Scottie Morrison was grumbling about superannuation funds not investing in coal. Apparently, according to Mr Morrison, they’re doing so for ideological reasons. As he told us:
“Some industry funds, for example, won’t allow their funds to be invested in coal shares. Now that’s got nothing to do with returns necessarily, that’s got to do with politics, and their view about those particular issues.”
He went on to express the hope that union run super funds weren’t investing in things like windfarms because… well, the outlook on them is so unsure. Actually I bought some shares in a windfarm last year for $0.26; yesterday they were $1.02. Silly me, making my investment decisions on ideological grounds like that.
Of course a couple of years ago, various Liberals were bemoaning the fact that a university had taken its funds out of Santos. Let’s just have a look at a graph of Santos’ perfomance over the past three years, shall we?
Oh dear, what silly people getting out of Santos when it was about $14 a share. If they’d held on they’d have the satisfaction of knowing that it had recently risen so it may be as high as $5 a share if it can just go up by another 12%.
Of course, I wonder if Scottie had been around a few years ago whether he’d have been telling us all that people not investing in Kodak was because of all the greenies who thought that they were environmentally unfriendly because they printed their film on paper. I wonder if he would have told us that he hoped that nobody was investing in those silly digital camera things and not sticking with a great institution like Kodak.
Yes, and I’m sure he would have lamented our lack of interest in Blockbuster. I mean, how can these companies that rely on that Internet thing compete with video stores? How can they hope to make any money when it takes so long to download a movie?
Mm, actually maybe he and Tony and Joe did invest in Blockbuster. That’d explain their policy on the NBN, which I understand is completed on time and under-budget and we all have all the download speed we need providing we’re not too greedy.
Which does raise another question. Has Scott Morrison invested in coal companies personally? If not, why not? After all, he is claiming them as a great investment.
On the other hand, if he has, then he surely has a conflict of interest when telling superfunds to get into coal.
Either way, it seems a no win proposition for the Treasurer to start telling superfunds what they should be investing in. Unfortunately, Ray Hadley didn’t bring up the investment advice of a couple of years ago when the Liberals were pumping for the uni fund to stick with Santos.
Ah well, I’ll just stick with my renewable energy stocks and take the chance that coal makes a come-back. Even if those windfarms are an ugly blight on the landscape and lack the majestic beauty of an open-cut mine!
I don’t think they even make those glasses anymore
Good call Rossleigh! He is such an r-sole that he doesn’t seem to have the brains to realise that he is doing exactly what he is telling super funds not to do – make decisions based on ideology, not economic fundamentals. And yet they put this eejit in charge of the nations finances…
Steve, when you only have idiots to choose from what else can you do?
@ Keerti. Hire an expert, like they did with the detention centres,…….
Oooops, I forgot.
Damn kids went and spoilt the end of the story.
Renewable energy collectors are net energy sinks. They might be economically viable for a while but, the laws of physics catches up with us eventually. EROEI mates, EROEI. Not mentioned once in this article. Decommissioning is also not mentioned.
Wind turbines use rare earth minerals which, are almost exclusively mined in China.
“There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment.”
Solar Pv panels have reduced in price because China, unlike other countries, dumps the toxic byproducts into the local environment.
“Polysilicon production produces about four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste for every ton of polysilicon produced.”
I have been accused of being a coal advocate. Not so. I just do not approve of energy being invested in projects that can not return the energy investment.
“The greatest risk to human society today is the notion that we can somehow replace high ERoEI fossil fuels with new renewable energies like solar PV and biofuels.”
@Harquebus Thanks for your mention of ERoEI and the link. This provided me with an interesting diversion.
Like all things it seems nothing is ever as simple as it sounds. My brief research led me to articles that said renewables could never replace fossil fuels because of having an ERoEI of less than 5, or in one case less than 1 suggesting they were in fact an energy sink.
Then another article said ERoEI is not a useful metric and that Net energy produced was the main issue suggesting that there is enough potential energy from renewables to overcome any concerns about ERoEI.
http://dailyreckoning.com/eroei-economics-without-the-money/
Then finally another article which suggests that the latest calculations on Solar PV are showing the the ERoEI is around 12 (a satisfactory ratio comparable with future prospects for fossil fuels.
Graeme Henchel
Thanks for the links. I will definitely follow them.
Here is another one that I think some will find interesting. It only takes one key resource to become unavailable or too expensive and the whole system comes to a halt.
http://sunweber.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/solar-devices-industrial-infrastructure.html
Cheers.
Thanks Harquebus for that link. It certainly shows how complex is the supply chain for a solar system. This demonstrates that there is a lot of energy, resources and labor that goes into making solar systems but also demonstrates the enormous job opportunities generated by the renewables sector. One of the links I posted in the post above was not the one I thought it was. The correct on is below.
Thankyou for stimulating this investigation. Nothing is simple.
Graeme Henchel
Thanks again.
It is a real pleasure to come across someone who also reads peakoil.com which, always quotes original sources.
http://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/eroei-is-unimportant-and-is-being-used.html
Cheers.
Graeme Henchel
I have read the links that you posted. Thanks.
Chris Mayer at Daily Reckoning talks about money but, has no idea what money is. We have fiat currency, not money and he does not consider the fiat petrodollar which, is in its death throws. He could not be more wrong in his assessment.
Ugo Bardi, the author of the article at resilience, is another who does not factor “all” the energy invested. I have argued with him a quite a few times which, ended up with him banning me from his site. It was the only way that he could win the argument. He is fool who is not interested in view any other than his own. I also have had the same arguments with Robert Scribbler who, also initially censored me but, now appears to be coming around. I hope this is the case.
Here is Ugo’s website:
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/
The bountiful energy blogspot, links to the solar infrastructure page. It also has a link to a similar page for wind.
http://sunweber.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/prove-this-wrong.html
Cheers.
“Channelling Abbott” could have been an alternative title! Anyway thanks for the article, I didn’t know that Scomo was a fundamentalist global warming denialist.
Scomo don,t need no plan….or policy, for that matter, (and to channel, Abbott ..”Nope, nope, nope”) ….he,s got GOD…………and one wonders why he has been accused of adding nothing to ANY argument!!! …….mayhap he dosn,t need to add anything to anything………he,s got GOD. If there is one thing that Scomo can take comfort in, it is this, GOD most assuredly is an Liberal…..the party of love…..and fairness…..and hope…..and empathy…and morality….and truth… and I think I might need to go puke…excuse me please….sorry …………. 😯