Utopia, you are standing in it!

Sound engineering, not ideology sits at the heart of our reliable and affordable power supplies. However, in the veritable blink of an eye, engineers have been given the flick, so too, our good friends logic and reason.

Australia might register as geographically significant and claims to be a world player, but still retains the mentality of its convict roots. Not to say it’s driven by the mindset of the prisoner but, rather, it’s the bullish ignorance and conniving malevolence of their jailers that’s more often on show.

Cruel and witless best describes Australia’s approach to energy policy, not so much a ‘policy’ but a set of ideas deliberately designed to destroy and thereby de-industrialise this country.

Power prices are already rocketing out of control; routine power rationing is the norm when the sunset and/ calm weather coincides with periods of peak demand. Think breathless 42° C late afternoons when air…

Part I is here.

In that introductory post, I said this part would probably be broken down in two subparts, and indeed that will be the case. This subpart will focus on the existence of tikanga into the common law of New Zealand prior to the Ellis decision. The second subpart will look at how radically the Ellis decision changed that.

To refresh, tikanga is described as:

I’m going to hold any comment on whether this should form part of our legal system until the final post in this series. For now, let’s look at how tikanga sat within our legal system prior to Ellis. A lot of this next information comes directly from the Supreme Court as opined in the decision. I have provided the decision (below) and readers can read from paragraphs [92] – [116]. It is relatively simple reading.

This will be sufficient for this subpart…

Any enquiring mind has already rumbled the fact that the grand wind and solar reset is a great ‘green’ fraud. Wind turbines, solar panels and mythical mega-batteries require more energy to produce than they’ll ever repay.

Miners love it, of course, with the insatiable demand that’s been generated by delusional autocrats and cynical rent-seekers. Although, perhaps, not so much the kids in the Congo dragging cobalt out of muddy pits with their bare hands.

At the heart of the ‘wind and solar will save us’ myth is a yawning gulf of ignorance concerning the energy and resources required, is the subject dealt with by Frances Menton below.

They Can’t Make Green Energy Using Only Green Energy
Manhattan Contrarian
Francis Menton
17 October 2022

Not being a dope, you likely realized a long time ago that it was going to take a lot of energy to manufacture the components of the…

The government repealed blasphemous libel laws three years ago but now looks set to re-introduce something remarkably similar. It is an amendment that not even the Royal Commission has recommended.  THOMAS  CRANMER writes-

As the government was labelled “reckless and irresponsible” on Wednesday for attempting to rush through 24 bills, some without public consultation, the chances of bad law being made is extremely high.

Already this week we have seen the Prime Minister and her Cabinet colleagues so badly exposed on the Water Services Entities Bill, that it has required Minister Mahuta to make an amendment in an effort to quell growing public concern about the scope of the Bill.

That amendment, by the way, is merely a drafting sleight of hand that doesn’t change the substance or scope of the Bill but more on that next week.

Given the speed at which the government is moving we can be sure…

The Counsellors of State Bill cleared the House of Lords yesterday. Counsellors of State are members of the Royal Family who carry out the Sovereign’s functions if they are ill or absent from the United Kingdom, and this Bill would add the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal to the pool of people who are eligible to serve. [1]

Under the Regency Act 1937, the Queen Consort and the first four people in line for the Throne who are of legal age are eligible to be Counsellors.[2] Because the Prince of Wales’ children are too young, the Duke of York and the Duke of Sussex remain on the roster. This is awkward given that neither one is a ‘working royal’ and Prince Harry also lives in America. While the King can excuse someone if they will be absent from the UK, he can’t substitute anyone in their…

The makers say: ‘To charge the battery, we take CO2 at near atmospheric temperature and pressure and we compress it. The heat that is generated during compression is stored. When we exchange the thermal energy with the atmosphere, the CO2 gas becomes liquid.

To generate and dispatch electricity, the liquid CO2 is heated up and converted back into a gas that powers a turbine, which generates power. The CO2 gas is always contained and the entire system is sealed. We don’t use any exotic materials.’
— Looks like another net user of power.
– – –
Italian startup Energy Dome, maker of the world’s first CO2 battery, is officially entering the US market, says Electrek.

Energy Dome’s battery uses carbon dioxide to store energy from wind and solar on the grid.

The latest monthly data on the UK’s public finances included the first of many payments from the Treasury to cover losses made by the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility (APF). This may seem like an arcane subject, but the sums are huge and at least partly avoidable, so bear with me.

First, the technical details. This is yet another unwelcome hangover from Quantitative Easing. Under QE, the Bank’s APF bought government bonds, or gilts, by crediting the accounts that commercial banks hold at the central bank, using newly-created money. These accounts, known as central bank reserves, pay interest at the Bank Rate, which is currently 3%.

The APF also receives interest on these gilts from the government, like any other bondholder, in the form of coupon payments. When these payments are higher than the cost of the reserves, the Bank has been making a profit which it has paid…