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Renewable energy is facing failure on a number of fronts, not least of which is merit. Engineers and energy regulators – even those who were once enthusiastic about solar panels, wind turbines and batteries – are showing signs of nervousness. The lights are flickering. The costs are mounting. And globally, raw materials are running short.

Read the full article here: Power to the people: the National Rally Against Reckless Renewables | The Spectator Australia

A huge response for the rally on Parliament House against reckless renewables on Tuesday, 6 February 2024.

Wind and solar installations are environmental vandals and will never be able to provide the baseload power we need to function competitively as a country.

It’s time to end the wealth transfer to climate billionaires like Simon Holmes a Court, Twiggy Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes.

There was a rally in Canberra today. Australians came and stood outside Parliament House — people like you and I — and they came here from across Australia for good reason. I spoke with them and it’s clear that many have never protested before.

Their outrage at the damage uncaring governments are doing to their communities, health and enjoyment of life, and to their precious natural environment is so great that they were moved to come here and demonstrate it. Monstrous wind turbines are being installed in virgin forests and heavy machinery is blasting the tops off mountains to lay huge cement foundations for these 275-metre-high wind turbines.

The scars being carved across mountains to get the blades in and the power out are reckless. The seaborne floating wind turbines that will destroy tourism and the maritime environment are reckless. The toxic environmental damage being done for no real energy gain is reckless. There is so much damage to these pristine environments being done on such vast scales, deliberately, and it’s not renewable.

Transcript

Everyday Australians from Far North Queensland to Victoria Plains are protesting outside today for good reason. From speaking with these people, our constituents, it’s clear that many have never protested before. Such is their outrage at the damage uncaring governments are doing to their communities, health and enjoyment of life and to their precious natural environment. They are outraged by wind turbines being installed in virgin forests and machinery blasting the tops off mountains to lay huge cement foundations for the 275-metre-high wind turbines, carving scars across mountains to get the blades in and the power out. Seaborne floating wind turbines destroy tourism and the maritime environment. What about our whales? Only a city Green, teal or Labor voter could see wind and solar installations destroy a maritime or rural vista and say, ‘Ah, that’s pretty.’

Apparently, in ‘Greensland’, steel poles can now identify as a tree. Navigation lights on top of these monster wind turbines illuminate the sky and all those living nearby all night, every night. Soaring birds can’t fly in the five kilometres of air turbulence behind a modern turbine, disturbing migration and nesting. The mountains upon which these things are being built in Queensland are volcanic. Toxic arsenic occurs naturally through these rock formations. Local Aboriginals could have advised where the no-go zones are if anyone had asked. Yet they did not ask. Now the wind turbine industry is disturbing arsenic in hundreds of locations along the range. Arsenic is seeping into underground aquifers that come out—where? On our precious Great Barrier Reef. These are ancient aquifers from a time before sea levels rose to create the current reef. In the environmental impact statement for these wind turbines, aquifers are not considered—incompetence, vandalism or fraud?

Stop killing the environment in the name of saving the environment. Please stop and listen to voices outside. These anti-environment, anti-human wind and solar monstrosities are hideous frauds to nature, to science and to our nation. We have one environment. We are one community. We are one nation.

Steven Nowakowski, cartographer, author, nature photographer, environmentalist, and former pro-wind and solar advocate joins me on the Malcolm Roberts Show.

Steven was a Green activist until 5 years ago when he saw firsthand the impact of wind turbines on the natural environment at Mount Emerald, at a pristine plateau of remnant forest full of endangered flora and fauna. Steven’s eye witness experience of the sacrifice of mountain tops for wind factories changed his mind. Steven speaks from the heart. He has a genuine passion for biodiversity and wild places.

If you want to know more about what we’re not being told about the delusional Net Zero targets, this interview is eye-opening. Steven exposes the ‘renewable’ energy sector, its costly failure, and how its impacting the lives of communities and natural ecosystems.

This mega wind factory was always going to be an eyesore for Illawarra. It’s the first in the world to be proposed on such a huge scale so close to a major residential area. It’s also a major recognised whale migration path and scientists are still studying the negative effects of offshore wind turbines.

Quite rightly, the residents are concerned about the future of their pristine coastline and marine life for a project owned by foreign interests.

These are official government illustrations of what a proposed off-shore wind facility, or minefield, would look like off the coast of Illawarra, NSW.

Freedom of Information (FOI) documents reveal the government department even added haze to the turbines in the original photos (these photos have had contrast added to account for this effect).

The Department of Climate Change Energy the Environment and Water called local concerns about the visual effects “misinformation”.

Looking at the government’s official illustrations, those concerns seem valid to me.

