German wind energy market “threatening to implode”

German wind farm [image credit: Dirk Ingo Franke / Wikipedia]

If the flood of subsidies looks like turning to a trickle, the backers of renewables soon get cold feet – in Germany at least, as Pierre Gosselin explains (via GWPF).

While Germany likes to fancy itself as being among the “global leaders” in tackling climate change by expanding green energies, the country has in fact taken very little action recently to back up the appearances.

If anything, Germany is more in the green energy retreat mode. There are good reasons for this.

German flagship business daily “Handelsblatt” reported yesterday how Germany’s wind energy market is now “threatening to implode” and as a result “thousands of jobs are at risk”.

Biomass Now A Greater Source Of Pollution Than Cars

.
.
Nobody in power wants to face the facts and backtrack, even though the unpleasant reality is staring them in the face.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Conrad Jones

https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat11/1708081027_170807_AQEG_Biomass_report.pdf

Earlier this year, DEFRA published a report by the Air Quality Expert Group into the impacts of biomass on air quality. The results make for startling reading.

Among the findings are:

View original post 353 more words

The Scottish wind-power racket

21st Century Scottish landscape

John Constable and Matt Ridley at Capx deliver the lowdown on how Scotland gets UK taxpayers to pay for its windfarms, even when there’s no wind – or too much wind.

Imagine a sausage factory – the luckiest, most profitable sausage factory in the world. Its machines crank out their sausages, and lorries carry them to supermarkets. So far, so normal.

But this particular factory makes as many sausages as the management and staff choose. If they feel like taking the day off, the lorries and shelves stay empty. If they want to go a bit wild, they sometimes make so many sausages that there aren’t enough lorries to take them away. Or they carry on cranking out sausages even if the shelves are already full.

And here’s the really amazing thing: even when the lorries can’t cope or there is no demand for sausages, the factory gets paid.

Monckton: Green policy kills jobs and causes energy poverty

Visit Cartoonsbyjosh.com

Excerpt from an open letter to the head of MIT:

Professor Reif of MIT says, “In 2016 alone, solar industry employment grew by 25 percent, while wind jobs grew 32%.” These numbers are highly misleading. In fact, they underscore how deficient these energy sources are as job creators.

Growing jobs by subsidy is easy, provided that one cares nothing for the far greater number of jobs destroyed by the additional taxation, energy price hikes or public borrowing necessary to pay for the subsidy. Several studieshave shown that the creation of one “green” job results in the loss of two to four jobs elsewhere in the economy. In Spain the estimated ratio was two jobs lost for each one created by renewable energy, prompting the government to finally end most renewable subsidies.

And yet, despite all those subsidies, wind and solar power generation expensively and unreliably account for 5.6% and 0.9% of total U.S. electricity production, respectively. On its own, electricity provides only a small fraction of total energy consumption, including transportation, industrial processes, heating and electricity generation, so these numbers actually exaggerate the contribution of wind and solar facilities to overall energy consumption.

Tony Thomas: The Trump Doctrine on Energy

If you go by the mainstream media’s lockstep ‘coverage’ of the US president’s first six months, he is no more nor less than a tweeting buffoon. A comforting narrative for cant-addicted newsroom hacks and groupthinkers, it handily avoids any and all mooting of Australia’s need to follow his lead.

Our federal and state politicians scuttle about looking for innovative new ways to strangle the Australian energy sector. But across the Pacific, America is unleashing a world-changing energy revolution. The world’s energy fundamentals are in transition. Donald Trump is liberating American coal, gas, oil and nuclear industries from eight years of Obama’s harassment and restrictions.

The consequences for us as a player in energy–export markets are dire. In an officially supportive environment, Australian energy could hold its share – intrinsically, it has  global competitiveness. But politics here involves ‘renewables’ targets and other sacrifices to please the climate gods,  bans  such as Victoria’s on normal and fracked gas exploration, official and green lawfare against every new energy project (think Adani), impromptu Turnbull restrictions on LNG exports, Sargasso seas of red tape, and  on-going fatwas against nuclear proposals.

