South Australian "green" energy faltering

When they shut down their last coal-fired electricity generator, S.A. crowed about how their electricity was now wholly "green". That was a typical Greenie lie from the beginning. They rely on importing electricity from Victoria when the wind isn't blowing. And that electricity is generated by burning "dirty" LaTrobe brown coal, the most polluting form of coal.

They thought they could get away with that but now they are hitting problems.  The interconnector from Victoria can only supply so much power and that is often not enough.  So they jack up the prices of their electricity when the wind is not blowing.  They equalize supply and demand by penalizing and hence restricting demand from big users -- businesses.

That's such an attack on business that they have begun to backtrack.  They are now asking for more output from a big private generator, powered by  -- guess -- a "fossil" fuel -- natural gas.  The Green is now pretty brown at the edges and it will get browner as the folly of "sustainable" power makes itself felt.  Blackouts are waiting in the wings

A private power station in Adelaide has been asked to boost its output because some of South Australia's biggest businesses have been struggling to cope with a huge jump in their electricity prices at times of peak demand.

The owner of Pelican Point Power Station in Adelaide's north-west, Engie, has been asked by the SA Government to provide an extra 239 megawatts of supply.

The Government said a planned outage of the Heywood power interconnector with Victoria, higher gas prices and severe cold weather were to blame for price volatility in the local energy market.

Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis said there was little the Government could do reduce price fluctuations because of past privatisation of the state's electricity assets.

But Opposition frontbencher Rob Lucas blamed the SA Government's reliance on renewable energy for the surge in electricity prices at times of peak demand.

    "The massive rush into wind energy and alternative energy in South Australia, without ensuring the continuation of base load power, is the major problem that we've got here in South Australia," he said.

SOURCE

Comment from a reader:

People have a way of coming up with their own solutions. Most likely as soon as the brown-outs become a way of life people will start relying on their own generators and same for industry. You are likely to see a surge in purchases of back up units ........ and more air pollution because these generators run on gasoline and diesel. They will even discover that you can put an inverter on a car electrical system and let the car idle.

People will revert to candles and oil lamps and shutting down their aircon units, all create bad health exposure. Hospitals come into risk and also have to rely on back up generation. Street lights get turned off leading to higher crime.

But at least the world will not over heat and melt the polar ice. Vacation spots will benefit as more people go to the beach to cool off and use someone else's stand by power.

Sorry to hear that Australia has its fair share of fools. May they die of heat stroke while they sit in the dark eating melted ice cream made from spoiled milk ......... on dirty dishes washed in cold water. There will be plenty of hard coal for their Christmas stockings.

The Left’s Climate Change Hysteria

In the latest bout of political theater, 19 congressional Democrats took the stage of the Senate floor Tuesday to attack free-market organizations for allegedly spinning a “web of denial” on global warming. Casting the right to free speech aside, the senators are spinning a web of climate hysteria and economic illiteracy.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said, “We have to be open to different points of view, but when the science is settled and people who know better are fighting against it, we should know better.”

In other words, as far as liberals are concerned, it’s now a self-evident truth that climate change is urgent, catastrophic, and man-made, and the only way to stop it involves massive government intervention.

It’s not surprising liberals view the issue as urgent, given they believe such absurdities as that man-made global warming is irreversibly cooking our planet, melting the ice caps , creating climate refugees in the tens of millions, and will ultimately result in Manhattan being underwater. Suddenly, it makes (a little) sense why they want us to de-develop to the Stone Age by keeping the world’s natural resources in the ground to stop climate change.

Let’s move back to the initial belief that climate change is real. The fact of the matter is that no overwhelming consensus exists among climatologists on the magnitude of future warming, man’s impact on the climate, or on the urgency to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

In fact, looking at the data from the federal government’s own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides plenty of reason to slow down on alarmism.

There are a number of climate phenomena that activists warn are signs of oncoming, catastrophic global warming. Among these alleged markers of environmental doom are: increasing hurricanes, widespread floods and droughts, and a sea level rise that will harm coastal communities.

Hurricanes Are Not Becoming More Frequent. The IPCC notes in its most recent scientific assessment that there are “no robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin,” and that there are “no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency.” Further, “confidence in large-scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones [such as ‘Superstorm’ Sandy] since 1900 is low.”

