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Wednesday 30 September 2015

The errors in Switzer's RN segment on renewable energy

Last week, on Tom Switzer's 'Between the Lines', there was a story on renewables. There was some interesting discussion around global energy policy, but there were also some very significant misunderstandings of energy policy, which went unchallenged by the host and remain uncorrected online. I've made a summary below.

There's a lot to go through. Stick with it.

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In the introduction, Switzer says that:

"Both [Abbott and Turnbull] have been committed to the goal of generating at least 20% of our electricity from renewable sources within the next decade"

...What? No. The current Renewable Energy Target is 33,000 gigawatt hours. The target under Labor was 41,000 gigawatt hours. The Coalition's original desire was for an upper limit of renewable energy of 20% of total demand, but this was blocked in the senate.

After the target was reduced from 41,000 to 33,000, ex-PM Tony Abbott admitted that he wanted it  reduced further, and explicitly stated he wished the RET had never been created.

"I would frankly have liked to reduce the number a lot more but we got the best deal we could out of the Senate, and if we hadn't had a deal, Alan, we would have been stuck with even more of these things."

Switzer continues, in his introduction:

"Bill Gates, among others, reflects this thinking. Speaking with the Financial Times a few months ago, Gates argued that the current renewables are dead-end technologies. Here's Gates: They are unreliable. Battery storage is inadequate. Wind and solar output depends on the weather. The cost of decarbonisation using today’s technology, this is Gates' argument, is beyond astronomical"

First of all, this all sounds a little familiar. Here's an extract from a July 2015 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, written by Rupert Darwall:

"Recently Bill Gates explained in an interview with the Financial Times why current renewables are dead-end technologies. They are unreliable. Battery storage is inadequate. Wind and solar output depends on the weather. The cost of decarbonization using today’s technology is “beyond astronomical,” Mr. Gates concluded"

Switzer seems to be reciting the work of a guest on his show, without making it clear that he's doing so. So, did Bill Gates say renewables are "dead-end technologies"?

Well....no. The Financial Times article, headlined "Gates to double investment in renewable energy projects" (seriously) quotes Gates:

"Solar is only during the day, solar only works best in places where it's warm. We don't have perfect grids. We don't have storage. there's no battery technology that's even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables and be able to use battery storage in order to deal not only with the 23-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it's cloudy and you don't have sun or you don't have wind"

Of course, Gates has a point - demand levels don't always match the availability of flow resources like sunlight and wind, and there is still work to be done is finding a way to decarbonise the entire energy system effectively. But his remarks have been badly misrepresented by both Switzer and Darwall, whose logic is confused, completely weird, but very familiar.

Gates is arguing for greater research into renewable technology that can fully replace carbon-intensive fuels - he is not arguing against the deployment of current wind and solar. Our current RET policy won't encounter any of problems cited by Gates, Darwall and Switzer, yet they present these statements as if they're an argument against a 33,000 GWh RET scheme.

Gates is personally investing in solar  and battery storage innovation - a sneaky, dishonest dichotomy that's being used to suggest Gates is an anti-wind, anti-solar ideologue, to the extent that Darwall's word are presented unattributed and undeclared in the introduction to the program.


Darwall manages some monumental distortions of Germany energy policy. First, he claims:

"I was talking to Fritz Varenholt, who ran RWE's renewable division, RWE is one of Germany's biggest electricity utilities, I said do you have a message for people abroad about Germany's renewables, and he said 'Don't follow Germany down this dead end"

From this, it sounds like renewable energy executives are burying their heads in their hands, regretting ever having gone down the path of clean energy. What Darwall fails to declare is that Varenholt also spent time on the board of Shell, a mining company, and that Varenholt is also deeply involved in the climate change denial community.

Darwall continues:

"...and if you look at German electricity prices, they are four times the European average"

Er. Wow. So, this is way off. Eurostat reports the 2014 average electricity price, in Euros per KWh, was 0.208. Germany, for the same time period, was 0.297. Depending on how you define 'prices', this ratio can change, but even the most generous interpretations are nowhere near 'four times' the European average.

