as our Labor Party’s target for Australia.
The last nuclear power plant is due to close in 2022 but Energiewende, the name of the plan to transition electricity generation, has hit serious hurdles, not least the extraordinary cost of the investment in renewables, now totalling about €650bn ($980bn).
And here’s another strange feature: renewable energy producers in Germany are paid more than €1bn a year not to produce because the stability of the system can be imperilled if there is too much renewable energy at certain times. It’s so European to pay an outfit not to do something — just think farmers.
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Then there is the issue of intermittency that plagues renewable energy around the world, including in Germany. Late last year, the wind simply didn’t blow for several days and a thick fog surrounded many parts of the country. The output from renewables fell to just 4 per cent of total demand. Battery back-up is of little use in this scenario.
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As the Australian government contemplates where to go next in terms of energy policy, the best approach involves acknowledging that enough is enough when it comes to subsidising renewable energy. The sector has been showered with favours, including volumetric guarantees courtesy of the RET. It is time it stood on its own two feet without any preferential treatment or financial assistance.
Read more (paywalled): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/taxpayer-support-for-renewable-energy-simply-cannot-be-justified/news-story/1197160afff32ccfb1bf55ea39129820
Lets not forget the announcement a few days ago by the Australian Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, that renewables would not “require” subsidies in the future.
It remains to be seen how much of this rising opposition to renewables will be translated into action, but with skyrocketing power prices being blamed for a damaging slump in consumer spending, and with record levels of Aussie household debt, something has to give.
Thanks to wild claims by renewables advocates of falling costs, renewable mandates and subsidies are a soft target, out of a shrinking field of increasingly desperate political options to restore the ailing Australian economy.
Update (EW): h/t Another Ian – full transcript of Tony Abbott’s speech to the GWPF here.
There seems to be a lot of twitching in the rears of members of the Australian Government as they are starting to see the ridiculous folly that has been foist upon us. Merkel has also seen it and obviously Trump. The Indians and Chinese have seen their opportunity and will continue down the fossil fuel road. Problem is the headlines do not carry these opposite viewpoints.
Australia has just had the “hottest” winter on record the MSM screamed. Well actually not but that was the headline. There is a long way to go but bit by bit we will get there. These people are not fools, just foolish, and they will not give up easily.
Australia is overlooking three key facts about so-called carbon pollution.
1. Carbon dioxide is necessary for all life. You can quibble about what is the optimum atmospheric concentration — which nobody really knows — but it is not poison.
2. The drop-in-the-bucket factor. The entire population of Australia is smaller than each of two cities in China: Shanghai metro, and Chongqing; both are industrializing hell-bent-for-leather. They import Australian coal and iron ore to do it. China as a whole has 50 times Australia’s population. Nothing Aussies do, including cease to exist entirely, can move the global carbon needle, or change the climate for better or worse, 100 years from now. Closer to home, Jakarta metro is also larger than Australia’s entire population; the country of Indonesia has 10 times Australia’s population.
3. China and/or Indonesia may someday covet Australia’s wide open spaces, and want to colonize the joint, especially if Australia commits economic suicide. As it is, China could already buy all of Australia’s energy and mineral assets, and reduce its position to that of 150 years ago as a wool supplier for the industrialized world. Or Aussies can continue to fantasize about influencing climate, and argue like the two fleas in Crocodile Dundee’s joke, about which one of them owns the dog.
assuming CO2 was a problem then, only China should do something about it?
Or should the nation outputting the most CO2 stop outputting CO2 and then only when that’s done the next start, and so on?
Every nation should reduce CO2, no mater what share of the world’s CO2 output it is responsible for.
First time Griff admit that CO2 problem is just an assumption !!!
Great day.
Well, unless you first prove, either, that CO2 is indeed a problem, or that the cost to cope with it is so low we don’t have to go through the hassle to get evidence and can just get rid of the problem just in case (the way we did for Chlorofluorocarbon…
… just do it yourself, to begin with, before demanding that other do it too. An easy way to start would be to emigrate to some low CO2 (i.e., very poor) country and stick to their current way of life, instead of posting anything here. Until then, you are just making a fool of yourself, in the “do as i say, not as i do” fashion.
“Every nation should reduce CO2,”
There is absolutely ZERO need for any nation to reduce CO2 output.
The world’s life depends on atmospheric CO2, and the levels are currently only just above sustainable levels.
This anti-CO2 farce cannot continue. The world will eventually wake up to REALITY.
