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Greenhouse Articles

Green Snouts Sniff a COVID Windfall

Quadrant Online, 16 April 2020

The Pope, deprived of the counsel of Cardinal Pell, the Church’s most astute voice, foolishly called coronavirus “nature’s response” for failures to act on climate change. It was, therefore, hardly surprising that coronavirus would be recruited to push for additional renewable energy subsidies to reinforce those that have already created today’s high cost, low quality electricity. Coal Wire, an anti-fossil fuel publication, was quick to swoop on a Harvard study that said the pollutant PM2.5 exa

Madrid: the climate catastrophe juggernaut trundles on

Spectator Australia, 20 December 2019

As well as nation-states, an astonishing well-funded 2,330 NGOs, many with multiple delegates, fronted up to this month’s Madrid climate conference. The macabre festival was re-located from Santiago because the Chilean populace had risen in revolt about the higher prices foisted upon them by its government following the green gods just as faithfully as the virtue signalling textbook says they must.

Cheaper power coming? Blink and you’ll miss it if our Paris goals remain

Spectator Australia, 11 December 2019

There is a panoply of agencies regulating energy at the Commonwealth level and not all of these seem to be rowing in the same direction. The main agencies are • The Energy and Environment Department with 490 staff in energy and greenhouse — plus another 454 in its dependent agencies: Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Clean Energy Regulator and the Climate Change Authority;

Standby for next week’s UN doomfest for climate crazies

The Spectator, 18 September 2019

The push is on ahead of the upcoming UN Climate Summit to be held next week in New York. Although the most senior world leaders, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, will not attend, the UN claims that 100 heads of state will. The official Climate Summit is proceeded by the Youth Summit to be attended by autistic rock star Greta Thunberg, yachted in from Europe at great expense to avoid burning fossil fuels in aeroplanes.

The Green Robe of Climate Justice

11 February 2019

Being open-minded and impartial, as his tenure as a judge requires, we can take for granted that Mr Justice Preston read more broadly than the warmist epistles of alarmists and climate careerists cited in his judgment against the Rocky Hill coal mine. Alas, the views of less excitable climate scientists failed to get a mention Last week, the senior judge in the NSW Land and Environment Court, Mr Justice Brian Preston (left), rejected the Rocky Hill coal mine’s application to operate for a

The Liberals’ Downhill Racers

Quadrant Online, 27 January 2019

Could this be a coincidence? Zali Steggall, former Olympic skier and admirer of Malcolm Turnbull, is to contest Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah. At her launch on January 27 she said her decision to declare as an independent was motivated by a desire to promote the “sensible centre”. That term is code for climate change, the issue which is supported by agitprop from the massive funding that scurrilous and self-interested entities have at their fingertips, courtesy of funding for renewables, Gre

Reaping the fruits of political sabotage of the electricity industry

Catallaxy Files, 25 January 2019

The third world nature of Australia’s electricity industry was revealed this week with wholesale prices in Victoria and South Australia at the maximum $14,500 for lengthy periods in spite of thousands of customers being cut-off, major users agreeing to shut down demand in return for compensation paid by consumers, and even some oil plants being called in. The causes are clear. For twenty years, Australia has embarked upon a subsidy program for intermittent, unreliable and costly wind and solar

Banks pretend to be virtue signalling while plundering electricity consumers

Catallaxy Files, 21 January 2019

In the salad days prior to 2015, before governments’ destructive interventions undermined Australia’s stable low-cost electricity supply, electricity as a topic of general interest hardly figured. Any concerns about power blackouts just did not reach the front pages or the late-night news bulletins. At that time the National Market had about 50,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity, about 80 per cent of which was coal with gas and hydro providing the balance; with the exception of wind/solar, which ha

The Australian Energy Regulator’s wholesale electricity market performance report

Catallaxy Files, 9 January 2019

The more desperate the situation of an industry, the more reports and regulatory overseers’ governments require, blind to any recognition of an industry’s malaise being created by their own actions. And so, with electricity we have an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies analysing, advising and fiddling. At the Commonwealth level we have the ESB, AEMO, AEMC, AER and ACCC all seeking a place in the sun. On top of this are state regulatory agencies and conventional line departments. Then we ha

The ALP’s emission reduction dreams will strangle the economy

Catallaxy Files, 23 November 2018

Over the past decade, we have spent $70 billion on wind and solar. Here are some statistics from BNEF, not uncoincidentally, the venue where Bill Shorten and Mark Butler yesterday launched an outline of the ALP energy and climate policy.

Labor’s energy deal: Shorten facts, but you’ll pay more

The Spectator, 21 November 2018

Sucked in by spurious claims of the loss of 99 per cent of all coral reefs, mounting natural disasters, a permanent drought in the Murray Darling, and illusions that fossil fuels are archaic, Labor is preparing to announce its energy policy. Earlier this week, in a dummy run, Energy spokesman Mark Butler claimed, in the context of apparent public support for renewables, that we can up the government’s 23 per cent renewable energy share, which includes about eight per cent of (currently unsubsidi

The Diabolic Policy Dilemmas Created by Previous Energy Policies

14 November 2018

Regulatory measures – subsidies for wind/solar – have wrecked the Australian market, driving up prices and increasing supply costs. And the policies have created wind and solar capacities that have on-going effects, which cannot be unwound by simply allowing the subsidies to run their course, since this will exact an increasing toll on energy costs. Countervailing subsidies to coal generation cannot solve the problem since, with existing policies in place, a subsidy to one or more coal generat

Real people put living standards above virtue signalling on climate change

Catallaxy Files, 26 October 2018

Leftist Economist Joseph Stiglitz, coming to Australia to collect the human rights activist “Sydney Peace Prize”, is not the only dreamer urging a carbon tax for Australia and proclaiming that climate change was not a liberal conspiracy. ​ As Chris Kenny notes the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) are also virtue signalling their support for such economy-crushing measures. Oblivious to the fact that the carbon suppression agenda is really only confined to the sclerotic EU, 50 p

Socialism will impoverish you, but it won’t solve climate change

The Spectator, 25 October 2018

Writing in the Guardian, Geoff Sparrow is not the first person to call for a socialist “dictatorship of the proletariat” as the only means of markedly reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In a curious conflation of this with surveys that appear to show an attraction to socialism in the part of young people, he argues modern capitalism means ruination of the planet as well as Marxian impoverishment of the worker and “the steady destruction of social welfare, a preposte

The Bitter Fruit of a Bad Green Marriage

Quadrant Online, 10 September 2018

The service was conducted by the high priests of alarmism, with politicians pledging their love for rent-seeking renewables promoters as a media choir sang of the wonders to come. Yes, we've seen wonders aplenty -- obscene power prices, economic hobbles and the further corruption of science. ​ Comments from Josh Frydenberg and Mark Butler show that neither the Liberals nor ALP understand – or, perhaps more accurately, admit to understanding how carbon policies are destroying the economy. Both

Wasteful investment in wind/solar has a negative value

Catallaxy Files, 2 October 2018 ​

A breathless piece by the Guardian’s Calla Wahlquist announced that Victoria’s renewable energy boom set to create six thousand new jobs. And yet the head of the renewable energy lobby group, Tristan Edis, was downbeat because the subsidies are being phased down. This is the group that claims subsidies are not really needed (or is it will soon not be needed?) because the wind and solar technology as made such colossal leaps that they are now (or will soon be) on parity with that archaic fossi

Is there logic in Bjorn Lomborg’s climate change proposals?

Catallaxy Files, 15 July 2018

The Australian’s opinion piece writers on the energy and climate change issue include Judith and Henry as well as Maurice Newman, Chris Kenny and Graham Lloyd. They are all doing terrific work in addressing the myths and self-serving agitprop that has the main political parties in thrall. ​ But where does Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg fit in with this? Articulate and courageous, he converted himself from being a member of Greenpeace and a climate change believer into a skeptic of sorts.