Even if Darwall was right, and German electricity prices are inflated four times due solely to renewable energy schemes, one would then expect the percentage component of renewable energy cost to logically be around three quarters, or 75%, of a single German electricity bill. Except, it's less than 21%, according to March 2015 data.

The chart below illustrates the contribution of renewable energy to bill increases, and it shows the scale of Darwall's exaggeration quite clearly.


Clean Energy Wire explains why, despite this increase in 'cents per kwh', support for clean energy remains strong:

"Despite years of rising prices, a stable majority of the populace remains in favour of the Energiewende. This may be in part due to the fact that electricity consumed only 2.5 percent of households’ disposable income in 2013, up from 1.78 percent in 1998 and back to mid-1980s levels, before the liberalisation of the power market in 1998 lowered prices. German household electricity bills consume a smaller share of disposable income than the European average"

Craig Morris from Renewables International demonstrates how tiny this component is, in terms of total household bills:


Darwall continues:
"When this project started in Germany, the 'energy transition', the German environment minister said it would cost the equivalent of a 'scoop of ice cream' a month. Well that scoop of 'ice cream' turns out to be costing over 300 euros, that's over $400 Australian per household per month. That is a very expensive ice cream"
On average, Germans households consume around 3,500 kilowatt hours, annually. At 30 Euro cents per kilowatt hour, that's a yearly bill of €1,050. The renewables tariff is 21% of this: €220.50, annually, or €18.38 per month.

This is still a particularly luxurious scoop of ice cream, but Darwall's figure is insanely off the mark - he's inflated it by a factor of sixteen. And again, Germans continue to strongly support the transition away from carbon-intensive fuels.



And, as you might expect, the environment minister never actually stated that the costs would be limited to an 'ice cream scoop'. In 2004, he used to the analogy to describe costs to date - he says in a press release that "Es bleibt dabei, dass die Förderung erneuerbarer Energien einen durchschnittlichen Haushalt nur rund 1 Euro im Monat kostet - so viel wie eine Kugel Eis". Using Google Translate and my own terrible skills, this translates to "It remains the case that the promotion of renewable energy sources an average household costs only about 1 euro per month -. As much as a scoop of ice cream". Present tense, not future tense. All translations are open to interpretation but this one's pretty solid.

Search this myth and you'll find it everywhere - the only person who actually fact-checked the claim was Craig Morris from Renewables International. It's been repeated, verbatim, for years now.

"When you look at what's been happening in Germany, carbon emissions have been rising, because what's been happening is the gas-fired power stations, which are some of the lowest emitting forms of fossil fuel electricity production being closed, and Germany is burning more lignite,which is a very highly polluting form of coal, and the result is that German  emissions are going up, so you have these very perverse outcomes when you intervene in electricity markets there are massive unintended unexpected consequences, and that is the road Australia will travel down. There will be massive unintended and unexpected consequences"

This is completely false, but it's probably the least wrong out of all the examples so far. Germany's emissions are not rising, but they're certainly not on a clean downward trajectory. Craig Morris from Renewables International tells me this is due largely to a very low carbon price - this means coal isn't priced according to its environmental impact, the public pays for pollution impacts through health and habitat, and renewables can't cut into their share.

The chart below shows the fluctuations in German emissions over the past few years, again from Clean Energy Wire:


Annett Meiritz' article on Vox is a great, detailed explainer of why German emissions have leveled off, rather than trending downwards. In short, good incentives for clean energy haven't been paired with strong emissions regulations, alongside Germany's nuclear shutdown. Darwall's arguments for inaction and ignorance are flawed in more ways than I can possibly describe, here.

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Germany's energy transition will necessarily attract misrepresentation and deception, or in this case, statistics that seem to have no relation to reality, in any way, at all. But this isn't really new. It happens in Australia, too - we're told that making our energy system safer and cleaner will result in an economic apocalypse.

