If it can be done privately, in other words, if an investor believes he/she can make a profit, by all means.
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Ender
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One of the most common claims of the alarmists is about sea level rise, with the standard projection of a 1.0 - 1.8 meter rise by 2100. NOAA has sea level charts for locations all over the world, and if there is a “dramatic” increase in tide levels it isn’t that apparent from the data.
This site includes an analysis of all the world’s sites with at least 75 years of data, showing the trend lines and what those lines would have to look like to reach the 1.0 and 1.8 meter predictions.
Spoiler alert: all right, I can’t spoil it - you know what to expect.
This site includes an analysis of all the world’s sites with at least 75 years of data, showing the trend lines and what those lines would have to look like to reach the 1.0 and 1.8 meter predictions.
Spoiler alert: all right, I can’t spoil it - you know what to expect.
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Theo520
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70+ scientific papers say: Today’s Sea Level Change Indistinguishable From Noise
Holocene Sea Levels were 2 Meters Higher 1. Are Modern ‘Anthropogenic’ Sea Levels Rising At An Unprecedented Rate? No. Despite the surge in CO2 concentrations since 1900, the UN’s Intergovernment…
wattsupwiththat.com
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Ender
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I noted this from the document you cited:
And if an anthropogenic signal cannot be conspicuously connected to sea level rise (as scientists have noted), then the greatest perceived existential threat promulgated by advocates of dangerous man-made global warming will no longer be regarded as even worth considering.
There are so many disaster claims made by alarmists that it is not possible (for me) to address them all, so until now I have focused solely on the charge that hurricanes have been increasing in frequency and intensity, but sea level rise seems like a better candidate. As the citation notes, it is “the greatest perceived existential threat”, so rebutting that one seems like the best return for the effort involved. This article will certainly simplify that task.
And if an anthropogenic signal cannot be conspicuously connected to sea level rise (as scientists have noted), then the greatest perceived existential threat promulgated by advocates of dangerous man-made global warming will no longer be regarded as even worth considering.
There are so many disaster claims made by alarmists that it is not possible (for me) to address them all, so until now I have focused solely on the charge that hurricanes have been increasing in frequency and intensity, but sea level rise seems like a better candidate. As the citation notes, it is “the greatest perceived existential threat”, so rebutting that one seems like the best return for the effort involved. This article will certainly simplify that task.
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Theo520
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Hurricanes are a bad focus point, they really can’t “adjust” the record on those, like they do with seal level rise.
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Theo520
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This is a sad story
nypost.com
Activist lawyer burned himself to death to protest global warming
A “green” activist who was a pioneering lawyer for gay and transgender rights — including in the notorious “Boys Don’t Cry” rape murder case — committed suicide by setting himself on fire Saturday …
nypost.com
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Theo520
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An old documentary, found through the below story
Getting the Public's Attention on Global Warming: The Final Challenge
Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball It is 28 years since Channel 4 in the UK produced The Greenhouse Conspiracy. It covered almost all the skeptical critiques. They are still valid, but now they are time -…
wattsupwiththat.com
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Theo520
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Hardwood forests cut down to feed Drax Power plant, Channel 4 Dispatches claims
A Dispatches investigation has uncovered evidence of hardwood forests being chopped down to provide 'green energy' for the UK. Experts say unique habitats rich in wildlife are under threat as Britain’s power stations switch from burning coal to wood, writes BRENDAN MONTAGUE
theecologist.org
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Theo520
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The Caribbean starts to recognize the obvious, that Green Energy really isn’t ‘reliable energy’
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Climate-change-may-scuttle-Caribbean-s-12850346.php
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Climate-change-may-scuttle-Caribbean-s-12850346.php
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Theo520
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Inconvenient rebound in polar bear numbers.
wattsupwiththat.com
Reality check: Nunatsiavut wildlife manager says polar bears not starving, public misinformed
Inconvenient rebound in polar bear numbers. Polar bears not starving, says Nunatsiavut wildlife manager Geoff Bartlett · CBC News One of the people who oversees an Indigenous hunt of polar bears sa…
wattsupwiththat.com
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Theo520
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I’m delighted to see this this rule change at EPA
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MonteRCMS
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THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Where’s the Theory? Last week’s TWTW discussed the report by the National Association of Scholars presenting the causes, consequences, and recommendations for reforms in the failure to be able to reproduce studies in the medical profession. The report touched on climate science and other fields, but strongly focused on medical studies. Errors creating the inability to reproduce studies can occur in numerous areas including: 1) logic; 2) methodology (procedures used); 3) improper data; and 4) extraneous data (leading to biases).
