UK: Energy policy dominated by “Green lobby”

10 May, 2013 by

Just like the 70s

Just like the 70s

In the UK, the forced transition to highly expensive “green” energy is sowing the seeds for a major crisis. I recall the power cuts of the early 1970s (just), where my family had a collection of oil lamps and candles for when the lights went out, but there’s no excuse in 2013.

However there is a glimmer of hope in the darkness:

Britain must abandon its bias towards green policies or face an energy crisis, a key parliamentary adviser has warned.

Peter Lilley, a member of the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Advisory board, has warned that the UK’s hesitance to embrace shale gas comes at great expense to the country.

He cites decreasing gas prices in American as an example, where gas is a third of the price of what it is in Europe, and questions why Britain is “dragging its feet”.

The UK is potentially sitting on enough shale gas reserves to heat all homes in Britain for at least 100 years, experts at the British Geological Survey claimed in April this year.

However, there has been resistance to excavate the fossil fuel amid concerns about the possibility of earthquakes and water contamination if gases are leaked into the water table while the “fracking” process is carried out.

In an article for The Spectator, the Conservative MP accuses the Department for Energy and Climate Change as being “in disarray” over the issue, with some ministers now beginning to question the direction green policies have been heading.

He claims that the green lobby is in control of the Department for Energy, dominates the EU and is institutionalised in Whitehall via the Climate Change Committee. He also accuses them of deploying “scare stories with reckless disregard for the truth” on a scale comparable to the MMR scare.

“Whatever the power of Big Oil in the past, it has been eclipsed by Big Green,” he said.

(source)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Renewable energy is a WASTE OF MONEY

7 April, 2011 by

Renewable energy

Apologies for the capital letters there, but I’m shouting. The Victorian Auditor-General has savaged his State’s pathetic attempts to “tackle climate change” by setting unachievable renewable energy targets:

THE state that sold itself as the heartland of sustainability has been exposed as falling hopelessly behind its own renewable energy targets for most of the past decade.

Victoria’s renewable energy record was savaged yesterday by the state’s auditor-general, who also highlighted how the former Labor government had failed to perform basic checks on key projects.

Auditor-General Des Pearson found renewable energy generation as a percentage of power consumption had increased from 3.6 per cent to just 3.9 per cent over seven years. This compared with a target rate, set in 2002, of 10 per cent by 2010.

Mr Pearson found Labor had failed to properly assess or substantiate the cost and benefits of the key incentive mechanism for attracting private investment in solar energy generation. Nor was enough work done on the validity of the solar energy targets.

And why is that? Because when anyone says the magic word “green”, nobody bothers to undertake the proper cost/benefit analyses, because they believe that the moral superiority which comes from their misguided desire to “save the planet” renders such mundane considerations unnecessary. Well let me tell you something. It doesn’t.

Mr Pearson condemned as ineffective Labor’s setting of renewable energy targets, claiming that in 2002 no effort was taken to determine whether renewable energy and wind energy targets were achievable.

“In the absence of these key planning inputs, there was no evidence to show that planning was effective or the targets soundly based,” he said.

State Energy and Resources Minister Michael O’Brien will review all the systems put in place by the previous government.

“Labor lied to Victorian families over the cost of its poorly planned energy policies,” Mr O’Brien said. “The Auditor-General found Labor’s solar sham would have cost Victorian families nearly 500 per cent more than Labor claimed and every dollar of this cost blowout would have increased electricity bills for struggling Victorian households.” (source)

Yet this is where billions of tax dollars are disappearing every year, pointless gestures to appease the urban Green/Left which achieve absolutely nothing for the environment or the climate.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Opposition budget ditches green tokenism

19 May, 2010 by

Spending on "green initiatives"

The Opposition will slash millions of dollars of pointless climate change spending promises by Labor if it regains power:

  • $200 million off reducing emissions on coal-fired power stations (spend it instead on reducing emissions of toxins and particulates, which would actually achieve some environmental benefit, rather than removing, at vast expense, a harmless trace gas essential for life)
  • $193 million off “climate aid” to poor countries (no global socialism here, thanks very much)
  • $76 million off funds encouraging individuals to reduce emissions (pointless tokenism)
  • $30 million ad campaign on climate change scrapped [BRAVO – Ed]
  • $278 million off a plan to develop “greener cars” (no, we need more cars like the Prius…)
  • $653 million off renewable energy schemes (which need massive government support to be even barely competitive)

All of these policies are predicated on CO2 being the primary and dominant driver of climate change, which $70 billion of research since 1990 has failed to establish. If it isn’t, every single one of them is completely, utterly, totally, and 100% pointless.

Read it here.