Our memories are short, too. When the carbon pricing mechanism failed to have any impact on the Australian economy, we'd forgotten by then that Abbott had promised entire cities would be wiped off the map. Those telling us we ought to feel fear, anxiety and trepidation about progressive energy policy get away with it, because no one holds them to account for their errors and misrepresentations.

Presumably, Darwall's hoping the same applies to his efforts to induce paranoia around the modernisation of energy technology.
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Thursday 24 September 2015

We came close to vilifying climate scientists, based on bad journalism

Australia's conservative climate skeptic community is watching, with a now familiar sense of discomfort, as one of ex-PM Tony Abbott's policies collides awkwardly with actual public sentiment. It's a familiar pattern, now. Abbott's reputation is dominated by his fondness for 'captains calls' - ideas that (sometimes) appealed to his conservative base, but alienated everyone else, including many in his own party.

This particular instance of retrospective awkwardness relates to the obsession of a notably precise demographic segment with conspiracy theories around the Bureau of Meteorology faking climate science. During Abbott's administration, MPs, his business advisor and a slew of climate skeptic bloggers focused intensively on the Bureau of Meteorology's climate data.

"Mr Christensen said the bureau has been involved in a process of "homogenisation" — changing raw data so the past appears cooler than the present. He will be seeking an inquiry into the bureau's conduct and the homogenisation process this week. "We have a scientific process being tainted at the source," he said"

On Thursday the ABC revealed, in documents obtained through Freedom of Information laws, that this wasn't merely wishful thinking at the fringes of the government. Abbott's office pushed to see an inquiry into the Bureau's climate data become a reality, based almost exclusively on articles in The Australian, most of which were penned by environment editor Graham Lloyd.

"A 2011 review found the Bureau's data and analysis methods met world's best practice but recommended a group be set up to review progress on the development and operation of the temperature data. The 2015 panel included eminent statisticians and members have told the ABC they were in no doubt that it was set up in response to the newspaper articles"

The Australian's campaign against the Bureau of Meteorology, based on their unfamilarity with the science of data homogenisation, ran for months. I made the table below by searching The Australian, with the term * "Bureau of Meteorology" homogenisation *. It gives you an idea of the column inches dedicated to this issue within the oz.



The articles came thick and fast from August to October last year, and from March to June this year. The majority were written by Graham Lloyd, the rest were op-eds by Maurice Newman, letters pages and editorials:


The articles present a flurry of claims issued by a collection of non-experts, each presented as authoritative sources on climate science. This quote, from an article in February 2015, illustrates this well:

"Almost half of the 20th-century warming for Australia’s nation­al average surface temperatures could be due to changes in the weather stations chosen for analysis, rather than changes in the climate, according to a submission to an independent review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s national records. 
Merrick Thomson, a retired certified practising accountant, has asked the independent panel to investigate how and why stations were selected for inclusion to make up the national trend"
See if you can spot what's wrong with those paragraphs.

The brief prepared  for the Prime Minister in September 2014, reported by the ABC, wanted to append a Bureau review to a UN climate conference taskforce - this was knocked back by Hunt's office, and as has been said elsewhere, the Minister deserves credit for this.

As has also been stated elsewhere, the crusade was largely meaningless and symbolic - the BoM's data science is solid. It's the BoM's conclusions, not their methodology, that are the real motivation of this campaign.

What really freaks me out about this particular instance is the fact that Tony Abbott saw the flurry of articles and was fully convinced of the need for an inquisition into organisations that accept climate science. Perhaps the logic was simple - "I know climate change isn't real. Therefore, this organisation has erred, and we need to know how".

Okay, yes, it's not exactly unprecedented that media organisations can exert pressure on politicians. But this wasn't a campaign supported by the public. It was a faux crusade, and our then-PM accepted it without a single question.
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Friday 11 September 2015

Our leaders are happy when they think about making foreigners suffer


There's a lot going on, in the image above.

