I’m tempted to use another c word on Simon Holmes A’Court. He’s from a wealthy Western Australian family with South African origins. And maybe Norman as well in which case he’s of short origins (ah oui, court, court) with a ‘Holmes’ being derived from “flat land; a small island”. A short flat land in other words. Rottnest? Is he a Quokka (cockney rhyming slang for…)?.
Ok rhyming fun over….
I had a run in on Twitter with Simon about 3 years ago. He was, in my opinion and based on that exchange (a much reduced record is here), no friend of environmentalists. I blocked him once I figured out what the ‘between the lines’ gist of his comments were (oligarch allegiance, even if fossil fuels, over environmental concerns and a menacing opposition to those who oppose his ‘views’1). He’s like Malcolm Roberts on vaccine issues, sounds good on first impressions but he’s absolutely not to be trusted.
If there’s money to be made siting nuclear power stations at Mount Dampier then too bad about the ‘traditional owners of the land2’ Simon is going to be there.
Anyway Simon intends to make money from Climate Change. And to bring this about he has backed a bunch of ‘Teal’ candidates in the recent Federal elections in Australia (18th May, 2022). Initially I thought that the whole thing smelt suspiciously of George Soros and it may still do. But the upfront backer is Simon. And boy did the ‘Teal’ candidates get a sweet run with the media. (also Simon why are most of the candidates women in their mid 40s/50s?)
The ‘Teal Candidate’ who got the most attention is Dr, or Professor, Monique Ryan who ran successfully against Josh Frydenburg in Hawthorn, Victoria. Josh was PM’ Morrison’s heir apparent and the recent Treasurer (was Peter Dutton involved in the ‘Teal’ campaign?). I’m not a great fan of Josh’s at all, but….I was tempted to offer some climate change advice if it would tip Monique out.
Monique likes to use ‘appeal to authority’ which is, more often than not, hers. She’s a Dr dinnit ya know.
An anecdote now, one of her supporters who trudged the streets on her behalf is someone I know very well and she normally votes Labor which somewhat challenges the view that the Teal voters are all progressive Liberal voters. Right Barry?
I think Monique knows stuff all about climate change. About as much as she knows about vaccine science. Zero.
But worse for me is that Simon Holmes A’Court can just start a political movement so that his climate change businesses (whatever they are) get across the line. And as I said I smell George Soros in the background too. For later. For sure.
P.S. I have noticed that substackers with very large followings get fewer likes and comments to their posts than I often do. I’m suspicious. My total income from this blog so far is about $500 or so. So if there’s any billionaires out there with some loose change burning holes in their pockets I suggest a founding membership, you can decide the total yourselves. And sorry you’ll just have to trust me, I don’t do favours for dollars. Although this won’t increase my paying subscribers to 1,000s that’s fine I can handle that. One subscriber at 200k is more honest than 30k fake subscribers at $6.66 each anyway.
Climate change and/or environmentalism are ‘subservient’ to capital outlays and expected returns.
The woke refrain in Australia. Can be used alone or in association with pronouns not of your choice. Sometimes the specific tribe is forgotten and the term then becomes very generic. It’s a cheapskates way to virtue signal, no actual improvement in the circumstances of the said tribe results.
Simon Holmes A’Court would rather chew on broken glass than "site nuclear power stations at Mount Dampier". The guy is another salesperson for the wind/solar scam slush fund. And like all of those crooks he hates nuclear power with a passion, knowing that only nuclear power is capable of replacing fossil fuels and eliminating emissions.
The problem with wind & solar is because they are intermittent & seasonal they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.