Posts

Unreliable renewables killing our power grid – Australian Renewable Energy Agency Estimates

, ,

Even the energy minister has admitted he is scared for the future security and stability of our grid because of the rapid influx of renewables. Climate activists continue to falsely claim that wind and solar is the cheapest form of energy.

It’s a lie. When you take away the billions of dollars in subsidies coal is still the cheapest form of energy.

Transcript

[Senator Fawcett] Senator Roberts.

[Senator Roberts] Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for attending today. I’d like to ask questions on three topics. Firstly, prices, reliability and stability of the electricity network and supply. Secondly, hydrogen. And thirdly carbon dioxide storage. So firstly on prices, reliability, and stability. In your recent report on 14 large scale wind and solar projects in which ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation invested, it says that you “Played an important role in accelerating the early development of the large scale solar industry in Australia and the integration of utility scale renewable energy generation in the national electricity market.” Could you please confirm or correct these specific findings amongst others? Firstly, negative pricing impacts increased significantly in 2020, particularly for Queensland projects.

Senator, I’m not paying attention to the energy markets closely enough to answer that question.

[Senator Roberts] Okay. Secondly, initial project forecasts consistently underestimated curtailment and residual losses, while capacity factors were generally overestimated.

Again, Senator, that’s a report I’d have to go back and have a look at to answer that question.

[Senator Roberts] Third one, incorrectly assumed adequate transmission. And fourthly, the regulator says power cannot be fed into the grid because of instability.

Sorry, what’s the question there?

[Senator Roberts] The regulator, could you confirm or correct whether the regulator says that power cannot be fed into the grid because of instability problems in the grid?

Senator, what’s the context for that?

[Senator Roberts] Well, these are the reports. This is a report in which ARENA and Clean Energy Finance produced on 14 large scale wind and solar projects.

I would need to refresh myself in the report to answer the question.

[Senator Roberts] I’ll just make the statements and maybe you could comment. The fifth point: Frequency Control Ancillary Services costs were both a significant expense and a major operational challenge for several projects. Although this reduced from 2019 to 2020, as Frequency Control Ancillary Services prices have fallen and several projects implemented sales forecasting. And the last point: the failure of critical equipment, especially failure of inverted power stack and the lack of market readily available spares were a major operational challenge for asset managers. Have these, and similar projects, contributed to the instability of electricity market over recent years?

Senator, I don’t believe so.

[Senator Roberts] Snowy Hydro seems to agree. They’re warning us that the transition from a stable base load power from coal is a fact and it’s going to be fraught with risk.

Well, Senator, as the penetration of renewables increases, those issues need to be addressed. The storage and the reliability of the system. You’re asking about the past, have they in the past, and I’m not sure that those projects have caused any instability, as you suggest.

[Senator Roberts] The estimated costs of Frequency Control Ancillary Services, lot of acronyms here isn’t there, for unreliables was initially estimated, about 20 years ago, at just 1% of the cost of electricity. This is before we got onto this transition. It’s not significant cost in coal gas, nuclear and hydro, yet with the unreliables, the wind and solar, it’s now around 8 to 9%. Is that a factor in your plans?

Senator, what’s unreliable?

[Senator Roberts] Wind and solar.

Variable renewables?

[Senator Roberts] Yes.

Right.

[Senator Roberts] So the cost Frequency Control Ancillary Services is now around 8 to 9%.

Senator, I’d have to go and check the market for you and get back to you. I’m not close to those numbers on a daily basis.

[Senator Roberts] Okay, so if you could take it on notice then, the cost of Frequency Control Ancillary Services in aggregate, across electricity sector, and also for wind and for solar, typically, are you aware that the Minister for Energy himself recently admitted, quite publicly and strongly, his fears about future prices, his fears about unreliability, and his fears about grid instability?

Yes.

[Senator Roberts] Aren’t these inherent flaws in unreliable wind and solar, that are not present, or are negligible, in coal, gas, hydro, and nuclear?

Senator, it’s very possible, technically and economically, to build a system with renewable energy that is reliable, safe, secure, low emissions, and low cost.

[Senator Roberts] But not base load power.

Ultimately, all of that combined gives you base load power because if you balance your wind and solar effectively, with pumped hydro, with batteries, gas generators, as the case may be, you can create base load power.

[Senator Roberts] Has anyone done it anywhere in the world, as a nation?

Senator, we’re well on our way to doing it in Australia.

[Senator Roberts] Okay. Coal, gas, hydro, nuclear in other countries, and formerly in our country, were they reliable base load power sources because they provided stability, reliability, and high energy density. Now, as I see it, and from what I’ve read, unreliables like wind and solar have very low energy density. That’s what makes them inefficient. That’s fundamental basic physics. They’re inherently high cost of making solar panels and wind turbines because of the high resource consumption. It takes for a kilowatt hour of coal, it takes about 35 tonnes of steel. For the same in wind, it takes about 543 tonnes of steel. So inherently higher cost, higher energy used in making them, and much more land needed for solar, and higher energy intensity in manufacturing. So to me, it just seems that the basics are not sound. I’d like your views

Senator, I’ll take solar for example. The technology I know a little bit better than wind. ARENA hasn’t funded any wind technology in our history. Solar has an energy payback of between 12 and 18 months, and the panels last for 20 to 30 years in the field. And the International Energy Agency has come out and said that solar PV is the cheapest form of energy ever, in the history of the world. So those themes from the International Energy Agency, and the things that we’re seeing, are aligned. We think that wind and solar combined with those other technologies to balance the system will give us a very cheap, stable, low emissions energy system, contrary to your perspective.

