Climate Activists Are Wrong About Which Energy Source Reduces Air Pollution

By Steve Goreham

Originally published in the Washington Examiner.

Today’s media are filled with concerns about air pollution. But few people know which energy source has produced the greatest modern reduction in air pollution. The answer isn’t wind or solar energy.

During the 1950s, my grandfather had a coal furnace in his basement, like many homes in Chicago. Five days after a winter snowfall, the snow was covered with a visible black film of dust from coal furnaces. Our younger generation does not know the original reason for “spring cleaning.” Every spring, homeowners would wash their inside walls to remove coal dust.

It was the rising use of gas fuel, primarily natural gas along with propane, that produced the greatest reduction in air pollution in the United States and across the world. Gas furnaces and stoves have replaced wood in businesses and homes in developed nations. And natural gas power plants have replaced coal-fired plants to generate electricity, with gas becoming the leading fuel for industry.

Natural gas and propane are clean-burning fuels that emit no harmful pollutants when burned. When gas heating is substituted for coal or wood heating, indoor particulate pollution is reduced by 1,000 times.

Today, 70% of US homes use natural gas or propane, a percentage that has been rising for decades. Gas fuels have also become the leading heating and cooking source in Europe, providing 83% of heat energy in the Netherlands and 78% in the United Kingdom. But there are still 70 million wood stoves in Europe.

The World Health Organization estimates that 2 billion people in developing nations still cook using open fires or inefficient stoves fueled by kerosene, biomass (wood, charcoal, animal dung, or crop waste), and coal. These fuels generate harmful indoor air pollution. Indoor air pollution is estimated to cause more than 3 million deaths annually in poor nations. Emerging nations need gas fuels to boost health and well-being.

The great news is that gas fuels are increasingly used in developing nations, reducing illness and death from cooking. For example, in 2016 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a program to provide liquid petroleum gas (LPG) to 200 million people, making India the second largest LPG importer. About 70 percent of US propane production is exported as the key component of LPG, mostly to Eastern Asia.

Gas became the primary fuel for generating electricity in developed nations over the last three decades. Natural gas rose from 12.6% of US electricity generation in 1990 to 43.1% in 2023. By 2022, gas had become the leading fuel for electric power in Italy (48%), Netherlands (59%), and the UK (36%).

The combination of rising gas use to generate electricity, the use of scrubbers on coal plants, and the reduction in vehicle pollution has produced vastly improved air quality in recent decades. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that US ambient air pollution declined by 78% from 1970 to 2020.

Despite the benefits of reduced indoor and outdoor pollution from rising gas use, gas fuels are under attack. Driven by the ideology of Climatism, the fear of human-caused climate change, advocates for net-zero energy policies demand the elimination of gas to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

But carbon dioxide is an odorless, harmless, invisible gas. It doesn’t cause smoke or smog. Increased levels of atmospheric CO2 boost plant growth. Carbon dioxide should not be called a pollutant.

Nevertheless, US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and other leaders have called for a net-zero electric grid by 2035. Twenty-three US states now have net-zero electricity targets by 2050. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Switzerland, totaling about half of Europe’s electricity, have pledged to eliminate CO2-emitting power plants by 2035.

A war rages in Europe over the elimination of gas appliances. The governments of Germany, Netherlands, and the UK seek to force homeowners to spend thousands of euros or pounds to switch from gas appliances to electric heat pumps to reduce CO2 emissions. Amsterdam recently announced that it would become “aardgasvrij,” or gas-free, by 2040. But conservative gains in European Union elections this month reflect a popular backlash against efforts to eliminate gas fuels and force acceptance of net-zero policies.

In the US, cities and counties in six states, California, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Oregon, and Washington, along with Washington D.C., enacted statutes banning natural gas in new construction. New York passed the All-Electric Buildings Act in 2023, a state-wide ban prohibiting gas appliances in new one- to six-story buildings by 2026. But 20 other US states have passed laws preventing local governments from passing ordinances that ban gas fuels.

Despite misguided government efforts to eliminate gas, consumption of natural gas and other gas fuels continues to rise. World natural gas consumption has doubled since 1995.

Green energy advocates have it exactly wrong. Adoption of gas fuels did more to reduce air pollution over the last 60 years than any other energy source. Gas consumption will continue to rise for decades to come.

Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and the author of the bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.

