Moreover, the thought that “Green Capitalism” could provide the way forward is laughable, considering that it is a theory based more on political propaganda than on true, honest science. Rather than helping the world move forward, “Green Capitalism” has the potential to send society back into the Dark Ages.
Just as the religious leaders of the European Dark Ages kept the uneducated masses under control by threatening them with the eternal fires of Hell, the new leaders of the “Church of Environmentalism” are now preying on the scientifically ignorant masses by threatening them with the catastrophic destruction of the planet through global warming. A quick look at the graph below might help put the current controversy about global temperatures into perspective:
Variation in World Temperature Over the Past Three Thousand Years
N.B. In the graph, the horizontal line passing through 23°C shows the world’s average temperature over the past three thousand years. Note that the Earth’s current temperature is just below average. (Robinson, A. et al, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 2007)
If Australia adopts the Kyoto Protocol, it will result in massive job losses, the downturn of Australian industries, the bankruptcy of many businesses, and huge price increases, not only for electricity, but for all commodities and services. The standard of living of every Australian will fall. This is hardly the way forwards.
Under the Kyoto Accord, Australia would have to limit its greenhouse gas output to 108% of its 1990 emissions by 2010. Because Australia produces 86.5% of its electricity from coal-fired power stations, the only way it could meet its Kyoto commitment would be to impose large taxes on coal, which of course, the consumer would pay for through a 50% rise in electricity bills. (Lavoisier Group Inc.)
Aluminium production, which relies on the availability of cheap electricity to remain internationally competitive, would need to be outsourced to China or India, where labour costs are far lower. Although these two countries have signed the Kyoto Accord, neither of them is under any obligation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists state that Australia can use alternative forms of energy such as wind, solar, biomass and tidal power, but these alternatives are very unreliable, extremely dilute, and at least three times as expensive as coal. The only other power sources suitable for large-scale energy production are hydro-electricity, limited to mountainous regions, and nuclear power, which will take at least a decade to develop.
If the Australian Government were to sign the Kyoto Accord, knowing that it would result in a huge rise in unemployment and a dramatic lowering of living standards, it would be like signing the country’s own death warrant. Kevin Rudd, the Opposition Leader, seems quite content to do just this, if he wins the next Federal election. How could such an action be regarded as the way forward?
Looking back to the graph above, the reader might start to wonder if all this disruption to our present way of life is really so urgent and necessary, given that the Earth’s current temperature is just below the three-thousand year average.
Since 1979, NASA has been taking satellite readings of the Earth’s atmospheric temperature and has recorded a net change of a mere 0.06°C over a twenty-two year period (NOAA satellite readings, Jan, 1979 – Sept, 2001). The economist, and non-scientist, Sir Nicholas Stern has recently given dire warnings about the cost of not limiting greenhouse gases, and yet the NASA satellite data is unambiguous. If greenhouse is in fact a warming mechanism, the atmosphere must warm up before the surface warms. The atmosphere, however, has not warmed over the past two decades, and therefore, any surface warming that has occurred over the past century cannot be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions or the greenhouse effect.
The environmentalist movement, of which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a key player, has proudly told the world’s media that there is scientific consensus regarding climate change. It states that two thousand experts have signed a report confirming that human-caused global warming is a fact. The media has failed to report, however, that a further eighteen thousand scientists have since signed a petition refuting such a consensus (Petition Project, www.oism.org). At a ratio of one scientist for, versus nine against the global warming consensus, it is obvious that there is no consensus among scientists at all. This detail has not been reported by the world’s media because the media itself is biased in favour of the environmentalist movement.