[Senator Roberts] So if for a given amount of energy needed from a solar panel, we need about three of them to take care of feeding a battery for taking us through the night, and also for days of poor weather. So is that factored in, or just the single solar panel? Because they’re the figures I’ve seen.

It’s the whole system, Senator.

[Senator Roberts] Yeah, I’d like, could you give me a breakdown of those, please? Because I don’t believe them. The breakdown of those costs.

Of what costs?

[Senator Roberts] Solar.

What would you like to know?

[Senator Roberts] I’d like you to compare a solar to a coal-fired power station, base load power. Battery, the number of cells you need.

Well, I’ll take it one question at a time. A solar farm built today can cost in the range of $40 to $50 a megawatt hour as its output. A coal station that you would build today would be at least double that, if it was a HELE coal station. And you’ve seen the prices for gas. We know that gas generators need at least $100 a megawatt hour, and an open cycle, and open cycle gas station to produce profit. So, solar at 40 to 50, and wind at about the same range, is cheaper than other forms of electricity generation today.

[Senator Roberts] So why is it that everywhere in the world, as the as the proportion of solar and wind increases, the cost of electricity in that nation increases dramatically.

Senator, I haven’t seen the figures that you’re talking about. You say every country in the world that’s done it, I’ve not heard-

[Senator Roberts] I’ve seen several graphs from independent sources showing, looking at it from your view, the more solar and wind increase, the higher the cost of electricity.

You’re welcome to share that with me. I can have a look at it.

[Senator Roberts] So One Nation commissioned Dr. Alan Moran, who was a First Assistant Secretary of the Industry Department, a First Assistant Commissioner of the Productivity Commission, and Deputy Secretary of Energy in the Victorian government, to report on the cost of climate and unreliables. Apparently, those figures used to be consolidated once but they’re no longer consolidated. Excluding the costs of transmission, expenditures on Snowy 2.0, and cost of market operator interventions, Dr. Moran has estimated the annual cost in 2018-19 over renewable energy subsidies and support at $6.9 billion. This estimate was made from publicly available information in state and federal budget papers and from regulatory authorities. So all from the governments. It comprises Commonwealth expenditures, the cost of Commonwealth subsidy schemes, and state expenditures and subsidy schemes. Do you agree with Alan Moran’s estimate of 6.9 billion?

Senator, I’m not aware of his work.

[Senator Roberts] Do you have any idea of the extra cost of solar and wind on top of the additional, on top of ordinary electricity costs?

Senator, those figures are readily available. And I think one of the things that gets missed when looking at that figure, for example, the subsidy figure, as you call it, is the benefit that the renewables have provided the system in terms of lower costs, as you’ve pointed out, you know, it has been pointed out that the effect of having wind and solar in the market is to suppress prices. And I think we can see that in today’s market. So I think you have to be fair and look at the benefits or the impact of renewables on a holistic basis, rather than just looking at the subsidies, which were necessary to get solar and wind, for example, to the point where they are the cheapest form of energy generation. And I think we’re seeing the benefit of that in today’s electricity prices, which are at record low levels, I think.

[Senator Roberts] Are you aware of the study in Spain that says for every so-called green job created there are 2.2 jobs that could have been created had they stayed with coal-fired power station?

Senator, I’m not aware of that study.

[Senator Fawcett] Senator Roberts, you’ve had a pretty good run. How much more do you have?

[Senator Roberts] I’ll ask one more question on this topic, and perhaps we can come back if there’s, if I’ve got time afterwards.

[Senator Fawcett] We’re already well over, in terms of our schedule. I’m keen to move on to Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

[Senator Roberts] What is the effect of these unreliables, wind and solar, compared with the Prime Minister Gillard’s Labor carbon dioxide tax? Do you have any idea?

Sorry Senator, I’m not quite clear how to even answer that question.

[Senator Roberts] Well, I’ve been told that an estimate is that the cost of the Gillard carbon dioxide tax is about half the cost of these extra wind and solar costs on our energy sector.

Senator, I’m just not sure. I can’t answer that question as you’ve put it.

[Senator Roberts] I’ll put the questions on hydrogen and carbon dioxide sequestration on notice.

Thank you.

[Senator Roberts] Thank you, Chair.

/by

Farmers and Regional Towns are struggling

, , ,

With water availability, labour prices and government all against the farmer, it is too hard for smaller farms to survive and even the large farms are struggling.

If our farms fallover, regional towns will quickly follow and then the rest of the country will be in big trouble. Governments at every level need to help our regions be building cheap, reliable electricity and secure supplies of water.

Decades of government dropping the ball on these issues has left us in a scary position. I talk about this in my new segment, Our Nation Today, with farmer Trevor Cross and Mike Ryan.