Turnbull’s chosen energy supremo says wind is cheaper than coal

Catallaxy Files, 5 May 2018

n Thursday, at the Energy Users Conference, the government’s chosen head of the chive quango running the electricity supply industry, Kerry Schott, remarked that coal plants could no longer compete. According to The Australian (her speech has not been made public) she said “you are unlikely to see a new coal-fired generation plant unless there is a change in technology and a decline in the price of coal”. Had she simply wandered off her politics-free advisory role and opined that, given the lev

The Warmists Are Starting to Sweat

Quadrant Online, 7 October 2018

Here's a prediction you can take to the bank: the ABC and Fairfax will be running even more inane climate-scare stories than usual. Why might that be? Because the US has taken its money and departed Paris, threatening climate careerists with the unsettling prospect of finding honest work. ​ Over the next week the report being finalised at a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), meeting in Korea, will see an outpouring of alarmist material. Doom-laden factoids and fo

Carbon taxes: many losers, some winners

Catallaxy Files, 10 October 2018

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Bjorn Lomborg drew attention to the inconsistency of the global warming costs and benefit estimates made by newly minted Nobel Prize recipient William Nordhaus, and the alarmist IPCC climate review issued out of Inchon. Lomborg, is a believer in the global warming myth but tends to think the money spent alleviating it is better spent elsewhere (his socialist background does not allow him to include an option of leaving the money with its owners!)

Australian energy policy driving us on the road to Venezuela?

Catallaxy Files, 31 July 2018

The absurdity of the oxymoronic “National Energy Guarantee” continues. ​ Minister Frydenberg is urging all the states to sign onto his carbon tax with its fairyland projections of declining electricity prices on the back of higher roof-top investments. (The Government and its advisers did not get the ACCC’s memo that this subsidy should, in line with developments in the UK and China, be eliminated). But the renewablesphile, fossil fuel-phobic state and territory ministers are dithering becaus

Energy Battlegrounds and Furphies

Catallaxy Files, 13 April 2018

I have this piece in this morning’s Australian which addresses the direction of energy and climate policy in light of Josh Frydenberg’s Press Club address. Aside from demonstrating how the renewable program has wrecked the electricity supply industry and brought a doubling of prices, it has two main themes. First, it demonstrates that government statements bend the truth in saying that the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) will be neutral between energy sources.

Emissions and the meeting of energy ministers

Catallaxy Files, 19 April 2018

Ben Potter, who as a useful idiot, was leaked a copy of the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) report by the Victorian Government, reports today that the states are likely to sign off on the NEG at their meeting tomorrow. Potter is excoriated by Terry McCrann in today’s Herald Sun for his pandering to green energy myths. ​ NEG has twin features of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector together with a measure that ensures wind supply has a firming contract to compensate for its

Australians suffer as big emitters get a greenhouse gas free pass

The Australian April 13, 2018

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s tour de force at the National Press Club on Wednesday and his opinion piece on this page yesterday show a man on top of his brief and using it to smite the ALP and the Greens as well as those on his own side promoting direct investment to counter the continued damage being done by renewable energy subsidies. Renewable subsidies

Is renewable energy competitive?

Catallaxy Files, 10 November 2017

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg is now on his way to the UN conference in Bonn to pay obeisance to a global warming fraternity strengthened by two new members (Nicaragua and Syria) to the loss of merely one (the USA). Renewable energy (other than Politically Incorrect hydro) is the UN’s posterchild. Yesterday, two boilers from the last coal power station in South Australia were blown up. Apparently not in relation to the demolition, SA Premier Weatherill tweeted “coal is dead, long live renew

Frydenberg: Saviour or Suicidal?

Quadrant Online, 5 January 2018

In the slow news period that is the first few days of the year, The Australian broke a story about dissension in the Coalition ranks regarding the “in principle” decision, announced by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, to allow Australian firms to acquit their carbon dioxide emission obligations by buying overseas credits.

Opinion polls on green energy: a glass half full

Catallaxy Fie, 31 October 2017

There is some interesting material thrown up by today’s release of the Newspoll results on climate change. One interpretation is that a majority of respondents would prefer to leave the Paris Agreement, which the Government uses as justification for green energy policies, in light of Trump having already so opted, if this “could result in lower electricity prices”.

End the renewables rorts now for cheap power

The Spectator Australia, 17 October 2017

The government’s abandonment of the expanded renewable energy target that the Finkel report recommended represents a careful compromise. The Prime Minister remains a rusted on fan of renewable energy which he considers marks the future. Malcolm Turnbull has put himself through multitudes of hoops to salvage this prospect – including the absurd plan to implement Snowy II and pump water uphill to allow it to supply more profitable time slots.

Labor threatens renewed land expropriation to meet greenhouse emission reductions

Catallaxy Files, 6 October 2017

Among the egregious instances of government property theft, planning regulations contain some of the greatest calumnies. And, within planning regulations, a stand out is the conspiracy of state and federal governments of allegedly different political stripe to seize rural property values without compensation as a means of meeting emission reductions of greenhouse gases.

BHP Billiton’s ‘green activism’ comes at a price

Herald Sun, 28 September 2017

AUSTRALIA’S mining skills have enabled BHP to become one of the world’s largest companies. But big firms often become overly bureaucratic and their management seeks to engage in matters well beyond the daily grind of trying to maximise the wealth of shareholders. And so it is with BHP.

Liberal, Green and ALP politicians conspire to destroy the economy

Catallaxy Files, 24 August 2017

Yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull, unveiling the plans by Pratt for new investment in containers said, “You know everything my government does is designed to encourage Australian businesses to invest.” The absurdity of this was underlined by Anthony Pratt informing us, “Our cost of energy in America is 2½ times lower than Australia.’’ One fifth the costs of the Pratt business’s production is energy and the facility is only possible by providing subsidies to the in-house production of this. Here is

Regulations create super profits in electricity supply – will Governments move to seize these?

21 July 2017

Environment and Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg has assailed the Queensland government for presiding over (if not conspiring to produce) an outcome in the electricity market which has enriched the state government coffers by $1.5 billion (actually over four years). Following a reorganisation, the previous three generator portfolios, directly owned Queensland were collapsed into two. It is doubtful that the two businesses were actually formally coordinating their bidding (actions that are ille

Anti-Coal Energy Policy will Hit Living Standards

Herald Sun, 9 June 2017

With the 2015 Paris Agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Australia and other countries followed a course pursued since the 1990s. This involves forcing and bribing electricity consumers to substitute wind and solar power for coal. ​ Malcolm Turnbull has made abandoning coal-based energy a signature policy. He made a key green entrepreneur, Alan Finkel, his Chief Scientist and tasked him with reviewing the electricity market. The Finkel review is out today and will canvas

Energy policy: Finkel Twinkle Little Star

Catallaxy Files, 9 June 2017

Predictably, the Finkel report came out with a concealed attack on coal – a new tax which Finkel falsely described as “all carrot and no stick”. This is to cut in at a politically specified level of emissions with those power stations emitting more CO2 per unit of energy than this paying for credits and the subsidy going to the ones emitting less. Sounds like a carbon tax and it is one. The papers took their predictable stances, ones that totally disregard the facts that coal is easily the che

Make the World Great Again

Catallaxy Files, 1 June 2017

I will be announcing my decision on Paris Accord, Thursday at 3:00 P.M. The White House Rose Garden. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! That’s 5 am on Friday Eastern Australia time. Always a reliable advocate for economic harm, The Guardian sets out the “five worst things Trump” has done on climate change (appoint Pruitt to EPA, cut EPA budget, demolish the regulatory “Clean Power” plan, climate change programs, Open up federal land and waters to drilling, approve new pipelines) And Scoop reports Trum

Whither the Paris Climate Change Agreement?

