Why I did not vote Green

By John McRobert

I didn’t vote Green [in the recent Queensland State election] because of their unrelenting and unjustifiable efforts to destroy the coal industry, the industry that afforded the lifestyle we all enjoy today; the industry that delivered the electrified railway system on which Greens generously offer cheap tickets to those close enough to use them, subsidised by the working country people unable to access this localised largess.

Greens promote free lunches for schoolchildren – what an abrogation of parental responsibility, what a logistical and legalistic nightmare. What are they thinking of?

Greens support subsidising rooftop solar panels, at the expense of everybody, rich or poor, in increased electricity costs. This is an unbelievable transfer of wealth from the homeless have-nots to the haves who own houses on which they can mount these imported, short-life toys that parasitically live off and undermine the efficiency of a once efficient coal-fired grid. 

It takes a good person to admit he was wrong, but in so admitting, can inspire others. The road to Damascus is an enlightening story.

Greens have the drive, may they soon see the light.


John McRobert BE (Civ)
CopyRight Publishing Co P/L
Indooroopilly Q 4068
Web: www.copyright.net.au

The Broken Hill Blackout

By John McRobert

Al Jolson introduced Talkies with, “You ain’t seen nuttin’ yet”.

The recent Broken Hill blackout where Wind and Sun failed to provide power when needed, demonstrates we ain’t seen nuttin’ yet. That blackout is a harbinger of big blackouts for big cities when they become reliant on unreliable green energy sources.

I have experienced what that will be like.

On St Valentine’s Day 1985, during a Union-strike power blackout, my office was on the 24th floor of a building in Brisbane CBD. After navigating roads with no traffic lights and reporting for work, lifts didn’t work and the fire-escape access staircase was unventilated. Trudging up to an unairconditioned, unlit, unpowered office, windows would not open and no power points worked.

I walked down the fire-escape to buy lunch and St Valentine’s Day chocolates for my wife. The shopping arcade was in darkness, shop-owner incandescent, stock melted. Back up 24 floors to spend a sweltering afternoon in unproductive endurance. After work, walked downstairs in gloom to renegotiate roads with no streetlights or traffic lights. Returned home to a romantic candlelight dinner of freshly-thawed steak (before it rotted), cooked on a gas-powered camp hotplate.

Reliable energy sources are essential for modern society.
We still need coal.

Why I’m Voting the Way I Am

By John Droz jr.

Someone recently asked me why I like Trump.

My answer was that I don’t really like a lot of things about Trump, but this election is not about choosing the most likable person.

We are voting between two vastly different ideologies. We are voting for the country we want to leave our children and grandchildren.

Trump has proven that he can deliver. He is a patriot to the core and even served his country for four years without pay.

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If Green Energy is the Future, Bring a Fire Extinguisher

By Steve Goreham

A version of this article was recently published in The Wall Street Journal.

Alternative energy is exploding─literally. Lithium battery fires are breaking out on highways and in factories, home garages, and storage rooms. The rise in battery fires is amplified by government efforts to force adoption of electric vehicles and grid-scale batteries for electric power.

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Blind Freddy on Green Hydrogen

By Geoff Derrick

Everyone knows “Blind Freddy”. He’s the man who sees problematic issues with extreme clarity, who identifies projects based on humbug, who calls out scams and wrong-doings, who is our quiet protector on many controversial social and business issues, and who keeps many of our radical politicians, businessmen and policy makers in check. 

It is Blind Freddy who could see that “Green Hydrogen” was set to fail (“Writing on wall for green hydrogen”, Weekend Australian,  5-6 Oct), simply because making green hydrogen by passing an electric current through water is extremely expensive and energy consuming. It is Blind Freddy who sees that this process uses more energy than hydrogen can produce, and that it costs more to make this green hydrogen than its world sale price.

Operating at a loss may well be standard socialist philosophy, but it is not the way capitalism works.

And it is Blind Freddy who can see that renewables will never replace fossil fuels because they cannot do the job of powering a nation 24/7.

Tipping Points

By Graham Pinn

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) describes a tipping point as a “critical threshold beyond which a system reorganises, often abruptly, and/or irreversibly”. Their examples include melting polar ice with sea-level rise, increasing extreme weather events, and release of methane from thawing permafrost; currently nine potential such events have been identified, none currently occurring.

When initially discussing such events, the IPCC believed a temperature rise of 4C would be necessary for these events to occur, this figure was progressively revised down, to a 1.5C rise making them more probable, the latest figure is 1.5 – 2.5C. When looking back, to what we know has occurred historically, even the concept of temperature increase depends on the starting point.

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