Dr Neryhl East Speaking with Chris O’Keefe:

Scientists say many questions remain about impacts on the oceans and marine life …

As the US begins to build offshore wind farms, scientists say many questions remain about impacts on the oceans and marine life – USC News & Events | University of South Carolina

Credit to Rainforest Reserves Australia (www.rainforestreserves.org.au)

These wind turbines will only make corporations wealthy, cost taxpayers and electricity users a lot of money, endanger wildlife, drive up energy prices even higher than they are now and will then require massive graveyards after they fail to produce the elitist pipe dream of “clean, sustainable energy”.

Laws require coal mines to rehabilitate the land after mining activities have ceased, yet there is no such legislation in place for wind and solar panel projects.

Irresponsible and dishonest politicians are literally killing the environment for no gain. And it will be the next generations that will be paying for it.

With the most wind, solar and batteries on the grid than ever, Australian power bills have never been higher.

For over a decade and almost everyday in the Senate since being elected, I have been fighting the net-zero scam.

I’ll be fighting even harder next year.

Watch some of my speeches about this issue here at https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/?s=net+zero

Whether it’s called “under seabed injection of carbon dioxide” or any other ridiculous name, this latest carbon capture scheme is really just about making climate scam billionaires even richer. It’s all in the name of ‘Net Zero’ with exactly zero known about the consequences.

The fake environmentalists can’t leave nature alone – just like the koalas being euthanised to make way for wind turbines, or the damaged solar panels leaking toxic heavy metals into waterways.

Net Zero lunatics are once again intending to harm the environment to save it. Yet it’s all for nothing. We DO NOT and CANNOT, in any way, significantly affect the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide over and above the natural variation.

As seen throughout history, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not determine temperatures. In addition, increased industrialisation does not herald increased carbon dioxide, nor does a global lockdown result in a cut.

Australia must ditch the United Nations World Economic Forum, the net zero pipe dream and all its insane offshoots, including the Environment Protection Sea Dumping Amendment Using new Technologies to Fight Climate Change Bill 2023.

Transcript

As a servant to the fine people of Queensland and Australia, I want to ask a question. If you want a perfect example of how insane the UN’s net zero pipedream is, look no further than this bill, the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023. Why? We’re going to spend billions on pulling natural trace gas out of the air and then spend billions more to try and inject it under the seabed and hope it stays there. Science and nature show that it cannot. 

You may have heard of the concept of carbon capture and storage, commonly abbreviated to CCS. The climate activists claim we need carbon capture and storage to save the world. That’s a lie. I’ll get to that later. But no-one really talks about what storage means in these schemes. It seems our government and bureaucrats and our opposition don’t want to talk about the details, because anyone who explains carbon dioxide storage out loud will immediately realise the concept is stupid and dishonest. 

One might think that a bill titled ‘environment protection sea dumping’ would be an amendment saying, ‘You can’t dump things in the sea to protect the environment.’ Think again! The fake environmentalists have decided that the best way to protect the environment is to dump stuff in the sea. Just like the koalas being euthanised to make way for wind turbines or damaged solar panels leaking toxic heavy metals into waterways, the United Nations net zero plan again involves killing the environment to save it. 

Carbon capture and storage can be summarised by the following steps: carbon dioxide—a harmless, colourless, odourless, tasteless, natural trace, atmospheric gas that is generated from the burning of materials containing carbon atoms, including digesting food in animal guts and including our own guts, burning trees and bushfires and burning coal in power stations to produce among the cheapest forms of electricity available for human progress. In the case of carbon capture and sequestration or storage, carbon dioxide is captured at the point of production. Carbon dioxide is transported then via ship and/or pipeline to a storage location. The carbon dioxide—wait for it—is injected underneath the seabed via drilling for storage, theoretically permanently. It’s theoretically permanent because there is no guarantee that the carbon dioxide will stay there. 

History is full of episodes of spills where companies couldn’t contain the oil they were drilling for. Natural leakage from reservoirs has been the case for nature since time immemorial. Even if it were necessary to bury carbon dioxide—and it’s not—there’s no guarantee it will stay there after being hit by some type of undersea seismic activity or even a very common underocean earthquake.  

It’s worth remembering that carbon dioxide makes up just 0.04 per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere. Human beings are responsible for just three per cent of the annual production of carbon dioxide, and Australia contributes just 1.3 per cent of that three per cent. Yet the net-zero advocates tell us that, if we take a fraction of our carbon dioxide and pay an oil-drilling company to dump it in the ocean by injecting it under the seabed, we can save the world. Wow! Amazing! Obviously it’s a bloody lie, an absurd lie.  