If the reader is still not convinced that human-caused climate change is unproven, a few more facts and figures might help to persuade you, or at least, leave room for doubt:
1) Fifty million years ago, the world was warm and wet, with atmospheric carbon dioxide at ten times the concentration it is today. There was no run-away global warming then, and there isn’t any now. (Lavoisier Group)
2) Carbon dioxide is not a poison or pollutant; it is, in fact, an essential part of the life cycle of all living things. Carbon dioxide is a plant nutrient that allows photosynthesis to occur, and at times of increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, forests increase their growth rates and provide more food for animal life within their ecosystems. (Lavoisier Group)
3) Sea levels rise and fall with the fluctuating temperatures of the planet. For example, 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, sea levels were 130 metres below what they are today. An Aborigine standing on Bondi Beach would have looked out thirty kilometres into what is now the Pacific Ocean to see grasslands and bush. (Lavoisier Group)
4) Carbon dioxide is not a major greenhouse gas. Water vapour is responsible for 95% of greenhouse warming. CO2 is a mere trace element. (Lavoisier Group)
5) Levels of atmospheric CO2 have been slowly rising over the past few centuries, some of which have been caused by fossil-fuel burning, but most of which have been released from the oceans as the Earth has slowly warmed since the close of the Little Ice Age in Henry VIII’s era. (A.B. Robinson, “Access to Energy”, 2006)
6) Al Gore’s use of the famous “hockey stick graph” shown in his film “An Inconvenient Truth”, and also used by the United Nations IPCC as a “proof” of global warming, is based on incorrect computer modelling, which was corrected by its authors soon after publication. It shows an exponential increase in temperature versus time, and fails to account for CO2 fertilisation and other important factors. Although the authors corrected their mistakes quickly, Al Gore and the IPCC have chosen not to correct their own misinformation. (A.B. Robinson, “Access to Energy”, 2007)
7) Temperatures in Antarctica have fallen, not risen, over the past few decades, and the Southern Hemisphere has remained steady in temperature. (A.B. Robinson, “Access to Energy”, 2007)
8) Many glaciers are more extensive now than a century ago, and although many glaciers are now receding, many others are growing. (A.B. Robinson, “Access to Energy”, 2007)
9) Rises and falls in the Earth’s temperature over the past few thousand years correlate well with the rises and falls in the sun’s activity. Over the past century, the sun has grown warmer and more active, and scientists have recorded slight increases in temperatures on Mars, Jupiter and even Uranus, just as they have on Earth. (H. Hayden, “The Energy Advocate”, 2007)
10) As the Solar System moves around the Milky Way Galaxy, it periodically passes through clouds of dust which reduce the intensity of sunlight hitting the planets. At these times, ice ages are experienced on Earth. When the Solar System passes through clearer areas of space, climatic conditions on Earth become warmer and milder. It is in the most recent period of “clear sailing” through the Milky Way, that the conditions have been mild enough to allow human civilisation to develop. (L. Endersbee, Professor Emeritus of Engineering, Monash University, Radio 2GB, 16th May, 2007)
Let us now just imagine a world in which society has adopted “Green Capitalism”. The following details are bound to scare you, and probably make you realise that “Green” is not so green, after all:
To provide electricity for a million people in a modern, affluent society (e.g. Adelaide), a 1,000 megawatt power station is required. The average coal-fired or nuclear plant occupies 10 hectares for this purpose. Because of the diluteness of the sun’s energy, however, a solar array could only collect a maximum of 1 kW/m². Thus, the area required for a 1,000 MW solar plant to provide electricity for one million people is 91,000 square kilometres, which is equivalent to the size of Portugal. This is hardly a “soft”, environmentally-friendly option.
Further still, to build a 1,000 MW solar power station would require 35,000 tonnes of aluminium, 2 million tonnes of concrete, 7,500 tonnes of copper, 600,000 tonnes of steel, 7,500 tonnes of glass and 1,500 tonnes of chromium and titanium (Petr Beckmann, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado, “Why Soft Technology Will Not Be America’s Energy Salvation”, Golem Press). Huge amounts of energy would be needed to extract these resources from the Earth, and vast quantities of non-biodegradable, toxic wastes would be produced in the process. The expense of producing such a power station would be totally uneconomical, and all this would provide the energy for just one city the size of Adelaide. What might have seemed a nice idea to start with is obviously environmentally catastrophic.
Another example to demonstrate the innate weakness of solar energy, also from Petr Beckmann, is to look at a solar-powered car. Look at the two cars below, each carrying a solar collecting dish on its roof:
“Model A” would have to stand in the sun for one whole year to collect sufficient energy to allow itself to be driven for one day. “Model B”, with a collecting dish of 60 square metres, could be driven at walking pace, provided the sun was shining brightly. It would, however, have trouble squeezing onto a busy road, and if you wanted to go somewhere on a rainy day or after sunset, you couldn’t. Surely, “Green Capitalism” provides the way backwards, not forwards.