Let me know what you think.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts] Regional Queensland literally feeds and clothes us, Yet so many short-sighted government policy decisions will hit these regions first and hit the regions hardest. Travelling around Queensland, I’m constantly reminded that the one-size-fits-all policies just don’t meet the needs of rural and regional centres. We’re talking about the fundamentals that urban areas take for granted. Affordable, secure, and reliable water, energy, and food. Reasonable insurance premiums and freight rates, roads, and rail fit for purpose. Access to health and education that gives people the confidence to settle in the regions. There’s nothing more fundamental than food.

A prosperous agricultural sector is essential for supplying Australia’s food needs and the needs of the rest of the world. In the financial year 2021, the gross value of agricultural production is estimated at $66 billion, a staggering figure. And it’s easy to forget that being a farmer is a tough gig because even in good years it’s 24/7 and the balancing acts of risks within a farmer’s control, and those beyond never stops. There’s been a lot of talk about an agriculture-led recovery after the COVID restrictions that smashed our economy and the need for confidence to pick up the pieces and to keep going. Many in our farming community have sustained shattering losses with ready to pick food being ploughed back in and a major reduction in the planting of next year’s crop, simply due to worker shortages.

I see a role for government in creating the right environment for businesses to flourish. Part of that is to help mitigate unnecessary risks, such as having strategically placed dams and a well-connected water infrastructure grid which should have happened years ago. So instead of the Queensland government spending $10 million to cart water for Stanthorpe when the town ran out, it would have been better spent on a longer term solution such as more town weirs to hold more water. We know that our water reserves and existing dams are not keeping up with population growth. Government should aim to minimise its unnecessary intrusions and yet any farmer will tell you that excessive regulations such as the reef regulations and vegetation management laws create an impossible business environment for farmers.

Layer upon layer upon layer of stupid and destructive rules and regulation leaves the farmer with ever-decreasing profits. And yet we expect farmers to just saddle up and continue to make it work. Today Mike Ryan talks with Trevor Cross, a successful Queensland horticultural grower based in Bundaberg. I first met Trevor in 2017 at his farm and was impressed with his passion for farming, his business savvy and the hard work that he and his team do everyday to put many veggies such as tomatoes, capsicums and zucchinis into our supermarkets.

[Mike Ryan] Trevor, thanks for joining us.

[Trevor Cross] Thanks Mike, good to meet you.

[Mike Ryan] Now, tell us about your farming business, the size of your holdings, where you’re located, what you grow and what you export.

[Trevor Cross] We’re in Bundaberg in Queensland, we farm about two and a half thousand acres of small crops. So we grow tomatoes, gourmet roma’s and cherry tomato. And then zucchinis, capsicums, chilies, melon, pumpkin, a few cucumber, snow peas, and sugar snaps, and just a few beans, so we spread that over about a nine-month period in the Bundaberg region. So most of our stuff actually goes Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne a little bit to Adelaide. And this year in New Zealand, it’ll open its exports again, it’s been out for 12 months with this virus. So it’s supposed to open up again this year, so hopefully that’ll be good for the industry.

[Mike Ryan] I can really empathise with what you do. I mean, my dad will probably kill me for this being from the land. I recall he actually decided to go into rockies and do rock melons and large acreage. Anyway, the bottom fell out of the market. And I recall he got a cheque from the bank for, I think it would have been something like sixpence in those days. And I’m thinking, why would you ever want to do this? And then he decided to go into avocados and citrus and stuff. And that’s just as terrifying. It’s a really hard business, isn’t it?

[Trevor Cross] Yeah. The biggest problem with farming it’s actually almost like an addiction. You go out and start growing something, it’s very, very hard to stop it. It’s not so much about money, I don’t think, when you’re a farmer. It’s about just seeing a crop planted, seeing the crop grow and getting it picked. But the biggest problem is there needs to be some rewards on the way through.

[Mike Ryan] What’s the greatest challenge, say, to business such as yours on the land?

[Trevor Cross] In our industry it’s, because it’s a high-labor industry, it’s probably, at the moment, getting enough people to actually harvest crops. Because when we’re in peak-season we have about 350 people here, so… And there is going to be a shortage. I’m not quite sure how far we’ll be down, whether it’s going to be 10- or 20-percent down. So that’s probably one of the hardest parts. Water supply’s another major component to our operation, and just general costing. The costs keep going up and up and up and the end prices doesn’t really reflect what it’s costing to do business, anymore.

[Mike Ryan] So you have two and a half thousand acres, which is a very large, large piece of land. Do you think the days of the smaller farmer, for example, 20 or 30 acres are gone, and that you need to have, just to accommodate your cost and make sure you get a decent return, that you’ve got to have a large business instead of those, not micro, but the smaller businesses used to be.

[Trevor Cross] It’s volume now, whereas before it was just a family, a family could actually survive on a hundred acres and live fairly comfortable, now a hundred acres unless you’re doing really niche market product, you would never, ever survive. So everything’s been turned into bigger farms. We’d be one of the largest, freehold personal farms in town now, there’s probably a couple other families about our size that are just doing it, and the rest is a lot of consolidated money from investment companies, and they’re now are doing nut trees, mainly.

