Australia is in the middle of an energy revolution, but it is a road to nowhere.
Weather dependent electricity has a huge cost – it is unpredictable, unreliable and is destroying and sterilising enormous tracts of farmland, hilltops and forests with solar panels, turbines and power lines. It is not cheap, not green, and not reliable.
Watch here Chris Uhlmann on Sky news as he outlines the energy disaster looming up for Australia.
By Rafe Champion
The government has initiated an enquiry into the market reforms that will be “fit for purpose” to support the suicidal net zero program.
That is the wrong question because the so-called transition from coal has run its course and we need to start planning an exit from net zero.
We need a plan well ahead in case a government comes to power with the desire to exit, only to find they are short on time and they have no idea what to do.
The plan will have to be sustained by a new narrative about energy that is based on realism and concern for the welfare of people and the planet. Let’s be energy realists and responsible stewards of the environment!
Energy realism rules in China and the rest of the developing world where they scramble for all the coal, oil, and gas they can get.
Meanwhile, the nations of the West emulate the mythical farmer who incrementally reduced the rations of his workhorse until it died.
We run down coal power and gas until there is not enough conventional power and parts of the grid will die on nights when there is little or no wind.
Read the author’s Spectator article: https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/champion-net-zero.pdf [PDF: 233 kB]
The original Spectator article (pay-walled): https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/looking-for-the-net-zero-exit-sign/
Original PDF from: https://www.flickerpower.com/images/Change_the_narrative_change_the_game___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf
By Dr D Weston Allen MBBS, FRACGP, Grad Dip Phys Med
The Lancet pre-empted the Paris Agreement climate targets at COP 21 with its Commission on Health and Climate Change in June 2015. It has since released annual Countdown reports of progress before every COP. This 139 page Romanello et al report by “122 leading researchers from UN agencies and academic institutions worldwide” claims to reveal “the most concerning findings yet in the collaboration’s 8 years of monitoring.” The first of its 6 Panels focuses on 15 health indicators, the second on 56 climate change indicators, the third on indigenous knowledge, cultural and spiritual practices, colonisation and dispossession, the fourth on nature- based solutions, the fifth on limits to adaptation, and the sixth on health impacts of the energy production cycle.
Read the full document: https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/critique-of-the-lancets-2024-Countdown-report.pdf [PDF, 546 kB]
By Dr John Happs
It was both surprising and alarming to learn that a group called “Doctors for the Environment, Australia” were actually calling for members of the public to contact their local Member of Parliament and deliver the message:
“To protect the health of the Australian people I call on you as my elected representative to ban all new coal, oil and gas projects.”
This silly appeal is also promoted by some members of the American Medical Association who foolishly claim:
“Extreme heat, powerful storms and floods, year-round wildfires, droughts, and other climate-related events are caused by “fossil fuel combustion, which is said to be the “primary driver of climate-change.”
The AMA argues that we should be:
“transitioning away from hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, and toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.”
Now one might think that medicine would be driven by objective scientific reasoning and that our medical schools would accept only the best and brightest of student applicants, yet the message these groups of medical practitioners want us to spread, exposes their absolute ignorance of the chemistry of hydrocarbon resources and our total dependence on them.
“Doctors for the Environment, Australia” appear to have no idea about how coal, gas and oil have lifted millions out of poverty and enabled us to achieve the high standard of living we have today, along with all the tools and medications that the medical industry relies upon. In fact, there is precious little in the medical world that isn’t dependent on the coal, oil and gas deposits that “Doctors for the Environment, Australia” want to ban.
Continue reading: https://papundits.wordpress.com/2024/10/18/dont-they-teach-any-chemistry-in-medical-schools/
By Jo Nova
On October 17th a storm blew seven transmission towers over, disconnecting the Broken Hill area [in Australia] from the national grid. About 19,000 people live there, and with a 200MW wind plant, a 53MW solar array and a big battery, plus diesel generators it was assumed they’d be OK for a while without the connection to the big baseload plants.
But instead it’s been a debacle. They had nearly a week of blackouts with intermittent bursts of power, barely long enough to charge the phone.
The fridges in the pharmacies failed, so all medications had to be destroyed and emergency replacements sent in. Schools closed. Freezers of meat are long gone… Emergency trucks finally brought in food and eventually the schools reopened. Full reconnection did will not happen until November 6th.
By Roger Underwood AM
Environmental activists and green academics in Western Australia are pushing the government to make radical changes to bushfire policy and operations. In place of the current approach, which integrates pre-fire mitigation with post-fire response, the activists are pushing for “response only”, otherwise known as ‘the Aunt Dolly Bushfire System’.
Specifically, they want the government to abandon the program of mild-intensity prescribed burning, a strategy aimed at reducing fuel levels in a mosaic pattern across south-west forests so as to make it easier, safer and cheaper to control fires under the worst case scenario situation.
Continue reading “The ‘Aunt Dolly Bushfire System’ is doomed to fail”