March 4, 2010 by admin.

August Review
The Global Elite Research Letter

Smart Grid: The Implementation of Technocracy?

By Patrick Wood, Editor
March 2, 2010

Introduction

According to the United Nations Governing Council of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP),  “our dominant economic model may thus be termed a ‘brown economy.” UNEP’s clearly stated goal is to overturn the “brown economy” and replace it with a “green economy”:

“A green economy implies the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth… These investments, both public and private, provide the mechanism for the reconfiguration of businesses, infrastructure and institutions, and for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production processes.”  [p. 2]

Sustainable consumption? Reconfiguring businesses, infrastructure and institutions? What do these words mean? They do not mean merely reshuffling the existing order, but rather replacing it with a completely new economic system, one that has never before been seen or used in the history of the world.

This paper will demonstrate that the current crisis of capitalism is being used to implement a radical new economic system that will completely supplant it. This is not some new idea created in the bowels of the United Nations: It is a revitalized implementation of Technocracy that was thoroughly repudiated by the American public in 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression….(Full Story)

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December 15, 2009 by admin.

We have come to know that Enron’s manipulations that came crashing down some years ago were firmly built on fraudulent energy- and carbon-trading schemes of the world energy market.  It was Enron-style manipulation, for example, of Alberta’s energy market that led to the deregulation of the utility industry and to the doubling and tripling of energy prices.

We have come to know that Al Gore, when he was the vice-president of the US, had been involved in promoting Enron’s manipulations, although he appears not to have raised his great current wealth from that involvement.  Nevertheless, we have come to know that he is not an uninterested party in promoting the carbon cap-and-trade insanity, as he has an active interest in that promotion and increased his wealth from about $2 million, when he left government services, to about $200 million now.

Now comes another astonishing revelation.  U.N. climate chief Rajendra K. Pachauri, too, is not an uninterested party in promoting the schemes for creating great wealth from irrational and destructive carbon fears. In the process of pushing his very personal interests in creating profits from the U.N.-promoted carbon fears, Pachauri, a railroad engineer from India, stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars for himself.

U.N. climate chief turns carbon to green

In lucrative carbon trade ‘all roads lead to Pachauri’

Nobel Peace Prize winners Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri on the balcony of Grand Hotel, Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2007

NEW YORK – Further examination of U.N. climate chief Rajendra K. Pachauri’s resume shows more extensive international business relationships through which he stands to profit from global warming activism.

WND reported last week A Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to Pachauri, the chairman since 2002 of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stands to make several hundred million dollars in European Union carbon credits simply by closing a steel production facility in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs..

Now, the head of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, is warning governments that failure to reach a deal at the U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen could lead to a collapse of the carbon market. He says rich countries, therefore, should commit up to $100 billion to finance a climate deal that would benefit the developing world.

Pachauri chairs the Asian Development Bank Advisory Group on Climate Change….

(Full Story)

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November 10, 2009 by admin.

Science News

Fossils From Animals And Plants Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas, Swedish Researchers Find

ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2009) — Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to prove that fossils from animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and natural gas to be generated. The findings are revolutionary since this means, on the one hand, that it will be much easier to find these sources of energy and, on the other hand, that they can be found all over the globe.

….According to Vladimir Kutcherov, the findings are a clear indication that the oil supply is not about to end, which researchers and experts in the field have long feared….

“There is no doubt that our research proves that crude oil and natural gas are generated without the involvement of fossils. All types of bedrock can serve as reservoirs of oil,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, who adds that this is true of land areas that have not yet been prospected for these energy sources….

(Full Story)

The claims made in the article perhaps do not match what you were taught in school.  Nevertheless, the hypothesis of abiogenic (non-fossil generated) petroleumhave been around for more than half a century.  Research relating to that was done primarily by Russian scientists, but the hypothesis has also been proposed by scientists in the West.

Read the Wikipedia article on abiogenic petroleum origin.  That article contains the statement,

“This article may be inaccurate in or unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (July 2009)

Do not let that put you off.  That statement is not being used persistently by Wikipedia throughout many of the articles it covers.  For instance, it is not used in the Wikipedia articles on Climate change or Global warming, two of many subject areas in which the science is by no means settled and points — on the balance of the evidence — to the opposite of the politically-correct assertions.

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September 17, 2009 by admin.