The other easy solution to halve your CO2 emissions is to kill every second citizen. It’s drastic but it achieves the result. Some countries might elect to simply scrub CO2 out of the air powered from say nuclear power stations. The point being made is if CO2 was a clear and immanent problem different countries may take very different solutions to the problem. The problem CAGW faces is a problem occurring in 100 years is not really a problem. There will be lots of other challenges in the next 100 years and CAGW is not high on the list I worry about.
“…a country Victorian gathering”
Not sure where the journalist got this from. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Westminster, London, is hardly a ‘country gathering’. I did not wear Victorian dress nor did anyone else!
Great speech and will go on Youtube soon. best to google it via ‘thegwpf’ website.
I’m imagining something out of Jane Austen, complete with country dancing and impeccable manners…
The voice of Tony Abbot is being heard far and loud, griff. 🙂
Thanks to stalwarts like him, people are waking up to the FACT that the anti-CO2 travesty, and the whole “renewable” farce, has been NOTHING BUT A CON.
“…a country Victorian gathering” apparently referred to a previous Tony Abbott speech in 2009 – one wonders why the reporter thought this was relevant.
The 2017 Abbott speech was held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1 Birdcage Walk, Westminster, London.
Birdcage Walk runs from Buckingham Palace along the south side of St. James Park to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge.
For those who do not know it, London is the best “walking city” in the world, imo, and I recommend it highly. Put it on your list, and be sure to allocate several days at the British Museum and the British Library.
Best, Allan
“…a country Victorian gathering” apparently referred to a previous Tony Abbott speech in 2009 – one wonders why the reporter thought this was relevant.
The country Victorian town was I believe Stawell, in the Wimmera region of Victoria 237 kilometres (147 mi) west-north-west of the state capital, Melbourne. the remarks were made during the election campaign…..perhaps the reporter thinks another election is eminent.
I would recommend a walk starting at Tower Hill tube station, go past roman wall, down side of Tower of London, over Tower Bridge, west past HMS Belfast and along the south bank, passing Southwark Cathedral, Globe Theater, Tate Gallery, then north over Millenium Bridge and to St Pauls.
Gives view of London’s towers, old billingsgate, rather drab current London Bridge and much else, 99% of it at riverside.
So someone whose brains are not in his wallet or pants pockets finally has the juice to shout ‘SCAM!’ loudly enough to embarrass all those who dove on renewable energy.
Good for him. I hope he sticks to his guns and doesn’t let the Greenbeans and nutballs intimidate him.
The last estimate I came across for an individual private home wind/solar combo installation to meet all daily needs in all weather was $25,000+/- $5,000, depending on the size of the house and the labor required. That is only for a newly-built home, not for retrofitting a home. That is certainly not cheap, does not include maintenance or damage replacement costs, or take into account that a bad winter storm can shut the whole thing down with a nice dose of sleet (freezing rain), never mind birds using it as a place to build nests. And location is everything, too. Cost-effective? Recovery for an individual unit plus setup takes more than just a couple of years. And what if you decide to sell your home and the buyer inherits your setup? I wouldn’t want someone else’s financial mess to pay off.
I think I’d much rather stick to the modest cost of my electric bill.
Like investing, a diversified portfolio makes sense for the long haul. Cutting out viable energy sources in the name of global climate change is a fools errand. In the recent hurricanes in the US, renewables had and still have not contributed in getting people back on their feet. Countries that invest in green energy at the expense of energy sources is irrational. The taxpayer bears the cost in higher prices and taxes on everything. Germany is a good example. Research and development yes, subsidies no.
This would be a good time to tally all the major renewable energy demonstration projects in Australia and whether they still exist today. Such an effort would be like the surface station project to document weather station competence and compliance.
The windmill industry has been advertising quite a bit the last few months on American tv, promoting the wind energy industry.
I think the windmill industry is getting nervous. They are afraid others will do like my home State did a few months ago and stop subsidizing windmills. Some politicians in my State are now proposing taxing the windmill industry just like everyone else is taxed.
Sounds fair to me.
“put cost of living and protection of jobs ahead of reducing emissions”
Trumpism goes global?
Even the name “clean energy” is a lie by misdirection, implying that CO2 is “dirty”.
And that “clean” and “renewable” are the same. They are not. Burning wood for heat is renewable, but few things are more dirty and unhealthy. PV is electronics, last time i checked electronics were in the “most dirty” box. As were rare earth mining and refining (needed for turbines and motors, all of them, but since you need 4x as much for wind energy generation than for any other use, wind is, in that respect, 4x dirtier than other use). etc.
