Renewables NOT Renewable

by Viv Forbes

Horse Hollow wind farm

 

There is an incessant chorus from the green gospellers glorifying “renewable” energy and warning disbelievers that continued use of carbon fuels will damn the world to eternal fires of global warming.

Their ire is focussed on carbon dioxide, one very minor but beneficial atmospheric gas which is accused of causing more of everything bad: pollution and extreme weather, droughts and floods, snowstorms and hurricanes, malaria and mosquitos, icebergs and glacier retreat, heat waves and blizzards, declining polar bears and multiplying cane toads.

 
 

We are told that using “renewable” energy will prevent all these disasters and produce cheap “clean” electricity. Four points are relevant:

First, carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil, gas, diesel, petrol or wood is not a pollutant in the atmosphere, not the key driver of global warming or climate change, but a boon to all plants (and thus all life). It is clean and green. There is thus no environmental or climate justification for punitive taxes on carbon dioxide, or for really silly stuff like emissions trading or carbon capture and burial.

Second, wind and solar power have a role in remote or mobile applications and in domestic hot water generation, but are an unreliable and high cost addition to grid power. Because of their intermittent and unpredictable supply characteristics, the large areas of land required to collect significant energy, and their need for back-up generators or huge batteries, they can seldom compete in a fair market with coal, gas, nuclear or hydro power. Nothing anyone can do will change these natural characteristics.

Third, those who wish to use “renewable” energy or to become independent of the grid are free to do so, and this should continue. But green energy should not be molly-coddled with subsidies from taxpayers or other users, nor protected by extra taxes on carbon energy, taxpayer loans, mandated market shares or propped up prices.

Finally, there is one killer point that has recently emerged.

The data collected shows that renewables will barely generate sufficient energy over the life of the facilities to recover the energy used to manufacture, construct and maintain those facilities.


Google has long supported green energy and had a dream to power all of their energy-hungry computers and air-conditioned data centres with “renewables”. It was revealed recently by their own technical advisers that this dream is a delusion. The fatal flaw discovered is that wind/solar energy may not reduce life-time emissions of carbon dioxide and is unlikely to ever be cheaper than coal. The data collected shows that renewables will barely generate sufficient energy over the life of the facilities to recover the energy used to manufacture, construct and maintain those facilities.


Most so called “renewable” energy relies on the sun, and is better referred to as “in-exhaustible”. But at any point on Earth, wind/solar is more accurately called “intermittent energy”. And to build plants to extract electricity from the sun using wind or solar collectors is a zero-sum game or worse – they may not produce enough energy to recoup the energy cost of replacing those facilities.

Wind/solar energy thus fails its central justification – it is not renewable.



Viv Forbes,
forbes@carbon-sense.com


For those who would like to read more:

Google Green tried hard to make green energy work:
http://www.google.com/green/energy/

But Google Engineers now say renewable energy won’t work:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/11/22/Renewable-energy-so-useless-that-even-greenie-Google-gave-up-on-it

Troubles at world’s largest solar plant: production down, gas usage up:
http://breakingenergy.com/2014/10/29/at-ivanpah-solar-power-plant-energy-production-falling-well-short-of-expectations/

The Catch22 of Energy Storage:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/

Large amount of steel & concrete used for a wind turbine base. photo sourced [here]

It's time to recognise time

by Kerry Ladbrook

 

Photo: Wandoan South sub station

How do Powerlink Qld and many of the Coal Seam Gas Companies recognise landholder’s time impacted by their projects in order for these corporations to meet deadlines?  They don’t, but under legislation landholders must engage with them.

How do Government Corporations such as Powerlink Qld recognise their employees meeting deadlines? By paying Staff Performance Pay Bonuses and allowing them to share in a Gainsharing Pool of money if their projects come in under budget. 