Floods and Droughts. The IPCC noted that it overstated previous conclusions about increasing trends and that “the compelling arguments both for and against a significant increase in the land area experiencing drought has hampered global assessment.” The IPCC found evidence for increases, decreases, and no trend at all in flood activity or severity. So whatever your theory on climate change and floods, the IPCC has studies to back you up—which suggests that there’s a lot of uncertainty on this topic.

Sea Level Rise. Though every year seems to bring on a prediction of imminent sea level rise direr than the last, the observed reality does not reflect this. Corresponding to the recovery from the Little Ice Age, sea level has risen about eight inches in the past 130 years. During this period, the rate of this rise has varied on multidecadal time scales, making identifying exact reasons behind upswings, such as what has been observed over the past few decades, difficult. But whatever the cause, the current rate of sea level rise (about 12-13 inches per century) lies far beneath alarmist projections of several feet or more by the year 2100.

President Barack Obama has proposed a “keep it in the ground” environmental agenda, which pushes American policy away from cultivating energy from fossil fuels and natural gas. This economic ignorance is as alarming as the scientific ignorance. The proposed policy nonsolution of avoiding fossil fuels, which Obama’s scientific adviser recently called “unrealistic,” will exact significant economic pain on families and businesses.

Conventional fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas primarily power the American and global economy. These natural resources meet 80 percent of the world’s energy needs because they are affordable and reliable. They also significantly improved the quality of life and health for billions of people all over the world.  Regulating conventional fuels out of existence will raise energy prices that hit families again and again because almost everything we buy requires energy to make.

Keeping fuel in the ground keeps the world’s poorest citizens trapped in poverty. It will deprive the 17 percent of the world’s population who don’t have access to electricity and 35 percent who don’t have clean cooking facilities from achieving a better standard of living.

The web of denial charade might provide enough hot air to make some subsidized windmills spin, but it carries a concerning message that threatens scientific debate and dismisses economic realities.

SOURCE  






Coal on the Fast Track to Elimination

The Obama administration’s end goal is the complete elimination of coal. And if new data is to be believed, the administration is well ahead of schedule. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration calculations, “Coal-fired generating capacity in the United States dropped from 299 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2014 to 276 GW as of April 2016.” Moreover, “Coal-fired generation’s share of total electricity generation fell from 39% in 2014 to 28% in the first four months of 2016.”

That’s a steep decline. And it’s nowhere near what the EPA unrealistically projected in its December 2011 “Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.” In that report, the agency estimated, “A small amount of coal-fired capacity, about 4.7 GW (less than 2 percent of all coal-fired capacity in 2015), is projected to be come uneconomic to maintain by 2015.”

Coal, by design, is on the fast track to elimination. And if it’s phased out quicker than expected? Well, tough luck. What’s bad news for the coal industry and the overall economy is good news for the EPA and its Democrat operatives. The Democratic Platform Committee just endorsed a provision “calling on the Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change.” Too bad the committee won’t endorse an investigation into the fraudulent projections government officials cling to whenever they seek to implement devious and onerous regulations.

SOURCE  





Africa has enough problems without Greenies adding to them

Steven Lyazi writes from Uganda.  He may not be aware that Greenies WANT to reduce the population of Africa, with starvation being a highly acceptable method to them.  They hate people

Africa is still battling “transitional periods,” from slavery and colonialism, to neocolonialism and eco-imperialism. Its wars, diseases and suffering will never end until we stop having greedy leaders who only care about their families, cronies and tribal members.

The continent has enough natural resources to bring peace, health and prosperity to nearly everyone. And yet 90% of Africans still lack electricity and basic necessities, while corrupt leaders who could help transform our nations embezzle billions and leave parents and children starving and poor.

From Rwanda and Liberia to the Sudan and Uganda, we see every day the horrible effects of war – crippled men, widowed women, orphaned children and frail old people, without hands and legs, with slash marks all over their bodies. They struggle as scavengers, collapse and perish from hunger and disease, while politicians get rich.

Meanwhile, environmental activists, western powers and UN agencies dictate what issues are important – and use them to keep us poor and deprived: manmade climate change, no GMO foods, no DDT to prevent malaria, using wind and solar power and never building coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants. This is a criminal trick that denies us our basic rights to affordable energy, jobs and modern living standards.

Earlier this year, in South Sudan, I saw thousands of starving people suffering from war wounds, malaria, meningitis, hepatitis, vitamin deficiencies, cholera and other diseases. Here in Uganda, I see hundreds trying to survive and recover from these diseases, heart attacks, diabetes, kidney failure and cancer, receiving little or no medication and terribly inadequate care in  hospitals and clinics that are falling apart and don’t even have window screens or safe running water.