Burning wood for heat produces potash (among other things), which can be used as follows:
1. De-skunk pets. A handful rubbed on Fido’s coat neutralizes the lingering odor.
2. Hide stains on paving. This Old House technical editor Mark Powers absorbs wet paint spatters on cement by sprinkling ash directly on the spot; it blends in with a scuff of his boot,
3. Enrich compost. Before the organic compound get applied to soil, enhance its nutrients by sprinkling in a few ashes, says the host of radio’s You Bet Your Garden, Mike McGrath. Adding too much, though, ruins the mix.
4. Block garden pests. Spread evenly around garden beds, ash repels slugs and snails.
5. Melt ice. TOH building editor Tom Baker finds it adds traction and de-ices without hurting soil or concrete underneath.
6. Control pond algae. One tablespoon per 1,000 gallons adds enough potassiumm to strengthen other aquatic plants that compete with algae, slowing its growth,
7. Pump up tomatoes. For the calcium-loving plants, McGrath places 1/4 cup right in the hole when planting,
8. Clean glass fireplace doors. A damp sponge dipped in the dust scrubs away sooty residue.
9. Make soap. Soaking ashes in water makes lye, which can be mixed with animal fat and then boiled to produce soap. Salt makes it harden as it cools.
10. Shine silver. A paste of ash and water makes a dandy nontoxic metal polisher.
+10 Sara
..
Note also that an acre of forest produces about a cord of deadwood/firewood each and every year, so that after 20 years you can’t tell that firewood has been harvested each and every year from that acre.
the long-suffering taxpayer might receive a return on this “investment”, but I wouldn’t suggest you hold your breath.
thats exactly what they want you to do to reduce CO2…hold your breath…lol
The “mad monk” has more common sense than his fellow party members and many, many others can stand.
I was there! Packed house, OK its a rationalist bubble. We had one nutter , a chemist who wanted to know why Tony wasn’t supporting cold fusion. Managed to congratulate Tony on shutting down Ozzie DECC, which helped getting UK’s nest of science denying, climate change sacrifice promoting priests shut down and put under the more supposedly rational dept of business/economy. BUT the same old renewable rewarded snake oil sales men MPs and their deceitful civil service priests are still running the legalised climate change protection racket from their new taxpayer funded home at the BEIS, though….
………..on the other hand, nope, there is no other rational other hand.
Tony was good, especially in making the key point that renewable energy laws are based on unquestioning faith in a 21st Century religion that too many people choose to prefer to hard understanding. Perhaps they want to be doing something to save the world from an imaginary problem, not reaising, or happy to ignore the fact, our insignificant lives are not even long enough to experience significant climate change from almost any cause. and such beliefs are easy to exploit to justfy taxes to support what can only make CO2 emissions from the grid expensively worse in science and economic fact. Government at work. The prtiesthood evn transfer their concerns onto people’s children to avoid proving anything in our lifetimes, even more blatant deceit by assertion, but still not long enough for significant change..
Politicians understand the nature and reality of manipulating the fearful beliefs of the hard of fact masses better than rational engineers and scientists, who don’t believe assertive BS of most kinds by training. IMO
I really think we should offer Ozzie greens a life on an Aboriginal reservation, barbecuing Kangeroos on brushwood, and the US Greens on Indian reservations or with the Amish. Leave us alone and suffer the consequences of your beliefs on your own. etc.
A good night was had by all, except deceitful climate change religion and its fraudulent sacrifices. 🙂
I have also just leant that John Howard, mentioned last night, invented the term “Barbecue Stopper” to define a topic of note.
We need to find better ways to make the fraud that is renewable energy subsidy a Barbecue Stopper.
B
Put them with the Amish? Why? What did the Amish do to you to deserve that? (joking!)
But, yes, a mandatory 3 year term with the Amish, all labor paid in room and board, learning how REAL subsistence works, and NO modern conveniences, period. I doubt the US Greenbeans would last past the end of summer before reality set up and they decided to stifle themselves.
I can dream, can’t I?
Those ‘skyrocketing power prices’ are being supplied by a grid which is 85% fossil fueled. And most of the non-fossil fuel power is supplied by rooftop panels that have been installed by consumers desperate for relief from high electric bills. The time is fast approaching when Australia is going to have to decide to just write off most of its fossil fuel infrastructure so as not to continue to saddle the ratepayers and the economy at large with these inflated costs. It’s pure lunacy that the government is even considering backing new coal mines and plants at this point.
Sure keep dreaming and when your great eco revolution happens came back and tell us all about it.
Hmm. South Australia has 6 times the electricity cost as where i live (Moldova). If those prices came here, people would be in serious hardship.