Catallaxy Files, 29 May 2017

The media battle lines are set on the Paris Climate Change Agreement with Politico hoping that Trump will continue to “study” the issue Trump himself said he’ll make the decision this week while Marc Morano says he already has already indicated Clexit to many confidants. Formal withdrawal is largely academic as regards the US itself since multiple steps have already been taken to abort its effect. These include far reaching attempts to roll back the layers of permitting regulation stemming f

$190 carbon tax needed to meet Paris Agreement

Catallaxy Files, 21 March 2017

The Finkel inquiry into the energy future got off to a bad start with its preliminary report erroneously claiming all this wind and solar we are seeing is being driven by technology and consumer demand when it is clearly a function of government regulations requiring consumers to buy exotic renewable energy at three to four times the cost of the coal fuelled supply it is replacing.

The Paris Agreement, Trump, Turnbull and Tesla

Catallaxy Files, 13 March 2017

On the night Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, Julie Bishop was quick to step in to forestall him responding to a press question about Australia’s future global warming/emissions policy. She said, as Malcolm was collecting his thoughts, the policy remains the same. Turnbull, flanked by Bishop and Frydenberg, announced the ratification of the Paris Agreement the day after Trump’s election victory in full knowledge of the President-elect’s determination to pull the US out of its economical

Subsidised renewable energy: from little things bad things grow

Catallaxy Files, 24 February 2017

In his outstanding address launching the compendium Making Australia Right, Tony Abbott offered a fivefold agenda. Malcolm Turnbull recognised this as, in effect, throwing down a leadership challenge. The key feature, as when Turnbull first lost the Liberal Party leadership to Abbott, is energy policy. Turnbull is addicted to the renewable creed and will, as he once did before, sacrifice his leadership to keep it in operation. Turnbull’s lame response to Abbott’s challenge was to claim that h

Follow Trump: dump the renewable energy target

The Spectator Australia, 24 January 2017

The Trump victory came with his pledge to take the US out of the Paris agreement on climate change. This leaves only the EU among the major emitters of greenhouse gases (the others being China, India and Russia) still forcing its consumers and industries to accept high-cost electricity largely through imposing renewable energy requirements upon them.

Ford’s Ontario has Nothing to Learn from Australia’s Climate Plan

The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) demonstrations across the Atlantic against climate change driven fuel taxes offer Premier Doug Ford yet another reason to congratulate himself on repealing Ontario’s carbon tax. Less reassuring however is the speculation that he is to introduce a measure similar to the Australian ‘Emissions Reduction Fund’ (ERF). A sop to the leftists within the Australian coalition conservative parties, this provides funding for a reverse auction where, instead of taxing all e

The Wind Has Changed

Quadrant Online, 8 December 2016

Problem is, the Turnbull government hasn't noticed that president-elect Trump is about to knock the well-funded wheels off the global alarmism industry, as his cabinet picks confirm. Instead, we're told to lie back, think of Paris and make our own green rent-seekers so much richer. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop illustrates the total lack of awareness of how the world has changed, having just reaffirmed Australia’s support for the disastrous Paris Climate Accord at the same time that US preside

Queensland and Victoria seeking to feast off national economic amputation

Catallaxy Files, 14 October 2016

There are those who say if you force people to invest in horses and buggies and use these for half of their road trips we would all be better off. Not for them the superficiality that this would reduce real incomes as a result of investing in technology that is higher cost, prone to breakdown and can only operate when the horses are not resting, eating or carrying excessive weight.

Will Trump’s EPA Administrator drain the swamp or create a new one?

Catallaxy Files, 29 November 2016

One of the most important issues for Trump is the staffing of the EPA. Trump has said “We are going to get rid of it in almost every form. We’re going to have little tidbits left but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out.” But there are doubts about whether he will be able/willing to carry this out. Reagan also said he would eliminate the EPA. He appointed Anne Gorsuch as the Administrator but, although she cut its budget, the agency went from strength to strength.

Trump changes the global carbon policy but Liberals just snipe at ALP

Catallaxy Files, 28 November 2016

There is no doubt that Josh Frydenberg accepted a poorly dealt hand when he took on the combined Energy and Environment portfolio following the Commonwealth election in July of this year. Starting with John Howard in 2001 successive Australian governments have bowed to the combined power of the renewables lobby and some ministers’ own blinkered ideological acceptance that we must de-carbonise the economy. To his credit, John Howard has since recanted and described his own introduction of the “two per cent renewables” policy (the expansion of which he resisted to the end) as his worst policy decision. In The Australian today Josh Frydenberg again demonstrates that the ALP energy and environment proposals are even more disastrous than those the government has in place. The ALP originally supported the government program whereby, mainly ruinously expensive, renewable energy must comprise 23.5 per cent of total supplies by 2020. But Bill Shorten took to the election an even more extreme and uncosted policy of 50 per cent renewables by 2030. Mr Frydenberg says the ALP policy will cost tens of billions of dollars more than that which the government has in place. He claims the Renewable Energy Target (RET), which is at the heart of that policy, costs a mere $55 or 3.7 per cent annual impost on the average household electricity bill. Actually, the real costs of greenhouse gas abatement are currently $5 billion a year as illustrated below.

Trump: the ghost stalking Marrakech

Catallaxy Files, 16 November 2016

Having attended the December 2015 Paris Climate Change conference as one of the 0.1 per cent not sharing the fervour, I cannot suppress my schadenfreude about the Marrakech follow-up. Nor, I imagine, can another participant opposing the herd, Myron Ebell, who is now busy in Washington writing the Trump administration’s blueprint for its unravelling. Envisaged as further icing the economic death cake of commercial energy with the US headed by a President-elect even more dedicated to the attacks on commercial energy than Obama, all we now see is long faces and sour, plaintive comments.

Trump victory a win for coal-powered energy

Herald Sun, 11 November 2016

This week, two events look likely to transform Australia’s politically created, catastrophic energy policy. First there was the announced closure of Hazelwood which produces a fifth of Victoria’s electricity. Secondly we have the Trump victory which mercifully will undermine the injurious climate and energy policies Australia has followed. Hazelwood’s closure was caused by government actions. Federal energy Minister Josh Frydenberg blamed Victoria’s Labor government saying it had, “pursued an ideological approach which has meant that they have traded away blue-collar jobs in the regions in order to win green votes in the cities.’’ While Labor did deliberately plan the plant’s closure, the Coalition is also culpable because Hazelwood saw its life drained away by the Commonwealth’s renewable energy target.

More green energy costs to placate activists and their financiers

Catallaxy Files, 27 October 2016

The trove of emails that Wikileaks is publishing help to explain what drives political decision taking. This is especially evident in the environmental sphere. US “charities” linked to Clinton campaign are funding lawfare and other opposition to Australian coal, oil and gas developments. International finance flows to influence policy on climate change also go from Australia to the US. Wikileaks reports an email to Hillary campaign chief John Podesta as “Here is the plan to go after WSJ and FOX on climate. I have 500,000 of this pledged if I can raise another million. It’s a real pledge from Graeme Wood in Australia. I sure hope something like this can happen it’s long overdue.” Podesta has had many green business links to tap into subsidies including with Russian interests he now disowns.

One Good Thing About Trump…

Quadrant Online, 22 September 2016

Should he claim the White House on November 8, the US will reject the obligations of the Paris climate accord. Like him or not in regard to other of his stated goals and policies, a ferocious disdain for the economy-hobbling rent-seekers of Big Wind and the like is a powerful recommendation turbine fireUnlike previous presidents, Barack Obama has no intention of going quietly into the night. His approval ratings remain above 50% and he’s using that clout to make the Paris climate agreement a key element of his perceived “legacy”, pursuing that goal with threats and blandishments.

Optimism on costs of abatement from the Climate Change Authority

Catallaxy Files, 1 September 2016

I have an article in the Spectator on line Garbage–in-garbage-out plus a little tampering, on the report issued today by the Climate Change Authority. The report offers some soothing bromides about the chances of Australia reducing its carbon dioxide emissions at modest cost.

