What is green energy and what is the future of the energy market in Australia and around the world?

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say what Wednesday edition. This week is another great Question from Phuong.

“What do you think about the future energy plans for Australia and the world in general?

I heard about the Government’s plan to build some gas station? do you think this is green energy and does it help with economic growth? I know we have some share in Uranium and lithium. do you think Australian Gov will ever consider nuclear energy?”

 

Thanks for the great question – pretty big topic – a lot of governmental energy policies are focused on climate change and CO2 emissions - Covered a lot of the background to this topic in previous episodes over the years – some of these were titled:

What is the real danger behind Climate Change? – went through the history of the climate change narrative – from back with global cooling in the 60s and the organisations behind constructing the narrative and who benefits Climate Agreements – An effective CO2 reduction strategy, or a money-making scheme? – looking at the financial incentives and economics of climate policies for big business Pay more in taxes, electricity prices and costs of goods, or the climate will change! - focusing on why CO2 is presented as the culprit and what this leads to in your everyday life – in this I did look at the better already available solutions that are being ignored Global Infrastructure plans in the name of climate change - Why then are the recommendations focused on changing Government accounting practices and risk-measures, along with opening the floodgates for redistribution spending? So if you want some more context – recommend going back and searching for those titles -

 

However - In this episode – look at what is green energy, and what the future of the energy market in Australia may look like and why – versus what I think is the optimal outcome – next SWW episode – look at if the Aus Government plans, called the Gas-fired recovery can help with economic growth and the green energy plans

 

What is Green energy – it is considered renewable energy –

Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources - which are naturally replenished on a human timescale – these include under the definition energy sources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat – but why not gas and oil? A lot of people think that these are finite – lingering fallacy from the peak oil theory initially from 1956 – but the geologist who came up with this worked for Shell and was probably trying to create artificial demand for oil – which worked – However – there is a lot of information that actually backs up the idea that Earth is actually an oil-producing machine – the idea of oil being a fossil fuel – getting its name based around the assumption that oil and gas comes from decomposing dinosaurs and organic material now seems ridiculous – this the label is a misnomer – all the research from the last decade found that hydrocarbons are synthesized abiotically In other words all the data implies that hydrocarbons that make up oil and gas are produced chemically from carbon found in Earth's mantle – that is self-reproducing Science magazine and Nature magazine have released studies on this - calls the product of this process an "unexpected bounty " of "natural gas and the building blocks of oil products." – which the earthy naturally produces on an ongoing basis – oil and gas reservoirs replenish themselves The definition of human timescale is where the definition of renewable is narrowed down - Oil and Gas actually renews the reservoirs over time – we aren’t running out of oil and gas – they are technically renewable energies by the definition if you take human to be a generation or more – Engineering and Technology magazine says "with the use of the innovative technologies, available fossil fuel resources could increase from the current 2.9 trillion barrels of oil equivalent to 4.8 trillion by 2050, which is almost twice as much as the projected global demand." But that number could even reach 7.5 trillion barrels if technology and exploration techniques advance beyond the current projections – so oil and gas are naturally renewable this nomenclature aside – there is the argument of environmental damage and CO2 emissions

When it comes to the future of energy – what is considered green energy in the form of renewables with solar and wind is a major the key policy focus from the unelected global entities like the UN, world bank, WEF and their likes – but the focus is on the reduction of CO2 emissions

