Friday, April 21, 2023
'Total Madness': Germany Shuts Country's Remaining Nuclear Power Plants
Amid an ongoing energy crisis, Germany closed its final three nuclear power plants in a move critics say is “total madness.”
The Saturday closure of Emsland, Neckarwestheim II, and Isar II, planned over a decade ago as part of the country’s transition to more renewable energy, has been sharply criticized.
As energy prices spiked last year due to the war in Ukraine, some members of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government got cold feet about closing the nuclear plants as planned on 31 December 2022.
In a compromise, Mr Scholz agreed to a one-time extension of the deadline, but insisted that the final countdown would happen on 15 April.
Bavaria's conservative governor, Markus Soeder, who backed the original deadline set in 2011 when Angela Merkel was Germany's chancellor, this week called the shutdown "an absolute mistaken decision".
He said: "While many countries in the world are even expanding nuclear power, Germany is doing the opposite. "We need every possible form of energy. Otherwise, we risk higher electricity prices and businesses moving away."
Advocates of nuclear power worldwide have criticised the German shutdown, aware that the action by Europe's biggest economy could deal a blow to a technology they tout as a clean and reliable alternative to fossil fuels.
The German government has acknowledged that, in the short term, the country will have to rely more heavily on polluting coal and natural gas to meet its energy needs, even as it takes steps to massively ramp up electricity production from solar and wind. (Sky News)
Tesla founder Elon Musk called the decision "total madness" and a major "national security risk," but psychologist Jordan Peterson said "crazy is the point."
But crazy is the point. Anti-nuclear is not a pro-environment stance; it is an anti-human, anti-industrial stance. So crazy is a feature not a bug.
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GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA
Three articles below
Govt to spend $150 million on reef water quality woes
Farm and other runoff affects only close-in reefs. The Barrier reef is not affected
The federal government will spend $150 million on a program to boost water quality on the Great Barrier Reef after a UN mission said the site should be listed as in danger.
The program will repair land in catchments that are dumping large amounts of fine sediment into rivers discharging water to the reef, smothering coral, killing seagrass and increasing pollution loads.
It’s part of a $1.2 billion spend on reef health previously announced by the Albanese government, which has promised to fight an in-danger listing for the site.
The recommendation to list the reef as a World Heritage site in danger came late last year. It was based on what UN experts saw when they visited Australia about a year ago, when the Morrison government was still in power.
The UN report took Australia to task for not doing enough to tackle the key threats of climate change, poor water quality and harmful fishing activities.
In announcing the program on Thursday, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the $150 million would fund work including fencing, revegetation, grazing management of cattle, and structural works to stabilise gullies and riverbanks.
“Sediment can coat seagrass beds, it can kill off seagrass, it can affect the health and even be responsible for the loss of animals and plants that make our reef special,” Ms Plibersek told reporters in Townsville.
“By dealing with sediment we are of course restoring the riverbanks and creek banks that’s good for the land, and we are protecting the reef from one of the greatest threats identified for the future of the reef.”
She said catchments along Queensland’s coastline will be targeted, with funding allocated pending the complexity of each individual matter.
Traditional owners and Indigenous groups will help identify priority projects.
“What we’d like to see is land care organisations, traditional owner groups and others come forward with proposals that will make a significant difference to the quality of the water flowing into the reef,” Ms Plibersek added.
The program will be carried out in collaboration with the Queensland government, which is spending $75 million on its own water quality program.
Special envoy to the Great Barrier Reef, Sentator Nita Green, said the funding is pivotal in rectifying inaction over the last decade.
“We are taking the divisiveness and the debate out of this conversation…to make sure that we can invest in our land holders, in our farmers and our traditional owners to make such a big difference to the Great Barrier Reef for generations to come.”
In its report last year, the UN mission said Australia’s efforts were not sufficient to protect the reef’s outstanding universal values.
It found management frameworks, strategies and plans had not been fully implemented, particularly in relation to water quality and fishing.
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Beetaloo Basin cattle company loses Supreme Court bid to stop fracking exploration
A gas company will be able to continue exploration in the Beetaloo Basin after a cattle company's appeal to stop the activity was dismissed by the Northern Territory Supreme Court.
Rallen Australia, owned by the Langenhoven-Ravazotti family, had sought to overturn a February 2022 NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision that allowed Tamboran Resources' subsidiary Sweetpea Petroleum to come onto Tanumbirini Station to explore for gas.