The primary focus of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its parent organization, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is assessing the influence on greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), on global temperatures. The Paris Agreement, signed by countries of the UNFCCC, reflects this concern. (President Trump has announced the US will pull out of the Paris Agreement, which is his choice, because it was not approved by the US Senate, only the prior administration.)
The highly influential 1979 Charney Report published by the US National Academy of Sciences recognized that increasing CO2 would have a small positive influence on global temperatures. However, it discussed speculative claims by climate modelers that the small influence by CO2 would be dramatically amplified by an increase in water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas. The report gave a total sensitivity from a doubling of CO2 of 3oC plus or minus 1.5 oC, a range of 1.5 to 4.5 oC (3 to 8 oF).
It is very interesting to note, that in the latest IPCC reports, amplification from increased water vapor has been dropped, but the values obtained by using water vapor have been retained. One can see this in the EPA’s “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, 1990-2016” (April 12, 2018). Water vapor (H2O) is not listed in “Table ES-1: Global Warming Potentials (100-Year Time Horizon) Used in this Report”. The report stated: “UNFCCC reporting guidelines for national inventories require the use of GWP values from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) (IPCC 2007).”
There appears to be no theoretical justification for calculating values for a warming from increasing CO2 greater than that which can be derived from decades of direct laboratory experiments. However, the IPCC, and its followers such as the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), apparently believe they do not need a theoretical basis or an empirical basis for claiming dangers of carbon dioxide. See link under Defending the Orthodoxy. ****************

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Failure in Reproducibility: Nicholas Lewis and Judith Curry have revised their 2015 paper on estimates of the sensitivity of the global climate to increasing atmospheric CO2. They address a range of concerns that arose from their 2015 paper. Using various sets of surface data, some dating as early as 1850, but mostly dating to 1869, they estimate that the sensitivity of global temperatures from a doubling of CO2 would be about one-half of that estimated in the Charney Report, stated above, and used by the IPCC and its followers. These findings apply to the models used by the IPCC and their followers, including the EPA in its finding that CO2 emissions endanger public health and welfare. The Lewis/Curry paper was published in the Journal of Climate.
What makes these estimates important is that Lewis and Curry follow the databases and methodology of the IPCC and address the uncertainty in these. They find the IPCC estimates greatly overstate CO2-caused warming. The IPCC work is not reproducible. As stated in the March 24 and 31 TWTWs, Professors Happer, Koonin, and Lindzen (Three Profs) demonstrate that the IPCC methodology can yield an infinite set of solutions. There is no logical reason to assume that the IPCC bureaucratic science is superior to the science of Lewis and Curry.
Further, it is important to note that Lewis and Curry found that using infilled temperature data (calculated data where no actual measurements exist) produces higher estimates of warming than estimates from ignoring these data. This indicates that NOAA and NASA, which infill (calculate) temperature data, create a warming bias. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy. ****************
Arbitrary Start Date: On his web site, Roy Spencer makes important comments:
“I’d like to additionally emphasize overlooked (and possibly unquantifiable) uncertainties: (1) the assumption in studies like this that the climate system was in energy balance in the late 1800s in terms of deep ocean temperatures; and (2) that we know the change in radiative forcing that has occurred since the late 1800s, which would mean we would have to know the extent to which the system was in energy balance back then.
“We have no good reason to assume the climate system is ever in energy balance, although it is constantly readjusting to seek that balance. For example, the historical temperature (and proxy) record suggests the climate system was still emerging from the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s. The oceans are a nonlinear dynamical system, capable of their own unforced chaotic changes on century to millennial time scales, that can in turn alter atmospheric circulation patterns, thus clouds, thus the global energy balance. For some reason, modelers sweep this possibility under the rug (partly because they don’t know how to model unknowns).”
What makes these estimates important is that Lewis and Curry follow the databases and methodology of the IPCC and address the uncertainty in these. They find the IPCC estimates greatly overstate CO2-caused warming. The IPCC work is not reproducible. As stated in the March 24 and 31 TWTWs, Professors Happer, Koonin, and Lindzen (Three Profs) demonstrate that the IPCC methodology can yield an infinite set of solutions. There is no logical reason to assume that the IPCC bureaucratic science is superior to the science of Lewis and Curry.
