AEF Chair Dr Jennifer Marohasy said there is a strong need for the petition because none of the major political parties are offering an alternative to carbon trading.

“To quote John from Cheltenham, Victoria, one of the early signatories, ‘At last a chance to protest, a chance to be heard, a chance for the millions of Australians who have not fallen for this propaganda to speak out’.”

Dr Marohasy said that many Australians oppose this scheme because they know it will cost them and their families dearly, sending Australian industries and Australian jobs overseas. It is flawed and won’t have a measurable impact on CO2 levels or global temperature.

“As Chris from Roma in Queensland says, it is ‘Unnecessary and impotent’.

“That’s why even before the petition is launched we have almost 1,000 signatures.”

Dr Marohasy said there were clear themes that emerged from comments left on the petition, and rather than speak for the signatories, they should speak for themselves.

Decimate the economy

“This is an unnecessary cost to the Australian taxpayer and will cost jobs and will make no difference at all to the world’s climate.” Kenneth, Pambula Beach, NSW

Can’t go it alone

“What is the point of signing onto a scheme when the biggest emitters on Earth are not. We will ruin our economy and employment for zero gain.” Paul, Dallas, Victoria.

Complicated financial engineering

“This scheme has failed overseas and will only ensure future debt to our descendents. It has created an industry which now feeds on this to survive, an industry that produces nothing of value, except to those employed by it.” Christine, West Coburg, Victoria.

Hasn’t worked anywhere else

“Emissions trading is sheer madness –easily manipulated – that hasn’t worked anywhere to lower CO2 emissions. It isn’t necessary and would destroy our economy and enviable lifestyle.” Valerie, Portland, Victoria.

Can’t work without alternate energy sources

“Invest in technologies, do not tax in the hope that something will happen.” Brian, Para Vista, South Australia

Takes resources away from more pressing problems

“I am extremely worried about environmental problems of our country; imagine if we spent all the money allocated to greenhouse gas reduction on real environmental problems we could make a REAL difference.” Ben, Dubbo, New South Wales

Rests on shaky science

“We should not be carried away by a well meaning but possibly flawed theory on a guilt trip to save the planet.” Joan, Toowong, Queensland.

The last word

“Bad policy and bad science do not cancel out, you know.” David, Petersham, New South Wales.

**************************

The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit, membership-based environment organisation having no political affiliation. The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians. Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. We accept that environmental protection and sustainable resource use are generally compatible. For more information about the AEF visit www.aefweb.info .

To sign the petition visit the AEF campaign website at www.listentous.org.au .

Too good to be true? Yes, and in fact it is a lot worse, according to Peter Glover and Michael Economides writing in the Energy Tribune.  Their article continues:

Wind has been the cornerstone of almost all environmentalist and social engineering proclamations for more than three decades and has accelerated to a crescendo the last few years in both the United States and the European Union.

But Europe, getting a head start, has had to cope with the reality borne by experience and it is a pretty ugly picture.

Independent reports have consistently revealed an industry plagued by high construction and maintenance costs, highly volatile reliability and a voracious appetite for taxpayer subsidies. Such is the economic strain on taxpayer funds being poured into wind power by Europe’s early pioneers — Denmark, Germany and Spain – that all have recently been forced to scale back their investments.

As a result this summer, the U.K., under pressure to meet an ambitious E.U. climate target of 20 percent carbon dioxide cuts by 2020, assumed the mantle of world leader in wind power production. It did so as a direct consequence of the U.K. Government’s Renewables Obligations Certificate, a financial incentive scheme for power companies to build wind farms. Thus the U.K.’s wind operation provides the ideal case study — and one that provides the most complete conclusions.

The U.K. has all the natural advantages. It is the windiest country in Europe. It has one of the continent’s longest coastlines for the more productive (and less obtrusive) offshore farms. It has a long-established national power grid. In short, if wind power is less than successful in the U.K., its success is not guaranteed anywhere.

But wind infrastructure has come at a steep price. In fiscal year 2007-08 U.K. electricity customers were forced to pay a total of over $1 billion to the owners of wind turbines. That figure is due to rise to over $6 billion a year by 2020 given the government’s unprecedented plan to build a nationwide infrastructure with some 25 gigawatts of wind capacity, in a bid to shift away from fossil fuel use.