In the UNs Agenda 2030 – Started in 2015 – a part of this is the Paris Agreement – tool used for countries to meet the sustainable development goals through reducing carbon emissions you have Sustainable Development Goals 7, 9 and 13 which focus on this topic of what they consider green energy– SDG 13: Climate action - "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting developments in renewable energy." SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy - "Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” SDG 9 - Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation Solutions provided – Continue developing Solar/Wind as the way forward, and tax CO2 emissions to price it out of competition - Australia Target under the Paris agreement – Emission reduction of 50% p.p. – May as well be a tax on the population to achieve this in this timeframe to disincentivise the use of energy that produces CO2 Main intention is to not just deal with heavy polluters (that is a policy that is working) – we already have heavy environmental protections This target is completely different - outcomes here is the target - 45% emission reduction target – not policy of how – but what – Governments are demanding almost half the emissions to go – this is going to cost a lot – indirect through taxes and pass on costs to make green energy more cost competitive independent modelling – shows that there will be impact of $9,000 a year for the average Australian worker, at the cost of 360,000 jobs or more Climate is the most misunderstood topic – listen to honest scientist – they say they don’t know what is happening – the climate changes naturally – nothing new here – been happening for 4.5 billion years – times in the past CO2 was going down but temps were going up – nobody knows why – but listen to UN – they guarantee that if you are reducing CO2 emissions by the target this will reduce the rise in temperature by 1.5 degree - so give all the energy regulation and money to them – but this is the way energy policies are progressing The future of energy is all about focusing on reducing CO2 - but why is co2 used? All for Energy and resource control – helps as well to siphon trillions of dollars out of people into the UNs pockets as well – Control of money, control over our lives – CO2 can be monetized on both ends – you can tax the CO2 producers – you can also give carbon credits to green energy providing companies – there is a massive financial incentive – CO2 is a financial market – the carbon trading turnover was at $214 billion last year – which was a growth of 34% from the previous year The average price of a carbon credit rose by $10 over the past year – from $18 to $28 per tonne This is a relatively new scheme – was only implemented 15 years ago – but as these policies grow – this market will grow to be as large as any share market Finances – Paris Agreement - Article 9 – Deals with the Finance Transfer – projects towards low greenhouse gas emissions and development P1- Developed countries shall provide financial resources to assist developing countries P3 - mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds The agreement builds on the financial commitments of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, which aimed to scale up public and private climate finance for developing nations to $100 billion a year by 2020 The Copenhagen pact also created the Green Climate Fund to help mobilize finance using targeted public dollars. The Paris Agreement established the expectation for a higher annual goal by 2025 - put mechanisms in place to achieve that scaling up from $100bn. Green Climate Fund – Collects money (Country taxes) – Give it to accredited entitles – they spend on projects Entities – HSBC Holdings, Africa Finance Corp, European Central Bank, mainly gov or private banks Energy is a big business – you have massive oil companies – but these may have seen their best days as behind them – as the new energy industry is all about carbon credits – which the banks backing these carbon policies are going to benefit massively from – Does come back to some form of corporate welfare – as companies are given carbon credits if they show that they are renewable companies So the future of energy is all about monetising a carbon market – having businesses that can subsidise themselves through being given carbon credits to turn around and sell – to entities like the EU emissions trading system In addition – solar and wind turbines will be implemented – but this will take a long time to achieve – cant occur overnight – and probably no way to get rid of carbon emissions fully as our energy needs are increasing There is massive levels of divestment from coal and gas – i.e. super funds and other investment managers not investing in these industries – creates a lack of equity funding On top of this – it means that the amount of capex and expansion that these companies can conduct is limited The focus and future of energy seems to be focused on ignoring these industries and then finding other sources such as solar In a perfect world – everything would be solar and at no cost to the person – but we don’t live in a perfect world

What I think it the optimal solution -

For me – the Solution shouldn’t be to put financial strain on the population (tax and removal of cheaper energy sources), Simple solution – Divert all the funding to Nuclear or Thorium reactor technology and roll those out We need more energy for the future- solar and wind can’t keep up – even spending billions won’t help Thorium is a radioactive element that can be used in a new generation of nuclear reactors as an alternative source of fuel for the generation of electricity - Safer than conventional uranium-based reactors – does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result, it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233 Thorium is more abundant in nature than uranium. It is fertile rather than fissile, and can only be used as a fuel in conjunction with a fissile material such as recycled plutonium. Thorium fuels can breed fissile uranium-233 to be used in various kinds of nuclear reactors. still a degree of risk – you can get burnt – if you watched Galen Windsor – see him holding radioactive materials and only issue was burning his hand if he were to hold it too long – but no contamination people are worried about nuclear energy due to things like Chernobyl or Fukushima – the Nuclear Chemist Galen Windsor goes through this in online lectures – recommend that you go and search his name – has a hour and 30 minute lecture online from back in 1985 – explains a lot Thorium is abundant in Australia 18% of world supply Environmentalism in the name of climate change is stopping this - environmental concerns with the mining, handling and storage of radioactive materials But Nuclear or thorium power is a CO2-free energy source at point of generation produced. This is two orders of magnitude less than coal, oil and natural gas, and is comparable to emissions from wind and solar power most power production outside of solar is simply turbines moving – most like coal or nuclear is done through using boiling water – wind and hydro is through moving the turbines from both wind and naturally moving water What I would hope our energy market turns into is a nuclear thorium-based energy system – but many countries like France are reducing their nuclear power plants – for some reason So there isn't a move towards nuclear energy -

Next week – look at the gas fired plans – if this is green energy as well as if this can help the Australian economy

Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to get in contact you can do so here: http://financeandfury.com.au/contact/