Further, it is important to note that Lewis and Curry found that using infilled temperature data (calculated data where no actual measurements exist) produces higher estimates of warming than estimates from ignoring these data. This indicates that NOAA and NASA, which infill (calculate) temperature data, create a warming bias. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy. ****************
Arbitrary Start Date: On his web site, Roy Spencer makes important comments:
“I’d like to additionally emphasize overlooked (and possibly unquantifiable) uncertainties: (1) the assumption in studies like this that the climate system was in energy balance in the late 1800s in terms of deep ocean temperatures; and (2) that we know the change in radiative forcing that has occurred since the late 1800s, which would mean we would have to know the extent to which the system was in energy balance back then.
“We have no good reason to assume the climate system is ever in energy balance, although it is constantly readjusting to seek that balance. For example, the historical temperature (and proxy) record suggests the climate system was still emerging from the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s. The oceans are a nonlinear dynamical system, capable of their own unforced chaotic changes on century to millennial time scales, that can in turn alter atmospheric circulation patterns, thus clouds, thus the global energy balance. For some reason, modelers sweep this possibility under the rug (partly because they don’t know how to model unknowns).”
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MonteRCMS
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Spencer’s comments do not reduce the importance of the work of Lewis and Curry. Spencer recognizes turbulence of the earth’s climate system, as discussed by the Three Profs and in the paper by Lehr, Haapala, Frank, and Moore (April 14 TWTW). There is no reason to assume that earth is ever in balance, even though it may be constantly adjusting towards one. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
Stagnant Science? As stated above, IPCC science seems to be failing in four major areas: 1) logic; 2) methodology (procedures used); 3) improper data; and 4) extraneous data (leading to biases). The failure in logic comes from the IPCC’s elimination of increased water vapor amplifying any warming caused by increasing CO2 and the work of Monckton, et al. illustrates a logical error. Failure in methodology is illustrated by the work of the Three Profs (discussed above) and the recent work of Lewis and Curry. Failure in proper data has been long demonstrated by John Christy, most recently in an April 6 paper published in the International Journal of Remote Sensing. The greenhouse effect occurs in the atmosphere, and greenhouse gases are not warming it as claimed by the IPCC. Failure in eliminating extraneous data creating biases is demonstrated by Wallace, et al. (2017) discussed in the April 29, 2017, TWTW. The El Niño Southern Oscillation and volcanos have a clearly established direct influence on surface and atmospheric temperatures. The solar influence is imputed from the 1977 Pacific Climate Shift, for which existing data is incomplete.
Further questions of data integrity were discussed by Fred Singer (TWTW Apr 7).
A science that does not adjust to changing data and theory is stagnant, bureaucratic. Will western climate science continue to stagnate under past assumptions demonstrated to be wrong? That is unknown, but the EPA needs to revisit its finding the greenhouse gases, especially CO2, endanger human health and welfare. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and in TWTWs mentioned above.
Stagnant Science? As stated above, IPCC science seems to be failing in four major areas: 1) logic; 2) methodology (procedures used); 3) improper data; and 4) extraneous data (leading to biases). The failure in logic comes from the IPCC’s elimination of increased water vapor amplifying any warming caused by increasing CO2 and the work of Monckton, et al. illustrates a logical error. Failure in methodology is illustrated by the work of the Three Profs (discussed above) and the recent work of Lewis and Curry. Failure in proper data has been long demonstrated by John Christy, most recently in an April 6 paper published in the International Journal of Remote Sensing. The greenhouse effect occurs in the atmosphere, and greenhouse gases are not warming it as claimed by the IPCC. Failure in eliminating extraneous data creating biases is demonstrated by Wallace, et al. (2017) discussed in the April 29, 2017, TWTW. The El Niño Southern Oscillation and volcanos have a clearly established direct influence on surface and atmospheric temperatures. The solar influence is imputed from the 1977 Pacific Climate Shift, for which existing data is incomplete.
Further questions of data integrity were discussed by Fred Singer (TWTW Apr 7).
A science that does not adjust to changing data and theory is stagnant, bureaucratic. Will western climate science continue to stagnate under past assumptions demonstrated to be wrong? That is unknown, but the EPA needs to revisit its finding the greenhouse gases, especially CO2, endanger human health and welfare. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and in TWTWs mentioned above.