Carbon capture and storage is just another scheme designed to make some multinational companies rich at the expense of Australians, and you lot are falling for it, while adding huge costs to power bills that will needlessly continue increasing, killing standards of living and raising the cost of living needlessly. That’s what gets on my goat—you’re doing it wilfully. 

The second part of this bill deals with allowing permits for research into ocean fertilisation. Ocean fertilisation is an untested, radical experiment with our planet’s natural environment. It involves dumping elements like iron, nitrogen or phosphates into the ocean in the hope that stimulated phytoplankton will take more carbon dioxide out of the air. They’re shutting farms down in Queensland, where I come from, because they say farmers are putting too much nitrogen into the ocean. 

One Nation supports research—scientific research, empirical data driven research. We’ll never make any progress unless we test new ways of doing things. Research must be balanced though between the potential risks and the potential benefits. When it comes to ocean fertilisation, an untested form of geoengineering, the potential risks are too great and the benefits are non-existent. 

Let’s be clear what we are talking about here. Ocean fertilisation is the wholesale dumping of chemicals into the ocean with the intention of creating systemic changes to the ecosystem, creating unplanned systemic changes to the ocean—unknown. Unintended consequences are almost guaranteed. If it works, we have no idea how a huge systemic change will affect the environment and the ecosystem. The potential risks are unquantifiable and frightening.  

The supposed benefit—sequestering more carbon dioxide out of the air—is negligible. We do not need to remove more carbon dioxide out of the air. Carbon dioxide is the lifeblood of vegetation on this planet. No-one has been able to prove to me that human produced carbon dioxide affects temperature more than natural variation does, because they can’t provide that evidence. Ocean fertilisation has huge risks and no potential benefits. It should be opposed. 

I’ll sum up this bill for the Australian people. The UN’s net-zero lunatics are yet again saying they need to kill the environment to save it. The Greens; the teals, including Senator David Pocock; the Liberals-Nationals; and Labor all blindly sign up and hurt families, industries and national security. Australia must ditch the United Nations World Economic Forum net-zero pipedream and all of its insane requirements, including the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill 2023. One Nation will be opposing this bill designed to enrich predatory globalist billionaires who donate to the Greens and the teals. Every senator, by the way, should do the same—oppose this bill.  

Now I turn to the bill’s underlying premise. I’ll go through the carbon dioxide reality. We’re exhaling it. Every one of us in this chamber is exhaling it. Every human and every animal is exhaling it. When we breathe all animals, including koalas, multiply the concentration of carbon dioxide 100 to 125 times. We take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at 0.04 per cent and we exhale it at four to five per cent. We increase the concentration 100 to 125 times.  

Carbon dioxide is essential for all life on earth. This is a fact sheet on carbon dioxide. It’s just 0.04 per cent of the Earth’s air—four-hundredths of one per cent. It is scientifically described as a trace gas because there’s bugger all of it. It is non-toxic and not noxious. Senator Hanson-Young called it toxic. That is straight out wrong! It’s highly beneficial to and essential for plants. Greenhouses inject the stuff into greenhouses to stimulate the growth of plants. In the past, when carbon dioxide levels on this planet were four times higher than today—and they have been 135 times higher than today, naturally, in the fairly recent past—it has resulted in earth flourishing as plants and animals thrive with the benefits of carbon dioxide. 

Carbon dioxide is colourless, odourless, tasteless. It’s natural. Nature produces 97 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced annually on our planet. It does not discolour the air. It does not impair the quality of water or soil. It does not create light, heat, noise or radio activity. It does not distort our senses. It does not degrade the environment nor impair its usefulness nor render it offensive. It’s not a pollutant. It does not harm ecosystems; it is essential for ecosystems. It does not harm plants and animals; it is essential for plants and animals. It does not cause discomfort, instability or disorder. It does not accumulate. It does not upset nature’s balance. It remains in the air for only a short time before nature cycles it back into plants, animal tissue and natural accumulations—and oceans. It does not contaminate, apart from nature’s extremely high and concentrated volumes close to some volcanos, and then only locally and briefly. Under rare natural conditions, when in concentrations in amounts far higher than anything humans can produce—that we can dream of producing—temporarily due to nature, that’s the only time it can harm. It is not a pollutant. 

As I said a minute ago, in the past it has been up to 130 times higher in concentration in our planet’s current atmosphere than today. It’s not listed as a pollutant. Prime Minister Gillard invoked the term ‘pollutant’, ‘carbon pollution’—it’s not even carbon. It’s carbon dioxide; it’s a gas. President Obama then copied Prime Minister Gillard on his visit to Australia during her tenure. That’s where we got ‘carbon pollution’. It doesn’t exist. So koalas exhaling carbon dioxide are polluters. 

