Renewable energy: How investors have been burnt by frauds and bankrupts, by James Frost.

One of Australia’s leading experts on ethical investing says his experiences with renewable energy have turned him off the industry, comparing the sector to a Wild West populated with crooks and cowboys.

Hunter Hall founder Peter Hall has recounted how a foray into a North American wind power company Catch the Wind cost the fund manager in both performance and reputation when the company’s promises were revealed to be nothing more than fiction.

“This is a frontier area of investments. There are frauds and bankrupts” he said.

Almost the entire renewables industry is dependent on government subsidies — it just isn’t competitive except in a few remote locations otherwise. How could it not be corrupt?

In turn, that government support depends on a simplistic climate model based partly on Arrhenius’ original 1896 model. (The big computerized models just echo the little back-of-the-envelope, pre-computerizaton model.) The climate models are wrong because they categorically omit the increased emission of heat to space from water vapor in the upper troposphere, in response to the decreased emission of heat to space from carbon dioxide in the upper troposphere due to increasing carbon dioxide. Duh.

If you want to bet against this nonsense, see the Cool Futures Hedge Fund.

hat-tip Matthew