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MonteRCMS
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Secret Science: On April 24, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signed proposed rules requiring that science used by the agency be fully transparent, and that underlying scientific information be publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation. According to the press release:
“’The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end,’ said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. ‘The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of rulemaking process. Americans deserve to assess the legitimacy of the science underpinning EPA decisions that may impact their lives.’
“This proposed rule is in line with the scientific community’s moves toward increased data sharing to address the ‘replication crisis’—a growing recognition that a significant proportion of published research may not be reproducible. The proposal is consistent with data access requirements for major scientific journals like Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as recommendations from the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Science for Policy Project and the Administrative Conference of the United States’ Science in the Administrative Process Project.”
The reactions by environmental groups and organizations such as the American Lung Association, which have long made medical claims that cannot be verified, were swift and predictable. They do not want transparent science.
However, EPA veteran Alan Carlin supported the action, writing:
“EPA’s regulations must be based on the best possible scientific evidence. Allowing the possibility that the producers have deliberately or accidentally depended on ‘secret science’ is simply unacceptable.”
An interesting objection came from the Center for American Progress, which claimed the new action “Threatens Reproductive and Environmental Justice for Women.” It supported the claim by arguing that the regulations would result in: 1) Rolling back crucial air quality standards; 2) Reducing access to clean water; 3) Increasing exposure to toxic chemicals; and 4) Undermining
efforts to address the urgent threat of climate change. How assuring transparency in science threats justice is not explained.
Perhaps the first use of secret science by the EPA occurred when the first EPA administrator, William Ruckelshaus, banned the use of DDT in the US by claiming it may cause cancer, without offering evidence. This was quickly used to promote banning DDT in many countries, even though the indoor spraying DDT was the most cost-effective way of controlling malaria and outdoor spraying was used to eradicate malaria in the southern US. Generally, malaria kills those most vulnerable, pregnant women and children. It appears that such secret science is not compatible with “Reproductive and Environmental Justice for Women.” See links under Change in US Administrations and Science, Policy, and Evidence
“’The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end,’ said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. ‘The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of rulemaking process. Americans deserve to assess the legitimacy of the science underpinning EPA decisions that may impact their lives.’
“This proposed rule is in line with the scientific community’s moves toward increased data sharing to address the ‘replication crisis’—a growing recognition that a significant proportion of published research may not be reproducible. The proposal is consistent with data access requirements for major scientific journals like Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as recommendations from the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Science for Policy Project and the Administrative Conference of the United States’ Science in the Administrative Process Project.”
The reactions by environmental groups and organizations such as the American Lung Association, which have long made medical claims that cannot be verified, were swift and predictable. They do not want transparent science.
However, EPA veteran Alan Carlin supported the action, writing:
“EPA’s regulations must be based on the best possible scientific evidence. Allowing the possibility that the producers have deliberately or accidentally depended on ‘secret science’ is simply unacceptable.”
An interesting objection came from the Center for American Progress, which claimed the new action “Threatens Reproductive and Environmental Justice for Women.” It supported the claim by arguing that the regulations would result in: 1) Rolling back crucial air quality standards; 2) Reducing access to clean water; 3) Increasing exposure to toxic chemicals; and 4) Undermining
efforts to address the urgent threat of climate change. How assuring transparency in science threats justice is not explained.
Perhaps the first use of secret science by the EPA occurred when the first EPA administrator, William Ruckelshaus, banned the use of DDT in the US by claiming it may cause cancer, without offering evidence. This was quickly used to promote banning DDT in many countries, even though the indoor spraying DDT was the most cost-effective way of controlling malaria and outdoor spraying was used to eradicate malaria in the southern US. Generally, malaria kills those most vulnerable, pregnant women and children. It appears that such secret science is not compatible with “Reproductive and Environmental Justice for Women.” See links under Change in US Administrations and Science, Policy, and Evidence
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MonteRCMS
Guest
Variability in the Grid: Environmental activist Michael Schellenberger, a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” asks the question that if wind and solar power are becoming so cheap, as their proponents claim, why is electricity becoming so expensive in Europe? The candidate for governor of California gives a partial answer, variability in wind and solar generation require others to provide electricity or take electricity, when needed. He then blames reporters for not competently investigating the issue. As easily, one can blame promoters and politicians. Future TWTWs will explore the issue further. See links under Questioning European Green and Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind.