We do not control the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. In 2009, after the global financial crisis, and in 2020, during the COVID mismanagement, we caused severe recessions around the world. In 2009, we actually didn’t have one in Australia because we were exporting coal and iron ore, but, nonetheless, there were global recessions in 2009 and 2020. All of a sudden, the use of hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—decreased dramatically. Exactly what we’re being told to do by the teals, by the Greens, by the Labor Party, by the Liberal Party and by the National Party. What happened to the level of carbon dioxide outside in the atmosphere? Did it start going down? No. Did it even inflect slightly and decrease the rate of increase? No. It continued increasing. Why? Because nature controls the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

According to the UN IPCC, the fraudulent climate science mob, the oceans of the planet contain 50 to 70 times the amount of carbon dioxide in dissolved form than in the earth’s entire atmosphere—50 to 70 times as much than when you invoke Henry’s law of chemistry, which has been known for a couple of hundred years, and the level of carbon dioxide in the air depends on the quantity dissolved in the oceans and varies with the temperature of the oceans because solubility of carbon dioxide in the oceans varies with temperature. In the annual graph of carbon dioxide levels, you can see the seasonal variation in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Southern Hemisphere. Carbon dioxide levels follow the temperatures of the ocean, especially the sea surfaces. We do not significantly in any way affect the level, and we cannot affect the level over and above natural variation due to nature. 

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not determine the temperature, unlike what the Greens, the teals, Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals are telling us. There has been massive increase in human production of carbon dioxide from China, India, Brazil, Europe, Russia, Asia and America, yet temperatures have been flat—flat!—for 28 years. Not warming; not cooling; flat. The trend during the massive industrialisation during the Second World War and the post-war economic boom saw temperatures from 1936 to 1976 fall. Over 40 years of massive industrialisation, the longest temperature trend in the last 160 years was cooling. Remember the predictions that we were going to be in for an ice age? In the 1880s and 1890s in our country, temperatures were warmer by far. 

Variation in everything in nature is natural. There’s inherent natural variation within larger cycles of increasing and decreasing temperature, rainfall, drought cycles and storm cycles. The CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the United Nations have failed to show any change in any climate factor, just natural variation. It’s not climate change; it’s climate variation. Every uptick is heralded as catastrophic and every downtick is silently ignored. 

What’s driving this political scam, this climate fraud? Ignorant, dishonest and gutless politicians are enabling scammers making money from it. Consider John Howard. In 2007, I sent him a letter of appreciation for his role as Prime Minister before I started researching climate. During his term, he introduced the National Electricity Market and the Renewable Energy Target, the first emissions trading scheme policy for a major party, and his government stole farmers’ rights to use their property. He admitted in London in 2013 that he was an agnostic on climate science. Then we have parasites like Holmes a Court, Twiggy Forrest and Turnbull keeping it alive, relying on the subsidy. What’s keeping it alive? Teals such as David Pocock and Greens such as Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Hanson-Young, invoking fear and doom, yet never providing the logical scientific points and empirical scientific evidence. I encourage people to watch their speeches and see the dearth of scientific evidence. 

The economic and environmental cost of wind generated power is becoming clearer to investors as they back away from more projects, both overseas, on Australian soil and off-shore.

Following on from my speech last week drawing attention to financial losses in the wind energy scam, I speak about what’s behind these unravelling, expensive Net Zero operations.

It’s time to look again at clean coal.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, it has been only a few weeks since my last speech drawing attention to financial losses and failures in the wind energy scam. Today, we have more. Europe’s largest onshore wind turbine installation, Markbygden, has filed for bankruptcy protection. If completed, it would have consisted of 1,101 wind turbines and 750 kilometres of access roads. Escalating construction costs meant the project can no longer bid electricity into the grid at a price the grid operator can afford.

As I explained last week, there are not enough mines to mine the materials, not enough steel mills to make the steel nor enough special-purpose ships to bring them across the world. This is just economic cost. The environmental cost no longer factors into the equation. As an example, the Clarke Creek Wind Farm west of Rockhampton hit the news in the last two weeks, when their environmental impact study caused real environmentalists, like One Nation, outrage. The environmental impact statement admitted that the most severe impact of the proposal will be on the skulls of any koalas beaten to death for trespassing on the project’s land.

Offshore wind in Australia has had a bad week, too, with BlueFloat withdrawing their plans for offshore wind in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. BlueFloat’s proposal was for a 359 square kilometre area with 105 turbines located 14 to 30 kilometres of the Illawarra coastline. Each turbine would have a diameter of 275 metres and feed into three offshore substations. What an insane idea. One strong storm, and the whole lot winds up on the beach. Saltwater corrosion repair now accounts for 30 per cent of the levelised cost of electricity from offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is unprofitable from the perspective of construction and maintenance costs.