Wind energy is a renewable alternative energy source whose alleged capability to serve as an acceptable and even desirable solution to the problem of ever-increasing fossil-fuel consumption is much touted by politicians who would like to demonstrate that with the help of billions of dollars in tax revenues they will save the world.

Regardless of their continual history of lack of success in implementing global policies, things like that are relatively easy to do for politicians.  Politicians make money for themselves whether the solutions they propose and try to push through are realistic or not, whether those solutions can be made to pay for themselves or lose trillions of dollars in gross domestic product.  Usually — the climate hysteria is a case in point — the greater the failures of politicians and the losses caused by them, the more the politicians stand to gain, and the more we — the ordinary people trying to make a living — stand to lose.

The political system is a growth industry that is being supported by a cancerously-growing, ravenous bureaucracy and ever increasing taxation.

It would be a great thing if Mother Nature’s bounty, as in the case of “free” wind energy, would help to offset the losses caused by the grand schemes rammed through by politicians, but wind energy is not free.  Wind energy is much more expensive than to generate energy by burning fossil fuels.  Wind energy generating capacity installed must be matched by corresponding generating capacity that is based on hydroelectric-, nuclear- or fossil-fuel-powered power generation.  In other words, as far as the utility of large-scale wind energy generation goes, it is as useful as tits on a boar and as precariously and potentially harmful as a second functioning steering wheel on a car.

A September 2009 study report by CEPOS (Center for Politiske Studier), “Wind Energy — The Case of Denmark” makes for fascinating reading. It addresses the illusions that anyone should hold regarding wind energy.  The study report should be of interest to a wide variety of people, such as tax payers, electrical systems operators, politicians and policy makers.

Here is the executive summary of the study report.

Executive summary

PART 1: The real state-of-play and its hidden costs

Denmark generates the equivalent of about 19% of its electricity demand with wind turbines, but wind power contributes far less than 19% of the Nation’s electricity demand.

The claim that Denmark derives about 20% of its electricity from wind overstates matters. Being highly intermittent, wind power has recently (2006) met as little as 5% of Denmark’s annual electricity consumption with an average over the last five years of 9.7%.

In the absence of large-scale electricity storage, any modern electricity system must continuously balance electricity supply and demand, because even small variations in system voltage and frequency can cause damage to modern electronic equipment and other electrical equipment.

Wind power is stochastic [that is, “random”, essentially difficult or impossible to predict], especially in the very short term (e.g., over any given hour, 30 minute, or 15 minute period). This has created a completely new challenge that transmission system operators (TSOs) all over the World are only now learning how to handle. Some draw from Denmark’s experience. But Denmark’s special circumstances make its experience of limited transferability elsewhere.

Denmark manages to keep the electricity systems balanced due to having the benefit of its particular neighbors and their electricity mix. Norway and Sweden provide Denmark, Germany and Netherlands access to significant amounts of fast, short term balancing reserve, via interconnectors. They effectively act as Denmark’s “electricity storage batteries”. Norwegian and Swedish hydropower can be rapidly turned up and down, and Norway’s lakes effectively “store” some portion of Danish wind power.

Over the last eight years West Denmark has exported (couldn’t use), on average, 57% of the wind power it generated and East Denmark an average of 45%.The correlation between high wind output and net outflows makes the case that there is a large component of wind energy in the outflow indisputable.

The exported wind power, paid for by Danish householders, brings material benefits in the form of cheap electricity and delayed investment in new generation equipment for consumers in Sweden and Norway but nothing for Danish consumers. Taxes and charges on electricity for Danish household consumers make their electricity by far the most expensive in the European Union (EU)[1]. The total probable value of exported subsidies between 2001 and 2008 was DKK 6.8 billion (€916 million) during this period. A similar amount was probably exported prior to 2012[2] and larger quantities will be exported following the commissioning of 800 MW of new offshore wind capacity in 2013.

The wind power that is exported from Denmark saves neither fossil fuel consumption nor CO2 emissions in Denmark, where it is all paid for. By necessity, wind power exported to Norway and Sweden supplants largely carbon neutral electricity in the Nordic countries. No coal is used nor are there power-related CO2 emissions in Sweden and Norway.

