{"id":270237,"date":"2023-07-29T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T19:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=270237"},"modified":"2023-07-29T21:00:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T19:00:12","slug":"the-australian-academy-of-contrivance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=270237","title":{"rendered":"The Australian Academy of\u00a0Contrivance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Climate Scepticism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0TONY THOMAS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DOOMED PLANET<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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Is the Labor government\u2019s drive for 43 per cent CO2 emission cuts by 2030 \u2014 and net-zero by 2050 \u2014 a tad unrealistic? As Climate Minister Chris Bowen\u00a0has mentioned<\/a>, the CO2 cuts require 22,000 more 500W solar panels each day from now till 2030, and at least one new 7MW wind turbine every day to 2030.[1]<\/a>\u00a0We are to hook all this gear up with more than 10,000km of high voltage pylons. That\u2019s about seven times the distance between Melbourne and Brisbane, as the rather exhausted crow flies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unrealistic? Not at all, according to the experts at the Australian Academy of Science. In a\u00a0submission to government on July 14<\/a>, the Academy wants the targets close to doubled. It says the emission cuts by 2030 should be 74 per cent[2]<\/a>\u00a0and net-zero should be brought forward 15 years to 2035, 12 years hence. So make that roughly 40,000 new solar panels every day \u2013\u00a0bought from China<\/a>, I assume- and\u00a0daily\u00a0<\/em>installation of about three 7MW turbines until 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy\u2019s acceleration will up our net-zero cost of\u00a0$3 trillion<\/a>\u00a0, but whether it doubles it or quadruples it I have no idea. Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s Snowy 2.0 has already had a five-fold cost blow-out to\u00a0$10 billion-and-rising<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s a 7MW turbine involve? The 180 biggies for the Macintyre windfarm in Queensland\u00a0are only 5.7MW<\/a>. A turbine of 7MW is a 110m tower of steel and concrete on a vast concrete base, with total height, including 160m blade diameter,\u00a0close to 200m<\/a>. (These blades defy recycling). Each turbine involves about\u00a0200 hectares of cleared land,<\/a>\u00a0along with rare and highly-toxic minerals and lubricants and more than\u00a020 tonnes of copper<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what, says the Academy climate experts, pencilling in more than 5000 of these beasts by 2030! I hope all the construction isn\u2019t wasted \u2013 the turbines\u2019 output is zero during the wind droughts across the Eastern States that can last for days, lulls overlooked by turbine advocates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy is,\u00a0ahem<\/em>, apolitical. Its science policy director, Chris Anderson, has his name on the July submission. He has a Monash University honours degree in history and a Melbourne University Master\u2019s in Public Policy. Pre-Academy, he had been\u00a0adviser and then chief of staff<\/a>\u00a0for six years to Labor Senator, Rudd-Gillard minister and\u00a0factional warrior<\/a>Kim Carr. Mr Anderson reports to Academy CEO Anna-Maria Arabia who attained Academy leadership in 2016 after three years part-time as\u00a0policy director\/principal adviser<\/a>\u00a0for then Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.[3]\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The submission says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy supports building to this more ambitious target\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>noting the effort and behavioural changes that must be made to get even close.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give you a feel for the \u201cbehavioural changes\u201d, there\u2019s some overseas reports.\u00a0A UK government-funded report from Cambridge University engineers<\/a>late last year says that to dump CO2 by 2050 \u2013 never mind by the Academy\u2019s 2035 \u2013 UK construction sites would have to do without CO2-intensive bricks, glass and cement. The group\u2019s previous report said that for the UK to get to zero-2050,\u00a0all flying and shipping must stop<\/a>, beef and lamb are to be severely rationed, along with home cooking and heating. Car traffic (even when it\u2019s all electric) must fall by 60 per cent. These two reports, sensibly, don\u2019t assume that presently untried or half-baked technologies will come to the rescue of our comfortable lifestyle.[4]<\/a>Our Academy\u2019s submissions swarm with such get-out-of-jail-free cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this net-zero push is all impracticable anyway, because the world\u2019s mining industry can\u2019t possibly output the extra metals and materials needed, as the\u00a0International Energy Association (IEA) has indicated<\/a>. To meet the theorised demand for \u201cclean energy technologies\u201d by 2040, the IEA says key minerals supply must increase between two and four times. Electric vehicles and battery materials alone (graphite, copper, nickel etc) must increase by ten to thirty times.