[Mike Ryan] What’s greatest impact on your business when it comes to costs? Which ones are the ones that stand out? Is it labour?

[Trevor Cross] Yeah, Labour used to run about 33- to 35-percent we’d work on for labour, and the way it’s going, last year I think hit early forties, about 42-, 44-percent, and this year, unless there’s a big market change I think it’ll go 50%.

[Mike Ryan] Wow. That’s incredible, isn’t it? How do you survive?

[Trevor Cross] Well, I just hope that there’s actually money paid at the other end. At the point of sale, at the first point of sale at the marketplace, most stuff is fairly cheap. At the last point of sale, it could be three… between two and four times what it’s paid for. So, that’s what the average customer doesn’t think, They think if it’s dearer in the shop, the farmer’s making the money.

[Mike Ryan] I was talking to Senator Malcolm Roberts, and he was saying, just talking about how the consumer in the major metropolitan areas, they all think that the produce that they see almost is manufactured in the supermarket, but, you know, prior to that, you’ve got so many factors. I mean, from the farmer to the chain. Farmer, to the, what do you call it?

The grower. Not grower, the buyer who buys up for the land and then they on-sell it to someone else. And then it’s sold to the supermarket. You think from the farmer to the actual supermarket, ’cause my dad used to always say, he would love to be able to take out a shotgun with some pellets and get rid of those middlemen. Is it still the same headache and pain in the backside?

[Trevor Cross] The biggest problem is with the whole system, if you actually get out of the place what’s supposed to set the right price how do we know what the right price is? And I think the days when people were actually stealing at the first point of sale, I don’t think it’s there anymore because everyone’s fighting for a dollar. So they’re getting screwed down more and more. All the grower actually needs is probably about 20- 30-cents a kilo more and they become very sustainable. And that’s not a lot.

It’s only 2 to 3 dollars a box on average, and everyone’s paying bills, because the Ag industry, and this is not just what we do, It’s every Ag industry, there’s a lot of people get employed before it even gets to the farm. And then after it leaves the farm there’s a lot of people employed from transport, through to your retailers, your wholesalers, and then the processors… there’s many, many people relying on the farming industry.

[Mike Ryan]What are your thoughts of the future of farming, say, in Australia?

[Trevor Cross] Well, I know if we keep going down this track we can’t last much longer. Even our business now we’ve actually got 400 acres of nut trees, and we’ll probably continue to change over just because of the labour price and for our small profits we’re making out of employing all the people, we may as well not have them. We may as well just go to where it’s all mechanical.

So, I don’t know if my boys will actually take over and do what I do, ’cause it’s a seven-day-a-week job. You’ve got to be in amongst the people and see what’s happening. I actually think, even in this area around Bundaberg, there won’t be too much of this industry left within probably four or five years. I think the majors will be all gone.

[Mike Ryan] That’s just terrible, too, because once you have less growers like yourself then you’ve got this monopoly and the monopolies are not what we want. I mean, look at the US and you’ve got these multi-billion-dollar corporations that control the price of produce, although you go to a supermarket and they do the same thing there too, they screw down the grower, although the grower being a lot bigger than what they’ve dealt with, they’ve got their sort of, at least it’s coming up to almost 50-50 between the grower and the actual supermarket chain.

It’s a really, really tough life. What do you think is the most important thing in keeping our farming sector successful and growing? What do we actually need to do besides revise wages, for example, on the land. You can’t keep paying out 50%. You’re going to make no money.

[Trevor Cross] Yeah. Everyone’s entitled to money, Mike. The wage earner is entitled to money, and they all want to lead a good life, but we’ve just got to get a share of that sale price at the end. Basically, I think all growers need just a little bit more money, and it’s not a lot, a couple dollars a box, as I say, it’s not a lot of money. And then everyone’s happy because I don’t think any man who’s been on the land for all his life deserves to actually have the bank come and sell him up, because of the poor market prices. I think everyone can work together.

If capsicums or zucchinis or whatever, ’cause we’re only seasonal, we do about eight months a year in Bundaberg, and then the South is just finishing up now, they would have had the most horrible year in their life. And people have been on the land all their life and next minute they gotta sell their farms because of poor prices. It’s only a couple of dollars a box, they wouldn’t have needed much more and they’d be still viable.

[Mike Ryan] So what do you do, though? If you weren’t on the land, what would you do?

[Trevor Cross] I don’t really know what I would actually do cause I’m not much into fishing, I don’t like doing anything else. And so that’s what I call it, a hobby.

[Mike Ryan] An expensive hobby though, isn’t it?

[Trevor Cross] Yeah but most… a lot of farmers grow because they’re addicted to growing. That’s what they’ve been bred to do. They grow. And they show up nearly every day. So it’s a challenge because you’re challenged against the weather, challenged against people and you become a plumber an accountant, you know, almost doctor, sometimes. So there’s nothing you can’t actually do. A good farmer can do just about anything there is to do.

[Mike Ryan] If somebody was wanting to find out more about what you do, do you actually have a website we could go to and have a look, just to get an idea and appreciation what it’s all about.

[Trevor Cross] No, I would say I keep pretty well under cover but we could actually have a bit of a look at doing something if there’s people interested and actually do something.