California Whiplash: Cliff Mass exposes one of the latest marketing gimmicks used to create fear of CO2, weather whiplash in California as discussed in “Nature, Climate Change.” Mass writes:
“This “whiplash” frenzy in the media shows a major failure mode in our conversations about global warming. Some researchers analyze purely model results. They don’t compare the model output with observations. They find some modest changes in the model projections and somewhat inflate the importance in their paper. The media and certain interest groups hype up the results with big headlines.
California Whiplash: Cliff Mass exposes one of the latest marketing gimmicks used to create fear of CO2, weather whiplash in California as discussed in “Nature, Climate Change.” Mass writes:
“This “whiplash” frenzy in the media shows a major failure mode in our conversations about global warming. Some researchers analyze purely model results. They don’t compare the model output with observations. They find some modest changes in the model projections and somewhat inflate the importance in their paper. The media and certain interest groups hype up the results with big headlines.
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MonteRCMS
Guest
excerpts … please click above and then scroll down …
There are 126 articles excerpted … of which only four (4) are linked below
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Amazing Sunspots
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Apr 27, 2018
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
“Given all the scientific evidence, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that the sun has a significant effect on the earth’s climate?”
Censorship
The Scientific Importance of Free Speech
By Adam Perkins, Quillette, Apr 13, 2018 [H/t GWPF]
The Scientific Importance of Free Speech
These are merely tools that help us to accomplish a far greater mission, which is to choose between rival narratives, in the vicious, no-holds-barred battle of ideas that we call “science”.
quillette.com
“Editor’s note: this is a shortened version of a speech that the author was due to give last month at King’s College London which was canceled because the university deemed the event to be too ‘high risk’.”
This Is Not A Post About Global Warming
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Apr 27, 2018
This Is Not A Post About Global Warming — Manhattan Contrarian
This is definitely not a post about global warming. Except that it is. A friend this morning sent me a link to the Quillette website, which a few days ago posted an edited version of a speech that was to be delivered at Kings College, London, by a guy named Adam Perkins. The tit
www.manhattancontrarian.com
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MonteRCMS
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MonteRCMS
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Click on the report … great graphs of oil & natural gas production!
Seems like just about everything to do with energy markets is up these days. Crude oil prices are back to the levels of late 2014. Crude production hit a 10.6 MMb/d record volume last week, while lower-48 natural gas has been bouncing around an 80 Bcf/d record level. Exports of crude, gas and NGLs are at all-time highs. But all those hydrocarbon molecules must find their way from the wellhead to market, and in several high-growth regions, that is becoming increasingly problematic, as midstream infrastructure struggles to keep up. In our recent School of Energy, we examined these developments, considering their impact on production trends, domestic demand and the outlook for growth in export volumes. Did you miss it? Not a problem. We taped the whole conference, and School of Energy Online is now available in 12 hours of streaming video, along with all the Excel models, slides, and graphics that we use to tie energy markets together. Today, in this unabashed advertorial, we review some of the highlights of the conference in “Take You Higher - Crude Prices Up, Crude and Gas Production at Record Highs, More Midstream Infrastructure Needed.”
Seems like just about everything to do with energy markets is up these days. Crude oil prices are back to the levels of late 2014. Crude production hit a 10.6 MMb/d record volume last week, while lower-48 natural gas has been bouncing around an 80 Bcf/d record level. Exports of crude, gas and NGLs are at all-time highs. But all those hydrocarbon molecules must find their way from the wellhead to market, and in several high-growth regions, that is becoming increasingly problematic, as midstream infrastructure struggles to keep up. In our recent School of Energy, we examined these developments, considering their impact on production trends, domestic demand and the outlook for growth in export volumes. Did you miss it? Not a problem. We taped the whole conference, and School of Energy Online is now available in 12 hours of streaming video, along with all the Excel models, slides, and graphics that we use to tie energy markets together. Today, in this unabashed advertorial, we review some of the highlights of the conference in “Take You Higher - Crude Prices Up, Crude and Gas Production at Record Highs, More Midstream Infrastructure Needed.”