[5]<\/a>\u00a0But finding and developing even one new ore body involves a decade or more, assuming green lawfare doesn\u2019t strangle such a project at birth.Adam Creighton in\u00a0The Australian<\/em>\u00a0this week wrote<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, to accommodate the desired rollout of electric vehicles, the mining and processing of the minerals that underpin them, such as cobalt, nickel and lithium, would need to increase by several thousand per cent by 2040, according to Mark Mills, an energy expert at the Manhattan Institute.\u00a0 \u201cIf it were to be achievable, it would be the largest single increase in demand or the supply of metals in all of human history,\u201d he said<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Undeterred, the Academy\u2019s submission begins\u00a0pamphlet-style<\/a>: \u201cIt is beyond dispute that climate change is one of the greatest threats to Australia\u2019s social, economic, and ecological well-being.\u201d Beyond dispute? Well, Australia\u2019s\u00a0crop output<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0wheat yields<\/a>, and global\u00a0yields<\/a>, were at record or near-record levels last year after a century of healthy global warming plus CO2 fertilisation. And Australia\u2019s social well-being has never been higher, thanks to $244 billion earnings from our energy exports last year. These economic foundations are threatened not by climate change but by green fatwas and lawfare against fossil-fuel production, abetted by the Academy, GetUp, the Greens and the metropolitan Aboriginal Industry. And ecologically, added CO2 has greened the planet and shrunk deserts equivalent to\u00a0two and a half times the Australian land mass,<\/a>according to peer-reviewed research co-authored by the CSIRO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy submission continues, avoiding mention of that emissions powerhouse China,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While we have a real need for action, Australians cannot do what needs to be done on our own; we share one planet and atmosphere. Along with every other citizen of every other country, Australians need action to be taken \u2013 locally and globally.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is imperative, therefore, that Australia work with all members of the global community to achieve\u00a0more ambitious targets\u00a0for greenhouse gas emissions reduction than those that have been announced so far.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a rich, developed country, Australia should play a leadership role in mitigation and adaptation to climate change. We should\u00a0lead by example; our actions should be clear and our ambitions achieved. We should pursue a \u2018do as we do\u2019 style of leadership, not a \u2018do as we say.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unmentioned China is not only dwarfing the emissions of the entire Western world, but last year was approving\u00a0two new coal-fired electricity plants a week<\/a>, for a year\u2019s increase that is four times Australia\u2019s total coal-fired electricity of 23GW. In mid-July, dictator Xi Jin-ping brutally rebuffed Biden climate envoy John F. Kerry in Beijing. Xi announced that China would generate energy\u00a0at a rate and type to suit itself<\/a>, regardless of Paris Accord pieties.[6]<\/a>With China heading for record-high emissions this year, I doubt Xi will notice Australia \u201cleading by example\u201d. Across Europe, governments and voters are now pushing back against net-zero folly and expense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further perusal of Academy work turned up its surprising point (if I\u00a0read the woozy syntax correctly)<\/a>that being critical of the Chinese communist dictatorship smacks of \u201cMcCarthyism\u201d.[7]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0The paper was co-authored by the Policy Director Anderson and specifically endorsed by the Academy president and CEO. McCarthyism is a 70-year-old term obscuring that Cold War US institutions were indeed riddled with Communist spies, traitors and sympathisers, as proven by the\u00a0Venona code-breakers<\/a>.[8]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy\u2019s July\u00a0submission<\/a>\u00a0continues that Australians should not only blitz their own emissions, but \u201cembrace our responsibility\u201d and \u201cintensify efforts\u201d to measure and cut indirect emissions from our huge coal and gas exports (\u201cScope 3\u201d emissions) and indeed from \u201call sources\u201d, which might mean farm fertilisers and cow belches (probably harmless anyway<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By taking these actions, Australia can contribute to a comprehensive and better global response to climate change, managing our own future and that of the planet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intrigued by the Academy\u2019s style, I\u2019ve been checking out its other submissions and policies \u2013 including its \u201cYes\u201d support last June for the referendum which does some dogmatic re-writing of history.