[Mike Ryan] Yeah. We must do that. I’m sure you’ll handle the technology as well as my dad.

[Trevor Cross] I have to get someone to help me, yeah.

[Mike Ryan] Trevor, great chatting with you. All the best. Thanks for giving us your time today, and also say thank you to your wife in the background, she’s done a wonderful job.

[Trevor Cross] No worries. Thanks, Michael.

[Malcolm Roberts] The harsh reality is that we, as a nation, will either flourish or decline with our regional centres and with Australian farmers. Our farmers must make a profit to make their livelihoods sustainable. And that, after all, is where we get our food. Our rural and regional communities have unique challenges and need a different set of solutions to ensure fair and equitable access to basic services and to grow viable communities. Thank you for joining me Senator Malcolm Roberts on Our Nation Today.

/by

GREENS LAUNCH ATTACK ON… Trucks?

, ,

Electric vehicles might be okay for suburb hopping in big cities, but I doubt there is a farm in Australia that would be able to run without any petrol or diesel. The Greens’ calls to ‘rapidly transition to electric vehicles‘ for their net zero economy by 2035 shows they have no clue of the energy requirements in transport, industry and agriculture.

Transcript

Let’s have a bit of fun with some facts. Neither H2O, water, nor CO2, carbon dioxide, is a pollutant. Neither water nor carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The two products from burning hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil, natural gas—are water and carbon dioxide. We have carbon in every cell of our bodies. The term ‘organic’ refers to something that contains carbon. Earth: the thing that makes our planet so livable, the thing that makes our planet so unique, is the fact that we have more carbon concentrated on our planet than is the case across the universe.

Carbon is essential for life, but the Greens don’t understand that carbon is not carbon dioxide. They tell us that we need to cut our carbon dioxide from the use of coal, oil and natural gas, but then they talk about carbon. Carbon dioxide is a gas. Carbon is a solid in every cell of your body.

So let’s deal with some facts. Let’s have a bit of fun. Carbon dioxide is just 0.04 per cent of Earth’s air. That is 4/100ths of a per cent. Carbon dioxide is scientifically classified as a trace gas, because there’s so little of it. There’s barely a trace of it. Now, some people are going to say, ‘Oh, but cyanide can kill you with just a trace.’ That’s true. That’s a chemical effect. But the claimed effect of carbon dioxide from the Greens of global warming, climate catastrophe and the greatest existential threat that we now face is a physical effect. A trace gas has no physical effect that can be recorded, as I’ll show you in a minute.

Next point: carbon dioxide is non-toxic and not noxious. It’s highly beneficial to and essential for all plants on this planet. Everything green that’s natural relies upon carbon dioxide, and it benefits when carbon dioxide levels are far higher than now. Carbon dioxide is colourless, odourless and tasteless. Nature produces—and this is from the United Nations climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—97 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced annually on our planet. That means that nature produces 32 times more than the entire human production of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide does not discolour the air. Carbon dioxide does not impair the quality of water or soil. None of what I’m talking about is new. I’ve compiled it, but none of it’s new. Carbon dioxide does not create light, create heat, create noise or create radioactivity. It doesn’t distort our senses. It does not degrade the environment, nor impair its usefulness, nor render our environment offensive.

Carbon dioxide doesn’t harm ecosystems and, in fact, is essential for all ecosystems. Carbon dioxide does not harm plants and animals, nor humans. In fact, we put it in our kids’ soft drink. We put it in our champagne. We put it in our beer. We put it in soda water—we carbonate it by putting carbon dioxide in there. It’s essential for all plants and animals. Carbon dioxide does not cause discomfort, instability, wooziness or disorders of any kind. It does not accumulate. It does not upset nature’s balance. It’s essential for nature and life on this planet. It remains in the air for only a short time before nature cycles it into plants, animal tissue, the oceans and natural accumulations. It does not contaminate, apart from nature’s extremely high and concentrated volumes of carbon dioxide from some volcanos and even then it’s only locally and briefly under rare natural conditions when in concentrations and amounts are far higher than anything humans can produce.

Carbon dioxide is not a foreign substance. In the past, on this planet, under the current atmosphere, there have been times when carbon dioxide levels were 130 times higher than the concentration in the earth today. In fact, in the last 200 years, scientists have measured carbon dioxide levels up to 40 per cent higher than they are today. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, from the UN ignores those measurements, which were taken, in some cases, by Nobel Prize winners—science prize winners. All they do instead is take one reading from one place over the last 70 years.

As you can see from the list I’ve just read, carbon dioxide is not pollution. The Greens are talking about doing an inquiry into carbon, yet they say it’s the carbon dioxide that’s causing this climate change that’s supposedly going on. Let’s look at something else then, as carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Let’s have a look at this climate change crisis that the Greens are talking about. I’m unique in this Senate for holding the CSIRO accountable. All of the other senators have not done their jobs. Former Senator Ian Macdonald, from the Senate in 2016, pointed that out to me. He pointed out that no-one in this parliament ever debated the science until I arrived. We still haven’t had the debate, because I’ve challenged the Greens and they have gone without responding to my challenge for a debate more than 125 days. Senator Waters has gone more than 10¼ years without responding to my challenge for a debate. They won’t debate me, because they haven’t got the science. Let’s listen to the people that the Greens rely on for their science.