If “Green Capitalism” chooses to run its transport on ethanol, rather than solar batteries, the statistics are no more impressive. The energy required to convert one bushel (~ 35 kg.) of corn into 10 litres of ethanol is 112,500 watts. When burnt, this 10 litres of ethanol produces 65, 400 watts of energy. However, in the typical combustion engine with 20% efficiency, only 13,000 watts of energy is available to drive the vehicle from the initial 112,500 watts originally invested. Once again, this is economically unfeasible.
Of all the alternative energy sources, wind power is proving to be the most successful. According to environmentalist Paul Ehrlich in 1990, if the windiest 3% of the land surface of the Earth were covered in wind turbines, (an area equal to India and Mongolia combined), one terawatt of energy could be generated. This would provide enough energy to run just 200 cities the size of Sydney.
Although wind power has more potential than other alternative forms of energy, it still has numerous problems. The power output of a wind power station is very variable compared with the highly-consistent and controllable outputs from fossil and nuclear stations. When wind speeds vary, so does power output. When there is no wind, no power is generated at all. In the Northern Hemisphere, which contains the bulk of the world’s population, winter temperatures are cold, and ice causes wind turbines to be shut down on a regular basis.
Wind power stations involve high maintenance costs. It is very important for energy efficiency that the blades on each turbine spin without hindrance. European scientists are finding that the build-up of dead insects on the turbine blades stops them from turning smoothly, and just a millimetre or two of insect deposits on the blades can reduce power output by as much as 25%. (Dr. Howard Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut, “The Solar Fraud”, 2001)
Wind power stations, or wind “farms” as the environmentalists euphemistically call them, are not a pretty sight. They cover large areas of land, usually on hilltops where they can be seen for miles around, and are a form of visual pollution. For this eyesore, on average, only 1 megawatt of electrical energy is produced, just enough to supply power for one thousand people in a small country town. Is the ugliness really worthy it for such a small output of energy?
Furthermore, bird lovers frequently complain about the number of birds being killed by the rotating blades, including large numbers of the protected Golden Eagle in America. People living near wind power stations also complain about noise, ground vibrations and television interference.
Biomass energy is another alternative fuel source favoured by environmentalists. This form of energy has been used ever since humans lived in caves. The modern form of biomass energy requires the growing of crops, such as sugarcane, which, once again takes up large areas of land. At maximum production in a subtropical area, such as Queensland, 3.7 W/m² can be harvested.
Once again, taking the developing world into account, Paul Ehrlich has described the conversion of biomass into heat energy this way: “Humanity now obtains 1.5 TW by using biomass fuels - fuelwood, crop wastes and dung. Burning residues or dung is a desperation measure taken by destitute people lacking other fuel sources. Using these materials as fuel leads to a steady depletion of soil nutrients and fertility, causing a stark deterioration of farmland.” This form of energy is not as environmentally-friendly as it first appears.
Many people are becoming excited about the use of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative energy source. They forget, however, that although there are coal mines and oil wells, there are no such things as hydrogen wells. Hydrogen is not an energy resource that is stored somewhere in the Earth's crust. To make a hydrogen fuel cell, we must first make the hydrogen, and this process requires a large amount of energy input. The energy available for use in the finished product (the hydrogen fuel cell) is less than the energy required to make the hydrogen in the first place. The final result is a net energy loss.
From this discussion of “green” energy production, and the accompanying problems that go with it, the reader may now have started to have second thoughts about whether “Green Capitalism” is really the way forward. S/he may also be curious to look at further alternatives, which would run a future world with far less expense, far greater efficiency, far more safety and far less pollution. This alternative is, of course, nuclear power.
A comparison between nuclear and fossil-fuelled electricity production might be a good place to start, in order to get a better perspective on a form of energy that the environmentalists have been criticising for the past thirty-five years – nuclear energy. A whole generation of young people has grown up to fear the very word “nuclear” as a result of this propaganda. Here are the main points to note, taken from Petr Beckmann’s “The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear”, by Golem Press:
1) The mining of uranium is far safer than the mining of coal by a factor of 1: 100. For the same amount of electric energy produced, there are 100 coal mining deaths to every one uranium mining death.
