Wind power hit by renewable energy certificate crash

28 December, 2010 by

Up in smoke

Another disaster for the green energy brigade, as the price of renewable energy certificates, essential for investment in wind power, sinks to a new low:

AT least $1.5 billion worth of investment in wind farms is in limbo after a collapse in the price of renewable energy certificates.

There is also uncertainty about when a revamp scheduled for next month will restore prices to viable levels.

And the nation’s biggest baseload renewable energy generator, the NSW Sugar Milling Co-operative, faces receivership by February unless the price paid for RECs almost doubles in the next three months. RECs effectively subsidise renewable energy projects such as wind farms and solar schemes, which receive one certificate for each megawatt of power they produce above a baseline set by the Office of Renewable Energy Regulator.

And what has caused the dramatic price drop? Oh noes, it’s another “green energy” scheme:

The low prices have been caused by a glut in RECs issued to households that have taken advantage of government-subsidised solar-panel installations. The collapse triggered a revamp of the entire RET scheme in February and prompted Climate Change Minister Greg Combet to wind back the solar credits program earlier this month. Uncertainty over the future of the RET comes as the new Victorian Liberal government takes a tougher line on planning approvals for wind farms, increasing the buffer between houses and turbines and declaring several mountainous and coast areas “no-go zones”. (source)

Bravo to the new Victorian government for slowing the wind farm nonsense, at least. And in other news, it’s heartwarming to see two lefty environmental action groups at each other’s throats:

The Greens candidate for the seat of Clarence says she is surprised and disappointed by a campaign to help Wooli residents deal with erosion.

The national advocacy body Get Up has launched campaign to try and block the Clarence Valley Council’s proposed strategy of a ‘planned retreat’.

Local candidate, Janet Cavanaugh, says the council’s policy to relocate residents to other areas of the village is the only ‘realistic’ approach.

“I would have expected from Get Up that they would have actually consulted with their local members before taking on what is a very complicated issue,” she said.

“I disagree with the fact that they are criticising the planned retreat as a legitimate form of climate change adaptation.

“They’re calling for alternatives, though the campaign is extremely vague on what those alternatives should be.”

Ms Cavanaugh says Get Up’s stance is misguided and will further confuse residents affected by erosion. (source)

Keep it up – saves us the bother.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Combet: coal industry is safe

13 September, 2010 by

Coal safe?

Although how Greg Combet can promise this with a straight face when he plans to introduce a pointless price on carbon [dioxide], and his Labor party is tied up in a formal agreement with the Greens, whose policy is to wipe coal from the face of the earth. Anyway, an interview in The Australian gives us a few hints as to what Greg is about:

As part of its deal to secure government, Labor signed a formal alliance with the Greens, whose policies include the eventual phasing out of the coal industry, Australia’s biggest export earner.

But in an interview with The Australian, Mr Combet said his background as a former coal engineer, union official and MP with coal workers in his NSW electorate meant he did not believe his job was to shut down the coal industry.

“I don’t agree with that. That’s not part of my job at all,” he said.

“I am acutely aware of the challenges that this policy presents. But people jump to these absolute positions, and I just don’t think that’s appropriate.

“I’ve got a responsibility to support those people’s jobs. The coal industry is a very vibrant industry with a strong future. What you’ve got to do is look to how we can achieve in the longer term things like carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power stations.” [Impossible in the near to medium term – and hugely expensive.]

Greens leader Bob Brown has described Australia as being like a heroin addict “feeding the habit” of the world’s reliance on coal. The party’s stated policy is to oppose development of any new coalmines or the expansion of existing coalmines and to phase out all existing coal subsidies. It wants to work towards stopping the development and granting of export licences for all new coalmines.

But in a statement last night, Greens senator Christine Milne, who has the party’s portfolio responsibility for climate change, said she did not intend to rehash the policy differences with Labor as she sought to build “trust” with the new Gillard government. [In other words, sweep our policy under the carpet – for now – so we don’t expose our fundamental ideological differences.] “I have put in a call to Greg Combet to congratulate him and begin the exciting conversation,” she said.

“In the meantime, I hope we can all respect the delicate process of building trust between people coming from different policy positions so we can achieve the best outcomes possible for the climate.”

The Greens can almost sound vaguely reasonable sometimes, especially when they are pulling the wool over the eyes of the mainstream media – but believe me, it’s all an act. Underneath they are as radical as ever, and highly dangerous for Australia.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Pointless climate action inevitable

9 September, 2010 by

The nightmare continues...

Thanks to Labor, the hysterical eco-loony Greens and the witless independents, a price on carbon is virtually guaranteed, and probably within the lifetime of this parliament. All we can hope is that its life is so brief the moonbats won’t have a chance to do irreparable damage to our economy and our country. As the ABC reports:

Greens MP Adam Bandt and the independents who threw their lot in with Labor have made it clear they would like to see the Federal Government take action to address climate change.

