The Too-high Price of Green Power

By Daniel W. Nebert.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. — John Adams, December 1770; in “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials”

By Daniel W. Nebert

Concerned about “global warming” and “climate change,” the European Union has been far ahead of the United States in solar- and wind-energy development. But — economically — how have they fared? The answer is: Not so well. In fact, not good at all.

Denmark has been the EU leader in renewable energy. In 2012, the Danish Parliament agreed politically to 50 percent of energy consumption from wind power by 2020, 84 percent by 2035.

The Danish government has now completely changed its mind. In recent months, it decided to abandon plans to build five offshore wind power farms — to be functional by 2020. Denmark realized its green policies have become too expensive to maintain.

Danish consumers and companies pay the highest electricity prices within the EU, according to Eur electric, the European Electricity Association. In 2014, 66 percent of an average Danish electricity bill went to taxes and fees; 18 percent went to transportation, and only 15 percent for the electricity itself. (Germany was second highest, with 52 percent in electricity taxes.) The Danish climate minister recently stated: “We can’t accept this, as the private sector and households are paying far too much. Denmark’s renewable policy has turned out to be too expensive.”

It has become obvious that all the green energy plans mandated to reduce EU emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) will not achieve substantial reductions. In some cases, the actions are actually making matters worse.

A serious examination of successful and failed introductions of technology… might teach us some lessons.
Continue reading “The Too-high Price of Green Power”

Swedish CLEXIT

CLEXIT is an international organization for the exit of climate agreements with respect to CO2 emission (i.e. for an abandoning of ratification of the COP25 agreement).

The Clexit Coalition:
www.clexit.net
http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf

Swedish CLEXIT is a regional branch of the CLEXIT Coalition.
Its goals and intensions are – as intended – somewhat country specific.

We realize:

  • that CO2 is “the gas of life” and hence beneficial for plant growth (by no means is it a “pollutant”).
  • that CO2 plays a very small to insignificant role in climate change (when we consider observational facts and physical laws instead of models that do not even agree with measured facts).
  • that climate change is predominantly driven by the Sun, its emission of luminosity and solar wind, and the filtering and amplification of this emission within the terrestrial physical processes.

We claim no relations to:

  • the Donald Trump organization, though they, too, do not agree with the IPCC and COP25 concept of an anthropogenic (CO2) global warming.

We urge:

  • that the CO2 hysteria will come to an immediate end, so that we can return to work for real problems in the real world.
  • that the COP25 agreement should be re-assessed in the light of real scientific facts.
  • that our national environmental goals and efforts will re-direct the focus on real problems (which, indeed, are both serious and large) instead of misusing all attention on an imagined CO2-hysteria.
  • that international efforts will re-focus its attention back to poverty and inequality instead of climate change.

These are the working frames of “Swedish CLEXIT” as proposed by is its regional director Nils-Axel Mörner on September 25, 2016.

[Signed: Nils-Axel Mörner]

PDF version: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/swedish-clexit.pdf [330 KB]

Australia needs a Paris Plebiscite

The Clexit Coalition has called on the Australian Government to conduct a plebiscite on whether Australia should withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty.

The Clexit (ClimateExit) Coalition, now comprising over 175 representatives from 25 countries, was launched in London last week. It aims to prevent ratification or local enforcement of the UN Paris climate treaty.

The Australian Secretary of Clexit, Mr Viv Forbes, said that Australia is particularly vulnerable to the destructive energy policies being promoted in the UN’s war on carbon fuels.

“Australia is a huge continent in a far corner of the world, suffering from what that great historian Geoffrey Blainey called ‘The Tyranny of Distance’.

“Since the days of the gold rush and the wool boom, we have always relied on production, transport, processing and export from our remote mines and farms to distant markets – gold and silver, wool and wheat, lead and zinc, butter and cheese, copper and aluminium, beef and lamb, iron ore and coking coal, timber and fruit, natural gas and thermal coal, cement and steel. These widely scattered industries and the factories and refineries dependent on them rely heavily on two things – efficient transport and reliable low-cost electricity.

“Two insane energy policies threaten them – “carbon-free transport” and “wind/solar power”.

“How do green dreamers plan to power the bulk carriers, tankers, container ships, railways, road trains, trucks, tractors, draglines, dozers and pumps on wind/solar power? “Carbon-free transport” would be the economic equivalent of returning to the costly and unreliable days of windmills, bullock teams, draught horses, sulkies and sailing ships.