Wind energy has replaced some thermal generation in Denmark. It has saved an average emission of about 2.4 million t per year CO2 at a total subsidy cost of 12.3 billion DKK or an average cost of 647 DKK (€ 87 or $124) per ton CO2. Wind power has proven to be an expensive way to save CO2 emissions[3].

The cost of Denmark’s wind capacity to Danish consumers is exacerbated by its inability to use so much surplus electricity. The surplus will increase in 2013 when 800 MW of new offshore capacity is commissioned, increasing Denmark’s wind production by 2.7 TWh per year. Nearly all the additional wind power will be exported and this will further depress prices; nearly all the subsidies paid by Danish consumers will also be exported without achieving any significant fossil fuel use nor any CO2 reduction. Achieving own-consumption of all its wind power is technically impossible in the short term and will remain entirely hypothetical until electricity consumption rises and new technical and demand-side solutions have been developed and implemented. In most cases, these have yet even to be invented, let alone proven and costed.

Notwithstanding its many disadvantages, wind power’s one striking advantage is that, like nuclear, its marginal costs of operation are very small once the capital has been paid. However, unlike nuclear, many ten to fifteen year-old turbines are past their useful life. By contrast, most conventional rotating power plant can enjoy a working life of 40 to 60 years, as evidenced by most power plants in Europe today. This puts into question the strategic, economic and environmental benefits of a power plant that may have to be scrapped, replaced and resubsidized every ten to fifteen years.

The Danish Parliament reached a political consensus during 2008 that in 2025 50% of Denmark’s electricity demand must come from renewable resources, mostly wind power. The Ecogrid Study Group has concluded4 that if the extra wind power is to achieve this aim, drastic re-engineering of the whole energy system will need to take place, including the retirement of much expensive, high quality, existing capacity. Wisely, it has not tried to estimate the costs of doing this. In any case, Sweden and Norway will be unable balance the extra wind capacity planned that is also planned for Germany and Netherlands.

PART 2: Wind Energy’s effect on employment

Denmark has been a first-mover in the wind power industry for over ten years, and its leading wind turbine manufacturers have been able to maintain a very strong global position. This has been a consequence of a concerted policy to increase the share of wind power in Danish electricity generation. The policy has only been made possible through substantial subsidies supporting the wind turbine owners. This indirect subsidy has in turn generated the demand for wind turbines from the manufactures. Exactly how the subsidies have been shared between land, wind turbine owners, labor, capital and shareholders is opaque, but it is fair to assess that no Danish wind industry to speak of would exist if it had to compete on market terms. This paper documents the experiences gained in Denmark with regard to the employment effect of subsidizing the wind industry.

Substantial subsidies have been directed to the Danish wind mill industry over years. From 2001-2005 the yearly subsidy has been 1.7-2.6 billion DKK.

The Danish Wind industry counts 28,400 employees. This does not, however, constitute the net employment effect of the wind mill subsidy. In the long run, creating additional employment in one sector through subsidies will detract labor from other sectors, resulting in no increase in net employment but only in a shift from the non-subsidized sectors to the subsidized sector. Allowing for the theoretical possibility of wind employment alleviating possible regional pockets of high unemployment, a very optimistic ballpark estimate of net real job creation is 10% of total employment in the sector. In this case the subsidy per job created is 600,000-900,000 DKK per year ($90,000-140,000). This subsidy constitutes around 175-250% of the average pay per worker in the Danish manufacturing industry.

In terms of value added per employee, the energy technology sector over the period 1999-2006 underperformed by as much as 13% compared with the industrial average.

This implies that the effect of the government subsidy has been to shift employment from more productive employment in other sectors to less productive employment in the wind industry. As a consequence, Danish GDP is approximately 1.8 billion DKK ($270 million) lower than it would have been if the wind sector work force was employed elsewhere.

________________

1. 1. According to the OECD, Denmark has the World’s highest tax burden. This applies across a slew of tax sources, including personal income and value added tax.
   2. The wind power subsidy arrangements before 2001 were made directly by Government and are not available to the public.
   3. The “value” of European emission allowances since the European emission-trading scheme (ETS) started has varied between € 1 and €30 per ton of CO2.
   4. http://www.energinet.dk/en/menu/R+and+D/EcoGrid/EcoGrid.dk.htm

(See full study report; 2.8 MB, 39 pages,  PDF document)

The population of the Province of Alberta  (3.6 million) is comparable in size to that of Denmark (5.5 million), while its area (661,848 km²  or 255,541 sq mi) is 15.4 times larger than that of Denmark (43,098.31 km² or 16,640 sq mi).  It follows that the politicians’ push to create wind-energy generating capacity in Alberta will come at a considerably higher cost per capita than it does in Denmark, at considerably more than the Danish experience of $49 in GDP loss per annum per capita in Denmark.

