The Saltbush Club

How do electricity prices in Australia compare with USA?

“In a study by Alex Robson, released last week by the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, comparisons are presented between energy costs in Australia and the US.

“The bottom line is that Australian households and businesses routinely pay two to three times as much as their US counterparts. Energy in the US also is more reliable and the pricing arrangements are more transparent.

“In the past decade, average power prices in Australia increased in real terms by about 70 per cent for households and businesses. In the US, real electricity prices for households stay­ed essentially flat; those for indus­trial users dropped by 10 per cent. When it comes to gas, the picture also is alarming. Australian manufacturers are being charged almost 50 per cent more in real terms than they were a decade ago, whereas manufacturers in the US are paying nearly two-thirds less. The average real price of gas also has fallen significantly for US households.”

As Robson sums up: “On electricity and gas price outcomes, the two economies have taken completely opposite paths.”

Source: Judith Sloan writing in The Australian Newspaper [Paywall]:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/judith-sloan/still-paying-the-price-for-energy-delusions/news-story/8ff97e5d1869e9a215c222a0f5fdc57b

Report from the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre:
https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/australias-energy-crisis-americas-energy-surplus

The report [PDF, 10 MB]: https://united-states-studies-centre.s3.amazonaws.com/attache/82/d7/a0/2b/3b/69/09/82/f2/59/78/d5/85/6d/92/af/It-doesnt-have-to-be-this-way-Australias-energy-crisis-Americas-energy-surplus.pdf

Heavy machinery “rakes” Finland’s forest floors after tree cutting, greatly reducing fire risks

By Mikko Paunio

President Donald Trump was recently ridiculed for telling California Governor Jerry Brown that the Golden State should do as my country does. Trump critics laughed at what some called his “bizarre” claim that foresters in Finland “rake” areas that have been thinned or clear-cut, to remove leaves and other debris that could otherwise start conflagrations like the recent tragic fires in California.

The Washington Post spread similar misinformation. The Los Angeles Times carried an article by Finnish “green” journalist Anu Partanen. “Finland to President Trump: We don’t rake the forest floor, but we do other things you should emulate,” the headline read. Late night talk show hosts had more fun at the President’s expense.

Ironically, all this happened at just about the time that Finland’s own forest specialists declared that Mr. Trump was correct about what he told Governor Brown. The foresters disseminated that information widely to the Finnish media and public. Continue reading “Trump was right about “raking” Finnish forests”

By Allison Nichols
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/12/the_hoax_of_climate_change.html

Obama knows. John Kerry knows. And Al Gore, the man who has made an enormous amount of money perpetuating the biggest hoax foisted on the human race, knows. Human-inspired “climate change” is a ruse. It is all a control-grabbing, land-grabbing, money-grabbing hoax. For instance, Al Gore, the king of carbon credits, whose home has a giant carbon footprint, and who flies all over the world in private jets, has raked in millions from his green investments and “sustainability research.” This, after preaching (An Inconvenient Truth) that fossil fuel is the culprit in “global warming.”

The real inconvenient truth is that the earth’s climate has been warming, cooling and dramatically changing since the beginning of time. How many of us know that Chinese sea captains reported melting ice caps as far back as 1434? Mega earthquakes and tsunamis as well as blizzards, raging fires, crippling droughts, powerful storms, horrific tornadoes and scorching heat waves have been around since antiquity. “Climate deniers,” as the alarmists so lovingly refer to us, do acknowledge changes in the climate, but most of us do not accept the premise that human activity the cause. Continue reading “The Hoax of ‘Climate Change’”

Come Clean on the UN COP24 Meeting in Poland.
By Viv Forbes

The Saltbush Club today called on the Morrison Government to come clean on what additional burdens for Australians are being discussed at COP24, the UN climate jamboree now taking place in Poland.

The Secretary of The Saltbush Club, Mr Viv Forbes of Australia, said that Australia will suffer badly from the destructive energy policies being promoted by the UN’s war on cheap, reliable hydro-carbon fuels.

“Like the Trump supporters in USA, Brexit in Britain, Solidarity in Poland, the Yellow Vests in France and the new Brazilian government we do not support the UN energy plans and we fear their hidden agenda. Continue reading “Come Clean on the UN COP24 Meeting in Poland”

By Dr Matthew Fagan

Windmills are not in the State budget. They are not in the Federal budget. No foreign superpower is paying for them, no cartel of foreign benign investors graciously fixing our previously adequate system. No.