“The same applies to “renewable energy” which is unreliable, intermittent and costly. Without nuclear or new hydro-power, there is Buckley’s chance that carbon-free energy can supply low-cost reliable electricity for Australian mines, farms, trains, planes, cities, refineries and heavy industry.

“Before subjecting Australia to these disastrous energy policies, Australians should be given a choice. If we deserve a Plebiscite on gay marriage, which affects a minority of people, we certainly need a Paris Plebiscite before the futile war on carbon fuels destroys our backbone industries and their jobs.

“With hostility to the Paris Treaty in Poland, doubts in France Britain and America, hesitation by the EU, pretend-participation by China and India, and real opposition in the new Australian parliament, Aussies should pause.

“Let’s see evidence, a real debate, and a vote.”

Further Reading:

Poland Defends its Industries against EU Climate polices:
http://www.politico.eu/article/poland-tough-line-cop21-paris-climate-summit/

French Presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy reckons that climate change is not caused by man and that the world has far bigger problems on its hands than global warming:

http://www.thelocal.fr/20160915/sarkozy-turns-climate-sceptic-in-battle-for-the-elyse

UK Peers Call On Government Not To Rush Ratification Of Paris Agreement In Light Of Brexit:
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505andid=4f94ae2032ande=e1638e04a2

EU fails to agree on ratification of the Paris deal:
http://www.thegwpf.com/eu-fails-to-agree-on-ratification-of-paris-climate-deal/

US Republicans oppose Paris Treaty:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/19/republicans-make-second-bid-weaken-obamas-hand-paris-climate-talks

Americans won’t pay to fight climate change:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/15/how-much-will-americans-pay-to-battle-climate-change-not-much/

Viv Forbes
Secretary
The Clexit Coalition
www.clexit.net
18 September 2016
vforbes@clexit.net

http://clexit.net/2016/08/01/summary-statement/
http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf

Rosevale Qld Australia
+61 754 640 533

Disclosure: Viv Forbes is an Australian geologist, financial analyst, farmer, energy user, and non-executive director and minor shareholder in a small Australian company exporting coking coal to Asia.

PDF Version: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/paris-plebiscite.pdf [13 KB ]

Climate Science is NOT Settled

A Statement by Viv Forbes, Founding Secretary of “Clexit” (Climate Exit).
31 August 2016

To view this release with all images intact click:
http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/clexit.pdf

For at least a decade we have been told by the UN/IPCC, by most government media and officials, by many politicians, and by the Green “charities” and their media friends that “the science is settled”. We are lectured by Hollywood stars, failed politicians and billionaire speculators that anyone who opposes the World War on Carbon Dioxide is ignorant, mischievous or supporting some hidden vested interest. We endure calls for an end to free speech for climate sceptics, smearing with derogatory terms like “denier”, and even aggressive punishments like dismissal and legal action against sceptics for speaking out. The new low is the use of anti-racketeer legislation against sceptics:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/29/rico-charges-against-climate-deniers-a-case-of-goose-and-gander/

We notice the sudden and unexplained denial of pre-booked sceptic conference facilities and the steadfast refusal of alarmists to debate facts and issues.

Why are they so afraid of words? Surely this is a sign that their facts are shonky and their arguments are feeble? They fear they are losing the confidence of the public.
Continue reading “Climate Science is NOT Settled”

Clexit Founding Statement

The Clexit Founding Statement

If the Paris climate accord is ratified, or enforced locally by compliant governments, it will strangle the leading economies of the world with pointless carbon taxes and costly climate and energy policies, all with no sound basis in evidence or science. These destructive policies are already killing real industry while enriching the huge artificial and parasitical climate-change industry that thrives on bureaucracy, mis-directed government research, law books of costly regulations, never-ending conferences and subsidies for promoters of the failing technologies of renewable energy.

And all the time, government media and their allies dominate the political debate by trumpeting forecasts of doom, endlessly repeating the “right” messages, and making sure that dissident views are censored or ridiculed without right of recourse.

For the EU, their heavily subsidised wind and solar power will always deliver intermittent and erratic supply at great cost. This will produce periodic surges of oversupply which destabilise the grid and temporarily depress electricity prices, leading to losses and closures of reliable generators. At other times (and every still night), wind and sun will produce minimal or zero power, causing very high electricity prices and increasing the chances of brownouts and blackouts. To avoid blackouts governments and/or consumers are forced to fund diesel, gas or coal plants to remain on standby or as spinning reserves until needed. Funding these subsidies for renewables and the backups needed for them is producing crippling electricity prices (doubled in the past decade). It is also harming consumers (especially the poor) and causing financial crises for those governments who try to shield some businesses and consumers from the real energy costs.