[9]<\/a>\u00a0It has not yet submitted on PM Albanese\u2019s draft censorship bill threatening\u00a0$2.75 million fines<\/a>\u00a0(or 2 per cent of turnover, whichever is higher) for tech giants who host \u201cmisinformation\u201d causing \u201cserious harm\u201d on their platforms.[10]<\/a>\u00a0But here\u2019s from the Academy\u2019s submission last August, which urged amendments to the Code of Practice on Misinformation and Disinformation to make the tech giants harass and censor unwelcome media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Code currently excludes professional news content that is published under a publicly available editorial code, except where a platform determines that specific instances fall within the scope of disinformation. However, some Australian news outlets are havens for climate science misinformation \u2013 so this exclusion undermines the ability of the Code to guard against such denialism.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exclusion allows climate science denialism and other misinformation to flourish, either through lack of enforcement of the disinformation provision of the Code or failure of news outlets\u2019 misinformation to meet the higher bar of being considered disinformation. For example, a UK report recently found that Sky News Australia and its media personalities are a key source of climate science misinformation globally, including during the late 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference \u2026 Clearly,\u00a0the Code was not sufficient to address the traction of climate misinformation from Sky News Australia\u00a0during this time.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the Academy\u2019s full horror-show here:<\/em>\u00a0\u201cShut Them Up, Argues the Academy of Science<\/a>\u201c. And recall how much alleged \u201cmisinformation\u201d during COVID turned out to be valid and vice-versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose the views of last year\u2019s Nobel Laureate in physics\u00a0John Clauser are suppression-worthy<\/a>. His favoured climate model has cumulus-cloud feedbacks as a dominant thermostatic control. He told\u00a0a\u00a0<\/em>Korean quantum conference<\/a>\u00a0(see\u00a0<\/em>transcript<\/a>)<\/em>\u00a0this month that there is no climate crisis; the peer review checks have broken down. \u201cIn my opinion,\u201d he has said, \u201cthe IPCC is one of the worst sources of dangerous misinformation.\u201d His views also include that\u00a0\u201c<\/em>misguided climate science has metastasized into massive\u00a0shock-journalistic pseudoscience<\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em>As a result the IMF\u00a0abruptly cancelled<\/a>\u00a0his seminar talk scheduled for July 25. Obviously the Australian Academy would not want \u2018misinformation\u2019 from Nobel physics laureates to cast doubt on its climate papers like\u00a0\u201cThe risks to Australia of a 3\u00b0C warmer world\u201d (2021).[11]<\/u><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy did make an interesting, albeit timid, submission last January on Australia\u2019s\u00a0legislative ban on nuclear energy<\/a>. It complained that Australia needs more nuclear experts \u2013 \u201cthere are as few as three permanent experimental nuclear physics researchers in Australia \u2026 These nuclear science capability gaps affect a broad range of fields, including medicine, space radiation, quantum technologies, and defence.\u201d The submission strangely omits mention of emissions-free baseload nuclear power generation, which is unpalatable to the Albanese government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However the Academy\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0say its position is unchanged since its 2019 submission on nuclear power by then-president John Shine to the Morrison government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked that up to find Professor Shine calling for an end to government bans on nuclear power plants and strongly endorsing small modular reactors (SMRs) as \u201ca low carbon option that can potentially enable Australia to meet its emission-reduction obligations while providing affordable and safer electricity\u201d. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Nationals, who are also advocating SMRs, can be thankful they\u2019ve got the Academy on their side in this stoush with Prime Minister Albanese.