Oklahoma’s Former Governor: Subsidised Wind Power a Multi-Billion Dollar Mistake

.
.
Governor on the wind power fiasco: ‘Decisions made now will affect, and perhaps destroy, our state government financially over the next 14 years.’

You couldn’t make it up.

STOP THESE THINGS

As Mark Twain put it: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” And, even when the dupe accepts his folly, sorry seems to be the hardest word.

Frank Keating was governor of Oklahoma 1995-2003 and is responsible for its wind power calamity, as he calls it.

Uncharacteristically of a modern politician, Keating taps into that fast disappearing virtue – grace – not only admitting that he was fooled, but sincerely apologising for the harm caused to Okies and their State.

Frank Keating: I signed wind industry tax breaks, and I was wrong
Tulsa World
Frank Keating
25 February 2017

In 2001, when I served as governor of Oklahoma, I signed legislation creating the Zero Emissions Tax Credit for industrial wind energy. The tax credit was designed to give a jump-start to a wind industry in its infancy in Oklahoma at the time. It was…

View original post 467 more words

The Road to Grenfell Hell was clad with Green Intentions

Report written by commenter ‘stickywicket’ at Spiked online

Everyone has been shocked to the core by the images of the inferno that engulfed the Grenfell Tower, killing 79 people. Most were horrified by the suggestion in the Times that the cause of the fire might have been penny-pinching on the type of cladding used in the recent refurbishment of the building. It seems unbelievable that they didn’t spend an extra £5,000 for fire resistant cladding.

This is probably not the whole story. The revelation that a further 70+ tower blocks have failed fire safety tests tells us that there is an endemic problem. We don’t know the precise reasons for the fire yet, but we should certainly look at the influence of slavish devotion to green regulations.

Study: Tesla car battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of driving on petrol

Tesla Model S – this is the only way you’ll keep warm in one during winter.

 

From NyTeknik:

Huge hopes tied to electric cars as the solution to automotive climate problem. But the electric car batteries are eco-villains in the production. Several tons of carbon dioxide has been placed, even before the batteries leave the factory.

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency investigated litiumjonbatteriers climate impact from a life cycle perspective. There are batteries designed for electric vehicles included in the study. The two authors Lisbeth Dahllöf and Mia Romare has done a meta-study that is reviewed and compiled existing studies.

The report shows that the battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity in the battery generated emissions of 150 to 200 kilos of carbon dioxide already in the factory. The researchers did not study individual bilmärkens batteries, how these produced or the electricity mix they use. But if we understand the great importance of play battery take an example: Two common electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, the batteries about 30 kWh and 100 kWh.

Marko, Soon et al: To Put America First Is to Put Our Planet’s Climate First

The article below was contributed by Istvan Marko, J. Scott Armstrong, William M. Briggs, Kesten Green, Hermann Harde, David R. Legates, Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, and Willie Soon.

On June 2, 2017, in a Letter regarding US withdrawal from Paris climate agreement addressed to the MIT community, Professor Rafael Reif, president of MIT, criticized President Trump’s decision to exit the Paris Climate Accords. In this refutation, we propose to clarify the scientific understanding of the Earth’s climate and to dispel the expensively fostered popular delusion that man-made global warming will be dangerous and that, therefore, the Paris Agreement would be beneficial.

Professor Reif wrote, “Yesterday, the White House took the position that the Paris climate agreement – a landmark effort to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions – was a bad deal for America.”

There is no science unambiguously establishing that CO₂ is the chief cause of the warming observed since the end of the Little Ice Age. The opposite has been repeatedly demonstrated. Ice cores have revealed that changes in CO₂ concentration follow, rather than precede, changes in temperature. During the last deglaciation, the latest high-resolution records show atmospheric CO₂ lagging temperature by 50 to 500 years. Our enterprises and industries return to the air some of the CO₂ that was formerly present there, and some warming may be expected. That warming will be small and beneficial.

Viv Forbes: Signs of Sanity shock the Green World with US #Clexit

Coming soon after the UK Brexit which rejected the EU green octopus, the US Clexit will encourage Clexit efforts in places like central Europe, Canada and even in the decaying green swamp-lands in Germany and France. UK may even get the courage to “cut the green crap”.

