How much further backward do things have to get?
In the great industrial nation of Germany power companies are going broke, and 350,000 households are getting their electricity turned off each year because they can’t afford the bills. In a nation of 82 million, power companies are issuing some 6 million threats to cut electricity.
Pierre Gosselin no trickszone: Socially explosive German homes losing power
“Over the past three years it all totals to be a whopping 1.025 million households.”
“Spiegel writes that the price of electricity in Germany has doubled since 2002 in large part because of the renewable energy feed-in surcharge. Private households are the hardest hit; they have to pay some 45% more than the EU average (while German power producers get 30% less than the EU average)! The government-interfered market is grotesquely distorted.”
It is not only Germany’s power companies who are bleeding to death financially, but so are many private citizens, who are unable to pay for their power. A shocking situation in one of the world’s most technically advanced nations.
The Green Dream….is a nightmare…
320
And we thought the Green Dream was something they administered to death row inmates in Taxas!
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Methinks a Green Dream in Germany might be different to what you would find somewhere else.
What proportion of the German population has lived under Communist rule?
50
In 1990, at the time of reunification, the population of East Germany was a tad over 18 million, whilst the population of West Germany was 61.5 million.
In 2009, the latest figures I have, show the population of the former East Germany at 16.4 million, and the population of “West Germany” as 65.4 million.
So to answer your question, the proportion of the German population who have lived under Communist rule was 22.6% in 1990. That figure has obviously decreased, through mortality and migration, and is now estimated to be around 20% of the overall German population.
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The Green Utopia is everyone else’s Dystopia…
…The more Green propaganda and material one reads, the more you realise they really want to destroy Capitalism through the veil of Environmentalism. One would have to be pretty naive or downright economically suicidal to blindly follow their nonsense. (There are no “green jobs” to make up for the job losses. From now on, if eco-folks mention “green jobs”, ask them for specifics! If it smells vague and fluffy, its very likely BS they pulled out of their butt.)
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was doing right by the country until…
STRIKE (1): She went full blown “Climate Change” and we see the economic consequences of that decision.
STRIKE (2): Recklessly opening the border…And reconsidering it after Paris attacks. She speaks of a quota system. (No idea how she will enforce it).
The two worst things you can do to a Nation is to deny the people of cheap energy AND undermine one’s own welfare system by overwhelming it with lots of people.
Its like Merkel got herself a brand new shotgun and wanted to try it out. She blew her right foot off, realised it had another shell, so she decided to blow off the left foot…Now she’s regretting that she can’t go for a walk like she used to!
…I really do wonder about political leaders of this generation. Seriously, they see Climate Change as a greater threat than ISIS! That Paris Climate meeting will be about a non-threat, but it will be filled with security folks to protect them from a real threat! Common sense seems to have skipped a generation.
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If this European winter is harsh, then we can expect a higher death toll among the poor.
The NAO feels like its about to dip below the line and you all know what that means.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html
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The graph on this link may be even more telling.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20SST-NorthAtlantic%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
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And we have a trend.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/images/nhland_season1.png
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That is all well and good, but is it officially certified and sanctioned
global warmingclimate change?50
‘…a few methodologies are givings us predictions for Solar Cycle 25 which straddle the amplitudes of the Solar Cycles 5 and 6 of the Dalton Minimum which had maximum amplitudes of 49.2 and 48.7 respectively.
‘Expectations of climate can be adjusted accordingly.’
David Archibald (WUWT)
40
Expect ?
In Britain, a few winters ago, there were 8.000 cold/energy price related deaths.
Mostly older people, in a desperate attempt to save money on their energy bill, turned the thermostat too low, a temperature below 15 centigrade can be fatal.
So some skeptics, I forgot where I read it, expressed the number of deaths per megawatt generated by windmills, as this reflected the energy price increase caused by the green-Marxist killers. Or is that a meme-racism and should I [snip 18C] them too ?
Did you know that the number one reason that human longevity (longer living) has increased in the civilized countries, is better protection against the cold ?
Uwe Hayek.
220
I have been posting about these deaths for years. Unfortunately I will get snipped if I say more.
110
In 2011 Australia’s electricity costs were similar to Germany’s. With devaluation of Au. Dollar it must be higher now. How much higher will it get when we close more power stations and install more Windmills?
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I beg to differ :
In Belgium we pay even more than Germany : 0.28 Euro per KWhr
In Germany just two cents less : 0.26 Euro (in Aachen)
I just looked up the price for a KWhr in Sidney : 0.21 AUS Dollar,
which is 0.14 Euro, HALF the German/Belgian price.
Consider yourselves lucky.
And yes, I was cut-off about 5 times in the last 5 year.
Belgian law states that, even when cut-off the usage of 10 AMPS should always be available, but they cut that off too.
Then I was untitled to a “loan” to help me pass the winter for the electricity and gas bill, but the application stranded in an ocean of bureaucratic red tape.