The Climate Change Authority: garbage in, garbage out (plus a little tampering)

The Spectator Australia, 1 September 2016

There have been several hundred Australian analyses of climate change policy and its costs and benefits. Most have provided profundities and attractively presented impressive looking modelling, normally demonstrating that the medicine, though bitter at first, will make us better and possibly richer in the long run. The latest such document is that of the Climate Change Authority and it does not disappoint.

Another day, another piece of climate alarmism

Catallaxy Files, 24 August 2016

The alarmist John Connor from the Climate Institute has issued a paper claiming that a 2 degree C change in global temperature would be disastrous but we could live with a 1.5 degree warming or, as he put it, “warming of 1.5°C would (still) see current extreme heat waves, droughts and mass coral bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef becoming the new normal.” Graham Lloyd addresses the paper in The Australian today.

Self Harm from Australian government management of natural resources

Catallaxy Files, 12 August 2016

Just when it seemed that in NSW we had one Australian government that was pursuing sound if uninspiring policies, Mike Baird proves us wrong. Even without the disgraceful arrogance of the ban on a sport much loved by the lower orders, the Premier has demonstrated himself no more fit to govern than the green left bludgers in charge in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.

Revolutions, Taxes and the Coming Revolution

Quadrant Online, 5 August 2016

There was a time when leaders were elected to prevent the sovereign spending the money of the voters, but those days are long gone. Now legislatures plunder the productive to appease rent-seekers and the mendicant. Encouragingly, the portents for change are everywhere and growing rent-seekerIn announcing even more funds plundered from taxpayers and diverted to negative value-added CSIRO climate change spending, Environment Minister Greg Hunt has said both he and Prime Minister Turnbull have “clear and strong views” on the value of “the science”. It would be wonderful if those views were confined to the two of them. The fact is that, in so many respects, the issue of climate change is, as Kevin Rudd said, “the greatest moral issue of or time”. It is the fault-line that divides socialists from free marketers, from those who see the interchange of goods and services as leading to oppression and cheating and those who recognise it as the source and reason for our prosperity.

Energy and Environment an Unhappy Marriage

Herald Sun, 22 July 2016

Environmental programs, especially those targeting carbon dioxide emissions, have come to dominate energy supply policies over the past 20 years. Hence, following the federal election, energy and environment policy has been merged into one ministry under Josh Frydenberg. Last year in Paris, Australia like many other nations committed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 26-28 per cent by 2030. Integral to this are policies to force the replacement of coal-generated electricity by renewable energy. Australia’s policies include lifting the current 6 per cent share electricity supplied by large scale renewables (mainly wind) to 14 per cent by 2020. In addition, there will be over 7 per cent in small scale (rooftop) generation

Cairns: global warming means unbearable heat

Catallaxy Files, 6 June 2016

In 2010, the highly photogenic Minister for Education, Tourism and Major Events, the Hon Kate Jones MP then Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability offered introductory remarks to a report by eight listed authors and 14 assists including the CSIRO and BoM. She said, “Queensland is particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea level rise, more frequent heatwaves, more intense rainfall events in some regions and drought in others.” The

ALP/Libs in race to wreck the economy with climate change policy consensus

Catallaxy Files, 30 May 2016

The debate between Mr Shorten and Mr Turnbull last night demonstrated an unsurprising level of consensus on greenhouse gas mitigation. The Prime Minister talked about the 26-28 per cent reduction of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (based on 2005 emissions) that the government signed onto in Paris. Bill Shorten likeReal Madrid’s Pepe rolled along the turf, howling in apparent agony after a confected foul because this was the same plan that Tony Abbott’s Cabinet had agreed

Fans say cheap solar is inevitable but give us a subsidy anyway

Catallaxy Files, 27 May 2016

While claiming it is not a prelude to a carbon tax, Greg Hunt has approved the release of the Clean Energy Regulators “Safeguard mechanism”. This sets limits, initially very easy to meet, on firms’ carbon dioxide emission levels with the corset being tightened come 2020 when Australia can embark on a UK-style carbon tax. This sorry policy has led to the demise and relocation of the UK steel industry with no net greenhouse gas savings just an industry reduced to a rust bucket by punitive regul

Federal election 2016: parties clueless on cutting emissions

The Australian, 13 May 2016

Few people and no politicians would understand the costs of the political parties’ energy policies. The ALP, Greens and Liberals each have lengthy statements explaining how their approach is smarter and would cost little and be supervised by a plethora of acronymic bodies to regulate, advise and judiciously dole out money. In estimating the costs of energy policies, the bottom line is:

Buying lower living standards

Catallaxy Files, 6 May 2016

All that blistering controversy about the $3 billion saved by retrospective changes to superannuation. Yet there is one item of news, issued on the same day as the budget, which demonstrates the fatuity of government and its addiction to senseless policy and wasteful spending. The Clean Energy Regulator (don’t you love the Orwellian names they give themselves) announced it was two thirds of the way to spending its $2.55 billion budget in issuing Australian Carbon Credit Units. These are used to buy up land and retire it from productive activity so that there will be notional savings of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon Pulse has more on the measures

Economic suicide: Australian energy policy proposals

Catallaxy Files, 28 April 2016

Labor’s carbon emission proposals move Australian policy closer to the edge of insanity. Not content with the prosperity busting program of Mr Turnbull and his environment minister, Greg Hunt, the ALP is proposing the total wipe out of our most precious asset, low cost low sulphur coal. The Government has a program that requires 23 per cent of electricity to come from renewable energy, with about 15 per cent of this from subsidised wind and solar. That notional target is likely to be exceeded since there is no cap on the amount of solar subsidised by cross charges on other forms of electricity, and indirect budgetary support programs like the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation will give additional impetus.

Australian electricity policy: Armageddon or slow economic strangulation?

Catallaxy Files, 12 April 2016

Yesterday the ALP is reported to be examining how it can shut down “ageing coal-fired stations”. This is part of the policy to reach 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and the Greens claim Shorten is seeking an escape from the Party’s previous announcements. Coalition government policy is for a Direct Action buy-out of emissions coupled with 33,000 gigawatt hours of electricity from “large scale renewable energy” (mainly wind) plus small scale units on rooftops. At present, large scale renewables account for 12.75 per cent of electricity and the small scale units a little under 10 per cent. Large scale renewables are to increase by another one third by 2020. There is no limit to the small scale units.

The Climateers’ Moveable Feast

Quadrant Online, 12 April 2016

The Paris COP 21 at the end of last year may have set an all-time record for conference attendance of officials, NGOs and lobbyists—40,000 plus at least 5000 from the media. Virtually every world leader made an appearance, many changing their schedules at short notice to attend the opening rather than the close. There may have been a thousand booths of different organisations and countries, and in the course of the deliberations there would have been over 800 formal meetings and presentations.

Well, Tesla my fancy!

Catallaxy Files, 8 April 2016

There are surely more people than me who are skeptical of Elon Musk’s Tesla. Yes, Musk has shown himself to be a brilliant innovative entrepreneur with Pay Pal. And lightening does strike twice in the high tech field as Steve Jobs showed with his reincarnation at Apple. But in contrast to the Silicon Valley start-ups Tesla is surfing off the back of $5 billion in Obama government subsidies and still manages to lose at least $4000 per vehicle.

Malcolm the merchant banker creates a sub prime market in renewable energy assets

Catallaxy Files, 23 March 2016

With the announcement of the Clean Energy Innovation Fund (CEIF), Malcom Turnbull has killed several birds with a single stone. He has warmed the cockles of the hearts of the renewable rent-seekers who are such a valuable source of campaign finance conned all the ABC/Fairfax/Guardian journalists into thinking he has actually increased government spending when actually, “The $1 billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund will be established from within the CEFC’s $10 billion allocation”. Though at Reneweconomy Giles Parkinson has twigged Retained the subsidised $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) about $200 million a year but previously budgeted to more than halve; this is on top of the renewable energy subsidy for up to 33,000 gigawatt hours a year of (mainly) wind energy, plus about 12,000 GWh of rooftop solar, meaning an annual subsidy of about $3.5 billion. Locked in his personal commitment to spending ever greater resources on overriding the energy market and replacing all those ever so twentieth century coal plants with twenty first century renewable energy that cannot be made reliable and cost three times as much.