This US Clexit follows the first step taken in 2010 when the canny Japanese refused to extend the Kyoto Protocol. And then Tony Abbott killed off Australia’s Carbon Tax.

The final step will be UN-CLEXIT – withdrawal from all UN climate agreements and obligations, and defunding the government climate “research” and propaganda industry.

Clexit is Winning: East European states fight back against Paris Accord

H/T to GWPF for the heads-up on this story from Climate Change News by Arthur Neslen in Brussels

East European EU states are mounting a behind-the-scenes revolt against the Paris Agreement, blocking key measures needed to deliver the pledge that they signed up to 18 months ago.

Under the climate accord, Europe promised to shave 40% off its emissions by 2030, mostly by revising existing climate laws on renewables, energy efficiency and its flagship Emissions Trading System (ETS).

But documents seen by Climate Home show that Visegrad countries are trying to gut, block or water down all of these efforts, in a rearguard manoeuvre that mirrors president Donald Trump’s rollback of climate policy in Washington.

Energy efficiency is supposed to make up around half of Europe’s emissions reductions by 2030, but a Czech proposal could cut energy saving obligations from a headline 1.5% a year figure to just 0.35% in practice.

Viv Forbes: Kill the Paris Climate Treaty and rip out its roots

By Viv Forbes,
Secretary of the Clexit Coalition

The Clexit Coalition today called on President Trump to keep his election promise to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty and stop US payments to all UN global warming programs.

The Clexit (ClimateExit) Coalition, comprising over 175 representatives from 25 countries, aims to prevent ratification or local enforcement of the UN Paris climate treaty.
See: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf

The Secretary of Clexit, Mr Viv Forbes of Australia, said that all nations will suffer from the destructive energy policies being promoted in the UN’s war on cheap, reliable hydro-carbon fuels and the backbone industries that rely on them – mining and smelting, farming, fishing, forestry, processing and manufacturing.

He was supported by Professor Will Happer, Professor of Physics at Princeton University who said today:
“Americans never felt compelled to sign up to international folly in the past. I hope the United States once again shows the common sense of its people and walks away from the Paris Agreement.”

Cartoon of the day: Josh on Wind energy

Labour party energy/climate policy revealed in leaked manifesto

_____Image Credit: Matt.______

The UK Labour party has a leak, and its election manifesto has escaped into the wild. Here’s what it says about energy and climate.

Sustainable Energy

Labour’s energy policy is built on three simple principles:

• To ensure security of energy supply and ‘keep the lights on’

• To ensure energy costs are affordable for consumers and businesses

• To ensure we meet our climate change targets and transition to a low carbon economy

The UK energy system is outdated, expensive and polluting. Privatisation has failed to deliver an energy system that delivers for people, businesses or our environment.

One-in-ten households are in fuel poverty, yet according to the Competition Markets Authority customers are overcharged an enormous £2 billion every year.

Labour understands that many people don’t have time to shop around, they just want reliable and affordable energy. So the next Labour Government will:

Sun sets on Europe’s biggest solar company

H/T GWPF

Is solar power in terminal decline in Europe, as subsidies and public enthusiasm dwindle?

Germany’s SolarWorld, once Europe’s biggest solar power equipment group, said on Wednesday it would file for insolvency, overwhelmed by Chinese rivals who had long been a thorn in the side of founder and CEO Frank Asbeck, once known as “the Sun King”.

SolarWorld was one of the few German solar power companies to survive a major crisis at the turn of the decade, caused by a glut in production of panels that led prices to fall and peers to collapse, including Q-Cells, Solon and Conergy.

James Delingpole: An energy policy for Theresa May

Future UK energy policy under the green tories

As a followup to the commonsense stuff UKIP’s Roger Helmer suggested yesterday, here’s James Delingpole’s take on what is likely to happen. Reposted from Breitbart

Suppose you were a Conservative leader hoping to win a stonking majority in your general election campaign, which of these two manifesto propositions do you think would win the most votes?
a) Our energy policy will remain in the clutches of a cabal of vested interests – rent-seeking, crony capitalist shysters; green ideologues with junk-science degrees in Gaia Studies from the University of East Anglia; eco-fascist lobby groups and NGOs; compromised scientists with their snouts in the trough; goose-stepping technocrats; really, really, really dim MPs – ensuring that the landscape continues to be blighted by an ever-greater-proliferation of shimmery solar panels and ginormous bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes.