In the North West Surat Basin, there has been more “give” than “take” by landholders impacted by a web of high voltage transmission powerlines for the sole benefit of the coal seam gas companies.  Powerlink Qld is undertaking these contracts ignoring landholder input into the proposed study corridors in planning for this infrastructure. Due to inappropriate locations, time wasted by Powerlink employees has been enormous and costly to the Qld Government, CSG and Rural industries.

While Powerlink employees continue to be paid for their mistakes, landholders have to endure even greater impacts upon their time. Farmers are running a business and should not be placed in the position of de facto charities for the benefit of multinational companies.

Time impacts on our business equates to two days per week since first engagement with Powerlink 16 months ago with agreement yet to be reached.  How many family businesses can afford to carry this type of impact without recompense?

The Community Designation Process that Powerlink Qld is allowed to follow is highly pressurised and with less rights than CSG legislation as it comes under the Acquisition of Land Act 1967.

It’s more than time that landholder’s time is recognised. The Queensland government needs to look to positive legislative change for landholders. Recognition of landholder time as separate to other compensation needs to occur.

Allowing for full cost recovery will result in a greater willingness to address issues from the outset.  

First published as a Letter to the Editor in various rural newspapers.

Related articles:

Petition against abuse of power by Powerlink

Power price rise link to Powerlink 

Scrutiny needed for Powerlink projects

State Corporation, Powerlink vs Woodduck Landholder Group

Political climate change

by Viv Forbes

Cartoonist Mark Knights

 

Climate Alarmists Rebuffed in Australian Election.

There was good news and bad news in the election. 

The good news was that the Labor/Green/Independent coalition that had led Australia into the unwinnable war on carbon was decisively rejected. The Labor vote fell to its lowest level for a century, the Green vote fell 3% and the independents who helped create and support this destructive green coalition are no longer in Parliament.

 

The other feature of this campaign was the high public interest in the election and the big dissatisfaction with all major parties. Lots of small single-issue parties were formed and contested the election. Most of these small parties were also opposed to the carbon tax.

And a few of them were smart enough to maintain strict discipline among themselves on how preference votes were directed, ensuring that some of them were elected to the Senate. 

There was one bad note in the election. Two prominent new small parties, the Palmer United Party (PUP) and the Katter Australia Party (KAP) foolishly directed significant preferences to the ALP and/or Greens ahead of the Liberal/Nationals. This was done partly out of spite, but mainly in a big gamble that did not always pay off.

 

Bob Katter’s largely conservative supporters reacted badly to him “assisting the enemy” and his primary vote fell dramatically. His hold on his own electorate has become marginal. Clive Palmer’s pact with the Greens got less publicity before the election and he did surprisingly well all over Australia. He probably got one Senator elected because of his shady deal with the green devils, but then in another state a Green Senator will probably be elected on Palmer preferences. So we may be stuck for six years with at least one Green senator who should not have been elected. 

Another feature of the election was the minimal support for the anti-coal-seam-gas party.

 

Now we need to make sure the new government dismantles the whole climate industry

 

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How to Untangle the Climate Bureaucracy: Last In, First Out 

Abolishing the Climate Commission is a good start. However there are still seven climate agencies and 33 climate schemes in seven different departments yet to be rooted out. 

What is the best way to unwind this huge un-necessary bureaucratic empire?  

Use the old union maxim – last in, first out. Whatever parliament created in one silly summer afternoon can be unmade just as quickly. 

Don’t merge, don’t reorganise, don’t rebrand – ABOLISH. 

And do it quickly before more damage is done to our economy, our energy supplies and our environment. 

 

And don’t worry about the climate. It will go on doing what it has always done - it will change

 

 

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Abolish the Unreliable Energy Targets 

Killing the carbon tax is not enough to restore sanity to Australia’s energy policies - the Renewable Energy Targets must also be abolished. 

No matter what laws are passed in Parliament, wind/solar power can never supply reliable economical grid power - their fundamental flaws are too numerous. 

Their low energy density means that large areas of land must be blighted to collect a significant quantity of power. 

Moreover, their intermittent supply pattern means that they cannot maintain a predictable electricity supply. 