From the DAILY CALLER

Nick Pope
Contributor

The Senate passed a major piece of pro-nuclear energy legislation on Tuesday, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The legislature’s upper chamber passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act — a bill containing the text of the pro-nuclear ADVANCE Act — by a strong 88-2 bipartisan vote. The bill represents one of the most significant efforts undertaken in recent years by Congress to spur the country’s nuclear energy infrastructure and capacity, as well as a rare moment of consensus among both Democrats and Republicans on energy policy through Biden’s first term in office.

If Biden enacts the bill, which has already passed the House, it will be a tool for simplifying the permitting process for advanced nuclear reactors, refine the process for exporting certain nuclear power technologies abroad, augment the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) staff, facilitate advancement of nuclear fusion and related technologies and more, according to its text. (RELATED: Enviros Cheered New York For Shutting Down Huge Nuke Plant. Then Emissions Jumped)

“Today, we sent the ADVANCE Act to the president’s desk because Congress worked together to recognize the importance of nuclear energy to America’s future and got the job done,” Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top GOP lawmaker on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a key player in negotiations, said of the bill’s passage. “This bipartisan piece of legislation will encourage more innovation and investment in nuclear technologies right here on our shores. It also directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to more efficiently carry out its important regulatory mission and helps redevelop conventional energy sites for future nuclear energy projects.”

Nuclear energy is emissions-free and reliable, meaning that it is a sensible option for Republicans, many of whom are strongly against Biden’s $1 trillion-plus climate agenda, and Democrats, who are mostly opposed to significantly expanding reliance on other reliable fuel sources such as coal or natural gas.

However, despite its advantages, the technology has struggled to grow much in the U.S. over the past several decades due in part to high costs, a burdensome regulatory environment, onerous permitting and fears from some corners of the public about the potential for a nuclear disaster, as energy policy experts previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I urge President Biden to quickly sign this historic nuclear energy policy reform into law,” Republican South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan, another key player in crafting the bill and subsequent negotiations, said of its passage. “With the President’s signature, we will be safeguarding our energy security and our national security.”

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

It’s the slugfest of the century — Australia’s top climate alarmist Dr Joelle Gergis (above) duking it out with Anna-Maria Arabia, CEO of the Australian Academy of Science. The green-Left Academy wants any challenge to its global warming panics to be censored by the federal apparatus – see Shut Them Up, Argues the Academy of Science. Hence I predict Ms Arabia will triumph by getting the impertinent Gergis cancelled as a climate denier.

At issue is “CCS” or carbon capture and storage. This means plucking CO2 out of industry and the atmosphere to achieve otherwise-unattainable net zero. The captured CO2, a plant food which the CSIRO admits has been lavishly greening the planet, has to be safely stored in repositories by the billion and even tens of billion tonnes a year. These CO2 jails must be locked up for thousands or even millions of years, say the Academy’s experts.[1]

But CCS is so much trillion-dollar bunk, as Joelle sets out to demonstrate. She’s playing Samson’s dangerous game — destabilising the Temple of Climate. This temple is already tottering in Europe as Germany et al recognise the havoc the Greens have caused their economies. Renewables are bunk too, not that Joelle would admit that. The climate models causing people to imagine “global boiling” and “highways to hell” are also bunk. As 2022 Nobel Prize winner in physics John Clauser puts it, “There is no correlation between temperature change and carbon dioxide – it is all a crock of crap.”[2]

In what the ABC would describe as “handbags at six paces”[3], the Arabia-Gergis stoush involves:

♦ For the Academy, its Roundtable Report of  March 2023 on ” Greenhouse gas removal in Australia” and its submission to the feds last July espousing mind-blowing CCS targets. That submission is so silly I’ve banished it to this footnote [4], and will focus instead on the Roundtable.

♦ For Joelle, there’s her vast piece in June’s Quarterly Essay, which makes my wordy Quadrant effusions look like haikus. (Gergis occupies 88 pages of the 122-page issue). She took a break from climate catastrophism to study creative writing, and another break from her ANU senior lectureship to sit in the dark-green Australia Institute for months as writer-in-residence to pen her essay.[5] The Institute is a Siamese twin of the Greens Party[6] . Joelle has now emerged to title her handiwork “Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia’s Future.”[7]

In her essay Joelle for once takes a view I agree with, that CCS is a stupid scam with not even the chance of an ice-cream in hell of getting us to the broad sunlit uplands of net zero. More on her CCS demolition down the track.