In its negotiations to form government, Labor agreed to convene a climate change committee made up of MPs and experts [but no sceptics, of course, or anyone that could possibly cast doubt on the AGW hysteria propounded by the IPCC] that would work towards putting a price on carbon.

The Climate Institute says it is hopeful the new Government will act more promptly and decisively than the previous Labor government, but a mining industry body says it is reserving judgment.

The independents who sided with Labor and Mr Bandt made it clear shortly after polling day that they want something done about climate change. [Just like that! Easy! As if Australia legislating an ETS will make one iota of difference to the climate! It’s simply laughable.]

“I support the precautionary principle and whether it applies to a market or not, or is carbon tax or whatever else, but if the climate scientists are in fact right and we do nothing, what have we done to future generations?” independent MP Tony Windsor said. [Yep, Windsor thinks that spending trillions of dollars to solve a non-problem is better than spending it on hospitals or schools. A bit like the NBN really…]

…

John Connor from the Climate Institute says it is a big step forward. [Backward.]

“I think it is very possible that we will get a price tag and limit on pollution here in Australia in the next couple of years,” he said.

“I think it is in everyone’s interest if we get on with that and do that as early as we can in this Parliament so people can understand the world won’t end, and in fact opportunities will arise and come as a consequence of that action.” [In the fairy-tale land you inhabit, perhaps, but not in the real world.]

Mr Connor says the election outcome should serve as a warning to Labor and the Coalition that the electorate wants action. (source)

Which is utter nonsense. People voted Green as a protest against the incompetence of Labor – nothing to do with crippling our economy with a pointless ETS or carbon tax.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Green nightmare approaching for Australia

2 September, 2010 by

The nightmare begins…

With Andrew Wilkie backing Labor [who didn’t see that coming? He’s a former Green himself, which we all know is hard Left in drag] it looks like Julia will cling on to the power she so desperately craves, but at a potentially huge price. Paul Kelly correctly argues that a deal with the anti-business, anti-mining, anti-capitalist, anti-everything-that-isn’t-the-environment Greens will alienate the cautious electorate of middle Australia:

How will people, notably voters in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia, react at hearing that Gillard’s response to losing her governing majority at the election is to strike an alliance with the Greens and move even further to the Left?

This is strategic folly. At the tactical level it remains unclear whether this move is a masterstroke or omen of doom. Its aim is to prove Gillard’s commitment to the new politics of the hung parliament. Without doubt, this re-stamps the Labor brand. It is an alliance, not a coalition, as Tony Abbott claimed.

But for the first time, Labor and the Greens are governing partners. Their tentative embrace has an enduring justification – to defeat the Coalition. As Abbott said yesterday, the Greens had not been serious about negotiations with the Coalition.

The entire world knows this deal has only one objective: to build momentum to sway the independents into duplicating such an agreement and vote Labor into office. (source)

With the Greens pulling the levers of power, as we know they will, we will inevitably have an ETS or a carbon tax within the next parliament. We can only hope that the Labor brand is so damaged by their grubby deal with the Greens and the resulting lurch to the Left, that middle Australia will desert Labor in droves in 2013.

Here begins the Green nightmare for Australia.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Election 2010: Greens want 100% renewables by 2030

25 July, 2010 by

Vote Labor and this is what you will get

100% out of touch with reality. 100% deluded. 100% on another planet. 100% dangerous for the future of Australia. That just about sums up the Greens, who, as we must keep reminding everyone, will have the balance of power in the Senate after their shady back-room deal with Labor (which Jooolia Gillard doesn’t want to talk about for obvious reasons). To propose 100% renewables by 2030 is pure madness – let’s just think for a moment what that actually means: no coal-fired power stations at all (and no nuclear, of course, no, no, no, we can’t have that), no petrol or diesel driven vehicles at all, no natural gas at all, and all within the next 20 years! Not only that, but they plan to rely on fart power and sunbeams instead! Words cannot begin to describe the utter lunacy of this. But this is precisely what they want, and what they will demand when they hold the balance of power in the Senate. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The Greens want to completely replace Australia’s reliance on coal with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Greens Senator Christine Milne said yesterday: “Australia can harness our tremendous resources of the sun, wind, ocean, Earth and human ingenuity to replace our reliance on coal with 100 per cent renewable energy within decades.”