2) The incidence of lung diseases in uranium miners compared with that of coal miners is 1: 50.
3) The ratio of accidental deaths during transport of uranium and coal from the mine to the power station is less than 0.01: 100. This is because only tiny quantities of uranium are needed to run a nuclear power station compared with the vast amounts of fossil fuels required for conventional power stations. 7 lorry loads of uranium are equivalent in electric power to 38,000 railway trucks of coal.
4) Fossil-fuelled power stations expel large quantities of their wastes into the air, including particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and other gases, all of which cause lung diseases in susceptible people. In U.S.A, there are over 10,000 deaths per year due to air pollution. As nuclear power stations emit nothing into the air, no deaths due to air pollution are caused by nuclear power generation.
5) The cost of electricity generation per kilowatt-hour is cheaper for nuclear power than for fossil fuels: In U.S.A., the price ratios for nuclear: coal: oil = 1.0: 1.3: 1.7
6) Fossil-fuelled power stations emit millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Nuclear power stations emit no carbon dioxide at all.
7) Nuclear wastes are generated on a very small scale due to the small amounts of fuel required for energy production. For a 1,000 MW nuclear plant, one lorry load of waste is produced per year. For a coal-fired plant, 36,500 lorry loads of waste are generated.
8) High-level nuclear wastes can be safely disposed of using the “Synroc” method of containment, developed by the CSIRO, followed by storage either above or below ground. The radiation intensity of the high-level waste is reduced to background levels within 500 years of production (not the 10,000 years that the environmentalists quote).
9) 96% of high-level nuclear waste can be recycled into further electricity, using breeder reactor technology, and by this means, the quantity of nuclear waste produced per year can be reduced to almost negligible quantities. (80% of France’s electricity is generated by nuclear power, and the French use breeder reactors to recycle their nuclear waste).
10) Plutonium wastes produced in breeder reactors are very impure and to process them into bomb grade quality requires high technology equipment and huge expense at government level. Because of the technical difficulties and expense involved in processing plutonium into nuclear weapon fuel, terrorists are not able to make their own nuclear weapons.
As I write this essay, China is in the process of building fifty nuclear reactors to supply the future energy needed to allow its 1.3 billion inhabitants to move forward into an advanced, fully-developed society. As these nuclear reactors come on line, the older and dirtier coal-fired plants will be shut down, giving the Chinese people cleaner, healthier air to breathe.
India is following suit with its own nuclear power stations, and a population of over one billion people also keen to join the fully-developed countries of the world. South Korea is now 56% nuclear powered, and it has grown from being a poverty-stricken, undeveloped, war-torn country into a thriving, advanced economy within a mere fifty years.
Japan learnt very quickly not to make itself vulnerable to the uncertainties of dealing with the unstable Muslim Arab world during the Oil Crisis of the early1970’s, and is also now producing about 40% of its electricity via nuclear power stations. (International Atomic Energy Agency, 2005).
Australia would make the perfect partner to support the development of China and India, for we hold 37% of the world’s uranium. We have the potential to supply these growing super-powers with the energy they need for future growth, and Australia could not only become rich by selling nuclear fuel, but also by treating nuclear wastes, and even storing them in the vast, dry, unused, geologically-stable deserts of the interior.
A well-developed nuclear industry in Australia, working hand in hand with the developing Asian economies, would make this country one of the wealthiest and most important nations of the future world. It is in every country’s interests that the undeveloped and developing countries of the world evolve into modern, affluent societies, because it is by this means that the world’s population will stabilise, energy will be used cleanly and efficiently, food and clean water will be in plentiful supply, and inequities that lead to war will be relieved.
A “Green Revolution” will slow down development and lead to needless hardship, whereas a “Nuclear Revolution” will provide the universal currency of energy that supports healthy economies and comfortable lifestyles. Australia’s vast supplies of yellowcake will allow us to adopt “Yellow Capitalism” and this will be the true way to move forward.
Good one Kathi! Now it's easy to direct people to a good source of information on a web address that's easy to remember! Love, Oki.
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