Justice Peter Barr dismissed all eight grounds of appeal that Rallen's lawyers had argued.
The case was seen as a precedent for legal interactions between pastoralists and gas companies because it was the first to test mandatory land access laws introduced in the NT in 2021.
Tamboran chief executive and managing director Joel Riddle said in a statement that he was "pleased with the NT Supreme Court's ruling" and was looking forward "to working closely with all our stakeholders in progressing the development of the Beetaloo Basin in a safe and responsible manner".
"As the first challenge of the NT government's changes to the legislation and regulations permitting access for exploration purposes, the decision sets an important precedent for future operations across the Beetaloo Basin," he said.
"We are pleased to lead the way by securing this important precedent and ensure that the benefits of the decision will extend to many stakeholders."
Rallen has fiercely opposed any gas exploration on its properties and director Pierre Langenhoven previously declared the pastoral and gas industry "cannot coexist".
Mr Langenhoven said Rallen would "consider this decision and our appeal options" for the Supreme Court decision.
"We are disappointed in the decision, as the land access agreement provides minimum protections to pastoralists and puts all the risk and all the cost onto the pastoralist," he said in a statement.
"This sadly sets a precedent for poor quality and punitive agreements moving forward."
Since then, Mr Langenhoven said he felt like he had "lost control" of the part of Tanumbirini within Sweetpea's permit area. "I cannot protect the station and my cattle from the impacts of fracking, all I can do is monitor and seek compensation after the damage is done," he said.
Rallen Australia will receive a minimum of $15,000 compensation per gas well drilled on the property as a part of its land access agreement with Sweetpea.
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Electric dreams still have long way to run
The government’s electric vehicle and lower emissions strategy confirms a golden rule of the net-zero transition that unfailingly hits the poor and favours the rich.
That rule is to make existing technologies more expensive to make the ones favoured by advocates appear reasonable by comparison. This is true for electricity, where increasingly the cost is being hidden in consolidated revenue through cascading subsidy payments both to producers and, increasingly, end users.
The dream of a world in which motorists get about in electric-powered cars confirms the trend.
Ideally, a single price on greenhouse gas emissions would remove the need for ad hoc policies. But in the absence of this we are left with state, local and federal schemes, some of which equate to a carbon price of thousands of dollars per tonne.
Electric vehicle schemes are at the top of the tree in terms of cost per tonne but nowhere near enough to satisfy the green groups who think more should be done to promote their use.
The government’s latest policy is in addition to generous tax breaks and exemptions. Chris Bowen has set a target for six outcomes: a greater choice of EVs, a reduction in transport emissions, more charging stations, an increase in domestic manufacturing and recycling with the ultimate goal to make it cheaper for people to run their vehicles.
For this to happen, however, existing technologies will inevitably become more expensive, to compensate.
The plan to introduce a fuel efficiency standard follows what is happening in other parts of the world. The US has just introduced a scheme calibrated ultimately to make EVs the only reasonable choice to make on financial grounds.
The EPA is using its authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate vehicle emissions with the aim of making EVs account for about two-thirds of car sales in 2032, up from 6 per cent last year.
The EPA justifies its intervention, which will increase costs, because of subsidies that are available under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
There are no details yet on where the government’s new policy will land but EV lobby groups are telling Bowen to go hard.
Attempts to tighten emission laws have a troubled history in Australia. This is because car makers will be forced to increase the cost of the cars people want to buy to subsidise the ones they presently can’t afford or don’t want to drive. The emissions target is for the overall fleet sold so, in effect, internal combustion car buyers will be forced to subsidise those who want to drive EVs.
The hope is that car makers will make more less expensive EV models available. But much of the cost of EVs is in the battery, which are getting more expensive.
Environmentally, charging an EV today still requires plenty of coal-fired power.
There is no doubt the driving world is changing. The big selling point for emissions standards is that without new rules Australia risks becoming a dumping ground for less efficient models the rest of the world won’t take. Everybody wants to breathe fresh air.
But it is all part of a transport vehicle transition with an as yet unknown destination. Europe has pulled back from an outright ban on internal combustion engines in favour of low-emissions fuels. The US is under pressure to do the same. The best that can be said is an emissions standard leaves the door open for new technologies.
This is a journey that still has a long way yet to run.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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