Senator Milne said this could be achieved by 2030 with the right preparation and infrastructure. (source)

And Miranda Devine, also in the Herald yesterday, spelt out exactly what life under the Greens would be like:

There’s a lot more Brown and the Greens want if Labor wins: mandated zero net greenhouse gas emissions, the effective end of coal-fired power generation, phasing out of coal exports, a ban on new coalmines or power stations, removal of GM crops, and active discouragement of cars. They want a ban on the exploration, mining and export of uranium, and closure of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, which produces medical isotopes used for cancer treatment. They want to restrict funding of private schools. They want to abolish mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and to expand the definition of refugee to include ”environmental” or ”sexuality” refugees. They want to legislate for same-sex marriage, tinker with age of consent laws, establish ”intersex” as a legal gender, fund gender reassignment, require government to consult lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex people on policy, and provide easier access to abortion. On drugs, they are harm minimisation all the way, with more needle exchange programs and injecting rooms. And be prepared for a barrage of nanny-statism, starting with a ban on junk food advertising [which ACM commented on here].

The Greens’ published policies are carefully couched in escape clauses, to avoid the scare campaigns of past elections, when their extreme social agenda cost them votes. But the effect will be the same. And of course, their big-ticket policy, the one with the most nation-changing consequences, is an ETS or carbon tax, with householders paying the price in soaring energy costs. (source)

I have written to Tony Abbott this morning encouraging him to expose the Greens for the extremist, far-Left, hysterical environmental advocacy group that they are, who are not fit to participate in politics full stop, let alone determining the future of Australia under a Labor government. I encourage all Australians to do the same.

UPDATE: To contact Tony Abbott, go to: http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/ContactTony.aspx, or email: tony.abbott@liberal.org.au (Liberals) or Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au (Parliamentary). Thanks to Sean for the suggestion.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Greens: we will force a carbon tax

23 July, 2010 by

Not fit for politics

I mean, we knew this was coming. As soon as Green preferences had given victory to Labor, and Labor had ensured the Greens won the balance of power in the Senate, the gun would be held to Julia Gillard’s head. But Christine Milne has done it already:

Senator Milne said the Greens would introduce legislation to put a price on carbon as soon as the next parliament sits and said Labor would have “no excuses” to delay an emissions trading scheme if the Greens win the balance of power in the Senate.

“Prime Minister Gillard has shown a complete and utter lack of leadership on climate change, What we have heard is recycled rhetoric for the last four years, what we haven’t heard is any commitment to action,” she said, in Canberra.

So now we know. A vote for Labor is a vote for the Greens, which is a vote for an economy-wrecking carbon tax.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Election 2010: a vote for Labor is a vote for the Greens

21 July, 2010 by

Not fit for politics

That’s the inevitable result of the cosy little back-room deal for preferences struck by Labor and the Greens earlier this week.  The Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate, meaning that no piece of legislation which does not have bipartisan support will get through without the Greens’ say so. The question that must be asked, therefore, is: what have Labor secretly agreed to in order to secure their support for government legislation? Who knows. The media obviously don’t care, but the people should care.

The Greens are an extremist, single-issue, far-Left environmental advocacy group that shouldn’t even be dignified by calling them a political party. Once they get their hands on the levers of power in the Senate, who knows what nonsense they will force Labor to enact – maybe interfering, meddling, nanny-state anti-Libertarian claptrap like this, or much worse: an ETS or carbon tax.

The Australian people should be afraid, very afraid.

And whilst we’re on the subject of extremist, single-issue, far-Left environmental advocacy groups, the WWF today proves that if you ask the right questions in a poll, you’ll get the right answers:

A new Galaxy poll of four marginal Queensland seats has found support for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) continues to grow.

The poll was commissioned by World Wildlife Fund Australia.

It found 74 per cent of respondents in the seats of Brisbane, Bowman, Petrie and Ryan say they are in favour of an ETS to reduce carbon pollution.

The figure is up 4 per cent from the previous poll conducted in June.

The survey also found 87 per cent of those who identified themselves as Labor voters want an ETS by next year. (source)

I am currently trying to source the question wording, and I’m sure we won’t be surprised when we see it.

UPDATE: Fair play to WWF for courteously providing the information requested. The primary question asked regarding the ETS was:

Overall, are you in favour or opposed to the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme to help reduce carbon pollution in Australia?

66% responded “in favour”. My gripe with this is the reference to “carbon pollution” rather than “carbon dioxide”. Any question that asks “do you want to reduce pollution” will predispose respondents to answer in the affirmative – I mean, who doesn’t want to reduce pollution? Unfortunately, the public do not understand enough about the real meaning of an ETS, and that’s thanks to a politically correct media. I wonder what the response would be if the question had been worded “are you in favour of an ETS to reduce the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide and which will increase your electricity bills by 50% and have no discernible effect on climate either locally or globally”?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

"The Greens' cave economics have no place in mainstream debate"

30 June, 2010 by

Not fit for politics

The Australian slaps down the Greens. Well, someone’s gotta do it, after Bob Brown’s cheap attempts to bribe Julia Gillard into accepting a carbon tax earlier in the week:

The Greens are unprepared for real-world politics

GREENS leader Bob Brown has once again relegated his party to the status of a protest movement, instead of aspiring to join the main political game where real policy change happens. Perhaps he has misread Julia Gillard, because it is plain the new Prime Minister could never entertain adopting the Greens’s new five-point plan on climate change and a legislated carbon price designed to end coal-fired power.

Coal provides more than 80 per cent of Australia’s electricity. In the absence of a large-scale nuclear power industry, which the Greens also oppose, that reality will not change in the foreseeable future. Coal also provides more than 40 per cent of the world’s electricity and is the backbone of the cement and steel industries that are boosting the living standards of some of the world’s poorest people.

Were Australia to commit economic hari-kiri and wind back our largest export industry, the consequences for jobs would be dire. It would be worse, not better, for the planet as Australia’s coal customers – Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, India and Europe – turned to other producers. Generally, the anti-pollution standards of coal mines in Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, Colombia and Kazakhstan fall short of those in Australia. The Greens’ cave economics have no place in mainstream debate.

Couldn’t have said it better.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Labor and Greens bicker over ETS failure

14 June, 2010 by

Labor v. Greens

Labor can see votes leaking away to the Greens thanks to the abandoning of the ETS, so are now in damage control, attacking the Greens as the ulimate reason for the scheme’s demise:

Government frontbencher Anthony Albanese says the Greens need to be held to account for their role in blocking the legislation late last year.

“If they had voted for a price on carbon, we’d have one today,” he told Channel Ten on Sunday.

“We did everything possible to get a CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) introduced.”

Greens leader Bob Brown says his party has no regrets about voting down the scheme.

He says the ETS did not pass the Senate because Labor chose to negotiate with the Coalition.

“They got into bed with the Liberals; now they are crying foul,” he said.

“The Greens have the Ross Garnaut alternative of a carbon tax before the Parliament, before the Government. It can take it up now, get it through before the election and get back the lost public esteem.”

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the Government could have negotiated a deal with the Greens, but chose not to.

“If Kevin Rudd was serious about tackling climate change, why has he not met with Bob Brown?” she said. [Because he realises that doing a deal with the Greens would turn off more voters than he’s losing already]

“Why has he refused to negotiate with the Greens? This is a Government that has made mistake after mistake, backflip after backflip, and they don’t want to wear the consequences or take any responsibility.”

Now, now, children. At least we all agree on that last summary of Rudd and Labor.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

More bad science from the IPCC

1 March, 2010 by

@ Compweather.com

Wrong again - click for full size

Another story on the global warming/hurricane non-link:

RESEARCH by hurricane scientists may force the UN climate panel to retract its claims that greenhouse gas emissions have caused an increase in the number of tropical storms.

The benchmark 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said an increase in cyclone-force storms since 1970 was probably caused by climate change.

It followed some of the most damaging tropical storms in history, such as Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans, and Hurricane Dennis, which struck Cuba, both in 2005.

The IPCC added that the world could expect a big increase in such storms over the 21st century unless greenhouse gas emissions were controlled. The warning helped turn hurricanes — also known as cyclones or typhoons — into one of the most widely cited threats posed by global warming, with politicians including British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and former Us vice-president Al Gore describing them as a growing threat to humanity.

The cover of some editions of Mr Gore’s latest book, Our Choice, even depicts a world beset by super-cyclones as a warning of what might happen if carbon emissions keep rising.

However, the latest research, just published in the Nature Geoscience journal, paints a very different picture.

It suggests the rise in cyclone frequency since 1995 was part of a natural cycle and that several similar previous increases have been recorded, each followed by a decline. (source)

And don’t worry, Tim Lambert’s smug-blog Deltoid will no doubt add this article to his catalogue of  “The Australian‘s War on Science”, because in Lambert’s book, the war on science is anything which doesn’t fit with his pre-conceived agenda of alarmism.

And also in the news is a worrying sign that Rudd (who is a walking moral and principle vacuum) may do a deal with the Greens to get some kind of carbon trading scheme in place:

KEVIN Rudd has raised the prospect of a deal on climate with the Greens, who want an interim carbon price to end the Senate deadlock over an emissions trading scheme.

But he is playing down the likelihood of using the impasse as a double dissolution election trigger in October, as talks continue between Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and the Greens’ Christine Milne.

“This bill of ours for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is in the Senate now. Penny Wong and others are working with the Greens to see what can be done,” Mr Rudd told ABC TV’s Insiders program. “This is not over yet. And we will see what action emerges from the Senate.”

To secure a Senate deal, the government would, together with the five Greens, need an additional two votes, such as independent Nick Xenophon and a Coalition senator crossing the floor.

And if any Coalition senator did so, and thereby handed the government an ETS or a carbon tax, they should be strung up with piano wire. And prize for the most blindingly obvious headline goes to the Courier Mail:

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme could attract fraudsters

Now tell me something I didn’t know…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , , ,
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