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Another alternative energy disaster

17 May, 2010 by

Spectacular failure

Anyone with even half a brain can see that alternative, “green” energy is currently expensive, inefficient and unreliable. It is delusional to believe that wind and solar power could possibly replace baseload fossil fuel electricity generation in the near future. But their failures can be quite spectacular, however (see pic), like the wave power generator in Port Kembla which now lies wrecked at the bottom of the sea, a sad playground for sea-life. It was visited in 2007 by Peter Garrett, who declared it “a terrific example of clean energy” and pledged the Rudd government to drive a “clean energy revolution”…

The landmark Oceanlinx wave energy system, the Mk3PC, sits underwater at the bottom of Port Kembla’s eastern break wall after heavy seas ripped the unit from its moorings.

The 170-tonne structure, which was located 150m offshore, broke free of its pylons on Friday afternoon.

Representatives from the Sydney-based company Oceanlinx immediately rushed to Port Kembla, but attempts to tow the structure to safety were hampered by heavy seas.

The barge-like structure was lodged tight against the eastern breakwater on Friday night with crews expected to make a second effort on Saturday, but by Saturday morning the structure had sunk.

Port Kembla Port Corporation CEO Dom Figliomeni said meetings with Oceanlinx representatives would be held today to discuss salvaging the unit.

“What we have been doing over the weekend is monitoring the unit to make sure it doesn’t enter shipping channels,” Mr Figliomeni said. “At the moment it is no danger to anyone.”

Certainly no danger to coal fired electricity production, anyway. Unfortunately, there isn’t such a thing as a clean energy revolution. Clean energy requires massive government subsidies to make it competitive, destroying jobs rather than creating them.

Read it here. (h/t Tim Blair)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Stating the Obvious: carbon cuts "could hurt economy"

5 December, 2009 by

Herald Sun

Herald Sun

But hang on… surely this wonderful new green economy will create thousands of jobs, billions of dollars of investment, and everything in the environmental garden will by rosy, right? That’s what we’ve been told over and over again by the Rudd government, despite the fact that a bit of common sense would tell you that taxing energy will cause huge damage to any economy. Seems that it takes this long for the media to catch up with common sense:

IMF experts say the global economy stands to benefit from action against climate change, but warn that aggressive curbs on emissions could jeopardise the recovery without careful planning.

Days before a major climate summit gets underway in Copenhagen, the experts at the International Monetary Fund said a global pact would help the world’s poorest who face the worst effects of rising temperatures.

“Greater climate resilience can promote macroeconomic stability and alleviate poverty,” Michael Keen and Benjamin Jones of the global lender’s fiscal affairs department wrote in a staff position note.

But they also called for caution. They warned that sudden, large hikes in the costs of carbon emissions blamed for global warming could generate “unwelcome pressures on production costs and household incomes, thus dampening prospects for recovery”.

Preventing developing countries from using fossil fuels will consign millions if not billions of people back into a life of poverty – it’s a simple as that. There is no green economy panacea – it’s a myth.

Read it here.

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Rudd fails to run "clean energy government"

8 November, 2009 by

Not so green

Not so green

One of Kevin Rudd’s ambitious promises was to run his government on “clean energy”, showing his enviro-friendly credentials and at the same time pandering to the Greens, who were essential for Labor’s preferences in the 2007 election. Only trouble is, as he has discovered, it isn’t as easy as all that.

DESPITE repeatedly brandishing its green credentials, the Rudd Government has reneged on its election promise to run Parliament House and MPs’ electoral offices on clean energy.

It has also failed to deliver on a promise to upgrade all government office buildings to minimum five-star greenhouse ratings.

The promise to use renewable energy was made in a speech by Kevin Rudd in the lead-up to the 2007 election, but so far little or no progress has been made.

The Government has also failed to follow through with a requirement that all government agencies with more than 100 staff undertake energy and water audits and introduce energy efficiency improvement plans.

The election commitments were bolstered to mark Earth Hour in March 2008. In a joint press release, Mr Rudd and Environment Minister Peter Garrett promised to set up an ”interdepartmental committee on government leadership in sustainability’‘ to investigate using the government car fleet to ”drive the market for low emissions cars”.

So far the committee – which was scheduled to report to Mr Rudd by June 2008 on progress – has been silent, with no subsequent announcements or recommendations.

The Sunday Age was unable to confirm whether the committee has even been established.

Unfortunately, this is just another in a long line of examples demonstrating that using green power is expensive and impractical. If green power can’t even run Parliament House, how on earth does the Rudd government expect it to run Australia, when the ETS has pushed up the cost of regular power beyond reach?

Yet more spin, and no substance.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,
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