Present day renewals are not progressive, but regressive. They are not the future energy source of this planet and need further development. Perhaps that 20 billion the US spends on climate science a year can be diverted.
The mistake people make is believing politicians are intelligent.
I agree Jim.
The fact that so many politicians believe in catastrophic manmade global warming (aka “climate change”) and have squandered trillions on “green energy” schemes that are not green and produce little useful energy is strong evidence that they are imbeciles.
They are not imbecile, they just specialized in the “get elected” business, and they are quite good at it. This include having electors believe in them having the same sort of beliefs, despite different electors having opposing beliefs.
IOW, they are liars, not imbecile.
This is a good chance to go long on coal power. Just sit one this baby for a few years. I’m sure you can get it for a steal.
https://app.liqimg.com/e/es?s=1526081490&e=373071&elq=4d6aab5614df427c8ad933f8f16cc623
Its the Hazelwood Power Station.
Solar projects all over the world are failing. The $500 million Ivanpah and $500 million Solyndra solar projects in California and the $400 million Abound Solar project in Colorado are three notable failures in the U.S. heavily subsidized by the government. Existing solar energy conversion technology will likely be obsolete even before it can be commissioned. The same can be said about all renewable energy projects. Picking winners is a losers game. The free market wins every time.
They are just about the only failures (though Ivanpah isn’t a fail) – and quite different things – Ivanpah is a solar CSP plant and solyndra a panel manufacturer.
google the number of solar projects in India, Japan, UK, Chile which are successfully being built.
We have made net savings of around $3000 over the past 7 years with our solar pv system and hot water system heat pump (which also harvests renewable energy.
Residential scale solar pays itself off in between 3 and 8 years depending on usage patterns. It is around 70% cheaper than grid power.
Our battery will be linked with a large network (thousands) of other batteries for use as large scale dispatchable energy sharing.
Large scale renwable energy is now cheaper than coal and much ch4eaper than gas.
Flexible capacity and demand management to replace baseload.
Abbott is an utter idiot.
All facts
More likely all false, unless your grid power has been made exorbitant through mismanagement..
Care to provide some real facts, like the total cost of your installation, your annual energy usage, the percentage of energy drawn from the grid, the battery specs, your anticipated yearly maintenance costs, and the source of your “facts” that clearly indicate that renewable is cheaper than coal? Thought not.
Even if I took you at face value lets keep it at your level, the supermarket you use can’t do that it’s power use is too high with all that aircon, fridge, freezers and lights. So as the supermarket electricity costs go up it increases it’s margins to cover it. So you save on your direct power cost and pay more for groceries and that is how this game plays out everywhere. You want to go beyond that you have to change the way we live and that is a whole other argument. Even within Green voters which lets call 10% being an sort of an average between upper and lower house over past elections you would need them to hold fast and get 40% more to join for that much of a radical change. Good luck with that.
Really? How long before you need to buy a new battery?
I have a PV rooftop solar of 3KW peak. (not that I think it is a good idea but I got a good deal and had to protect myself against the coming madness). After 5 years it is paid for. How long would a battery take to pay for itself? Sometime longer than its lifetime? How are you going to cope with a few cloudy days. I’ve had 10 days where the sun didn’t shine and it rained all day and night.
this appears to answer the question on battery payback for a range of Australian cities.
https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/home-solar-battery-storage-worth-it-2017
Other articles suggested solar PV on its own was a better bet and wait a bit till the battery price goes down.
facepalm.
700$/kWh of storage ? when a kWh is worth like 1/1000 of that, and you still have to get this kWh from somewhere (and pay for it) ?
You can home-produce (not just stock, PRODUCE) ,whenever you need, ~7000 kWh for the very same price!
And when you add the carbon-footprint of the storage battery, the thing turns even madder (if possible)
But, eh, Griff, i can sell you an empty bottle or barrel of water for the price of 1000 x as much water, if you want. Wouldn’t be more silly for you to buy, than storage battery.
see also
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/10/11/battery-storage-uptake-households-surges-grid-costs-soar/
“This is particularly the case in the major cities of Adelaide and Brisbane, says SunWiz founder and report author Warwick Johnston, where pay-back time for a small 5kWh battery can be as low as six years. And for the rest of Australia, households are looking at a pay-back period of within a decade.”
Such a battery has lost very much of it’s storage capacity before it is paid off. It’s a debt trap.
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
” As the Australian government contemplates where to go next in terms of energy policy, the best approach involves acknowledging that enough is enough when it comes to subsidising renewable energy. The sector has been showered with favours, including volumetric guarantees courtesy of the RET. It is time it stood on its own two feet without any preferential treatment or financial assistance. “