We are paying for these windmills, without our knowledge or agreement or legally. Billions a year. Even if they make no sense at all and no one cares. As for economic sense, they cost nothing to the ‘investors’ and then to make matters worse, these uneconomic monsters are being subsidized to operate.

Look at the accounts of Hepburn Wind. Massively profitable and totally paid by us but owned by a Green group who are paid the world’s highest rates for electricity no one needs or wants. Still a single free windmill cannot be run at a profit and the owners are then then given another $800,000 cash a year just to exist.
Continue reading “Who Pays for all those Bird-Chopping Windmills?”

Last Friday (30 Nov 2018), 98.5% of NSW school students attended their respective schools, as normal. The other 1.5%, pre-arranged via digital-media to rally at Sydney’s Martin Place… to protest Prime Minister Morrison’s ‘Inaction on Climate Change’.

The two 14 yr-old girls who claimed to have organised the show, were ‘foaming at the mouth’ in disgust, that our PM was not doing enough to save them from a future of planet earth’s doom and gloom and destruction… from the dreaded carbon-dioxide-molecule! What utter balderdash!
Continue reading “Students Strike for Climate-Change”

Children used as Pawns by Global Warming Activists

by Andrew Chapman

Many people are genuinely interested in the natural environment. Unfortunately the nature conservation movement has been invaded by people wanting to capture this interest to push an agenda that has nothing to do with the appreciation of natural history or conservation of wildlife.

The following letter from the Nature Conservation Council of NSW is a perfect example showing the lengths these people have gone to. In this instance it was met with a response by experienced amateur natural historian Andrew Chapman.

Hi…………,

I’ve just witnessed something truly incredible. More than 5,000 kids from across NSW converged on Martin Place as part of a national school strike for climate action. Tens of thousands more are striking in cities and regional areas across Australia. I joined them in support in Sydney and to hear what they had to say.

Kids as young as 11 spoke at the rally and they were articulate and inspiring. And they were angry. These kids will face the full force of dangerous climate change and they are outraged that our politicians aren’t doing enough to stop it. This week we’ve seen unprecedented weather conditions across the nation – from dust storms and floods to bushfires and snowfalls. It is no wonder younger generations are scared of what the future holds.

When school kids have to go on strike to demand climate action, it is a clear sign our political leaders are failing us all. Australia is not doing our fair share to reduce carbon emissions, and here in NSW we don’t even have a renewable energy target.
Continue reading “The School Kids’ Strike”

By Rupert Gregg

A recent study by Stephen Poore at Oxford making claims about land use and all that goes with it has had some publicity. Even an Oxford man can overdo things sometimes and here it is. Gosh those animals only provide 18 percent of calories and 37 percent of protein while taking up 83 percent of farmland and 60 percent agriculture’s greenhouse emissions. Something must be done, or not? Look around as you drive around through the vast tracts of land in the pastoral zones of Australia. Is it really a surprise that hundreds of thousands of hectares have grazing animals in numbers without a crop in sight? There are millions of hectares on the planet unsuitable for any agriculture but will support a well- managed livestock industry quite readily. Continue reading “Land, Animals and all that Gas”

Germany’s green transition in a blind alley

By Oddvar Lundseng, Hans Konrad Johnsen and Stein Storlie Bergsmark

Source: http://diekaltesonne.de/germanys-green-transition-in-a-blind-alley/

More and more people are about to realize, that supplying the world with stable energy from sun and wind only, will be impossible. Germany took on the challenge to show the world how to build a society based on green energy. They have now hit the wall. Germany has not reduced CO2 emissions over the last 10 years despite huge investments in green energy production capacity.

Germany has installed solar and wind power to such an extent that they should be able to satisfy the power requirement on any day with sufficient sunshine and wind. However, since sun and wind are often lacking, they only manage to produce around 27 percent of the annual power needs. When solar and wind production are at their maximum, this often lead to overproduction and major problems in equalizing production and consumption. To keep the frequency of the electric power within tight limits around 50Hz, it is no longer possible to increase the amount of solar and wind production in Germany, without additional, costly measures. Continue reading “The Green Energy Trap – Lessons from Germany”