Green energy is highly dependent on fossil fuels

Alex Epstein views the Michael Moore/Jeff Gibbs and finds it flawed but revealing some truths about the flawed renewable energy scam.

He says:

This week I'm covering "The Five Things Planet of the Humans Gets (Mostly) Right."

The 5 are:

1. Green energy is a high-impact industrial process

1. Green energy has many undesirable environmental impacts

1. Green energy is hugely dependent on fossil fuels

1. "100% renewable" is energy accounting fraud

1. Leading green energy advocates are a terrifying combination of ignorant and dishonest

See Alex's piece - here: https://youtu.be/hTJpclH1izg







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTJpclH1izg&feature=share

Climate News - May 2020

A review and commentary on topical matters concerning the science, economics, and governance associated with climate change developments. Alan Moran 1 May 2020

Developments in the science of climate change A new study by Mathematics and Statistics Professor Caleb Stewart Rossiter shows that global temperatures have increased by 0.5C since 1900 with half of this taking place by 1950 and half 1950-2018.  Under global warming theory, the CO2 effect on temperatures is logarithmic, hence the rate of warming should have been 5.2 times greater in the second period. Melting ice in Scandinavia that has revealed an ancient mountain pass is claimed by some to be evidence of global warming. Perhaps so, but it is also evidence of the temperature being much warmer 1000 years ago.  A CSIRO study showed the fracking of gas structures (in Queensland) has little to no impact on groundwater, waterways, soils or air quality. The renewable lobby claims the report was biased and only “CSIRO-branded”. Fracking remains illegal in most of Australia.

Developments in the politics of climate change Platts projects a 5.5 per cent fall in CO2 emissions this year “the largest in human history”. The first Earth Day was 50 years ago. Its epitaph for a doomed world has since become official UN doctrine, even though, as Ronald Stein has identified, none of the 13 forecasts made have proved to be accurate.  The forecasts include: “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day; and the easily forgettable “If present trends continue the world will be .. eleven degrees colder in the year 2000, about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt Jo Nova addresses climate alarmist filmmaker Michael Moore’s apostasy.  He has discovered renewable energy has real downsides. “Planet of the Humans,” released for Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary, reveals that industrial wind farms, solar farms, biomass, and biofuels are wrecking natural environments.  Though the film adopts a hard green perspective, it argues, “The only reason we’ve been force-fed the story ‘climate change plus renewables equals we’re saved’ is because billionaires, bankers and corporations profit from it.” But Earth Day and coronavirus prompted a new slogan by the tax-funded elites at the UN's World Meteorological Organization who said it was time to flatten the curve on climate change, with its impact on the planet "reaching a crescendo" in the past five years - the hottest on record. Climate Assembly UK claims that the coronavirus lockdown demonstrates how to accommodate to the reduced lifestyle that is required to fully tackle climate change.  President Macron’s citizens convention,  appointed to advise on a 40 per cent emissions cut, bizarrely proposes banning the 5G network, hypermarkets and cars with more emissions than current models. Unfazed by having the world’s highest per capita coronavirus deaths, Spain’s socialist government plans to increase its greenhouse gas reductions to 23 per cent below 1990, compared with its previously planned 21 per cent reduction. This is echoed by a petition signed by 180 EU politicians and activists. And Angela Merkel has proposed that the EU 2030 target emission reduction be increased with the assistance of higher energy taxes and regulations that place emission reductions as a focus of coronavirus recovery programs. Predictably, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, takes a similar view. Following a landslide victory for the Center Left in South Korea, the nation is set to become the first country in East Asia to pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050.  It plans investments in renewable energy, the introduction of a carbon tax, the phase out of coal financing by public institutions. Japan has, however, disappointed activists by not increasing its planned reductions to emissions, with its Environment Minister hinting that the virus could threaten those previously committed.  And Canada’s planned 30 per cent reduction in emissions in 2030 from 2015 levels looks shaky.  In spite of a carbon tax and other measures the reduction 2015-18 was just 0.14 per cent.  Even though coronavirus dominated the news in April of this year, the annual Pew research into US attitudes to climate change found a rising concern, perhaps because it featured so strongly in Democrat candidates platforms.

