The Lunatics Are In Charge

July 4 2008

The madness nears:

REGIONS hardest hit by the new emissions trading regime would win government handouts and industries investing in clean power would be rewarded, but the landmark Garnaut report on climate change rules out compensating coal-fired power stations.

So workers are to get not a wage but a handout, and private operaters of power plants are to be left to go broke, their assets suddenly stripped of tens of millions billions in value:

Despite dire warnings from electricity generators and state premiers about black-outs, bankruptcies and spiralling power bills, Professor Garnaut remains unconvinced by the argument that electricity generators should be compensated for the diminished value of their assets under the new carbon regime.

As-yet unreleased modelling by power generators suggests that three out of the four brown-coal power stations in Victoria's Latrobe Valley would close by 2020 and that household power prices would increase by 50 per cent under modest cuts in greenhouse emissions.

Good plan for a flagellant. Won't slash our emissions by Rudd's 60 pcer cent, though, or persuade the world to join us in suicide.

Meanwhile, still unmentioned is that the world hasn't actually heated for a decade. Get the impression the world has gone mad with an apocalyptic new faith?

UPDATE
I suspect the coal-mining members of the Left-wing CFMEU are finally figuring that the global-warming preachers leading their union are just turkeys voting for Christmas:

There was no division in Gippsland when it came to the electoral booths affected by brown-coal mining - that is the dirtiest coal - because they all voted against Labor, including traditional ALP booths.

UPDATE 2
Michelle Grattan thinks it's a cheap shot to oppose a global warming "solution'' that won't work, will hurt and isn't needed:

(The) Liberals will repeatedly face a choice: do they opt for expediency or judge according to the soundness of the policy? The emissions trading scheme, due to start 2010, election year, will tempt them to be opportunistic...

And has she used the right word?

Nelson's populist promise of a five-cent excise cut on petrol discombobulated the Government (while appalling many commentators).

Shouldn't "while" be "therefore"? And guess which commentator in particular Grattan means by "many".

UPDATE 3
Rudd should reconsider his expensive plan to switch to renewable power after this warning in Britain:

Wind power would be too unreliable to meet Britain's electricity needs, according to a new report. It comes after the Government last week unveiled a £100 million plan to build at least 4,000 wind turbines, with a further 3,000 offshore. The programme is expected to drive household bills up by £260 a year.

Using wind data from the Met Office, researchers found that in January, when energy demand is highest, wind farms often fail to produce enough electricity, dropping on occasion to 4 per cent of their maximum output. Backup fossil fuel plants would need to be switched on and off to make up the shortfall in supplies - a highly inefficient process that would reduce any carbon savings from wind farms....

In January 2005, ... a 1,000MW fossil fuel plant would have had to come on and offline a total of 23 times to make up the shortfall. At 6pm on February 2 2006 - the point of peak electricity demand for the whole year - wind farms would have been unable to provide any power at all, researchers found.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/2008/07/ --

Warmest Regards
Bonzo
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"...and I think future generations are not going to blame us for anything except for being silly, for letting a few tenths of a degree panic us" Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology MIT and Member of the National Academy of Sciences
"What most commentators-and many scientists-seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes" Dr. Richard Lindzen
[most of the current alarm over climate change is based on] "inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now." Dr. Richard Lindzen