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MonteRCMS
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Bloodbath in the German solar “industry” — without subsidies 80,000 solar jobs are gone
Climate Worriers have the most terrible luck. All the runes were lined up for Solar power — it is nearly free, pours from heaven, and millions of people seem to need energy “pretty often”. Plus universities and governments have gifted twenty years of free advertising about its Glorious Wonderfulness. Solar power is also used by the Celebrity Saints of Gaia thus filling fashionable, spiritual, and tribal needs. On a good day, it fills some megawatt needs too.
Despite all this, without forced payments from unwilling and unwitting non-users of solar power, investors are fleeing and the solar industry in Germany is collapsing. How can that be?!
Lawrence Solomon: Are solar and wind finally cheaper than fossil fuels? Not a chance
Financial Post
After the German government decided to reduce subsidies to the solar industry in 2012, the industry nose-dived. By this year, virtually every major German solar producer had gone under as new capacity declined by 90 per cent and new investment by 92 per cent. Some 80,000 workers — 70 per cent of the solar workforce — lost their jobs. Solar power’s market share is shrinking and solar panels, having outlived their usefulness, are being retired without being replaced.
Wind power faces a similar fate. Germany has some 29,000 wind turbines, almost all of which have been benefitting from a 20-year subsidy program that began in 2000. Starting in 2020, when subsidies run out for some 5,700 wind turbines, thousands of them each year will lose government support, making the continued operation of most of them uneconomic based on current market prices. To make matters worse, with many of the turbines failing and becoming uneconomic to maintain, they represent an environmental liability and pose the possibility of abandonment. No funds have been set aside to dispose of the blades, which are unrecyclable, or to remove the turbines’ 3,000-tonne reinforced concrete bases, which reach depths of 20 metres, making them a hazard to the aquifers they pierce.
On the plus side, 80,000 Germans can now do something productive.
Funny thing, something similar happened in Australia in July 2014:
Suddnely 97 percent of Australian renewables investment dried up without subsidies:
We’re told “clean” energy is a viable and cost effective. But cut the government subsidies, and 97 percent of investors vanish (in Australia it’s collapsed from $2.6b annually to $80m).
In Australia this brief lapse into something resembling a free market was due to policy “uncertainty” at the time. The dead hand of Government Certainty has since returned to pick the loser winners.
Climate Worriers have the most terrible luck. All the runes were lined up for Solar power — it is nearly free, pours from heaven, and millions of people seem to need energy “pretty often”. Plus universities and governments have gifted twenty years of free advertising about its Glorious Wonderfulness. Solar power is also used by the Celebrity Saints of Gaia thus filling fashionable, spiritual, and tribal needs. On a good day, it fills some megawatt needs too.
Despite all this, without forced payments from unwilling and unwitting non-users of solar power, investors are fleeing and the solar industry in Germany is collapsing. How can that be?!
Lawrence Solomon: Are solar and wind finally cheaper than fossil fuels? Not a chance
Financial Post
After the German government decided to reduce subsidies to the solar industry in 2012, the industry nose-dived. By this year, virtually every major German solar producer had gone under as new capacity declined by 90 per cent and new investment by 92 per cent. Some 80,000 workers — 70 per cent of the solar workforce — lost their jobs. Solar power’s market share is shrinking and solar panels, having outlived their usefulness, are being retired without being replaced.
Wind power faces a similar fate. Germany has some 29,000 wind turbines, almost all of which have been benefitting from a 20-year subsidy program that began in 2000. Starting in 2020, when subsidies run out for some 5,700 wind turbines, thousands of them each year will lose government support, making the continued operation of most of them uneconomic based on current market prices. To make matters worse, with many of the turbines failing and becoming uneconomic to maintain, they represent an environmental liability and pose the possibility of abandonment. No funds have been set aside to dispose of the blades, which are unrecyclable, or to remove the turbines’ 3,000-tonne reinforced concrete bases, which reach depths of 20 metres, making them a hazard to the aquifers they pierce.
On the plus side, 80,000 Germans can now do something productive.
Funny thing, something similar happened in Australia in July 2014:
Suddnely 97 percent of Australian renewables investment dried up without subsidies:
We’re told “clean” energy is a viable and cost effective. But cut the government subsidies, and 97 percent of investors vanish (in Australia it’s collapsed from $2.6b annually to $80m).
In Australia this brief lapse into something resembling a free market was due to policy “uncertainty” at the time. The dead hand of Government Certainty has since returned to pick the loser winners.
- Status