Now that Europe calls Time on Green Energy, will their charities in India do the same?

Europe Calls Time On Expensive Green Energy
Courtesy: Tony Aarvark

The truth about the extremely high costs of Green Renewable energy is out, as is the truth that there will never be lasting viable Green jobs and now the Renewables industry is in meltdown.

Britain is cutting the morally wrong Green tax called a Feed in Tariff from December 12th 2011 for solar installations and now other countries are following suit.

Spain was the first economy in Europe to jump on the Green Renewables farce and quickly found that every Green job created cost 2.2 jobs in existing profitable businesses, now it is looking likely that Spain is about to abandon the insanity of prohibitively expensive Green energy

Spain’s likely new centre-right government plans a major overhaul of the energy sector, possibly axing subsidies for wind and solar power as the euro zone debt crisis makes funding very costly.

The centre-right People’s Party is expected to win a Nov. 20 election by a wide margin and gain control of the lower house. Party leader Mariano Rajoy has repeatedly signalled he will reform the energy sector, without giving details.

Spain’s huge rollout of renewable energy made it a world leader in the sector and reduced its dependence on imported fuel, but the result is debt-laden utilities and consumers facing crippling rate hikes to pay for power stations they are hardly using.

“We can’t afford high-cost energy and the government can’t continue to bet on extremely expensive sources of energy for Spanish households,” said Jaime Legaz, head of the People’s Party’s FAES think tank.

Chopping subsidies for new renewable power plants would stop the debt mountain growing and allow consumer energy prices to rise gradually instead of suddenly, smoothing the adjustment to paying true costs for electricity.

Lower renewable subsidies would also free up cash for utilities to invest in the PP’s pet project to boost power connections with the rest of Europe, which would help reduce over-capacity in the energy sector and stimulate investment.

Big power groups have recently stepped up pressure on the incoming government to tackle a deficit of over 20 billion euros they accumulated by selling power at regulated tariffs too low to cover costs for 10 years.

Unlike Germany, which passed the cost of renewable directly onto the consumer, Spain deferred them by obliging utilities to hold these costs on their balance sheets as a state-backed debt known as the “tariff deficit”, promising the consumer would repay this debt through gradual increases in electricity bills.

The Socialist government, expected to lose badly in the election after seven years in power, reached a deal with utilities companies last year to eliminate the tariff deficit.

A Socialist government and the Green wealth redistribution agenda, no surprises there, it was a Labour Socialist government under Tony Blair who signed Britain up for all sorts of Green lunacy and energy poverty for millions, so Blair could force expensive Renewable energy on the people of Britain.

To put that into perspective it was Blair who said in the run up to COP15 in Copenhagen “The world must take action on climate change…even if the science is not correct“, in other words lets proceed with Climate Religion as the means for wealth redistribution and one world government by the UN.

In Europe analysts and energy experts are predicting a return to conventional affordable energy cutting short the dash for unaffordable Green energy:

Analysts and industry experts see a return of conventional power and imports rather than a wide-ranging government-backed expansion of renewable power.

Three of Europe’s top renewable energy companies became the latest victims of a global collapse in prices, massive oversupply and governments slashing subsidies in light of growing debt piles, echoing recent comments from overseas peers.

SolarWorld, Q-Cells and Nordex are among the latest renewable energy companies to be hit by a mix of high inventories, slower demand and banks tightening their purses regarding wind parks.

Solar companies in particular suffered as they ramped up production last year to meet a surge in demand from Germany and Italy where customers rushed to buy solar panels before governments cut vital subsidies.

Both economies are reducing so-called feed-in tariffs to make the solar sector more productive, and subsidies and prices have been falling at a faster rate than manufacturing costs, leading Germany’s renewable elite to slash their 2011 outlooks

Britain, Italy and Germany all cutting the Green taxes that make solar economically viable, little wonder that many business analysts reckon that the solar industry, globally, will have ceased to exist by 2015. In Denmark their new Socialist development minister was caught out being a duplicitous Green hypocrite:

Green energy policies currently being pursued are not helping the environment or the economy. More likely, they will lead to greater emissions in China, more outsourcing to India, and lower growth rates for the well-intentioned “green” countries.

When Denmark’s new government ministers presented themselves to Queen Margrethe II last month, the incoming development minister established his green credentials by rolling up to the palace in a tiny, three-wheeled, electric-powered vehicle. The photo opportunity made a powerful statement about the minister’s commitment to the environment—but probably not the one he intended.

Christian Friis Bach’s electric-powered vehicle was incapable of covering the 30 kilometers from his house to the palace without running out of power. So he put the electric minicar inside a horse trailer and dragged it behind his gasoline-powered Citroën for three-quarters of the trip, switching back to the minicar when he neared the television cameras. The stunt produced more carbon emissions than if he had ditched the electric car and horse trailer and driven a regular car the entire distance.

Another Green socialist hypocrite caught out yet again.

IPCC scientists test the Exit doors

 
Courtesy: JoNova

This is another big tipping point on the slide out of the Great Global Scam. IPCC scientists — facing the travesty of predictions-gone-wrong — are trying to salvage some face, and plant some escape-clause seeds for later. But people are not stupid.

A conveniently leaked IPCC draft is testing the ground. What excuses can they get away with? Hidden underneath some pat lines about how anthropogenic global warming is “likely” to influence… ah cold days and warm days, is the get-out-of-jail clause that’s really a bombshell:

“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.

Translated: The natural climate forces are stronger than we thought, and we give up, we can’t say whether it will get warmer or colder in the next twenty years.

This multipurpose prediction means that in the future, if it’s colder, they’re right; if it’s warmer, they’re right; and they have it covered for more or less storms, floods, droughts, blizzards and frost too.

And then there’s the perpetual-motion aspect of the threat. Greenhouse gases might not be dominant now (like they’ve been saying for the last 20 years) but they will be, they tell us. They will be! Look out! The storms are coming, we’re all doomed. (Well we definitely absolutely might be.) Got that?

If the century progresses without restraints on greenhouse gas emissions, their impacts will come to dominate, it forecasts: 

• “It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase in the 21st Century over many areas of the globe…
• “Mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase…
• “There is medium confidence that droughts will intensify in the 21st Century in some seasons and areas…
• “Low-probability high-impact changes associated with the crossing of poorly understood thresholds cannot be excluded, given the transient and complex nature of the climate system.” 

It’s impossible to read the draft without coming away with the impression that with or without anthropogenic climate change, extreme weather impacts are going to be felt more and more, simply because there are more and more people on planet Earth – particularly in the swelling “megacities” of the developing world that overwhelmingly lie on the coast or on big rivers close to the coast.

That’s an EXIT clause and it reads like this: We might have been wrong about CO2 causing the disasters, but disasters are still coming. More people are going to die from climate catastrophes because there are lots more people! See, “we were right all along to be concerned about the climate”. (Just not quite right about the cause).

This is a handy excuse. Al Gore tried a segue like this out a couple of years ago — pretending that he was just fine tuning his altruistic saintly concern by saying quietly that CO2 wasn’t as bad as he’d thought but Black Carbon (!) was awful pollution. In other words, he’ll never admit he made a bad call, or has been caught pushing a scam, he’ll just say he was right all along, “carbon is still the issue, it’s just a slightly different form”.

These IPCC scientists are using the same technique: Climate Disasters are still the issue — it’s just a slightly different reason.

Repeat after me: AGW is still bad, skeptics are still wrong, and look over here at this slightly new twist on the predictions of disaster.

We all know there won’t be a slew of headlines trumpeting: 

• New IPCC leaked report; Weather could get warmer or colder!
• “Storms might be not quite as bad, but could be much worse!”
• “IPCC underestimate natural climate forces! Skeptics correct!”

Obviously this is an all-encompassing all-occasion document. For journalists fishing for disaster, there are ways to find it in the prophesies, and for scientists who want to be able to say “My predictions were right” in five years time, they can find just about any prediction under the sun somewhere in there and point to it to say “I told you so”.

Even Hulme is acknowledging that things are changing and the “climate” meme is receding. As UK academic Mike Hulme and others have argued, such events will occur whether exacerbated by climate change or not; and vulnerable societies need protection irrespective of climate change.

He’s argued for a divorce, therefore, between the issues of adaptation, which he says could usefully be added into the overall process of overseas development assistance, and mitigation of emissions.

In other words, the money will still flow, it’s just being rebadged. But the developing nations don’t like that. They prefer the current arrangement when developed nations atone for carbon sins and “pay” the third world. The alternative is the same cash, but it’s called “aid” and that comes with more strings. Everyone wants to be paid their rightful due, and no one wants to be “indebted” in any sense.

It’s not proved to be a popular notion with developing world governments, which remain determined to tie the two together in the UN climate process.

Governments of vulnerable countries argue that as developed nations caused the climate change problem, they must compensate those that suffer its impacts with money above and beyond aid.

Developing countries like the fact that under the UN climate process, the rich are committed to funding adaptation for the poor.

That this is all a naked clamor for pork-barreling money and payments to patrons (and not about the poor or the environment) is not even hidden. Black points out that the aid is not getting out as fast as it should:

Yet as the brief prepared for the Dhaka meeting by the humanitarian charity Dara shows, it isn’t happening anywhere near as fast as it ought to be.

Only 8% of the “fast-start finance” pledged in Copenhagen, it says, has actually found its way to recipients.

Where is the outrage? Doesn’t this type of inefficiency or corruption completely undermine any pretense that there is a point in fighting to “solve” the climate problem (assuming there was one). The entire Copenhagen boondoggle was never about helping the world’s poor, because 92% of the money pledged went to “looking good” or funding bureaucrats or was a mythical promise, and hardly anyone cares.

Then, Wait! No. Seriously? You mean the IPCC is not about rigorous scientific analysis free of government influence?

It’s possible – no, it’s “very likely” – that the IPCC draft will be amended as the week progresses, and presumably the governments represented at the Climate Vulnerable Forum will be asking their delegates to inject a greater sense of urgency.

“Asking delegates to inject “urgency”? Wasn’t this supposed to be based on overwhelming evidence, all uncertainties acknowledged, no exaggeration, and the scientific integrity of thousands of the world’s top experts was a given? All along it’s just been a tool for Big-Government to use to suck the money from honest citizens. Even Black knows it.

Does Black realize that he needs an Exit Door too? “The skeptics were always wrong. I was just reporting the scientists who underestimated natural variability”.

No Richard, No. You switched off your brain, stopped investigating, and turned yourself willingly into a mouthpiece for government funded scientists against the unfunded independent scientists who turned out to have been right all along.

The shape-shifting here is entirely predictable. It means the machine adapts to reality, but hardly anyone one gets punished. A bit like the bailouts and fraud on Wall St — no one went to jail. (Occupy Climate anyone?) They just change the letterheads on the parasitic agencies that pretend to help the poor and care about lemurs, and all of them get away with the sloppy reasoning, wasteful practices, bullying, deceit, and corruption.

Unless of course, the internet foils that plan. May we always be free from the forces of censorship.

Open letter to President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives

Courtesy: sashnet.lu.net

Mr. President,

You have recently held an undersea Cabinet meeting to raise awareness of the idea that global sea level is rising and hence threatens to drown the Maldives. This opposition is not  founded in observational facts and true scientific judgements. Accordingly it is incorrect.

Therefore, I am most surprised at your action and must protest to its intended message. In 2001, when our research group found overwhelming evidence that sea level was by no means in a rising mode in the Maldives, but had remained quite stable for the last 30 years, I thought it would not be respectful to the fine people of the Maldives if I were to return home and present our results in international fora. Therefore, I announced this happy news during an interview for your local TV station. However, your predecessor as president censored and stopped the broadcast.

When you became president, I was hoping both for democracy and for dialogue. However, I have written to you twice without reply. Your people ought not to have to suffer a constant claim that there is no future for them on their own islands. This terrible message is deeply inappropriate, since it is founded not upon reality but upon an imported concept, which lacks scientific justification and is thus untenable. There is simply no rational basis for it. Let me summarize a few facts (see Fig. 1, and evidence presented in Mörner, 2007):

(1) In the last 2000 years, sea level has oscillated with 5 peaks reaching 0.6 to 1.2 m above the present sea level.

(2) From 1790 to 1970 sea level was about 20 cm higher than today.

(3) In the 1970s, sea level fell by about 20 cm to its present level.

(4) Sea level has remained stable for the last 30 years, implying that there are no traces of any alarming on-going sea level rise.

(5) Therefore, we are able to free the Maldives (and the rest of low-lying coasts and island around the globe) from the condemnation of becoming flooded in the near future.

When I was president for the INQUA commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999-2003), we spent much effort on the question of present-to-future sea level changes. After intensive field studies, deliberation within the commission and discussions at five international meeting, we agreed on a “best estimate” for possible sea level changes by the year 2100. Our figure was +10 cm ±10 cm. This figure was later revised at +5 cm ±15 cm (as given in Fig. 1). Such changes would imply small to negligible effects.

From our sea level curve in Fig. 1, we can directly see that such a small rise would pose no threat for the Maldives. Rather, it would be a natural return to the conditions existing from 1790 to 1970; i.e. to the position before the sea level fall in the 1970s. The same non-rising sea level story is recorded for all other areas claimed to be under a flooding already in progress; viz. Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Venice (Mörner, 2007b). Besides, the proposed global trend derived from satellite altimetry have been tampered by a “personal correction” in order to create a rising trend (Mörner, 2008), actually not measured.. Thermal expansion of the water column may affect the ocean level by some centimetres to a decimetre. At the shore, however, the effect is zero (Mörner, 2000, 2005a, 2009a).

So, Mr. President, when you ignore to face available observational facts, refuses a normal democratic dialogue, and continue to menace your people with the imaginary threat of a disastrous flooding already in progress, I think you are doing a serious mistake.

Let us be constructive. Let us discuss available observational facts. Let us continue and extend our sea level project to new sites in the huge Maldivian atoll archipelago.

And let us, for Heaven’s sake, lift the terrible psychological burden that you and your predecessor have placed upon the shoulders of all people in the Maldives, who are now living with the imagined threat that flooding will soon drive them from their homes, a wholly false notion that is nothing but an armchair fiction artificially constructed by mere computer modelling constantly proven wrong by meticulous real-world observations.

Your cabinet meeting under the water is nothing but a misdirected gimmick or PR stunt. Al Gore is a master in such cheep techniques. But such misconduct is dishonest, unproductive and certainly most unscientific.

Stockholm, Sweden, October 20, 2009

Nils-Axel Mörner