Australian flags stand tall and proud, towering above our leaders. Immigration Minister Dutton smiles, his posture confident and tall. Prime Minister Abbott, relaxed with his hands in his pockets, lets out a genuinely jubilant staccato laugh. Social Affairs Minister Morrison shrinks back, his hands nervously clasped, with an unambiguous sheen of worry on his face. This moment lingers for a couple of seconds - Dutton and Abbott are happy, and Morrison is not. Then, Morrison nervously mutters that there's a boom microphone above their heads.

This exchange is remarkable - you can watch it below.



In short, Federal Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, presuming the enormous boom mic directly above his head is either not on, or is not a microphone, quips joyfully about the Pacific Islands losing all sense of the passage of time, due to rising sea levels - "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door". The microphone is quite large:


Yesterday, Abbott was in Port Moresby, meeting with Pacific Islands leaders, who directly expressed  concern about their lives, and livelihoods, being threatened by rising sea levels.

"Pacific island nations had said the meeting was their last chance to highlight the threat they face from climate change, before the UN Climate Conference in Paris. 
The Australian response disappointed leaders who say some people are already being forced out of their homes by rising salinity, lack of water, or damage from severe storms or high tides"

Kirabati President Anote Tong pleads with Australia to reduce its emissions, and lessen the threat faced by his nation:

"I understand what's being said, that if they agree to those reductions in emissions, then it would hurt their industries and it would hurt their life, standard of living. But what I'm perhaps failing to communicate across is that while it will affect their standard of living, for us, it will affect the future of our people"

Perhaps he's being diplomatic, but our efforts to reduce carbon emissions will have close to zero impact on our lives, and our standards of living. The carbon price, while it lasted, had no impact on the economy, and the renewable energy target, had it remained unchanged or been expanded, would have lowered electricity prices. Breaking our addiction to coal will help us more than it hurts us.

These pleas were spoken barely hours prior to the awkward exchange. Dutton's own bumbling incompetence at not seeing the enormous boom mic aside, it's shocking to see the openly rapturous laughter that spawns on Abbott's face when he hears the quip. It's one thing to deny climate science, or to propose an ineffective solution.

But to sarcastically acknowledge the reality of the problem, and revel in the suffering caused by our own active contribution to climate change, is something else entirely. It's a sliver of insight into what seems to be an actively sinister mindset.

It might just be some inherent incapacity for empathy. During that famous moment when Abbott winked at a talkback host during a call from a pensioner who's working at a sex line to pay bills, he winks, grins, and then glances at the camera - you can see the precise moment when he realises he's being watched.



Dutton, who emitted the joke, and Abbott, whose cackle was immediate and totally real, have inadvertently revealed their default setting: open enjoyment of the suffering of foreign nations. This isn't just about a looming threat: people are already suffering as a consequence of global atmospheric and oceanic shifts.

In Australia, we can currently afford to feel a roaring rush of elation, when we think about how our chosen technologies result in the direct suffering of other people. Racism probably plays a part in this - Dutton and Abbott wouldn't share scoffed lols about a predominately white nation suffering due to our own inaction. When the outcome of unchecked reliance on carbon-intensive fuels come back to bite, we won't have time to dwell on irony, or introspection, or historical revision.

This clip goes far beyond ideology, politics or the realities and perception of science. It simply felt like watching two men derive authentic delight, merely thinking about the suffering of foreigners.

This is creates a third option around climate politics: not that the government denies climate science, nor that they advocate inaction. This tells us they might accept climate change is real, and that they rejoice at the thought of foreigners suffering as a consequence of our addiction to fossil fuels.
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Monday 7 September 2015

Coal's problem isn't PR, it's coal

Another day, another hashtag. It's trending right now. The lobby group for Australian extractive industries, the Minerals Council, yesterday launched another PR campaign to encourage a love for coal.