The end of the world is nigh, starvation awaits us all

Catallaxy Files, 3 March 2016

Sensation de jour, global warming means we are all gonna die of starvation according to an Oxford University study published in the Lancet and widely reported in the media today. Well not quite all of us but half a million a year according to AAP. And there is some upside – the coming squeeze on global food output will mean a reduction in obesity deaths ! If you thought carbon dioxide was a plant fertilizer think again! All this reduction in food surpluses has a silver lining for Australia in booming prices. So, as long as we can continue to produce we will be in clover! But that’s a very big “if”.

Land clearing and CO2 emission controls

Catallaxy Files, 29 February 2016

The Wilderness Society has placed an article in The Guardian with media climate change worry wort Lenore Taylor about the Queensland Government relaxing the clearing of land. Strictures against this were brought about by the collusion of first the Howard and later the Rudd Governments with the the Queensland government (and also Bob Carr’s NSW government). The Commonwealth used state government regulations to prevent clearing of land to meet the Kyoto targets. The absence of a “takings” clause in state government constitutions allowed the Commonwealth to steal land without the inconvenience of asking the High Court to dream up yet another excuse for not applying the “takings” clause of the constitution (s51(xxxi) which requires “just terms” if property is acquired. The courts acquiesced in this calumny in the case concerning Peter Spencer who was denied compensation for measures that, pursuant of greenhouse gas abatement, destroyed the value of his property. Thousands of others made similar losses.

Carbon abatement’s snake venom: diluted but still poisonous

Catallaxy Files, 25 February 2016

Motley events offer hope of a fraying of the policies stemming from climate change hysteria. While the UN is trying to organise a reaffirmation meeting in April by national leaders of the sacred emission reduction pledges they made in Paris last December, reality is moving against it. The UN climate change agreement was engineered and negotiated by the Obama administration which pressured the (mainly willing) OECD nations to accept 26 per cent emission reductions and allowed developing countries to emit want they want as long as they paid lip service to them levelling out at some distant time.

South Australian electricity – the state’s suicide mission

Catallaxy Files, 19 February 2016

Here is an object lesson of the effects of winner picking by governments. South Australia’s electricity industry is now threatening to seriously undermine the state’s economy. Back in October 2014, the electricity market manager, AEMO together with the South Australian state based transmission business, ElectraNet, made some ostensibly soothing comments that the wind dominated South Australia system could continue to operate securely. Wind is inherently unreliable as well as costing two and a half times as much as coal. But the 2014 report said that this reliability depended upon transmission support that allowed increasing amounts of reliable coal generated electricity to be imported from Victoria and NSW.

Inflicting on-going damage: the relentless green energy push

Catallaxy Files, 4 February 2016

esterday saw the publication of one of the regular horse-chokers that emerge from the electricity regulators and government funded analysts. This one was looking at the Queensland situation, with a view to examining how the ALP can implement/diverge from the crazy policies they proposed for an election they never expected to win. One piece of good news? “Modelling of a Queensland 50 per cent target for renewable generation by 2030 suggests an average increase in retail electricity prices of 0.5 per cent for households and 0.3 per cent for industry, and a reduction of 0.7 per cent for commercial customers for the period 2015–16 to 2034–35.”

Over the cliff: the climate agreement consumated

Catallaxy Files, 13 December 2015

"If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65% of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world" John Kerry December 10 2015 An agreement on climate change action On what is theoretically the final day plus one of the Paris Climate Change Conference, we have a final agreement. Delegates are lining up to get selfies with Al Gore.

Paris and Climate Change: approaching the crescendo

Catallaxy Files, 10 December 2015

The obfuscations and lies spewed by political leaders is a sad epitaph of the loss of striving for better living standards. The addresses served to illustrate how detached from reality the alarmist politicians have become, bombarded as they are by the agitprop of green NGOs and the scientists they have co-opted. The address by US EPA’s Gina McCarthy was a farrago of dissimulation. It featured claims that the warming was unrelentless; but there has been no warming for 15-18 years That rising sea levels are already swallowing villages; but sea levels rise has been trivial The ice is melting; but it has recovered in the Arctic and continued to amass in Antarctica There has been an increase in wildfires; but all the data shows no change

The Paris climate conference: into the second week

Catallaxy Files, 8 December 2015

With the end of the first week of the world Climate Change summit, the torrent of papers and thousands of presentations remain overshadowed by a different form of war to that on carbon dioxide.  A small satellite conference hosted by Heartland saw a parade of actual scientists including our own Bob Carter, demonstrate the idiocy of the proceedings – not unexpectedly, the vacuous protesters outside outnumbered the attendees at this side event

Climate Change in New Focus but Carbon is Costly

Herald Sun, 27 November 2015

On Monday, Paris will host a different agenda from that which has dominated this past fortnight.  On November 30 world leaders gather there for the United Nations annual climate change discussions.  The key issue is the link between carbon dioxide and forecast increases in global temperatures.  Addressing this we shall hear President Obama’s soaring rhetoric, the dour tedium that is Angela Merkel’s hallmark, and ambiguous future intentions from the Indian and Chinese leaders.  Malcolm Turnbull will be there promoting Australia’s Direct Action policy.  This measure, which he opposed prior to becoming Prime Minister, buys emission reductions from businesses

More economy-busting warming inspired measures in the pipelin

Catallaxy Files, 27 November 2015

Most developed world economies — Australia included — are pledging at the Paris Conference to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by more than 26 per cent by 2030. China and India, the largest and third largest emitters, are merely saying that they will reduce their economies’ carbon dioxide intensity. This means they’ll double their emissions

Financing the uncompetitive wind farms: Local Government is no solution

Catallaxy Files, 20 November 2015

Tristan Edis had a breathless piece in the green left Climate Spectator yesterday. In it he foreshadowed plans of local government authorities, led by the City of Melbourne, buying 1200 Megawatts of installed green power capacity. It turns out that his informant was one of those over-optimistic types who are forever telling us that renewable energy is not only good for us but is really, honestly, cheaper

Climate Nirvana: If only all of Australia could be like the ACT

Catallaxy Files, 9 November 2015

The Climate Council has its uses. It drew our attention to the utter shame we, as Australians, shoulder in having high emissions of CO2 per capita.  At 24 tonnes of CO2-e we are nearly twice the OECD average. But wait! Once you examine emissions in terms of consumption levels a different picture emerges. 

Climate change negotiations: Paris blues or future busts?

Catallaxy Files, 5 November 2015

Joining me at the Paris climate change gabfest will be almost every world leader and green celebrity. California alone has Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, and eight Democratic lawmakers. And that’s before we have the batch of contemporary concerned movie stars all playing their part in urging others to live a more parsimonious, less fossil fuel-intensive life

Fracking: another episode in the struggle for mineral rights

Catallaxy Files, 28 October 2015

Tapping coal seam gas reserves has been among the most challenging political issues around the world.  Perhaps this is because the mineral extracted is new and those ranged against such activities can mobilise opposition and invent new dangers from a novel form of mining

Your essential Paris primer

Quadrant Online, 23 October 2015

If the world is lucky, nothing of greater substance than delegates' hotel bills will emerge from the upcoming catastropharian confab in the City of Light.