The Academy, however, trusts CCS as the magic bullet to save the planet from computer-modelled fiery damnation in 2100. In general, the Academy wants Labor’s anti-emissions targets to be made something like twice as fierce. Instead of one giant 7MW windmill being built per day to 2030 (Albo’s scheme), the Academy logically wants two a day. And instead of 22,000 made-in-China solar panels installed per day, it wants circa 40,000 a day. Climate Minister Chris Bowen’s wind farms and power lines are flattening forests and blighting landscapes. The Academy’s brought-forward emissions targets would at least double the damage.

In trying to square the circle on net zero, the Academy’s experts have come up with what I’d call the “Kittylitter Leapthrough”. It involves methane, CO2’s greenhouse pal, (formula CH4, according to Mr Walter House, my despairing chemistry teacher in 1956). At the roundtable, experts suggested that zeolite, kittylitter’s cheap ingredient ($US140 per tonne), might be engineered on a planetary scale to mop excess methane (p15).

The Roundtable was run by Academy President Chennupati Jagadish AC , who thought the Academy’s “independence and convening power made us an ideal host for a roundtable on novel negative emissions approaches for Australia.” He foresaw Australia as a CCS research – or maybe kittylitter — superpower.[8]

A list on page 28 shows that every one of the 18 round-tablers, by invitation, were drawn from the university/CSIRO/govt sectors (12 professors among them). There was not one person from industry. They dreamed of breakthroughs unimpeded by costs or commercial technology. Their suggestions include, with my comments below

1/ Trains that capture CO2 while travelling between mine sites, to be stored subsequently at mine sites.

Does anyone remember that 268-waggon BHP train in the Pilbara that lost its driver five years ago and travelled 100km at up to 160kph before its $300-million pile-up? Imagine such a runaway train dragging captured CO2. Would Gina Hancock, who thinks climate doomism is propaganda, convert her Roy Hill trains to CO2 courier duties?.

2/ Ocean alkalinity enhancement – Addition of alkalinity-enhancing substance generated from mine tailings and other waste.

I’m not sure that whales, sardines, octopi and clown fish cavorting in the Great Barrier Reef would welcome a gazillion tonnes of mine tailings. The roundtablers’ stream of consciousness continued,

4/ Ocean farming (e.g., kelp, seagrass) for CO2 capture…

Ocean storage: – Biomass in the ocean , e.g., seaweed that sinks to the deep ocean, Blue carbon[9], Deep ocean storage.

5/  Injecting in the atmosphere “iron-salt aerosols – iron-containing particles that enhance natural methane sinks by mimicking natural reactions caused by mineral dust particles.

Not content with re-jigging the oceans, the tax-funded boffins also contemplate rehashing our atmosphere. I guess the ivory-tower crowd likes to think big!

6/ Integrating carbon capture into current structural materials and systems, e.g., building materials can perform a dual role as carbon capture surfaces or retrofitting HVAC [heating, ventilation and air cooling] systems to provide capture function.

My villa unit has its Hitachi split-system HVAC motor in the front garden. Its concrete pad is tilting in the mud and the box has quite a lean. Could someone from the Roundtable please drop by, convert my HVAC to airborne CO2 capture, and straighten the lean while they’re at it?.

7/ DAC [direct air capture] used to accelerate biomass production (e.g., bamboo) with a view to use in cross laminated timber as a large-scale replacement/augmentation for steel structures in buildings.

I foresee the CFMEU’s John Setka enforcing a “bamboo site allowance” of $20 an hour on Melbourne’s high-rise jobs. As I write, I hum a tune from my teens which, as I recall, goes

On the windier days, Seems an orchestra plays
On a musical breeze for you;
Like a merry salute From a heavenly flute
To the tower of singing bamboo.

TIME now,as promised, for Joelle’s hatchet job on the delusions of the Academy and its September 2022 Roundtable.[10] Her Quarterly Essay dubs CCS “a fool’s errand that will only lead to delay and failure (p81)…a disastrous gamble (p12)…the fantasy get-out-of-jail-free card that threatens to ruin us (p50). If we buy into these delusions, we will be in very deep trouble.” (p51) Here’s why, she explains (p56-61):

♦ In the past 30 years 80 per cent of all CCS pilot projects have flopped.

♦ “To achieve global targets, approximately 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide need to be stored each year by 2030, growing to 10 billion tonnes per annum by 2050.”

♦ The 41 operational CCS projects in 2023 store less than 10m tonnes of CO2 a year (according to UNEP) or 49m tonnes (according to CCS industry-group figures – Joelle suggests the latter mob are lying, which is normal for green lobbies). Joelle herself is on the Climate Council. She’s mentored there by council chief Tim Flannery, who’s still waiting for his 2004 prediction to bear fruit about my birthplace Perth becoming a waterless ghost town.

♦ Given total human-caused emissions last year alone were 41 billion tonnes, CCS would need to be boosted by 1000 times to do any climate-solving.

♦ “Offshore CCS has added dangers of acidifying marine environments, contaminating groundwater, inducing earthquakes and the displacement of toxic brine deposits. The true risks of the hazards of the offshore CCS industry are yet to be fully scientifically and technically assessed, let alone comprehensively regulated… embarking on such a risky path for such little gain is spectacularly illogical.”

♦ To achieve net zero by 2050, the CCS industry would need to suck up investment worth $US655b to $US1.3 trillion ($A2 trillion or $2,000,000,000,000). Even with that, a commercial CCS plant takes ten years to build so don’t expect wonders by 2050.

A cynic might say that with CCS advocacy, the Academy is pushing a no-lose position for its 700 Fellows. If it works, they save (we hope) the planet. If it doesn’t, well the basic research costing eight or even nine-figure amounts won’t have been wasted in enhancing the Fellows’ lifestyles. There would be lavishly-staffed Centres of CCS Excellence, university promotions and job security, multi-million lab gear approvals, King’s Birthday honours and all that, plus jetting to prestigious conferences.

Also, CCS is not just a job-ticket for boffins who can do maths and engineering — there would likely be near-unlimited CCS funding for artsy hangers-on like Jungians researching the psyches of Joelle and other CCS-deniers; CCS angles re LGBTQI+s, feminists and Aboriginal main-chancers[11]; and CCS strategies expressed in gouache and dance (enjoy!). All this stuff is already affixed like sucker-fish to the mainstream “climate science” shark.

I’d better add that Joelle’s anti-CCS crusade is to stop Albanese from pussy-footing around on emissions, and harden up the progressives’ ruinous anti-fossil-fuel fatwas. Nothing but an immediate crackdown on fossil-fuel use and any new petroleum/coal projects will satisfy Joelle.

I do worry that exposing these schisms among the climate-crazy set could set back my good relations with Academy President Jagadish. He’s already cross with, I believe, other journos for disrespecting the Academy’s wisdom. He wrote to his Fellows last August that “undermining science undermines us all”. Those rogue journos “seek to twist the truth to suit their agenda”, he complained, continuing

We have witnessed the seeding and dissemination of uncertainty throughout the years—to postpone the regulation of tobacco consumption, to continue the use of lead in petrol, to obstruct vaccination during the ongoing pandemic, or to prevent action on climate change to list a few.

His next paragraph had me scratching my head. He seemed to suggest that blaming a Wuhan lab-leak for the global Covid disaster was a “deliberate undermining of public trust in science [and] conspiracy and fearmongering.” [12] I thought Xi Jin-Ping’s incendiary reaction and billion-dollar trade bans over PM Morrison’s mild call for a Covid-origins inquiry were a clue. And indeed, evidence for the lab-leak origin is compounding every day. US intelligence agencies with their vast resources are split or uncertain about the Wuhan lab-leak theory: at least one of these agencies, judging by Jagadish’s comment, must be conspiring and fear-mongering. What on earth’s going on at the Academy?

Jagadish conflated, without evidence, the public’s trust in science with public trust in his Academy, which has been thoroughly captured by the green-black-Left blob[13]. He went on,

Science relies on high-quality journalism to communicate discoveries that impacts our lives. And that is why we must be concerned when journalism and other sources seek to mislead, distort and obfuscate scientific evidence and in doing so undermine public trust in science.

It is a dangerous trend and must be called out. As a national academy whose remit is to uphold standards of excellence in science, we will call out behaviour that serves no good purpose and that harms the essential underpinnings of a stable, safe and civil society that relies on evidence-informed decision making. It is up to all those who value the importance of knowledge as a public good to take a stand in the face of those who would assault it.

I bet those other journos would want to ask Jagadish why, if his outfit is so sciencey and evidentiary, the Academy

♦ organised smoking ceremonies to cleanse Academy premises of evil spirits?

♦ Supported its Future Earth subsidiary’s childish if not vicious call for a no-growth economy?[14] See also the Academy’s conference here where it touts someone claiming “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”.

♦ Run fake Aborigine Bruce Pascoe as a plenary lead speaker on how his supposed ancestors communed with whales when Bass Strait was dry land?

♦ Used a previous school science course to badger 15-year-oldf’s to become ignorant little climate activists?[15] (in the kids’ science quiz: Could we do without it [mining]?… Would you work for a mining company?)

♦ Capitulated to a pile-on by Twitter ferals and apologised for the Academy’s pro-forma welcoming of the Liberal’s Christian Porter as incoming Science Minister? and

♦ Backed the losing Yes referendum, based on its fallacious view on the usage and meaning of “terra nullius”?

Science once had a good name, despite some wayward groupthink. These days orthodox climate science especially is so politicised and corrupted from primary-schooling upward that people would be wise to hold their nose when dealing with it. Case in point: the Academy’s manias about carbon capture and storage.

Tony Thomas’s latest book from Connor Court is Anthem of the Unwoke – Yep! The other lot’s gone bonkers. $34.95 from Connor Court here

[1] GREENHOUSE GAS REMOVAL IN AUSTRALIA – A report on the novel negative emissions approaches for Australia roundtable. p31

[2] More than 130 scientific papers say that even a doubling of CO2 – not expected for 150 years according to the IPCC – will cause less than 2degC warming, most saying around 1degC.

[3] When I lodged a complaint last year against the sexism of Media Watch’s Paul Barry referring to Peta Credlin with the phrase “handbags at six paces”, I got this response (email August 25) from Investigations Officer “James” at the ABC Ombudsman depot:

“I cannot agree with you that the phrase you complained about is sexist and demeaning. It is on old-fashioned, rarely used reference to a ‘minor disagreement’ – see for example Handbags at 6 paces – Idioms by The Free Dictionary.”

[4] Academy: “Australia should commit to building capacity to draw down greenhouse gases at scale, particularly carbon dioxide… In its April 2022 Report, the IPCC identifies that meeting the modelled 1.5°C pathways requires a net negative carbon dioxide emissions volume of 20-660 gigatons [20-660 billion tonnes, TT] by 2100. Building capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – at scale along with the capacity to store it safely for centuries – is critical. Australia should announce a GHG removal target encompassing nature-based and technological solutions. This should be in addition to ambitious emission reduction targets.”

[5] Joelle, to put it another way, says she did her writing on lands of the Bundjalung, Ngunnawal ,Ngambri, Dharug and Gundungurra peoples.

[6] Wiki: “A number of current and previous senior employees of the Australia Institute have also worked with the Australian Greens or other environmental organisations. This includes the founder and former director of the institute Clive Hamilton (who ran as a Greens candidate), former Director Ben Oquist and current Executive Director Richard Denniss (both of whom worked for Australian Greens leader Bob Brown), Deputy Director Ebony Bennett (who worked as a Greens media advisor^[4]), Chief-of-Staff Anna Chang (who was a media and campaigns advisor to the Australian Greens) and ex-regulatory lead Dan Cass (who was a Greens campaign manager and office bearer^[5]). Ex-Director and Deputy Chair of the Australia Institute (2004–2022), Professor Barbara Pocock, was also elected as an Australian Green Senator for South Australia in 2022.”

[7] The ANU website says Joelle’s still with them. Her job is to coach 200 teen students a year about our climate doom (Essay p7)

[8] Jagadish: “This roundtable and its accompanying report will help propel Australia into leadership of what will likely be a defining endeavour of the coming century.” Roundtable Summary: “Australia has strengths and comparative advantages that could make it an international leader in negative emissions.” p32.

[9] “Blue carbon”, says NOAA, is “carbon captured by the world’s ocean and coastal ecosystems.” This makes the Academy’s musings somewhat circular.

[10] I notice Joelle has contributed a chapter to teen Greta Thunberg’s “The Climate Book”. Joelle wasn’t to know that Greta today jigs around in her her Hamas-friendly keffiyeh.

[11] Roundtable p27: “Engaging early with policymakers and communities, especially First Nations peoples, to co-design appropriate approaches to negative emissions portfolios.”

[12] For reference, Jagadish’s wording is: “The current level of discourse around science, in Australia and the world, in relation to the origin of SARS-CoV-2 [covid] is another contemporary example [of mis/disinformation]. It reflects a worrying pattern of deliberate undermining of public trust in science at a time when policymakers need to inform their decisions with rigorously gathered evidence, rather than in response to conspiracy and fearmongering.”

[13] Arabia was originally the anti-free-speech head of Science & Technology Australia, leading a 200-strong demo (see 2.20mins) to federal Parliament to urge laws against purported climate “misinformation”. She was appointed Academy CEO in 2016 after three years part-time as policy director/principal adviser for then Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Science policy director Chris Anderson, appointed in 2019, had been adviser and then chief of staff for six years to Labor Senator, Rudd-Gillard minister and factional warlord Kim Carr.

[14] Future Earth p45: “In fact, the neoliberal economic model has produced enormous inequality in Australia and beyond, has undermined democracy and participation, and has fuelled social and environmental injustice. As such, neoliberalism has become a barrier that undercuts just adaptation to climate change. Therefore, these economic and financial systems must change, not only to sustain the provision of basic goods and services and economic opportunities but also to address the inequities they have created across the world and between generations. Such a change will encounter resistance and hence requires courageous leadership. Yet, it is also an opportunity to learn from Indigenous ontologies that are based on Country and interrelated webs of being. It will mean shifting from growth thinking to degrowth models…” (My emphasis).

[15] Academy advice to teachers: “Ask students if they have ever taken action or advocated for a cause.” — Lesson outcomes: At the end of this activity students will … appreciate the need to lobby at all levels of government to ignite and lead change – even if it is unpopular with the voters.”

 

By Jo Nova

It’s just another day on the job to save the world from man-made pollution

In a quest to make the weather a bit nicer in 100 years these trees needed to be cut down now so we can connect up a big hydropower “battery” for holy solar and wind power. The towers will be 75m high and the path through the forest, 140m wide.

When we ran off coal and gas power, we didn’t need pumped hydro. Fossil fuels protect the forests and hills of Australia.

These photos were posted by Geoff Wise on the “High Country of Australia” show us what our clean green future will look like:

Here is where the power lines from the Snowy Hydro 2, at Lobs Hole, will cross the Tumut River ravine to go to the recently cleared site of the switching station in the Maragle State Forest, before heading north to feed into the National Power grid. The power lines will come from near the distant horizon. Look at the photos for more information. You can see this for yourself, as I was standing on Elliot Way when I took the photos, down hill, to the east is Kosciusko National Park and uphill, to the west is Maragle State Forest.

Other parts of this project (not pictured here) will even cut through national park. Originally the 330kV interconnector towers were going to be put underground in the Kosciusko National Park, but after costs ballooned it was decided that the Snowy Hydro 2.0  pumped storage  was “critical state significant infrastructure to NSW for economic, environmental and social reasons” and the National Park was not so significant. Who knew, socially, people in NSW benefit from pumped hydro?

Apparently renewable shareholders have friends in high places. Trees and koalas, not so much.

h/t Roger

Remember small business foresters and farmers are bad people, but industrial hydroelectricity helps the environment. See how caring they are with their clearing…

Geoff describes how extensive these lines are: “One of the power lines from there travels through Maragle State Forest, then Bago State Forest. A second travels through from Cabramurra and next to the new switching station being built. Snowy Hydro 2 may add, 1 to 2, more lines, as two lines are going to the switching station.“

The standard joke on facebook with these photos is “look at the damage those brumbies have done”:

 

Because over the hill,  feral brumbies are being shot from helicopters to “reduce their impact” on the Alpine wilderness.

Though some wonder if it’s more the high country colonial history that the bureaucrats are really trying to kill.

Geoff also notes the irony that electric vehicles will be everywhere in the renewable future, but they won’t be allowed in the Snowy hydro power station. He wonders, after all the combustion engines are gone whether they’ll need those horses to pull the carts:

 I received an email from a well informed commentator who noted that the Lobs Hole approval notice is allowed to kill and displace all sorts of things:

The Critical State Infrastructure Approval for the Lobs Hole and the Switching Station on KNP allows that no more than:

(i) 9.35 ha of Caladenia montana species habitat

(ii) 89.06 ha of Gang-gang Cockatoo (breeding) species habitat

(iii) 10.86 ha of Masked Owl (breeding) species habitat

(iv) 117.29 ha of Eastern Pygmy-possum species habitat

(v) 59.03 ha of Yellow-bellied Glider species habitat; and

(vi) 1.67 ha of Booroolong Frog species habitat

can be cleared for the development; and the developers have to minimise:

(i) the impacts of the development on hollow-bearing trees;

(ii) the impacts of the development on threatened species; and

(iii) the clearing of native vegetation and key habitat.

Apparently, the sanctioned clearing is offset by contributing or buying offset credits.

The question is, why can’t farmers within the Great Barrier Reef catchment area have the same option when managing their land? At the moment, bureaucrats scan satellite images and if any bare ground the size of a kitchen table is found on their land, they turn up and carry out an audit essentially accusing the farmer of environmental degradation of the Great Barrier Reef.

— R

Some endangered industries are more protected than others.