In January 2015, I was in Kampala’s Mulago Hospital caring for my friend and mentor, Cyril Boynes, who was dying from a stroke and kidney failure. The doctors and nurses tried to save him, but they had old, broken equipment and constantly battled electricity failures. Many times, the power went out, the lights and equipment stopped working, and people died before the electricity came back on.

For those who cannot fly to Europe for care, death does not distinguish between rich and poor, Ugandan or foreign. The same terrible facilities and lack of medicine affect everyone. In a world with so much money, technology and knowledge, there is no reason this should continue, year after year.

Before war broke out in South Sudan in 2013, there was some stability and a lot of nongovernmental organizations, companies like Ford Motor Company, private investors and other people arrived to do business. Many thought they could earn good profits, and some succeeded.

Some East African people in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, the Republic of Congo and other countries around South Sudan received new opportunities and skills. They were able to feed their families, send their children to school, pay medical bills and cover other expenses.

But today there is war and economic recession, oil prices have collapsed, and Ford and other companies closed their operations and left. Some 80% of the people again have no jobs. Their families are again impoverished and starving.

In South Sudan, most people still practice primitive subsistence farming. A UN Development Program report says 90% of the land in South Sudan is suitable for agriculture, but less than 5% of it is cultivated. This is because oil was the primary source of income for the country, the economy has collapsed, and few farmers have modern equipment, fertilizers or seeds to make any profits.

If South Sudanese people have electricity at all, it is from small diesel-powered generators for homes, businesses and hospitals. It is not sufficient, it’s available only some of the time, and there is almost no electricity outside of Juba and other big towns. Few people have motor fuels either, for cars or farm machinery, and the land is too vast to be cultivated by hand hoe or animals.

Calls for us to live “sustainably,” use wind and solar and biofuel power, and never use fossil fuels, are a demand that we accept prolonged starvation and death in our poor countries. They mean desperate people will do horrible things to survive, even just another day.

In 2006, I met a lady in Mulago Hospital whose son was dying from malaria. The Congress of Racial Equality people I was with asked her if she knew that DDT could help prevent malaria, by keeping diseased mosquitoes from coming into their homes. She said, yes, “but DDT is bad for the environment,” so she opposed using it.

It is crazy how lies about this chemical have made mothers willing to let their children die, rather than spray it on their homes. Malaria has killed millions of people in Uganda and is still the number-one killer disease in Africa. Over 1,000 babies and mothers die every day from this disease. We protect the environment from imaginary problems and die from environmental diseases.

What good is having an environment without people, without me and you?

In 2010, 32 coal miners where shot dead in South Africa. They were protesting for salary increases, which the mine owners and South African government said they could not afford, because of the terrible world economy and low coal prices. Meanwhile, the miners’ families are starving.

Our government is planning to construct a pipeline from western Uganda to Tanzania. The project could employ over 15,000 people. Along with other oil operations, it will boost our economy and give us more critically needed energy. But some agencies and organizations oppose it because it would “contribute to global warming,” and they would rather see us remain poor beggars to the West.

Like these “environmental” activists, African leaders do not care about the well-being of our citizens. They are incompetent, greedy, callous criminals, driven by ideologies and a love of power over people.

They love their armies and fast cars, treat their own people like terrorists, and have betrayed our continent. They pay no attention to the most critical and fundamental needs and concerns of people who are jobless, poor, hungry, and at the mercy of diseases and the environment. They do not care that most of their people never have clean water, a decent home, enough food to live, or electricity for even one light bulb and a tiny refrigerator.

In 2007, Cyril Boynes organized a 332-kilometer (206-mile) people’s march from Kampala to Gulu, Uganda, to support using DDT to eradicate malaria. This year, I participated in a march from Gulu to Kampala, to remember those who suffered during the long war with Joseph Kony’s murderous Lord’s Resistance Army, to honor my mother, who walked 20 km every day so that her children could eat and live – and to promote health and prosperity for our country and continent.

When will that day come? When will politicians and activists who say their care about the world’s poor stop worrying about global warming, pesticides and GMO crops – and start helping us get the energy, food, medical facilities, technology, jobs and economic growth we need to improve our lives?

Via email




Ban AC for DC

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Everyone talks about global warming, but nobody does anything about it.  At least, the people who talk about saving the planet the most seem to have the biggest carbon footprint.  But I have some ideas for fixing that.