The pursuit of the illusion of “free” wind power comes at a very real cost that we would be wise to avoid.

Posted in Energy Issues, Alternative Energy Sources, Climate Change, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

July 25, 2009 by admin.

Watch New Documentary: ‘Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself’

The reference to the indicated video was found at http://www.climatedepot.com/.

Posted in Energy Issues, Climate Change, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

July 8, 2009 by admin.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12705
Al Gore’s net worth, which went from around 2 million to over a 100 million dollars

The Cost of Global Warming Greed

Daniel Greenfield; Bio

By Daniel Greenfield  Wednesday, July 8, 2009

How do you make money? You could build a factory that makes chairs or open a store that sells chairs. But of course if you’re in the government, you make money by finding new sources of tax revenue, which helps justify giving yourself a salary hike. But what if you’re not officially in the government? That’s what pork is for, and while environmentalists don’t seem to like cows very much, they do love their pork.

“Green” is more like pink thanks to the kind of pork embedded in Obama’s stimulus package. The billions ladled out for everything from green jobs to making buildings green to green energy helped shove whopping fistfuls of money into the pockets of environmental consulting groups and companies.

Tesla Motors, a much hyped company which doesn’t so much produce cars as magazine articles about itself, got nearly half a billion in federal funding. This for a company that makes six figure sports cars assembled in the UK and powered by shopping carts full of laptop batteries that virtually no one has actually driven. Not to mention a company with an embattled leadership, embroiled in numerous lawsuits, which prior to the 465 million in Federal funds was firing its employees through text messages, because it was down to 9 million dollars in the bank.

Is there really a good reason why half a billion dollars in Federal funds should be paying for luxury sports cars for the rich and famous to be assembled by British workers, whose key corporate investor is Mercedes Benz? Of course there is, because Tesla is “Green” and “Green” is unquestionable.And the same people who view the Ford Explorer as “immoral” for popularizing suburban family SUV’s, think that a six figure sports car powered by over 6000 laptop batteries is as “moral” as it gets.

“Green” is not about science, it is about the color of money. It is about greed and class. To understand “Green” and the entire absurdity of man-made global warming, you don’t need to look at charts and figures. You just need to look at Al Gore’s net worth, which went from around 2 million to over a 100 million dollars. Gore didn’t make that money building homes for orphans, he made that money by promoting a crisis and investing heavily in the companies that would stand to profit from it….(Full Story)

Posted in Energy Issues, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

June 22, 2009 by admin.

You may wish to bookmark the following link to help you to keep up-to-date on discussions of energy issues:

http://www.icecap.us/

Today, here are some of the articles that will probably interest you.Jun 21, 2009

The Wong-Fielding Meeting On Global WarmingBy David Evans on Joanne Nova’s blog

The article relates to a meeting between government officials and government-funded climate change alarmists on the one side, and reputable climate scientists in Australia who fall into the camp of the so-called climate-change “skeptics” on the other side.

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Jun 20, 2009 “World cooling has set in and it will stay colder for at least 100 years predicts scientist”

By Piers Corbyn, WeatherAction

Piers Corbyn is an astrophysicist-turned-weather-forecaster whose long-range weather forecasts - based on solar activity trends and their influence on Earth - are remarkably accurate.

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Jun 22, 2009 United States, Great Britain and Russia Climate Action In the News

Obama Gives Green Light to Canadian Oil Sands

Climatico, 21 June 2009

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Britain Green Suicide Note: 5,000 Pound Power

By Louise Barnett, Consumer Editor

That will be the combined costs of electricity and natural (or city-) gas by 2020.  Costs are projected to go up by as much as 42% a year.
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Jun 21, 2009 Appeal to Authority

By Norm Kalmanovitch

From the article:

See large image here.

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Jun 20, 2009 A Move to Put the Union Label on Solar Power Plants

By Todd Woody, New York Times Business

Posted in Energy Issues, Weather, Alternative Energy Sources, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »