Author: Rafe Champion

  • Our biggest peacetime policy blunder ever

    Epic Failure of Planning for the Green Energy Transition Briefing Note 22.9                September 2022 Purpose: To signal that the transition from coal cannot go any further without nuclear power. The critical issue. The combination of wind droughts and the lack of grid-scale storage dictate that any further loss of coal-fired power capacity will pose serious…

  • Rafe’s Roundup Sept 17

    James McPherson Report The disintegration of Russian/German economic affairs – first shots of a new trade war The Chinese fast trains trillion dollar debt disaster. Energy Matters Idiots guide to the Hydrogen Hype.  Pay attention Twiggy! The green energy transition has hit the wall. Save our Coal Power Stations! More Roundups from the archive Roundup…

  • What is happening and why

    Guest post from Cardimona There is not a shred of evidence that CO2 has the capacity to “trap heat” or affect the climate “dangerously”. No scientific research paper has ever empirically proven that oft-repeated assertion. It has always been based on faulty maths, contrived research, and propaganda. That’s why sea levels haven’t risen, cyclones aren’t…

  • Roundup 13 Sept

    Wind at 7 this morning. Across the NEM the wind is delivering 8% of demand at 20% of capacity (the average is 29%.). Victoria and Tasmania are deep in drought with practically no wind and Tasmania is burning diesel to protect the level of water in the dams. SA is exporting power to Victoria while…

  • Rafe’s Roundup Returns

    Rafe’s Roundup appeared in the quarterly Policy magazine from the Centre for Independent Studies in the 1990s and surfaced again in the old Catallaxy where the idea was to remind readers of the range of liberal/conservative organizations in Australia with links to their sites. This morning, James McPherson on the hypocrisy and divisiveness of “reconciliation”.…

  • Wind watch 10 Sept 2022

    While the transition from coal and gas in the western world, including Australia, has hit the wall, all the talk in progressive circles is about accelerating the transition with massive expenditure on intermittent generation, transmission lines and storage. Parallel worlds in collision! Trillions of dollars spent over 20 years have shifted the needle on the…

  • A beginners guide to climate science

    Triggerwarming: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Global Warming (But were afraid to ask). By Jeffrey Grimshaw. This is a lavishly illustrated introduction to climate and energy issues that is accessible for people who do not need the amount of detail in the important books by Ian Plimer and the series Climate Change: The…

  • Energy matters 9 Sept

    First weekly roundup of energy items of interest. Michael Shellenberger on the possible end of the RE craze, extract provided by David Blackmon on his Energy Transition Absurdities site. Peter Smith on the astronomical number of electricians required to deliver on the green fantasies regarding electric vehicles and new transmission lines.

  • Abundant abiotic hydrocarbons and useful idiots

    Guest post from our old friend Cardimona. If industrial chemists were tasked with designing a transport fuel from scratch for maximum energy content, ease of transfer and storage, and minimum weight the result would be the hydrocarbon molecules that we know as petrol and diesel. Despite years of hypertrophied rhetoric about a transition to electric…

  • To the editor of The Australian

    Dear Editor A few comments on the editorial on Tuesday August 23. On the closure of our ageing fleet of coal-fired power stations, the situation is much more precarious than the writer realises, as explained in this piece that was rejected by your op ed staff recently. Closure of more coal capacity at present will…