[12] Other submissions include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clean Energy Superpower-dom<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 20, 2022,\u00a0 the Academy made a\u00a0submission<\/a>\u00a0to the parliamentary inquiry on \u201cAustralia\u2019s transition to a green energy superpower\u201d (whatever that is). The Academy extolled \u201copportunities to export electricity to South-East Asia via undersea high voltage direct current cables\u201d. Just three weeks later the $35 billion Sun Cable solar project near Darwin, for Singapore\u2019s benefit,\u00a0went into voluntary administration<\/a>\u00a0in a welter of acrimony.\u00a0 For a laugh,\u00a0visit the scheme\u2019s vainglorious and still-active website<\/a>, redolent with the pong of over-ripe hype and bovine extrusion. Over-spending and failure to meet milestones were reportedly behind the collapse. (On July 26 the Canadian ATCO group scrapped its small \u201cgreen hydrogen\u201d project in WA, taxpayers kissing goodbye to $29 million in subsidies from the Renewable Energy Agency).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting the harmful impacts of wind\/solar electricity on the countryside and on biodiversity, the submission found a vague solution in \u201csocial licensing\u201d to operate, thus mollifying farmers, land-owners and Aborigines. It urges, in a new variety of federal socialism, that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strong national leadership, for example, through a Green Energy Commissioner or existing body such as Infrastructure Australia, can coordinate investment, development, and use of green energy infrastructure and resources to eliminate wasteful duplication and ensure competitiveness.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The submission supported what it calls \u201ca just transition\u201d of workers from officially-condemned fossil-fuel industries into \u201cgreen energy jobs\u201d. It followed the Academy\u2019s Future Earth conference in 2021 to work out the \u201cjust adaptation\u201d strategies. What Future Earth actually\u00a0delivered as opening plenary speaker<\/a>\u00a0was fake Aborigine Bruce Pascoe discussing how whales circa 12,000BC warned his mob in Bass Strait about sea-rises, upon which his peace-loving people joined their peace-loving mainland cousins (shields an optional fashion accessory).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carbon Capture, August 2022 and July 2023<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy knows emission-cutting sums don\u2019t reach its targets for saving the planet. It has explained,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a compelling need to identify what\u00a0novel scientific and technological approaches<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0might be possible, as well as improving the scalability of existing technologies to address this critical challenge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wants to balance the climate ledger by getting CO2 pulled out of the air on a massive scale through \u201cCarbon Capture & Storage\u201d (CCS), and storing it safely for hundreds of years. In itself this requires enormous energy. In 2022 worldwide there were 30 such plants in operation,\u00a0capturing 42 million tonnes of CO2<\/a>. In Australia there\u2019s 4-6 million tonnes operational with another 9 million tonnes in prospect in 2025-26. Not much of a \u2018wow!\u2019 given that energy-related Co2 emissions are running at\u00a037\u00a0billion<\/em>tonnes a year<\/a>. The Academy\u00a0complains<\/a>\u00a0that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia has no policy to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.\u00a0In its April 2022 Report, the IPCC identifies that meeting the modelled 1.5\u00b0C pathways requires a net negative carbon dioxide emissions volume of 20-660 gigatons by 2100.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the mid-point of that vast range as 320 gigatonnes, that\u2019s nearly ten times current annual human-caused emissions. In 2008 Labor\u2019s PM Kevin Rudd, to make a good impression at an international conference, announced\u00a0$100 million a year in research dollars<\/a>\u00a0for his Global Carbon Capture & Storage Institute, literally more money than its execs knew what to do with. (Rather like PM Turnbull\u2019s\u00a0$444m out of the blue<\/a>\u00a0in 2017 for studying the non-threatened Barrier Reef). Rudd\u2019s vision was for CCS by 2050 to be grabbing 9 billion tonnes of airy CO2. After 15 years the results are derisory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electric Vehicles\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a\u00a0submission on National Electric Vehicle Strategy<\/a>\u00a0last October the Academy urged that people be forced out of their petrol\/diesel vehicles as \u201can integral part of our national emissions reduction imperative.\u201d How the grid is to cope with the extra EV demands, doesn\u2019t trouble the Academy. In this case its pipedream is for Australian-designed and produced batteries for next-generation EVs. It acknowledges that current lithium EV batteries are horrid environmentally (just ask the poor kids who mine the minerals in Africa), vulnerable to ageing and prone to annoying fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Australia should pursue creation of next-gen batteries of sodium-ion, along with \u201cfibre batteries and liquid solar-generated fuels such as hydrogen.