The 'Little black rock' campaign follows the awkwardly misfired 'Australians for coal' campaign last year. That effort, largely derided by the rather large number of Australians who are not for coal, highlighted something important: we don't like being told what to like. It also highlighted something confirmed by a raft of polling - we don't like coal, and we're keen to shift to an alternative:





So, what's the argument behind the 'little black rock' campaign? To summarise the website's logic, it simply reasserts coal's current dominance, highlighting national and global statistics showing that we're currently deeply reliant on the outputs of this fuel type, and that shaking coal from its current position is going to be incredibly difficult. In the minds of those behind the campaign, we're enchanted by the thought of glancing upwards and seeing a light literally made of coal:


Energy blogger Keith Orchison is excited and impressed with the campaign. He writes that:

"The Minerals Council has produced another two-page spread in its book that really should get some exposure.
“What,” it asks, “would it take to replace fossil fuels in the global power business?”
The answer, it asserts, is 95,900 square kilometres of solar technology projects (ie South Korea) or just over a million square kilometres of wind farm sites (eg South Australia) with 3.46 million turbines"
And, it points out, there 16 mined metals and minerals in a solar panel while “there is more than 220 tonnes of coal in every wind turbine” because every part of the structure depends on steel (including the steel-reinforced concrete in its base)."

It would seem, largely, that the campaign is simply a rehash of a collection of tired, contradictory memes being constantly published and republished by the rapidly shrinking climate denial community. I think this is interesting.

The argument that we should love coal because it's hard to replace all coal with renewable energy right now makes absolutely no sense, but it does highlight their thinking quite well: "You might hate me, but you can't get rid of me, so you better learn to love that your lights are made of coal".

The same argument buttresses the 'wind turbines are made of coal' thing', despite the fact wind turbines pay back the emissions created in their manufacture many times over. "You can't get rid of us. See? Even your beloved wind turbines can't rid themselves of our constant dominance". As it happens, the net impact of a wind turbine, including coal used for production, is the removal of 2,500 tonnes of coal, for each year of operation (62,500 tonnes over the lifespan of the machine).

Similar confusion surrounds 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS). The brains behind the campaign  dismiss renewable energy because it doesn't yet provide a significant percentage of total global electricity production. But the Guardian reports that CCS is still a pipedream:

"However, there is only one CCS-enabled plant operational in the world, in Canada. In Australia, there is just one CCS project aimed at coal emissions in the pipeline, which may arrive at some point in the 2020s"

The message behind the campaign, that we should ignore the promise of clean technology and credulously accept the promise of low-carbon coal, is conflicted, muddled and only operational inside the minds of people who already believe coal is the sole saviour of humanity.

This isn't really a PR campaign. It's just a repetition of the self-assuring memes that dominate Australia's fossil fuel lobbies, climate change deniers, and the vast overlap between these two groups. The only people who don't recognise the contradictions and fallacies are those already convinced of the message.

It won't shift public opinion because people care about electricity, not about coal.  The watt-hours surging through their iPhones aren't branded. We won't manufacture some novel affection for coal, based solely on its market dominance or an extremely confused message about hating renewable technology but loving CCS technology. Campaigns in the US have taken precisely this format, and they've failed just as badly.

The more I think about the logical heart of this campaign, that we ought to love something that is both dominant and harmful, the creepier it sounds, and I think the public recognise this, too. I wonder if this actually works against their cause. But again, that's not really the point, here. This campaign isn't designed by communicators or thinkers or PR professionals - it's designed by the industry, for the industry. It's therapeutic.

Coal's problem is that when you burn it, you damage human habitats and economies and societies, through the emission and subsequent atmospheric lingering of greenhouse gases. The thin film of atmosphere on Earth is finely balanced, and it's violently skewed by the big numbers the Minerals Council stamp proudly on a lump of coal. We burn a lot of it, and that is a cause for concern, not celebration. PR campaigns might soothe the nervousness inherent in those championing the unending, eternal burning of coal to power humanity, but it won't fix coal's fatal flaw: it's a dangerous fuel, and we've got better alternatives ready to go.
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