We remain committed to the Climate Change Act which will cost the UK economy over £300 billion by 2030, costing each household £875 per annum; and also to the Levy Control Framework (LCF) which, combined with carbon taxes, cost the UK £9 billion in 2016 alone. Then we’ll pretend it’s the fault of the greedy energy companies by hammering them with a price cap – thus driving their share prices down (bad luck pensions and investors!), reducing competition and innovation, and signalling that we intend to be a meddling, interventionist government which has no truck with free market principles.

At last: Britain preparing to scrap EU renewables targets after Brexit

Enthusiasm fading for renewables targets?

This could put a bit of sanity back into UK electricity generation policy, if it happens.

Britain is preparing to scrap EU green energy targets which will add more than £100 to the average energy bill as part of a bonfire of red tape after Brexit, says the GWPF.
 
Government sources told The Daily Telegraph that the target, under the EU Renewable Energy Directive, is likely to be scrapped after Brexit.

The UK is currently committed to getting 15 per cent of all energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020. Ministers have long been critical of the targets because they exclude nuclear power, carbon capture or gains from energy efficiency.

The UK is currently on course to miss the target and incur millions of pounds in fines from the European Union.

The Great Folly Of Our Age–Booker

.
.
Booker describes how fortunes are being wasted on so-called ‘green’ schemes, while achieving little except loss of reliability in the national electricity supply.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4392220/Green-initiatives-disasters-says-Christopher-Booker.html

Booker with a hard hitting piece about the Climate Change Act in the Mail:

What a parable for our times the great diesel scandal has been, as councils vie to see which can devise the heaviest taxes on nearly half the cars in Britain because they are powered by nasty, polluting diesel.

This week, it was announced many diesel drivers will soon have to pay fully £24 a day to drive into Central London, while 35 towns across the country are thinking of following suit. Already some councils charge up to £90 more for a permit to park a diesel car.

The roots of this debacle go back to the heyday of Tony Blair’s government, when his chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, became obsessed with the need to fight global warming.

Although he was an expert in ‘surface chemistry’ — roughly speaking, the study…

View original post 2,496 more words

Artificial North Sea island: Danish, Dutch and German firms launch bid to make ‘science fiction’ plan a reality

Artist’s impression of Dogger Bank island [credit: The Independent]

The construction agreement is planned to be signed on 23 March 2017, reports The Independent.

A vast artificial island is to be built at Dogger Bank in the North Sea, complete with a harbour, airstrip and homes, to help provide a vast new supply of renewable energy, under plans drawn up by two companies with the blessing of the European Union.

The North Sea Wind Power Hub would act as a hub for offshore wind turbines and a new place to put solar panels, according to the German and Dutch arms of electricity firm TenneT and Danish company Energinet. The firms will sign a deal creating a consortium to develop the plan further in Brussels on 23 March in the presence of European Energy Union Commissioner, Maos Sefcovic.

Torben Glar Nielsen, Energinet’s Danish technical director, said: “Maybe it sounds a bit crazy and science fiction-like, but an island on Dogger Bank could make the wind power of the future a lot cheaper and more effective.”

Planning permission for Scottish wind farm refused due to ‘significant’ visual harm

Windfarm objection in Galloway

Galloway has some great landscapes and doesn’t need to be disfigured any further by such intrusive monstrosities.

A Scottish government reporter has refused planning permission for a 12-turbine wind farm in Galloway, reports BBC News. He ruled the Shennanton project north of Kirkcowan would have a “significant adverse impact” on the landscape.

Brookfield Renewable had appealed over Dumfries and Galloway Council’s failure to determine its application. The reporter said the significant local support and boost for renewable energy targets did not outweigh the harm to the character of the area.