\u201d If you\u2019re wondering, fibre batteries are millimeters-thin and feeble additions to wearable \u201csmart clothing\u201d and electronics. The global market by 2031 is estimated at a minuscule $US420 million. The Academy concluded, \u201cAustralia can develop an end-to-end battery production supply chain, from fundamental research, built in Australia, for the benefit of Australians and the world.\u201d I hope so, notwithstanding that China already has a\u00a060 per cent global dominance<\/a>\u00a0of EV battery production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The July submission with which I started, finishes with a rhapsody in green:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia has a lot of strengths; all we have to do is develop them and use them wisely. We are not a superpower but we can be\u00a0a voice for good.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that flourish, the writers probably e-scootered to Manuka in quest for a CO2-free celebratory beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Thomas\u2019s new book from Connor Court is\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Anthem of the Unwoke \u2013 Yep! The other lot\u2019s gone bonkers<\/strong>. $34.95 on-line from Connor Court\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1] Bowen\u2019s calculation is 40 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0From 2005 levels<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0I don\u2019t know if other ex-Labor alumni are ensconsed at the Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe have to cut our greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050: that\u2019s what climate scientists tell us, it\u2019s what social protesters are asking for and it\u2019s now the law in the UK. But we aren\u2019t on track. For twenty years we\u2019ve been trying to solve the problem with new or breakthrough technologies that supply energy and allow industry to keep growing, so we don\u2019t have to change our lifestyles. But although some exciting new technology options are being developed, it will take a long time to deploy them, and they won\u2019t be operating at scale within thirty years.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0IEA: \u201cHowever, a concerted effort to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement (climate stabilisation at \u201cwell below 2\u00b0C global temperature rise\u201d) would mean a quadrupling of mineral requirements for clean energy technologies by 2040. An even faster transition, to hit net-zero\u00a0globally<\/em>\u00a0by 2050, would require six times more mineral inputs in 2040 than today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0According to the China-dominated United Nations, China continues to get climate concessions as a \u201cdeveloping\u201d nation. Xi said,\u00a0\u201cthe pathway and means for reaching this goal, and the tempo and intensity, should be and must be determined by ourselves, and never under the sway of others.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0Academy: \u201cRising concerns about Chinese technological advancements have resulted in investigations into links between US-based scientists and China, leading to Chinese claims of McCarthyism\u2014a claim familiar to Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0I\u2019ve yet to see the movie\u00a0Oppenheimer<\/em>\u00a0and how it handles that fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cThe Academy recognises that this continent was falsely declared\u00a0terra nullius<\/em>, or nobody\u2019s land, to legitimise British settlement, and this was corrected only in 1992 when the High Court of Australia recognised the continuous connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to the land. The Academy observes that the adoption of\u00a0terra nullius<\/em>\u00a0was profoundly detrimental to generations of Indigenous peoples.\u201d See\u00a0Michael Connor<\/a>\u00a0on the\u00a0terra nullius<\/em>\u00a0fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a>\u00a0Plus, \u201cACMA would be able to establish and enforce its own industry standard. Violations of this standard could lead to companies being fined up to $6.8 million or five per cent of their global turnover.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0It\u2019s a vanity project, with the authors citing their own works multiple times, especially chair Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (16 self-citations), Mark Howden (11 times) Lesley Hughes (10 times), Will Steffen (10 times), and David Karoly and John Church (8 times). Even Sarah Perkins-Kilpatrick, who is supposed to be reviewing the document, is reviewing herself as she\u2019s cited seven times in the references.[2]<\/a>\u00a0Reviewer Jason Evans is cited nine times. Another reviewer is Martin Rice, who works for Tim Flannery\u2019s propaganda outfit Climate Council, but he features only four times in the body of the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n