Cutting emissions beyond Paris

Australian Financial Review, 22 October 2015

Since the Turnbull Prime Ministership, Environment Minister Greg Hunt has used somewhat tougher language in selling the government’s intent to force a reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

Greenhouse plans: more economy busting policies being cooked up

Catallaxy Files, 7 October 2015

Hardly has the ink dried on Australia’s appalling commitment to source 23 per cent of electricity from renewable sources when Bill Shorten is talking of upping it to 50 per cent. The current measure will alone own impose a cost of $2.5 billion a year

Whacking Fracking: Victorian Liberals abandon income growth

Catallaxy Files, 28 September 2015

In Victoria the opposition Coalition has decided to outflank the ALP from the Green Left. Its latest missive is extending the ban on gas exploration within the state till 2020 (read “indefinitely”). It was the Victorian Coalition in Government that first banned gas exploration – not just fracking for coal seam gas, demonised by green extremists, but all gas. This was followed by the Coalition-appointed Auditor General determining that his skill set extended into scientific matters and that no new development is appropriate in the state unless it has been through cabals of review bodies and sealed by Greenpeace.

Climate Change survey spin will backfire on the ALP

Catallaxy Files, 10 August 2015

The media was in a tizz today at the Wotif founder Graeme Wood’s Climate Institute’s promotion of its research into public perceptions of climate change, its friends and enemies

Deflating the mirage of cheap carbon credits

Catallaxy Files, 10 September 2015

Yesterday in the AFR, Richard Denniss of The Australia Institute applied more of the balm intended to sooth us into buying the serendipity of a costless zero carbon emitting future. According to Denniss we can reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide by simply buying EU approved permits at $13 a tonne.

Australia’s Climate Change Policy Announced

Published on Catallaxy Files, 12 August 2015

So, Australia now has a position on greenhouse gas policy to take to the UN confab in Paris at the end of the year. We are to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels, a position that the PM says puts us in the middle of the road. This is not enough for the Bernie Fraser led “independent” Climate Change Authority, which alongside the greatly discredited Tim Flannery frets that anything less than a 40 per cent cut will fry the world.

We cannot afford to pay for green power losers

The Australian, 14 July 2015

The debate on renewable energy has been with us for decades. Always promising to deliver competitive electricity, it has never achieved it. The issue has had its media profile lifted as a result of the government instructing its green energy bank, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, to stop investing in wind and rooftop solar energy. These are established technologies that already receive a subsidy worth $52 per megawatt hour through the mandatory renewable energy certificates.

Renewable subsidies: which is the best way to waste money?

Published on Catallaxy Files, 14 July 2015

A few potholes emerged yesterday in the road to renewable energy nirvana

Climate propaganda: agitators against wealth and their friends

Published on Catallaxy Files, 29 June 2015

This morning we learned that Bill Gates, who the Guardian has been trying to recruit as its sponsor in chief for greenhouse madness, considers the existing renewable approach is a dead end but he wants to spend the money looted from taxpayers and energy users into novel forms of R&D. He has already spent much of his own fortune on this but now wants the rest of us to magnify his $2 billion contribution.

Wind farms such as these are raising electricity costs for all consumers

Australian Financial Review, 9 July 2015

The Australian Climate Roundtable alliance is seeking to limit human induced global warming to a 2 degree increase. The alliance comprises business lobbyists, ACOSS, the ACTU, and green lobbyists, the Climate Institute, the ACF, WWF and the Investor Group on Climate Change. The objectives it claims "will require … most countries, including Australia eventually reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero or below".

Grattan Institute parades its inner Bob Brown

Published on Catallaxy Files, 23 June 2015

The Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood has an article in today’s AFR which argues that “Legal force (under the UN) might be the only way of moving in the right direction (to the abatement said to be necessary)”. Mr Wood, an Al Gore trained climate change warrior, is a long standing champion of the renewable program as a means of reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide and its equivalent. Wood points out the impossibility of meeting the aspirational global goals of emission reduction with existing technologies. For Australia these entail an 80 per cent reduction from existing levels by 2050 and even for the period to 2050, as Peter O’Brien estimates, we have to halve our existing levels. Not even a Pope who spouts “the gospel according to Greenpeace” can enjoin The Almighty to get us close to the levels said to be required.

Green energy generates big costs for little gain

Published in the Australian Financial Review, 22 June 2015

Alternate energy Reports of the death of coal are greatly exaggerated. For green power is still very costly and uncompetitive, and likely to remain so despite all the subsidies. In this newspaper last week Richard Denniss opined that there was a stampede of investment money out of coal ("Abbott blind to coal decline", AFR, June 15). He excoriated Tony Abbott both for failing to recognise the death of coal and for suggesting that wind farms, their preferred replacement, are a blight on the landscape.

The renewable scam: a never ending story

Published on Catallaxy Files, 21 May 2015

In an article in The Australian today the head of Origin Energy, Grant King, suggests the industry would be hard pressed to build the amount of capacity our callow political leaders have determined we should accept as part of the “compromise” deal to build 33,000 GWh by 2020. Grant King suggests that it would be difficult to have this, a more than quadrupling of capacity, constructed in the period.  Predictably, Tristan Edis, Business Spectator’s resident shill for the wind farmers does not think 33,000 is enough and vilifies the Senators involved in the current Inquiry into wind farms as religious nutters supported by the ‘fossil fuel funded Australian Environment Foundation’ (the gigantic annual income of which would not pay a week of his own funding)

An Invitation To Be Spurned

Published by Quadrant Online, 28 May 2015

When 26 carbon-phobic ambassadors urge Australia to follow the EU's lead and adopt all manner of wealth-killing initiatives to save the planet, the diplomatic response is one of polite demurral. Out of earshot, unrestrained laughter will be the more truthful reaction

A renewable energy deal: helping to reduce incomes and jobs

Published by Catallaxy Files, 18 May 2015

The Australian today ($) reports a deal is about to be clinched on reducing the large scale wind and solar renewable target to 33,000 GWh (forecast to be 23.5 per cent of electricity demand).  The initial target of 41,000 GWh plus the 4,000 GWh of rooftop facilities – was only a few years ago, when we were a low cost energy supplier, was forecast to be 20 per cent of a supply. The Government was holding out for a two year review but according to The Australian has been persuaded to resile “after research from the Clean Energy Regulator suggested more than 80 per cent of renewable energy was the subject of long-term contracts. This means the spot market for Renewable Energy Certificates, which energy users must buy to satisfy their RET target, was less significant and potentially less of a problem if penalty clauses were enacted for failing to reach the target.”

Emission reductions affordable – not bloomin’ likely!

Published on Catallaxy Files, 28 April 2015

Greg Hunt’s “stunning” success at selling around five million tonnes (actually apparently 5.8 million tonnes) a year of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of under $14 per tonne per tonne has invited much comment. The ABC’s green left commentary headed by Leigh Sales suggested that this meant we should tighten our target from the present 5 per cent reduction. And she went on to criticise Hunt for paying too much when, under her beloved ALP policy, she maintained we would now be acquitting our commitments at the EU price of under $10 per tonne. Tristan Edis, Business Spectator’s resident shill for the renewable industry was “duped” into thinking that the announcement was tenfold what it was. And some of this was emissions reductions that had already been logged as part of the Kevin Rudd/NSW Government’s retrospective ban on land clearing, an issue that has prompted the constitutional challenge by Peter Spencer against the expropriation of the value of his land in order to meet the Kyoto obligations entered into by the Rudd Government

Garnaut re-advocates his failed policy approach

Published on Catallaxy Files, 15 April 2015

Ross Garnaut plays out his previous government agenda in criticising the White Paper on Energy. He says it is deficient because it has no carbon tax and fails to enhance the merits of the Renewable Energy Target. He says “do the math” and you will see that forcing the substitution of energy that is three times the cost of energy otherwise available will lower prices. This from an economist who claims some renown! Yes if one forces high cost products on a market that is oversupplied and where supplier exit entails costs, prices will fall as existing suppliers battle it out. But the outcome beyond the short term sugar hit can be nothing other than high price.

