
Take the example of South Australia where the politicians actually believed the pseudo-scientific logic of climate cult alarmists that wind and solar power could, and would, provide cheap, renewable, sustainable energy. It went hell for leather closing down efficient, effective, cheap coal and gas power stations and replacing them with industrial scale wind farms. Jo Nova explains
The wind fizzled out over the South East slab of Australia during June. Predictably, that meant the wind industry lost millions, and wholesale electricity prices went up. When the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) was asked where the wind had gone, Darren Ray, expert climatologist, said it was due to a high pressure system over the bight, which, he explained, was linked to “climate change”. Thus, as the world warms, wind farms will be progressively more useless in South Australia. Perhaps the BOM should have mentioned that before SA became dependent on wind farms? I don’t think he had thought this one through.
Perhaps the BOM is hoping that the masochistic sacrifice of South Australia will stop global warming before global warming stops the wind farms?
You might think that if the global climate models could see this coming they would have suggested that wind farms weren’t a good idea. Or maybe, since climate models predict every equal and opposite outcome in unison, the models are always right post hoc, but not so useful in projections?
Mind you it’s not so funny for the taxpayers of Australia who have to foot the bill for all this useless virtue signalling, taxpayer subsidised, madness. Nor is it a laugh a minute for Australian businesses that are fast becoming less competitive in world markets.
Meanwhile Asia surges ahead on the back of coal which continues to be the world’s preferred energy source. The result is the developing world is being lifted out of energy poverty. According to the World Bank “over the past 30 years at least 650 million people have been lifted out of fuel poverty, mostly in China where most are now connected to a largely coal-generated grid”. "Access to energy is absolutely fundamental in the struggle against poverty. It is energy that lights the lamp that lets you do your homework, that keeps the heat on in a hospital, that lights the small businesses where most people work. Without energy, there is no economic growth, there is no dynamism."
Try telling that to the Greens who seem hell bent, literally, on keeping the poorest in squalor by trying to force developing countries into expensive, unreliable, renewables.
Despite trillions being wasted on global wind energy over the last quarter century the net result is that wind supplies 0% of world energy. Yes, you read that right, 0%. Here’s Matt Ridley writing for the Spectator.
Here’s a quiz; no conferring. To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the world’s energy consumption was supplied by wind power in 2014, the last year for which there are reliable figures? Was it 20 per cent, 10 per cent or 5 per cent? None of the above: it was 0 per cent. That is to say, to the nearest whole number, there is still no wind power on Earth.
Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry.
Only the insane logic of the Green mind would demand the world looks windward for energy salvation.