Solar Panels - another Silly Roof Scheme.

Cartoon; by Nicholson.

By Viv Forbes; Chairman, the Carbon Sense Coalition.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called for the immediate suspension of another of Mr Garrett’s silly roof schemes – the Roof Solar Panel Scheme.

“This scheme is driven by the Renewable Energy Target Scheme, Renewable Energy Certificates and obligations on power companies to buy the inconsistent dribbles of electricity produced by solar panels on domestic homes.”

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that like the roof insulation scheme, the Roof Solar Panel Scheme was dangerous, ill planned and a massive waste of community funds.

“There are two aspects of electricity demand.

“First is base load demand, which is present 24 hours a day, every day. However, sun power is maximised for only a few hours around noon and fluctuates with the seasons. Thus solar panels cannot replace even one iota of base load generating capacity. Coal, gas, hydro, nuclear or some expensive power storage system must sit there, ready to supply 100% of base load demand every night and on all cloudy days. Any storage facility must be large enough to cope with several consecutive cloudy days.

“The second power consideration is peak load demand, which tends to occur around meal times, night and morning. Solar panels contribute nothing at these times either.

“Therefore every dollar spent on roof solar panels duplicates capital already spent on conventional power generation – ie community capital is wasted. And the more panels, the more waste.

“Roof solar panels also induce householders into danger.

“Even quite small amounts of dirt, dust, bird droppings, tree leaves or suicidal kites will dramatically reduce the electricity generated by a solar panel. Someone must climb onto the roof to clean the panel. Inevitably, someone will fall off.

“Solar power is not free. Whilst the sunshine is free, it can only be harnessed by the construction, collection, distribution, maintenance and replacement of solar panels and transmission lines, which are not free. Solar power is an expensive option that will always need taxes or hobble-chains on competitors, support from taxpayers or coercion of consumers to survive.

“Surely our parliament cannot be so negligent as to allow rock singers and lawyers to pretend that solar playthings have the reliability, capacity and safety to provide any useful contribution to the future energy needs of our homes, cities, trains, factories, mines and farms?

“If solar panels are so good, consumers will buy them without coercion and subsidies. In reality they are a dangerous waste, so why should other consumers and taxpayers be forced to fund such folly?

“Places like Germany and California have learned to their dismay that massive stimulation of the solar power industry has done three unwelcome things. It has driven up electricity prices, driven away other industries and stimulated the manufacture of solar panels in foreign lands, mainly China. And unless it is propped up by conventional power generation, the inevitable consequence will be network instability and blackouts.

“Solar energy is useful for solar hot water systems, for power in remote locations, for small installations with battery backup and for growing plants. It is not useful for generating electricity for modern power grids.

“The Roof Solar Panel Scheme should be suspended immediately and an independent enquiry made into its engineering and financial feasibility.”

Petition on the Flawed Carbon Trading Scheme.

Liberal MP, Dr Denis Jensen, has drawn up a petition on the Flawed Carbon Trading Scheme. 3,447 people have signed so far.

The Big Picture on World Temperature Swings.

Jo Nova has published a set of graphs produced by David Lappi, an Alaskan Geologist.

This does not look like dangerous global warming. In fact the big picture looks more like long term cooling.

Tampering with the Temperature Records

Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts have produce a masterful analysis of the state of the world instrument temperature records that have been used to support the claims that the world has warmed alarmingly since man started using large quantities of carbon fuels.

What they found was evidence of widespread systematic tampering with the surface thermometer records which has had the effect of skewing the data in order to create or exaggerate warming trends. They found cherry picking of sites included in the calculations, elimination of sites showing cooling trends, distortion caused by urban heating around recording stations, unexplained adjustment of data and divergence from the satellite temperature records (which started in 1980).

Their chief conclusions are:

· Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century. 


· All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit very serious problems that render them useless for determining accurate long-term temperature trends. 


· All of the problems have skewed the data so as to greatly overstate observed warming both regionally and globally.

Chief Warmist Surrenders.

Faced with the above and other fast mounting evidence, Professor Phil Jones of CRU, who is at the centre of the “Climategate” affair and a key promoter of the Global Warming Scare, has conceded that there has been no "statistically significant" rise in world temperature since 1995. Professor Jones also conceded, for the first time, that the world may have been warmer in medieval times than it is now. (Sceptical scientists have long argued that the world was warmer between 800 and 1300AD than at present).

Big Business gets Nervous

The collapse of the so-called Consensus, the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Confab, the emerging evidence of the foolishness of wasting tax payers funds on wind/solar “power” and ethanol production, the Climategate Scandal, the roof insulation fiasco in Australia, the Carbon Credit frauds, the lack of evidence to support the weekly scare forecasts and the rapid change in public opinion is having an effect on big business support for the Global Warming Scam. Straws in the wind include:

· BP, Conoco Phillips and Caterpillar and have all withdrawn from the US Climate Action Partnership.


· The Australian Industry Group, previously a firm supporter of the Ration-N-Tax Scheme, now says there is “no clear way forward” and AIG has to rethink its position. 


· Peabody, the world’s biggest coal company, has lodged a detailed submission opposing the US EPA’s classification of carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

None of them has yet challenged the whole scientific basis for the Global warming Scam, but the continuing exposures of IPCC incompetence and fraud is raising concern at the top end of town. We part-time grey beards, young Turks and eloquent ladies who have stood in the front line for so long need to keep gathering troops and ammunition for the big battles yet to come. Soon there will be a flood of desertions from enemy ranks and more allies will start to appear.