The renewable energy scam gets a new boost

Published on Catallaxy Files, 4 May 2015

Uncertainty about whether the massive subsidies to renewable projects has led to a bonus: new projects have virtually ceased. Spruiker Giles Parkinson reported that only one large project was approved in the recent quarter and the vast bulk of the recent $200 million in financing came from the government itself. What that means is that the government provides a subsidy in requiring a share of electricity be comprised of exotic renewables and then pays directly for the investment in those renewables that are going forward. A subsidy on a subsidy yet few people bat an eyelid!

The Renewable Rort and its Friends

Published on Catallaxy Files, 10 April 2015

The RET issue is coming to a head. Bear in mind, the rationale for the scheme is a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions but it does this to a trivial extent and at a very high cost. The real rationale is now how to soak consumers for a dud product that could not survive in the absence of subsidies.

Fracking: another case of voter ignorance killing wealth generation

Published on Catallaxy Files, 24 March 2015

On Q and A last night, a discussion from about 7 minutes took place on coal seam gas. Coalition MP and junior minister Fiona Nash brags that NSW coalition has not approved one coal seam gas exploration permit and has bought back permits of those granted by Labor. Now only 11 per cent of NSW land can be used for CSG, down from 45 per cent under ALP. Naturally, Tony Jones egged others on in support of measures that deny development and only ALP frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon offered any form of lame support for other than economic nihilism.

Renewable energy’s fraudulent boondoggle starts to unravel

Published on Catallaxy Files, 6 March 2015

It seemed a good idea at the time. Renewable energy is produced by nature and is freely available, so why not make its use mandatory? What could go wrong, after all Greenpeace and our many experts tell us that in a few years’ time, if not now technology will make it cheaper than all that coal derived electricity with its smokestacks belching pollution water vapour. None of these friends of the rent-seekers advocate the logical corollary of their favored power source becoming competitive i.e. abandon the subsidies altogether. That would be a step towards consistency beyond the value of the free lunch. But the feast is drawing to a close. Bulgaria, Europe’s poorest country, had been a pacesetter in renewable installations, achieving its 2020 16 per cent renewable target by 2013 because the subsidies were so generous. The resultant high prices forced the government to resign but it was re-elected – the alternative being the former Communist Party – and proceeded to announce a price reduction financed by expropriating the (Czech owned) distribution company

Carbon taxes: the ALP’s gift to the Coalition

Published on Catallaxy Files, 30 January 2015

Earlier this week, Andrew Leigh the junior shadow Treasurer floated the essentiality of a carbon tax (and, oblivious of the collapse of commodity prices, a mining tax). Our man in Davos, Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was fast out of the blocks attacking the proposal which will surely prove more damaging to Labor than any setbacks the Libs have felt caused by Tony Abbott downgrading a Prince of the realm to a mere knight. Angus Taylor managed to spin Orwell, Hawke, Whitlam, Fraser and Santa Claus into a goring of the proposal toda

'Greatest moral challenge of our time' A Fizzzer

Published in the Herald Sun, 23 January 2015

WORLD growth is resulting in a doubling of the atmospheric composition of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases”. Present concentrations are at near record lows and a doubling of greenhouse gas concentrations is harmless to health. The concerns revolve around the knock-on effect on climate. Some point to a warm 2014 as evidence of climate change, however global temperatures have remained unchanged for the past 18 years. Across the world the issue has led governments to pour some $100 billion into research (and far more on renewable subsidies). Scientists have benefited from this research funding, but suggestions that 90-odd per cent of scientists consider harmful human-induced global warming is taking place are gross exaggerations. The key issue for governments is what would be the cost of global warming should it take place? And how much would it cost to avoid it?

Fossil-free funds not so clean-cut in long run

Published in the Herald Sun, December 11, 2014

EARLIER this year, the Australian National University sought advice from a green group, the Centre for Australian Ethical Research, regarding its superannuation fund. It later pulled investments out of a gold miner, energy giant Santos and other Australian firms. This prompted considerable criticism of the university. Many “green” or “ethical” superannuation funds follow such strategies and claim to be as successful as regular funds. But limiting the investment pool means such outcomes are unlikely over the long term.

The new protectionism: renewable energy industry's shameless self promotion

Published on Catallaxy Files, December 5, 2014

According to Christopher Flavin, the President emeritus of the Worldwatch Institute, in a few years’ time wind energy will not need to be subsidised. Oh wait! He said that back in 1984. And he was not alone, Booz, Allen & Hamilton did a report in 1983 saying the same thing as did Amory Lovins and the American Wind Energy Association testified that California Energy Commission had predicted wind would soon be cheaper than all other plants

Wind, The Greens answer to the human plague

Published on Catallaxy Files November 21, 2014

Elections bring out the most risible policy proposals that can be imagined. And having The Greens brings a never ending supply of fairy dust. Yesterday Senator Milne authorised the release of a paper “A New Victorian Economy, Cleaning Up Our Energy System”. In the paper The Greens inadvertently recognise that the economically debilitating policies resulting from their alliance with the ALP mean that we now need less electricity generation capacity

Victorian voters face an unedifying choice when it comes to energy

Published in the Herald Sun, 14 November 2014

CHEAP energy plays a crucial role in business competitiveness. The lobby group for major firms, the Business Council of Australia (BCA), recognises this in its energy reform package launched this week. The BCA seeks to avoid duplication of regulation (and who doesn’t?) but its policy recommendations are timid. They largely involve cutting back on the Commonwealth’s costly but worthless renewable energy requirements.

No end to the waste and propaganda in pursuit of CO2 emission abatement

Published on Catallaxy Files, 2 November 2015

I am among the most faithful readers of The Guardian – its football coverage is second to none. Occasionally my eye wanders to other writings. My attention was attracted to this from Lord (raised to the Nobility following his assiduous pandering to Gordan Brown’s climate change agenda) Nicholas Stern

IPCC calculations show global warming won’t be harmful if it resumes

The Australian, 8 October, 2014

A Modest Sceptic Boasts…and Frets

Quadrant Online, August 01 2014

End of the carbon bubble

Australian Financial Review 17th July, 2014

Renewable energy as a means of reducing emissions fails two key tests

Herald Sun 27th June, 2014

A carbonless economy comes at too high a price

Herald Sun 30th May, 2014

Subsidy scam hurt the energy sector

The Australian 19th May, 2014

Beware of wolves wrapped in climate change

Herald Sun 4th April, 2014

Poll: Aussies won't pay for climate schemes

Media Release, March 2014

Pity Those Toyota Workers, But Not A Lot

Quadrant Online, February 12 2014

Renewable energy sources are just a power failure

Australian Financial Review 23rd January, 2014

The heavy cost of Renewable Energy Requirements

IPA Review, January 2014

Terminate the renewable scheme now

The Australian 14th November, 2013

The Looming Disaster from Deficit Spending

Quadrant Online,1st October 2013

Scrapping the green empires

Australian Financial Review 11th September, 2013

The real cost of emissions reduction

The Australian 7th August, 2013

Obama takes climate misstep

The Australian 27th June, 2013

Taxes on carbon too drastic and too soon

Herald Sun 13th June, 2013

Cancun can-do is a con

Australian Financial Review 4th February, 2013

The heavy cost of renewable energy requirements

IPA Review, 2013

Address to the Revolt Against the Carbon Tax

2013

Heavy hand of regulators promises pain on power

The Australian 24th December, 2012

Costs lost in the focus on climate

The Australian 17th October, 2012

Somersaults and a belly-flop: carbon tax fails on all counts

Australian Financial Review 29th August, 2012

Costly price to pay for taxes, regulations on energy

The Herald Sun 27th July, 2012

Carbon tax final straw in a lethal energy plan

Herald Sun 29th June, 2012

Earth Hour: the Majesty of Failure

Catallaxy Files 12th April, 2012

Text.