And even if some magic cheap storage system is invented, the expensive wind/solar generating facilities will remain under-utilised for more than 60% of the time, and up to 30% of any energy stored will be lost in transfers.

Finally, without storage, green power needs full backup from reliable generation plants (which must also operate intermittently). 

Germany is proving that an advanced society cannot survive on wind/solar energy, even with support from French nuclear power, Swedish hydro-power, Russian gas and Polish coal. 

For too long, green dreamers have forced their daft ideas on Australia’s power supply network. We need to employ real power engineers and grown-up energy technology.   

The Renewable Energy Targets should be renamed “Unreliable Energy Targets” and abolished immediately. 

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State Corporation, Powerlink vs Woodduck Landholder Group

This is an excellent article about the Woodduck Landholder Group from page 20 in the Surat Basin News insert, 29th August edition of the Chinchilla News.  The journalist for the Surat Basin News has combined the breaking story about the Wodducks group's plight in Roma's Western Star newspaper, Wallumbilla north residents' unequal battle with Powerlink ,  with points raised by Rebecca Beissel in a letter to the editor. 

Residents say high voltage power network is ‘too close to homes

Photo sourced Western Star

Rebecca Beissel with son Beau Beissel and daughter Maggie Beissel and Jenny York are concerned Powerlinks' transmission project will affect their health and safety.

 

It was back in March when this site first brought attention to the Powerlink  proposal the construct multiple high voltage transmission lines in the north west of the Surat Basin in a web over the land of farming families to supply electricity to coal seam gas infrastructure. This first article focused on landowners north of the town of Yuleba. The Woodduck group are nearby, north of the town of Wallumbilla. They have been reluctant to go to the media. The August 14th article in the Western star the first time that the Woodduck group have gone to the press. They have bent over backwards in trying to be reasonable, to accommodate Powerlink, and to offer viable alternatives; all to no avail. A stalemate has been reach. This is no NIMBY group but they are also determined that Powerlink are not going to go through at just any cost

 

 

UPDATE #1

In the above article SANTOS tried to wash their hands of any responsibility for Powerlink impacts upon farming families. The Woodduck Group have responded with this letter below. They also point out that further undisclosed activity by SANTOS will result in more Powerlink high voltage transmission lines impacting on yet more landowners.

 

Further reading:

Wallumbilla north residents' unequal battle with Powerlink

Wallumbilla worry rides on the line

Powerlink approach slammed

Related articles:

Petition against abuse of power by Powerlink

Power price rise link to Powerlink 

Scrutiny needed for Powerlink projects

 



 



Scrutiny needed for Powerlink projects

Powerlink is proposing the construction multiple high voltage transmission lines in the north west of the Surat Basin in a web over the land of farming families to supply electricity to coal seam gas infrastructure. This site first covered this issue back in March with the post, Petition against abuse of power by Powerlink.

Congratulations to Kerry Ladbrook who in the 8th August edition of the Queensland Country Life was awarded issue of the week on the letters to the editor page. In the first sentence Kerry refers to Premier Campbell Newman's office asking the question about greater scrutiny for government owned corporations. To read this in full [click here]

 PREVIOUS RELATED POSTS

Petition against abuse of power by Powerlink

 

Power price rise link to Powerlink

 

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Carbon Fleecing

The Inaugural Golden Fleece Award – for Flagrant Fleecing of Community Resources by Viv Forbes

 

 

 The Carbon Sense Coalition has awarded its Inaugural Golden Fleece Award to Kevin Rudd and coal industry leaders for “flagrant fleecing of community savings in futile ‘research’ on Carbon Capture & Sequestration – a costly and complex process designed to capture and bury carbon dioxide gas produced by burning carbon fuels such as coal, oil and gas”. 

It is obviously possible, in an engineering sense, to collect, separate, compress, pump and pipe gases, so new “research” is largely a waste of money. Engineers know how to do these things, and their likely costs. But only foolish green zealots would think of spending billions to bury a harmless, invisible, life-supporting gas in hopes of cooling the climate some time in the century ahead.