Ofgem, which regulates the U.K.’s electricity and gas markets, has already expressed its concern at the burgeoning tab being picked up by the British taxpayer which, they claim, is “grossly distorting the market” while hiding the real cost of wind power. In the past year alone, prices for electricity and natural gas in the U.K. have risen twice as fast as the European Union average according to figures released in November by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.’s energy needs.

In May 2008, a report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates warned that an over-reliance on offshore wind farms to meet European renewable energy targets would further create supply problems and drive up investor costs. No taxpayer respite there. But worse news was to come.

In June, the most in-depth independent assessment yet of Britain’s expanding wind turbine industry was published. In the journal Energy Policy gas turbine expert Jim Oswald and his co-authors, came up with a series of damning conclusions: not only is wind power far more expensive and unreliable than previously thought, it cannot avoid using high levels of natural gas, which not only it will increase costs but in turn will mean far less of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions than has been claimed.

Oswald’s report highlights the key issue of load factor, the actual power generated compared to the theoretical maximum, and how critical it is to the viability of the wind power industry. In 2006, according to U.K. government statistics, the average load factor for wind turbines across the U.K. was 27.4 percent. Thus a typical 2 megawatt turbine actually produced only 0.54 MW of power on an average day. The worst performing U.K. turbine had a load factor of just 7 percent. These figures reflect a poor return on investment. But this poor return is often obscured by the subsidy system that allows turbine operators and supporters to claim they can make a profit even when turbines operate at a very low load factors. So what’s the bottom line? British consumers are paying twice over for their electricity, funding its means of production and paying for its use as end users.

Variability is one of the chief criticisms levelled at wind power. When the wind drops or blows too hard, turbines stop spinning and you get no power. Wind turbine advocates have claimed that this can be avoided by the geographical spread of wind farms, perhaps by creating an international “supergrid.” But, as Oswald’s report makes clear, calm conditions not only prevail on a fairly regular basis, they often extend across the country with the same conditions being experienced as far away as France and Germany. Worse still, says Oswald, long periods of calm over recent decades occurred in the dead of winter when electricity demand is highest.

Periods of low wind means a need for pumped storage and essential back-up facilities. Oswald told The Register online news service that a realistically feasible U.K. pumped-storage base would only cope with one or two days of low winds at best. As regards back-up facilities, Oswald states the only feasible systems for the planned 25 gigawatt wind system would be one that relied equally on old-style natural gas turbines. As Oswald says however, the expense of a threefold wind, pump storage and gas turbine back-up solution “would be ridiculous.”

The problems don’t end there. The British report highlights what more and more wind farms would mean when it came to installing gas turbine back-ups. “Electricity operators will respond by installing lower-cost plant ($/kW) as high capital plant is not justified under low utilisation regimes.”

But cheap gas turbines are far less efficient than big, properly sized base-load turbines and will not be as resilient in coping with the heavy load cycling they would experience. Cheaper, less resilient plants will mean high maintenance costs and spare back-up gas turbines to replace broken ones that would suffer regular thermal stress cracking. And of course, the increasing use of gas for the turbines would have a detrimental effect on reducing carbon dioxide emission – always one of the chief factors behind the wind revolution.

Oswald’s report concludes also that the all this wear and tear will further stress the gas pipeline network and gas storage system. “High-efficiency base load plant is not designed or developed for load cycling,” says Oswald. Critically, most of the issues raised in the independent report have not been factored into the cost of wind calculations. With typical British understatement, Oswald concludes that claims for wind power are “unduly optimistic.”

We think they’ve been blown away.

Republished from the Energy Tribune with permission from Peter Glover. 

The picture was taken near Port Lincoln, South Australia, by Jennifer Marohasy in May 2007.

I hope you all had the opportunity to watch Seed Hunter last week, if not the documentary is now able to be downloaded online at: http://seedhunter.com/community.html?showresults=1.    

Kind regards,

Nadja  

You may be interested in a book I found titled “The Deniers” by Lawrence Solomon.

Theme is “The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.  And those who are too fearful to do so.

I have found this book to be extremely informative with regarding the real story behind climate change and the agenda of the IPCC.