I have cross-examined the CSIRO. I’ve had three presentations and several sessions at Senate estimates. In their first presentation under my cross-examination the CSIRO admitted that they had never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a threat or a danger. Never. That means we don’t need any of these policies. Let’s go to the next session we had with the CSIRO. Each of these sessions were 2½ to three hours long. The CSIRO said that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented—that’s referring to the blip that ended back in 1995. We have had stasis of temperatures since then—no warming in the last 26 years. The current temperatures are not unprecedented.

My third point is that the CSIRO admitted that they and other bodies around the world rely, for their predictions, on unvalidated, erroneous computer models. That says two things. Firstly, the models are wrong. They’re erroneous and invalidated, yet they’re using them to make projections. Secondly, it confirms they don’t have the evidence. If they had the evidence, they would have presented it. Instead, they’ve come up with some lame models, which have already failed.

The fourth thing that I will mention about the so-called science is that, when they failed to provide me with the empirical evidence proving that carbon dioxide from human activity affects the climate and needs to be cut, I gave them a very simple test. I asked them to show me anything unprecedented in the earth’s climate in the last 10,000 years. They failed that. I then gave them the absolutely simplest goal of providing me with empirical scientific evidence showing that there has been a statistically significant change to any factor in earth’s climate. They failed that. They can’t even point to a change in climate, because we all know that climate varies quite naturally, most of it cyclically, but sometimes a combination of cycles makes it look like it’s highly random. That’s the point. Not only that, there are scientists whom I’ve communicated with directly, including members who are lead authors for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, such as Dr John Christy. He was a lead author until he left the United Nations climate body because of the corruption. He was disgusted and sickened by it. These and many other scientists have confirmed to me that nowhere in the world has anyone ever presented any empirical scientific evidence showing that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate and needs to be cut—not NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, not the UK Met Office, not the Bureau of Meteorology, not the CSIRO, not any university, not any academic, not any science paper and not any journal. Check for yourself and tell me if I’m wrong.

The third thing I want to say is that the Greens lunatic policies are not based on science. You’ll notice that Senator Rice, in her comments, never once mentioned any proof of causation. Instead, as substitutes for science, they use emotion, stories, fantasies, dreams and promises. That’s all they have. Policy needs to be based on specific, quantified cause and effect—this much carbon dioxide is growing because of humans, and this much is the impact. That has never been presented anywhere in the world. The CSIRO’s failed three times with me, and it has never been done by anyone. Once we have that measured effect, which no-one has produced so far, then and only then can we shape a policy. Then and only then can we measure the progress along the road of implementing that policy. Without that, it’s fundamentally flawed. Then, if we had the connection, specified and quantified, we can cost it to see the benefits of Senator Rice’s dreams and fantasies versus the impact on our human species of this climate madness that people are going on with. As a result of this madness, both the Liberal-National government and the Labor Party have driven our electricity prices from being the lowest in the world to the highest in the world, all on unicorn farts and rainbows, and nothing else—nothing substantial; claims of carbon pollution.

Then we have this telling factor. The No. 1 factor that drove the rapid improvement in human’s standard of living over the last 170 years was the relentless decrease in the price of energy from 1850 until the mid-nineties. Since then, in Australia, we have gone the other way. We’ve started to increase prices. We’ve now doubled and tripled prices for electricity in some areas and nothing has changed. Coal-fired power stations have become more efficient. Yet we have an increase in price because of the artificial regulations and the artificial impediments on the most productive and efficient source of electricity generation and the subsidies for the dreams of solar and wind, which are inherently high and will never catch up with coal, hydro or nuclear.

We had a relentless decrease in the price of electricity over 170 years until 25 years ago. That relentless decrease in the price of electricity and energy meant an increase in productivity and an increase in wealth. That’s what has led to humans now living lives that are longer, safer, easier, more comfortable and more healthy and having far more choices than anyone could ever have imagined. This Greens lunacy, calling carbon dioxide a ‘carbon’—calling a gas a solid—is driving a decarbonisation that is, in effect, deindustrialisation. Look around us. What will disappear is all the material benefits we’ve had over the last 150 years.

Opinion and emotion are not science. There is no need to have this reference to the committee, because there is no science underpinning the Greens’ call for this reference. We need to get back to the facts, get back to straight logic, stop dreaming, think about the many people who benefit from the wonderful hydrocarbon fuels—natural gas, coal and oil—and look after the people of this planet.

/4 Comments/by

Government admits power grid is critical after influx of renewable energy

,

My motion successfully carried today in the Senate.The government has admitted they know that our energy grid is at a critical status because of the influx of renewable energy into the system. Despite this, they continue to chase stupid green-left policies for solar and wind that will destroy the country without reliable, coal fired power.