In this, I’m inspired by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Tex., who noticed something peculiar recently. It seems that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who spends a lot of time telling Americans that they need to drive less, fly less, and in general reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, also flies home to see her family in Boston "almost every weekend"; the head of the Clean Air Division, Janet McCabe, does the same, but she heads to Indianapolis.

In air mileage alone, the Daily Caller News Foundation estimates that McCarthy surpasses the carbon footprint of an ordinary American. Smith has introduced a bill that wouldn't target the EPA honchos’ personal travel, though: It provides, simply, that “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay the cost of any officer or employee of the Environmental Protection Agency for official travel by airplane.”

This makes sense to me. We’re constantly told by the administration that “climate change” is a bigger threat than terrorism.  And as even President Obama has noted, there’s a great power in setting an example: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”

Likewise, it’s hard to expect Americans to accept changes to their own lifestyles when the very people who are telling them that it’s a crisis aren’t acting like it’s a crisis. So I have a few suggestions to help bring home the importance of reduced carbon footprints at home and abroad:

Extend Smith’s bill to cover the entire federal government. We have Skype now, and Facetime. There’s no reason to fly to meetings. I’d let the President keep Air Force One for official travel, but subject to a requirement that absolutely no campaign activity or fundraisers take place on any trips in which the president travels officially.

Obama makes a great point about setting the thermostat at 72 degrees. We should ban air conditioning in federal buildings. We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.

In fact, we should probably ban air conditioning in the entire District of Columbia, to ensure that members of Congress, etc. won’t congregate in lobbyists’ air-conditioned offices.

Speaking of which, members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to fly home on the weekends. Not only does this produce halfhearted attention to their jobs — the so-called “Tuesday to Thursday Club” — but, again, it produces too much of a carbon footprint. Even if they pay for the travel out of campaign funds, instead of their own budgets, they need to set an example for the rest of us — and for those skeptical foreigners that Obama mentioned.

But, you know, it’s not just the government. We’ve been told that global warming will cause rising sea levels that will inundate coastal cities and produce devastation.  I think we need to get ahead of that problem by encouraging people to move away from the coasts before things get bad. We can do that by a steadily-increasing tax on coastal property that will discourage people from moving to, or staying in, coastal cities. Sure, this will hurt property values in Boston or New York, but we all have to do our share.

SOURCE





Delusional Al Gore calls himself the ‘Jackie Robinson’ of global warming

Al Gore is the perfect poster boy for the corruption and hypocrisy of contemporary American progressivism.  Reputedly a billionaire from his error-ridden documentary film and books, speaking fees, and Apple directorship, he squanders energy on vast mansions and private jets.  Yet he urges the little people to give up their roomy vehicles and ride trolleys in order to “save the planet.”

As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit often says, we can start believing global warming advocates when they start living as if their C02 emissions mattered as much as ours.

As Ed Lasky points out, Gore has led a charmed life: “Son of a senator, political royalty,” and yet he now makes a completely inappropriate, indeed offensive claim.  Via the Washington Examiner:

As a man on a "great social mission," former Vice President Al Gore says he feels like baseball trailblazer Jackie Robinson, the messenger of integration who was often ridiculed and worse when he hit the bases as the first black to play professional ball.

"There is a time-honored tradition of people who strongly disagree with a message and take it out on the messenger, and opponents of integration had a personal animus for Jackie Robinson. Opponents of all the great social movements would take out after the advocates that were most effective in asking people to change," Gore told his one-time employer, Nashville's Tennessean newspaper.

"As a result, I don't take it personally when the criticism comes at me. I believe so passionately in this mission, if you will. The word 'mission' might sound a little grandiose, but that's kind of what it feels like to me. Honestly, it is a joy and a privilege to have work that justifies pouring every ounce of energy you can pour into it. That is a blessing that is to be cherished," he added in an interview to discuss the 10th anniversary of his movie and book, "An Inconvenient Truth."

If a Republican had compared himself to a black pioneer who overcame racism and poverty, the denunciations would already be deafening. I suspect that the corrupt “civil rights leaders” of the left will sigh and keep their mouths shut because Gore is perceived as an ally, despite the devastation high electricity prices inflict on poor families.

Gore strikes me as a deeply troubled man, rejected by his longtime wife, reportedly acting as a crazed sex poodle with a woman of lower status in a service occupation, and living a life that directly contradicts what he claims are his deep beliefs.

I hope Gore lives long enough for his karma to fully manifest.

SOURCE

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