But, according to Gallup, in April only two percent of Americans now place pollution, environment/climate change as the major issue facing them.

Developments in climate change economics Renewables specialists, Bloomberg NEF, says wind and large scale solar are now the cheapest form of new electricity $US44 and $US50/MWh, respectively.  That would be before firming and other costs which double the headline costs.  The Chinese were unimpressed, having approved six new coal power stations in the March quarter of 2020, with a capacity of 10 Megawatts – exceeding that in the whole of 2019 and more than one-third of total Australian coal generation capacity.  A study of the UK shifting to a full renewable system puts the cost at £250 billion, 11 per cent of GDP. That is 12 times the cost of using gas and three times that of nuclear. Rupert Darwall demonstrates that persistence with renewable subsidies will disastrously retard economic recovery from the coronavirus slump, a position I advised here, here and here.

Permanent teenager Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez tweeted that the collapse of oil prices was great news for renewables but swiftly deleted the tweet – presumably, an adult handler pointed out that the outcome is a collapse of demand for renewables. Australia, having appointed a renewable energy lobbyist to administer its selective handouts of energy subsidies, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, finds him urging use of the coronavirus tragedy as a vehicle to getting more funding for renewables.

His views are supported by the head of the Business Council who opined, “Every dollar we invest in energy, should be a dollar towards a lower carbon economy”. As a result of collapsing demand, the European carbon market (i.e. the carbon tax)  now trades at €16-18 per tonne, roughly two thirds of its 2019 high of €29 per tonne.

Lower demand from the crisis has contributed to Australian electricity spot prices falling to levels last seen in 2015, prior to the renewable subsidies forcing declining of coal use. Unfortunately, this can remain only with sustained recession suppressing demand and even then, the low prices would cause a major coal generator to close, triggering a price surge.

By extrapolating from the costs incurred by Australia’s market operator in ensuring supply when wind-dependent South Australia was isolated from inter-state coal generators, one estimate put the back-up costs of replacing coal by wind at $23 billion (equivalent to the aggregate costs of the nation’s electricity supply). The market operator released a plan that shows the system could accommodate “instantaneous penetration” of 50 per cent wind and solar; tthe operator says this could reach 75 per cent at a cost that is not identified.  Following BP’s lead, Shell has announced that it hopes to achieve “net zero” emissions by mid-century.  As one disappointed commentator opined, its statement does not announce its cessation of oil production; instead Shell hopes to meet the goal by using the unworkable carbon capture and storage technique to its mining emissions and joining others in covering the planet with trees.

Whimsy The US dodged a bullet in not nominating Pete Buttigieg for President - he announced coronavaris is due to mankind causing climate change.  The Pope, approaching senility and deprived of sensible advice from his finest Cardinal, George Pell, has made a similar claim. In an ‘every-silver-lining-must-have-its-cloud’ analysis, the Socialist Worker and Oxfam blame climate change in causing more wet weather thereby bringing greater locust swarms in East Africa to feed on the plentiful vegetation growth. And one amply funded researcher claims global warming will slow down hurricanes; apparently that is a Bad Thing.

In April I published the following climate related articles: ScoMo’s gone as crazy as Kev, but we can still save the economy The Spectator, 2 April 2020 Does the Morrison government have the skills to lead us out of the recession it has created? The Spectator, 16 April 2020 Green Snouts Sniff a COVID Windfall Quadrant Online, 16 April 2020 Scott, Josh and Mathias: here’s how you get us out of this mess The Spectator, 22 April 2020 The coronavirus can't stop the windpower blowhards, let alone economic reality The Spectator, 30 April 2020

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