 

 

 

About 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide are produced for every tonne of coal burnt in a power station. To capture, compress and bury it could take at least 30% of the electricity produced, greatly increasing the cost of the limited amount of electricity left for sale - more coal used, increased electricity costs, for ZERO measurable benefits 

We have come to expect stupidity from politicians, but coal industry leaders who agreed to waste money on this should be sued by shareholders for negligence. Maybe they were just drooling at all the extra coal they would sell in order to produce the same electricity? 

Kevin Rudd wins this award for “a Flagrant Fleece of $400 million taken from tax payers to fund the fatuous Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.” There is little to show for the millions already spent except a lot of receipts for high class salaries, consultants, travel, entertainment and “operational expenses”. 

Pumping gases underground is sensible if it brings real benefits such as using waste gases to drive oil recovery from declining oil fields.  

Normally, however, CCS will just produce more expensive electricity.  

This result is not needed as politicians have already invented dozens of ways of doing just that.

Illusion on Illumination

Viv Forbes sent me a me a media release about Earth Hour but a friend of this blog, Jim Fryar, has already published Viv's efforts so I will post the link for you to read it over there. While I'm at it I thought that I will provide a few other links as well.

Photo sourced The Age. In Sydney, they made the Opera House “green” this year while the rest of the city (seen in the background) seemingly ignored the idea.

Energy Roulette Week (The antithesis of Earth Hour)
Viv Forbes has come up with an alternative proposal to Earth Hour, an opportunity for those driven to observe this event to go beyond the tokenism of Earth Hour and enjoy the full experience of the possibilities of life without electricity in Energy Roulette Week.

What happened to “Earth Hour”?
asks Joanne Nova in her blog posting. Joanne points out how this event is loosing momentum like a dying candle. A lot of the media in 2013 are only paying it lip service. Joanne also provides this quote from Lomborg

Lomborg argues that more than a billion impoverished people around the world have no switch to flip, lacking the electricity that we take for granted. Earth Hour, he implies, demonizes a technology that has lifted great swaths of humanity from lives of great burden and toil — and which the globe’s poorest still so desperately want and need.

 Tonight’s ‘Earth Hour’ is not only futile, but sends the wrong message
Anthony Watts writes

Electricity has been a boon for humanity. And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels  (paraffin comes from petroleum) —and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs.
Fundamentally, cutting emissions in the short run is no easy task. Today, green energy is too costly to be a viable solution. Real breakthroughs in energy technology will only come with more investment in research and development.

An Hour of Self Delusion
Donna Laframboise writes

It’s time WWF activists and sanctimonious IKEA executives stopped deluding themselves. There is no evidence whatsoever that the public is prepared to endure “large scale change” in order to combat global warming.
Nor is there any reason to believe that symbolically turning out the lights for one hour out of a possible 8,760 each year will alter that fact.

 The futile gesture of Earth Hour
From Bishop Hill

Like the Saturnalia, Earth Hour comes round once a year, bringing with it back-to-front thinking, upside-down reasoning and many ripe opportunities for ridicule.
Bjorn Lomborg is more seriously minded of course, and his take on the annual switch-off is here. There is a related video.

 

Power price rise link to Powerlink



Power price rise link to Powerlink

by Kerry Ladbrook

First published in a condensed version on the Village Green page of The Courier Mail 23rd March 2013 

No wonder Qld has just experienced a 21% RISE IN ELECTRICITY when High Voltage Projects in rural locations that solely benefit privately owned Coal Seam Gas Companies and their shareholders are able to follow a process and have their costs of construction subsidised  by the Tax Payer.  The antiquated Acquisition of Land Act(ALA) 1967 needs a major overhaul. 

POWERLINK QUEENSLAND intends applying for designation as community infrastructure the Wandoan South to Eurombah  and Network extension in North West Surat transmission projects located in the heartland of a newly proposed coal seam gas development between Roma & Wandoan.