It’s time to have another look at clean coal before the green movement has us all sitting in the dark with a fridge full of inedible, spoiled food.

Major investors are deserting wind and solar installations, walking away and writing off billions of dollars, as their share prices plummet. The ‘Green Dream’ is morphing into a nightmare of failure and financial loss.

What’s more, electric vehicles are losing value at twice the rate of petrol and diesel, while insurance policies rise at twice the rate. Hertz is hurting over the money it’s losing on its EV fleet and Australia’s Drive magazine writes that more EV sales will actually increase demand for coal, because solar and wind generation is not up to the job of charging these batteries.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) corporate blackmail is hitting resistance. Even Vanguard pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, citing risk and poor returns.

ESG initiatives rely on government handouts and because of that, our economy is being destroyed for a virtue-signalling initiative that is falling apart before our eyes.

We cannot ignore the signs – it’s time we followed in the investors’ footsteps, cut our losses and start putting Australians first.

Transcript

Madam Acting Deputy President, as a servant to the many different people in our one Queensland community, my second topic tonight is solar and wind energy’s financial failure. The tide is now against out-of-touch elitists whose income insulates them from the hardship their virtue-signalling, feelings based beliefs cause Australians. The recent referendum showed that the good sense of everyday Australians will shine through. Recent polling shows working Australians deserting the Albanese government over the cost of living, housing and immigration—crises due to virtue-signalling, feelings based urban elitist policies. 

Look at disasters in recent months engulfing the green dream. Orsted, the huge offshore wind charlatan, booked a US$5.5 billion writedown on the value of its offshore wind installations, and the stock price this year is down 50 per cent. Last week, Norway’s Equinor booked a $300 million writedown on its offshore wind portfolio. Its share price, though, was saved due to its investment in oil and gas. Siemens Energy is down 60 per cent after losses in offshore wind caused a return on investment of minus 17 per cent—negative. Vestas is down a third after announcing losses in its wind division and is now offering a return to investors of minus 11 per cent. This is from the Australian Financial Review

The Andrew Forrest-led Fortescue terminated approval applications for the Uaroo Renewable Energy Hub last month. 

The Daily Express reports that electric vehicles lose value for owners at twice the rate of internal combustion engines. Insurance policies are rising at twice the rate because of EVs’ rising maintenance costs. In America, Hertz announced it is losing money on its EV fleet, and it’s now scaling down purchases. The American Automobile Association tested EVs and found that, with a family of four and their gear on board, the highway cycle range of a family EV was reduced by 25 per cent, whereas petrol cars actually get greater range. American EV dealers now have a hundred days of stock sitting in showrooms. Business Insider reports that EVs have hit a market share plateau. There are only so many rich public servants ready to waste money on virtue-signalling vehicles suited to short city trips. The share price of the United Kingdom’s EV company Arrivals has fallen 96 per cent. Drive magazine says more Australian EV sales will actually increase demand for coal, since solar and wind generation is insufficient to charge these things. 

Recent large demonstrations against offshore wind should have caused Minister Bowen to take stock, yet he’s now full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes. Ignorance never ends well. Sydney’s inner-city elites will not have to look at these monstrosities, because the Labor Party are installing huge wind turbines off the workers’ suburbs in Newcastle and Wollongong. 

And the ESG corporate blackmail is hitting resistance. In the last week, United Kingdom investors withdrew $1 billion from ESG funds, making it five months in a row of negative inflows. Last year a paper showed that ESG funds do not offer superior returns to those of regular investment funds, which is why Vanguard pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative last December due to poor returns and risk. Last July, the Australian newspaper said: 

“Green” investing has hit a crisis. Mounting questions over standards and effectiveness have been building for years. This year, investors voted with their feet and rushed for the exits. 

…	…	…	 

Whatever way you cut it ESG is a thematic – in creating exclusions it means investors will have more volatile returns than a fund that simply invests for the best return. 

Large corporates, superannuation firms and investment funds have a fiduciary duty to investors to operate for the best and safest returns. ESG is not safe and not profitable. ESG initiatives rely on government handouts. 

Our economy is being destroyed. The urban elites’ wealth and income can only last so long before feeling the pain they’re now inflicting on everyday Australians. The green dream ends when the government stops propping it up with taypayers’ money, the green dream nightmare ends when the government stops propping it up with taxpayers’ money. 

Make the decision today to start putting everyday Australians first. We have one flag; we are one community; we are one nation.