Aluminium smelters and steel works have already closed or relocated to countries not mesmerised by the climate scam. Other industries will follow. Poland is resisting these suicidal industrial policies, and even Germany is recognising the danger by introducing subsidies to keep its industrial base.

Just one long cold European winter, with a few heavy snowfalls and a succession of still, frosty nights will produce the blackouts which will shock Europe into energy reality and bring the Paris energy follies to an end. In the last such winter, thousands of people died in Britain from cold as they could not afford home heating.

Some politicians and promoters in the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) think they can profit from the Paris accord. They hope to continue gaming the system by selling carbon credits of doubtful authenticity on an already corrupt market, and demanding climate reparations and technology transfers from the West, while remaining free to build their own clean modern and efficient coal/gas/nuclear/hydro energy grid. Their reliable low-cost power is already attracting electricity-intensive industries fleeing from the soaring power costs in the West. However, they forget that if Western energy stupidity provokes a world financial crisis, the global economy will slump and all nations will suffer.

Some of the biggest supporters of the Paris accord are small oceanic nations seeking welfare through handouts to save them from baseless predictions of rising sea levels, even though actual changes in sea levels are tiny and not unusual.

The fact is that sea level rise in Tuvalu has been effectively zero since accurate measurements commenced in 1993, on tide gauges set up by the Australian government: http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70056/IDO70056SLI.pdf
Continue reading “Clexit Founding Statement”

Summary Statement on the Formation of Clexit

Summary Statement by Viv Forbes, Founding Secretary of Clexit

clexit logo

A new international organisation aims to prevent ratification of the costly and dangerous Paris global warming treaty which is being promoted by the EU and the present US administration.

“CLEXIT” (CLimate Exit) was inspired by the Brexit decision of the British people to withdraw from the increasingly dictatorial grasp of the EU bureaucracy.

Without any publicity or serious recruiting, Clexit has attracted over 60 well-informed science, business and economic leaders from 16 countries. (At 16 Sept 2016 Clexit had over 170 members from 25 countries).

The secretary of Clexit, Mr Viv Forbes from Australia, said that widespread enforcement of the Paris climate treaty would be a global tragedy.

“For the EU and the rest of the Western world, ratification and enforcement of the Paris Treaty (and all the other associated decrees and Agendas) would herald the end of low-cost hydrocarbon transport and electricity, and the exit of their manufacturing, processing and refining industries to countries with low-cost energy.

“For developing countries, the Paris Treaty would deny them the benefits of reliable low-cost hydrocarbon energy, compelling them to rely on biomass heating and costly weather-dependent and unreliable power supplies, thus prolonging and increasing their dependency on international handouts. They will soon resent being told to remain forever in an energy-deprived wind/solar/wood/bicycle economy.

“Perhaps the most insidious feature of the UN climate plan is the “Green Climate Fund”. Under this scheme, selected nations (“The rich”) are marked to pour billions of dollars into a green slush fund. The funds will then be used to bribe other countries (“developing and emerging nations”) into adopting silly green energy policies.

“Naturally some smart politicians and speculators in the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and in the small island nations, understand that they can profit from the Paris Treaty by gaming the rules on things like carbon credits, or milking the green fund for “climate compensation” or “green energy technology”. This will only work for a while, and when the handouts stop, the re-adjustment to reality will be very painful.

“This UN-driven war on carbon energy has already caused massive losses and dislocation of western industry. If allowed to continue as envisaged by the Paris Treaty, this economic recession will become a world-wide depression, and all nations will suffer.

“We must stop this futile waste of community savings; cease the destruction and dislocation of human industry; stop killing rare bats and birds with wind turbine blades and solar/thermal sizzlers; stop pelletising trees and shipping them across the world to feed power stations designed to burn coal; stop converting food to motor vehicle fuel; and stop the clearing of bush and forests for biofuel cultivation and plantations.”

“Carbon dioxide does not control the climate. It is an essential plant food and more carbon dioxide will produce more plant growth and a greener globe.”

PDF version of this summary statement, the founding statement and more reading: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit.pdf [296 KB]

The initial Clexit Committee and the list of Founding Members:
http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf [158 KB]