Designation will be decided by Minister for Energy & Water Supply Mark McArdle under the ALA.  Mc Ardle details in a letter dated 25^th October   “I note the planned expansion of the network will not only meet the electricity requirements of the CSG-LNG projects and mines in the region, but will also reinforce and improve supply to nearby townships”.

The only problem with this Mark, is that these projects are in the middle of nowhere where there are no towns and no community infrastructure.  Powerlink Queensland has advised no landholder can connect into these high voltage lines.

If it was true that the proposed transmission lines between Wandoan & Injune were for community infrastructure as Powerlink has asked the Minister to designate them; then there would exist a situation as ridiculous as depicted in this John Spooner cartoon.
The transmission lines are for providing electricity to coal seam gas projects, not the community.
 

This will be the start of many such infrastructure projects across the state all for the benefit of private coal seam gas or mining companies. 

Rural Queenslanders are Angry.

Landholders are not given any input into the proposed study corridors for these projects before they are designed.  These are massive projects to provide electricity to each and every gas well that ORIGIN and SANTOS  will have operational and we believe it should come under Coal Seam Gas Rules and not the very ineffective and out of date land act  that has  ANGERED  landholders threatened  by readily available Power of Entry Notices to gain access, private land accessed without permission by Powerlink and Environmental staff, inadequate consultation in regard to transmission lines & substations, poor weed washdown procedures and no compensation detailed.

Powerlink staff can waste time with personal leave but will rush  the consultation process in order to have an equally rushed environmental investigation which does not respect landholders businesses, location of protected flora & fauna , fire impacts, overgrazing,  devaluation, helicopter mustering, no payment for our time, legal consultation and accountancy.   

If these Projects are privatised, then essential services can be retained.  This will help ALL QUEENSLANDERS  save money  and retain the services they need.  Please support our e-petition (can be under 18)and sign on the attached link, so this is  addressed by Minister Mark McArdle.  

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petition?PetNum=2058

 

 or  find link on facebook under POWERLINK PROPOSED WANDOAN SOUTH TO EUROMBAH COAL SEAM GAS TRANSMISSION NETWORK PROJECT AND TRANSMISSION NETWORK EXTENSION IN NORTH WEST SURAT

PREVIOUS RELATED DISCUSSION

Petition against abuse of power by Powerlink

 

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Climate Policies create Costly Electricity by Viv Forbes

The Carbon Sense Coalition accused politicians of crying crocodile tears about rising electricity prices. 

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that current policies are designed to make coal fired electricity more expensive and they also force people to pay for more expensive options such as wind and solar power. 

Climate alarmists want to ration carbon fuels such as coal, oil and gas to reduce the production of the harmless invisible gas, carbon dioxide. This is supposed to make the climate cooler, stabilise sea levels, prevent bad weather, save polar bears and win the election.  

Coal produces 75% of Australia’s electricity. Another 15% comes from gas & oil/diesel – a total of 90% from demonised carbon fuels. To force people to use less carbon fuels, politicians have passed a mess of laws whose purpose is to make carbon-fuelled electricity prohibitively expensive 

Cartoon by Paul Zanetti

These policies have succeeded dramatically. Carbon taxes, renewable targets, market mandates, cross subsidies and costly red tape have made all electricity more expensive. They even legislated higher feed-in prices for electricity from domestic solar panels. And they now push smart meters so they can charge consumers even more for electricity when they need it most – during peak hours. 

But there has been no effect on global emissions – we pay more for nothing. 

Now politicians weep crocodile tears. They caused the high electricity prices but now discover that consumers don’t like it. When they are forced to admit it was another ghastly mistake, the solution is obvious: scrap all the costly and pointless laws that are increasing the price of our electricity. 

That would be a great Christmas present to help consumers balance their budgets.

 

Viv Forbes, BScApp, FAusIMM

Rosewood    Qld   Australia

forbes@carbon-sense.com