Only one-third of Australians believe humans are to blame for global warming

Media Release, March 2012

Renewable energy rules lose traction

Australian Financial Review 1st February, 2012

Emissions Trading: Towards the biggest economic change in Australian history

IPA Review, 2012

Household electricity prices to rise, year on year

The Australian 13th December, 2011

Carbon policy sacrifices nation's wealth

The Australian Financial Review 17th October, 2011

The case against the carbon tax

Australian Financial Review 8th September, 2011

Peak productivity, living standards set for carbon tax sacrifice

The Drum 2nd August, 2011

Suffocating the economy one tax at a time

The Drum 13th July, 2011

Subsidising solar power is just plain crazy

Herald Sun 24th June, 2011

Australia's emission levels are overstated

Industrial Electrix 22nd June, 2011

We emit less CO2 than Combet gives us credit for

The Australian 17th May, 2011

Boot-strapping on a carbon tax

Online Opinion 11th April, 2011

You may not believe in climate change, but you will pay

The Drum Unleashed 24th February, 2011

Energy sector wilts under government's solar stress

The Australian 25th January, 2011

Lights Out

Published in Quadrant Online, 20 July 2010

You might think that these people are deranged but there were 1,400 of them, tertiary educated to a person, clapping and cheering enthusiastically. It’s a sobering thought that these people financed from the public purse and dedicated to destroying the Victorian coal and gas based electricity generation industry are comparable in number to those in gainful employ in that industry.

We’re already hurting from climate change policies

IPA Review 2010

We need to wait for low-cost energy options

Herald Sun 19th September, 2009

DCC briefing: a farrago of spin, obfuscation and exaggeration

The Drum Unleashed 4th November, 2010

Putting a price on climate change policy

The Drum Unleashed 18th October, 2010

Big new tax? Kloppers can't be serious

The Australian 17th September, 2010

Climate change almost invisible in the election campaign

The Drum Unleashed 9th August, 2010

Clunky approach to carbon reduction policies

Herald Sun 7th August, 2010.

Renewable energy comes at exorbitant price

Herald Sun 24th July, 2010

Carbon tax dated

The Drum Unleashed 3rd June, 2010

Climate change backflip could pay dividends

Herald Sun 1st May, 2010

Climate change requiem

ABC The Drum Unleashed 8th April, 2010

Text.

A turnaround on climate change

ABC The Drum Unleashed 1st March, 2010

Climate target is foolhardy

The Australian 18th February, 2010

Flexibility a key in emission reduction policy

The Herald Sun 6th February, 2010

Lack of Global Agreement Offers a Chance to Cut Our Losses

The Australian 21st January, 2010

Let he who is without climate sin...

ABC Unleashed 11th December, 2009

Too much pain, too little to gain

The Australian 25th November, 2009

Carbon emissions tax will choke economy

The Herald Sun 14th November, 2009

Carbon tax will light a slow fuse

The Australian 3rd November, 2009

Text.

Government fails credibility test on climate change

Herald Sun 17th October, 2009

Off target

ABC Unleashed 21st August, 2009

The Emissions Trading Scheme

Letter to Penny Wong, 18 August 2009

Haste makes waste in the carbon countdown

The Saturday Herald Sun 8th August, 2009

Softly, softly

Quadrant Online 8th August, 2009

Green baptists lead to bootleg

The Australian 28th July, 2009

G8: up in smoke

ABC Unleashed 10th July, 2009

Coal's detractors ignore hard facts

Australian Financial Review 2nd July, 2009

Renewable energy plan just a lot of hot air

Herald Sun 7th March, 2009

Greenhouse guess: tax vs. trade

ABC Unleashed 2nd March, 2009

Emissions retreat just so Napoleon

The Australian 6th May, 2009

Government needs face saver more than CPRS

Herald Sun 2nd May, 2009

Pulping reality

ABC Unleashed 13th January, 2009

Dreaming of a different kind of White Paper

Herald Sun 27th December, 2008

Wong right to put off our targets

The Australian 2nd December, 2008

Climate Change: China's approach

Occasional Paper, November 2008

Change of climate an ill wind for carbon tax

Herald Sun 4th October, 2008

Small voice with big ambitions

The Age 26th September, 2008

Climate mettle about to be tested

The Australian 1st August, 2008

Text.

Prepare for dim, costly future

The Age 4th July, 2008

Cost of carbon cuts hidden in dark plume

Herald Sun 28th June, 2008

Horrendous price on the cards for greenhouse plan

The Age 17th June, 2008

Why a solar system still lacks power

The Age 14th May, 2008

Economic models in dark on carbon

The Age 8th May, 2008

The alternative that dare not speak its name

The Australian 6th May, 2008

The Herald Sun 8th March, 2008

Despite the Bali show-and-tell, carbon targets continue to be futile

IPA Review, March 2008

Mission Impossible

Online Opinion 25th February, 2008

However you cut it, carbon dioxide is a fact of modern life

The Age 7th February, 2008

Garret cops a bagging over eco-priorities

The Age 25th January, 2008

Carbon copies the order of the day

The Age 20th November, 2007

Shade of green could spoil Labor's colour

Herald Sun 3rd November, 2007

The dangers of a pulp mill celebrity status

The Age 6th September, 2007

Garrett needs to burn more midnight oil

The Age 23rd August, 2007

We’re already hurting from climate change policies

IPA Review 2007

Go easy on regulation in carbon fight

Australian Financial Review 10th May, 2007

Carbon tax or trade? It's all academic

The Age 29th March, 2007

Principles trampled underfoot

Australian Financial Review 6th February, 2007

The Government's courting of greens is starting to show

The Age 18th January, 2007

All hail to the new godless religion: environmentalism

The Age 24th November, 2006

Question mark over Stern treatment

The Herald Sun 4th November, 2006

Text.

The alternatives are too costly

The Age 2nd November, 2006

Alarm on global warming just a load of hot air

The Age 8th September, 2006

Wind in sails of a new chorus of claims

Australian Financial Review 27th April, 2006

Some holes in the greenhouse debate

Australian Financial Review 18th April, 2006

Quixotic tax tilting at windmills

The Age 3rd February, 2006

Cool down on warming

Herald Sun 14th January, 2006

Wind subsidies stifle economic growth

Australian Financial Review 17th November, 2005

Carbon taxes: an expensive solution for Australia

Online Opinion 11th November, 2005

The high cost of Green fear

The Herald Sun 24th June, 2005

Hunter the big loser in carbon-trading move

Newcastle Herald 13th April, 2005

Carbon quotas pose threat

The Herald Sun 9th April, 2005

The earth's power and might

Online Opinion 20th January, 2005

Cost of Kyoto is still rising

Herald Sun 11th December, 2004

Emission Controls Just Hot Air

Australian Financial Review 2nd December, 2004

Planned Growth a Proven Failure

Australian Financial Review 31st May, 2004

Text.

Flaws in anti-FTA Stand

Australian Financial Review 25th May, 2004

Green 'Truth' Just a Load of Hot Air

Courier Mail 1st October, 2003

No Answer in the Wind

Herald Sun 22nd February, 2003

States Bark Up the Wrong Tree on Kyoto

Australian Financial Review 29th January, 2003

Green Power Riddled by Perilous Politics and Specious Economics

The Age 18th November, 2002

Climate Case not Proved

Herald Sun 24th August, 2002

Power Without Reason

Herald Sun 1st June, 2002

Can development be environmentally sustainable?

On Line Opinion 1st March, 2002

Green Power Will Cost Us

Herald Sun 13th October, 2001

Will the Greens Close Down New Zealand?

IPA Review, September 2001

Text.

Bush Gives Howard a Green Light

Australian Financial Review 2nd April, 2001

Greenhouse tax would galvanise fuel industry

Australian Financial Review 16th September, 1999

Text.

Trade may pay a high price for green activism

The Age 8th July, 1996

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