Kind Regards,

Frank

Waterfind has today publically released our 2007-08 Annual Water Market Report. As a part of Waterfind’s dedication to providing an integrated water brokerage service, we strive to provide our clients with the most up to date and comprehensive information about the Australian water market. 

The report provides information on the state of our National water resources, major policy announcements and trading activity for the 2007-08 irrigation season, and provides some analysis on how these factors impacted the water market throughout the season. 

 Key findings of the report include: 

1.  Major northern water storages above the NSW–QLD border line were not adversely affected by the current drought conditions being experienced in Australia, holding on average 90% of their capacity compared to 20% on average for major southern storages. 

2.  The largest volume of water stored in Australia was in Lake Argyle in Western Australia, with over 10 million ML of actual water storage, more than the other 9 largest water storages in Australia combined. 

3.  The price of water in Australia’s largest water markets in the Southern Murray Darling regions experienced extreme volatility during the 07-08 season, peaking at $1200 per ML in November 2007 only to drop to below $300 per ML in February 2008.  This was influenced by water resource availability and major policy/allocation announcements during the season.

4.  Early observations indicate that water market activity in the 2008-09 season has been lower than in 2007-08, with prices being recorded at up to 50% less than the same period last year.  This has been attributed to grower concerns about last season’s record high prices and current uncertainty of water resource availability. 

To view the full 2007-08 Annual Water Market Report, visit www.waterfind.com.au/water-report-signup.html.

Regards, 

Waterfind Pty Ltd
NATIONAL WATER BROKERS

Oklahoma Senator and Republican Jim Inhofe, the only outspoken climate change sceptic in Washington, won a third term.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Facts, Uncertainties and Myths

Thursday November 20th 2008 at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam

The title already suggests that everybody talks about climate change, but what are the facts? What are the scientific uncertainties and what is nonsense? Should we be concerned like the “climate alarmists”, or can we ignore the problems like many “climate sceptics” seem to be doing? The conference organisers believe that we should do none of that, but we ought to think about it. At this conference, the question of climate change will be tackled from various scientific disciplines. The issues will be considered climatologically, geologically, biologically astronomically and even philosophically. New facts, new interpretations and new insight will be presented.

The subject is hot. The speakers are top-class in their discipline and will present their own research results. The location is first-class and the admission fee is low. The discussions will be lively and enlightening. With great confidence in the success, I invite you to be present at this conference. All information can be found at http://www.kngmg.nl., where you can also register. The flyer can be downloaded at: flyer

See you on November 20th,

Peter de Ruiter, KNGMG President

We are planning to publish a series of papers looking at the economics, politics and impacts of climate change. The CSCCC will release these papers individually throughout 2009, and also use them as basis to write a second Civil Society Report in the lead up to the important United Nations COP-15 (taking place in Copenhagen in December 2009). The call for papers is open to everyone (of course, not all papers will be accepted) so please send the call for papers below to anybody you think might be interested.

The more people receive this call for papers, the more material the CSCCC will be able to publish in 2009.

Best, Caroline

CALL FOR PAPERS ON CLIMATE IMPACTS

The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change (A coalition of 49 civil society organisations from 37 countries – www.csccc.info) is planning to produce a series of papers on the economics, politics and impacts of climate change during 2009. If you are interested in submitting a paper on any of the subject areas outlined below – or indeed other areas – please contact us on admin/a\csccc.info (replace /a\ with @)

The issues:

Disease

Water availability

Sea level rise

Extreme weather events (i.e. storms, hurricanes, floods, and droughts)

Agriculture

Forestry

Ecosystems and Species

The proposal will see the EU go from a risk-based assessment of chemicals to a hazard-based one.

Have you seen those little picture things in your blog (and at other sites)? Well… Inspired by none other than G Bird I have hacked through your page source and found the relevant link.

Neat little freeware service… Creates a gravatar for you to make your blog persona come alive.  And you can have a library and change them too.  If you register and do a gravatar “check” at the gravatar site  – you will get something like this.  Change the size to 48 (last two digits). Wack this in the URL spot for comments in your blog and your blog picture persona will appear !

Of course you need to do your own ….above just an example.

Send the inmates a message.

Only catch is the service takes about 10 minutes to register after you set it up.

Luke

[First posted on September 11, 2008 http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/09/2168/ ]