Motion: The Senate-

  1. notes that:
    1. the Energy Security Board stated in January 2021 that the system security of the power grid is at a critical status after the influx of renewable energy into the system,
    2. in February:
      1. the River Thames froze for the first time in over 50 years,
      2. hundreds of United States cities recorded their coldest temperatures in decades,
      3. wind turbines in Texas froze solid, and
      4. solar panels in Germany were blanketed in snow,
    3. naturally variable weather events place serious strain on power grids,
    4. relying on weather-dependent power generation to save us from weather events is a recipe for power failure, and
    5. reliable baseload power is essential to provide safety and security for Australians; and
  2. calls on the Government to urgently commence the construction of reliable, baseload power generation.

https://parlwork.aph.gov.au/motions/825f4de4-5172-eb11-b861-005056b55c61

/by

Ensuring Academic Integrity – 2SM with Marcus Paul

,

Transcript

[Marcus Paul]

All right, it’s now 16 minutes away from 8:00. Malcom’s with us on the programme. Hello, mate, how are you?

[Malcolm Roberts]

I’m very well.

[Marcus Paul]

Excellent.

[Malcolm Roberts]

I’m very, very well, Marcus. And, by the way, I understand this is the first time I’ll be speaking to you while you’re in the Grant Goldman Studios. So well done.

[Marcus Paul]

Wonderful. Yeah. Brand new studio. We’re loving it. Everything seems to be working a-okay. Where are you at the moment? Still up north?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Back up north again. Yeah, up in Townsville. And we went through Airlie Beach yesterday, but Grant, with Grant, I enjoyed meeting Grant and working with him. He was a fabulous man.

He really looked after the people because he connected with what was really going on. He had the guts to tackle big issues, and he was just a wonderful character. I know you’ve got a caller called John Mcreigh who told me about the way Grant’s supported Lawrence Heinz and at his own costs. It’s just amazing, the courage of the man.

[Marcus Paul]

Yeah, wonderful, and I know you had that relationship before, and we’re very grateful that we continue to talk to you on this network and certainly on this programme, mate. So thank you very much. Now, let’s talk about changes to the university system. You support the government’s changes. Why?

[Malcolm Roberts]

They’re reducing the fees for courses that will meet the needs for the future of our country, and jobs, practical courses that will, like engineering, like nursing, like teaching. And they’ll be making courses like humanities, which have little direct relevance, sometimes, immediate relevance, and that’s what they’re doing there to make universities more affordable and also to more practical.

And what they’re doing is also making sure that taxpayer funds are based on the skills that the country needs, so that’s why we’re supporting general. But we also see this as an opportunity to go further, to ensure responsibility among students and reduce the taxpayer load. And also to restore accountability in universities and to restore academic freedom. ‘Cause as you know, that’s been smashed.

[Marcus Paul]

Well, let’s look at some of the figures here. We do need to address the growing $60 billion outstanding HECS debt. Australian debt is now pushing $1 trillion and money could be used productively if repaid. We need to limit student entitlement to seven years’ full-time equivalent.

Certainly, it takes on average around 10 years for a student to repay a HECS debt. And if you’re getting people, students into some of these humanities courses, and I’m not knocking them, I did one. I did a bachelor of arts, obviously. I majored in journalism, but we need to ensure that whatever our kids are studying at uni will get them into gainful employment once they’re finished, because we need these debts repaid.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That’s right. And we’re very concerned. Pauline in particular has been raising this issue for a number of years now that the HECS debt is going up and up and up and it’s currently around 60 billion and growing as you correctly pointed out. I love the way you use data. Pauline has been advocating that we reinstate the 10% discount if fees are paid upfront.

Now that’s because people who can afford university should not be getting a concessional interest rate. They should pay it upfront. Let them do that and that’ll, give the government better use of our funds. And also we want to reduce the threshold for income above which people start paying off the HECS debt. It’s currently at $46,000 per annum income before you have to start repaying.

We want to reduce that so that people start paying it back earlier because we’re all we’re seeing is the HECS debt rising incredibly and people basically on fee-free university education. We also want to raise the standards by which they’re allowed to continue so that if they’re failing, then they don’t continue.

[Marcus Paul]

Well, that’s right. It’s important, I think, to have our institutions, our tertiary institutions, monitor students’ academic progress. And if they are repeatedly failing, well, then they should stop getting fee help. Particularly if they don’t pass half the subjects.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That’s right. And we need to make students aware that they’re getting something from taxpayers and they’re getting money that supports their courses. So we need to make students more accountable for that. It’s not just continue to live off the taxpayer. We’ve got to get job-ready graduates.

And so we applaud the government for this initiative, but we want to take it further to bring back that accountability in the universities and also on the students.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, I want to go to this issue here of, the fact that you’re doing a lot of travelling there in Queensland, which is wonderful, Malcolm, because that’s how you get on top of grassroots issues. You speak to the punters out there and constituents. Again, you’re still hearing the businesses can’t find anyone willing to work.

Fruit pickers in southern Queensland, in tourism and hospitality, charter boat operators in the Whitsundays are cancelling cruises. The retail sector is struggling at Airlie Beach. Why can’t we fill these positions? Is it getting down to the fact that job keeper and job seeker to an extent is so generous at the moment?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, it’s really not job keeper, Marcus. It’s job seeker that’s the problem. Job keeper has actually kept some businesses going, kept them afloat. We’ve got to be careful about that.

There are some businesses that haven’t been able to get job keeper and they should be able to, but anyway, that’s another issue, but job seeker is what’s keeping some people on the couch instead of getting off their backside and going and doing some work. Fruit pickers in southern Queensland, but I think we talked about that a couple of weeks ago as well, strawberry pickers, raspberry pickers.

They just can’t get people, and they can’t get locals, can’t get Aussies. And what we’ve relied upon is backpackers to do that job. Just a couple of days ago we were in Airlie Beach in Whitsunday. Yeah, I know. Someone’s got to do it, mate. But anyway.

[Marcus Paul]

Ah, terrible, Malcolm, yes.

[Malcolm Roberts]

But anyway, the tourism and hospitality sector are finding it difficult to get even boat crews they’ve had to cancel charter boat operators in the Whitsundays, cancel cruises because they can’t get people to do jobs because it’s too easy, too attractive on job seeker.

And then retail. We see shopkeepers who are desperate for staff, but we’ve also seen, at a time when we’ve got a massive growing debt and lowering productivity, we’ve also got shopkeepers paying inordinate amounts for electricity, especially government charges.

[Marcus Paul]

Sure.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And they’re saying themselves, all they’re doing is picking up a huge risk and picking up huge stress. They have to work longer hours because they can’t afford it. We’ve got a complete need to look at how we treat people and how we treat businesses, taxation, regulation. We’re destroying our country, Marcus.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, well, the prime minister today is about to spruik a modern manufacturing strategy. There’s a little bit of renewable energy thrown in the mix. I mean, I dunno, we’ve got a conservative premier in New South Wales who’s gone on the record as saying, we’re not real good at building things, but the prime minister says we are.

I like the idea of it, kick-starting manufacturing and building manufacturing jobs and really investing in the sector in new South Wales and round Australia. But is this more marketing? Are these going to be more slogans today? Can the government really back this up? Are you sceptical?

[Malcolm Roberts]

I am completely sceptical, and you hit the nail on the head. It’s just marketing from Scott Morrison. Look, the basics of manufacturing are electricity charges, and we’re pushing the UN agenda and driving our electricity through the roof. And what we’re doing is exporting those jobs to China, India, Asia, because they’re generating electricity at eight cents a kilowatt an hour using our coal that’s been carted overseas for thousands of kilometres.

We’re selling electricity in this country at 25 cents a kilowatt an hour. And that’s ridiculous because we’re using the same coal, and the only difference is the regulations that the government has put in place due to the UN. And the second thing is we’re over-regulated. We’ve got so many regulations in this country.

The small business just cannot compete. Large business cannot compete. That taxation structure gives incentives to foreign multinationals rather than local companies. And then we’ve had the Lima declaration that both parties signed, Whitlam Labor Party signed in 1975 and Frasers Liberal Party ratified it the following year.

And that has exported our jobs, our manufacturing. Until we start restoring our political sovereignty and national sovereignty, we are not going to restore our economic sovereignty. It’s that simple. And Scott Morrison on October 3rd, I think last year, was talking about the unelected, international bureaucrats and unaccountable international bureaucrats.

And then since then, he’s advocated giving the UN’s World Health Organisation, a corrupt organisation, increased power. So the man says one thing and does another. We will not get anywhere until we stop the UN.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, well said, as always. Great to have you on the programme, Malcolm. Let’s chat again next week. Appreciate it. You take it easy up there at Airlie Beach, Townsville. You’re not taking a little charter boat over to Maggie today to really rub it into me, are you?

[Malcolm Roberts]

No, no, no. We’ll be heading down into the Galilee Basin and the Bowen Basin coalfields to listen, pushing some things on safety there.

[Marcus Paul]

Well let’s hear a little more about that next week when we get you back on. Thanks, Malcolm. Take care.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thanks, Marcus.

[Marcus Paul]

One Nation Senator, Malcolm Roberts.

/by

Government caught out not knowing cost of climate policies

,

Yesterday, Dr Alan Moran released a report I commissioned on the cost of climate policies and renewable subsidies have on Australians. Today I asked questions to Senator Birmingham representing the Minister for Energy.

Questions

I commissioned the highly respected economist Dr Alan Moran to review government economic and energy data and to calculate the true cost of climate policies and so-called renewable energy sources. He delivered his report to me last week and a copy has been sent to every member of federal parliament including Senator Birmingham and the Minister for Energy.

Dr Moran’s work cannot be sensibly refuted since he uses the government’s own data that used to be published in a consolidated form until the cost of intermittent solar and wind energy sources became so embarrassingly and devastatingly high. Is the Minister aware that the true cost of climate policies on household through electricity prices is a staggering $1,300 per year?

First Supplementary Question:

Is the Minister aware that the true cost of so-called climate policies and renewable energy on household electricity bills is not the reported 6.5%, but a whopping and devastating 39%.

Second Supplementary Question:

On average your government incentivises $8 billion of malinvestment in green energy projects which results in a net loss of jobs in the economy; analysis based on Spain’s experience indicates with every green subsidised job created, 2.2 jobs are lost. With over 1 million Australians losing their job and the unemployment numbers rising due to COVID19, shouldn’t the government be incentivising job creating rather than job losses.

/by