Because they wanted to appoint and overpay a lot of political friends in the water supply company in Belgium, the price of water, in my case, quadrupled. Fully surprised by this, I ran up a rather high bill, which I had to pay off in parts. One bureaucracy said you have to pay this amount in full, and the other bureaucracy said you can pay in so much parts, and the result was, that my water supply was cut off. After six months of camping in my apartment, getting water with buckets and garden hose from neighbors, I cut the lock myself and reopened the water supply.
In Detroit they cut the water of Detroit residents too, and got the human rights commission on their back. In due time, I will unleash that commission on my homeland bureaucrats too. And for a myriad of other reasons too, such as unable to get an ID card, which one is obligatory to carry in Belgium, for more than 20 years.
When one has been without registry in the population, then you are normally entitled to an refurnishing benefit of some 1500 Aus Dollars.
Then I read in the newspaper that a terrorist, from Moroccan descent, but with Belgian ID papers, who was held in Guantanamo for about five years, was given such a refurnishing benefit (+ social housing + social benefits + free medical care )
So I claimed mine…. and it got refused. Although I could prove I was technically and legally homeless for over 20 years. Never had social housing or social benefits either, nor medical care.
A few months ago that same terrorist was arrested during a home burglary.
Morale of the Story ? Try to find any yourself !
And before you judge me and say it is all my own fault, I suffered an unrecognized and undiagnosed debilitating chronic disease. Never got any benefits for that either. Belgium champions itself as being the most “social” of all countries with of course the highest tax, but this particular disease was officially recognized many years later in Belgium, and as last country to do so, compared to all other civilized countries.
Uwe Hayek.
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Uwe, a lot of the reason they are having financial trouble is they are paying for power they can not use – as the sun and wind combine once in awhile to oversupply power the grid is forced to reject other sources and pay for the FULL OUTPUT of wind and solar even if it is not all used!
http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/13/a-quarter-billion-euros-for-nothing-poor-consumers-forced-to-pay-phantom-never-produced-electricity/#sthash.TwdvQXYQ.dpbs
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Germany can probably be energy self-sufficient with conventional sources. As in England, energy security needs, and dependence on a power hungry export industry, may force this. England and Spain have both had to back off their extremes. The Ruhr valley reserves are very large, and many geologists this there is much fracking possibility for natural gas.
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Brown coal, lignite – but yes, there are very large Reserves (as against Resources)
Germany has considerable experience in mining these deposits and is the world leader in manufacturing equipment for it (the huge bucket wheels in LaTrobe Valley mines, Victoria, are manufactured in Germany). Before someone asks if these mining machines meet diesel NOx emission requirements, I’ll go on record now as saying I couldn’t care less
The 20+ new coal-fired power stations being built in Germany now (obviously against hysterical Greenie opposition) are in the Ruhr. I’ve actually inspected two (2) of those already operating. The engineering detail for CO2 abatement and energy efficiency is absolutely admirable
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They were completely self sufficient.
But then came the nuclear tsunami in Fukushima and [snip 18C] Chancellor Merkel, “we can do this” (“Wir Schaffen Das”) decided to CLOSE ALL Nuclear Plants. They call it “Merkel Biggest Blunder”.
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2013/07/15/energie-wende-merkels-schwerste-politische-fehl-leistung/
They already warned last winter, which was luckily exceptionally mild, that Germany would have brown-outs for several hours in the evenings.
And that while they have a huge surplus of energy during the day, if there is sun and wind. That surplus is offloaded to the neighbouring countries, whos network become unstable because of this overload.
Due to further malinvestment, there are not enough connections from the north of Germany to the south, and they use the networks of the neighbouring countries to get a huge surplus in the North when it is windy, to transport electricity to the south of Germany, further destabilizing the networks of the neighboring countries. Many neighbours of Germany are now installing phase-correctors to avoid these surges, and these devices protect their networks from overloading and then browning out.
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/08/16/nachbarlaender-wehren-sich-gegen-deutschlands-energiewende/
The “Green Energy Shift” (Die Energie-Wende) has cost Germany and its investors so much money and did not return any profits, that even German Politicians nicknamed it “The Energy Shift into the Void” (Die Wende ins Nichts).
Uwe Hayek.
140
While this may seem to be off topic, it is directly related to this.
Think of the grid ….. the overall total grid, as a huge reference. There are monster power plants, nearly all of them coal fired, generating 2600MW each, connected at different points across that grid. Those monsters provide the reference, a set voltage and a set frequency, and an absolutely huge (by comparison) amount of power.
Also connected to the grid are smaller plants, all of them wind power, providing 100MW here and there on a sporadic basis, maybe, and one million, two million, (who cares) tiny weeny little rooftop home generators , some feeding back as much as 2KW at any one time. (but barely 1KW or less per unit when averaged out, and that’s only averaged for around four hours a day at best) All of those smaller plants reference themselves to the monsters, that humungous amount of power on the grid, always there, and, as one unit at those monsters goes offline, another one somewhere else comes on line to provide that amount now going down.
ALL of that power, ALL OF IT, is being consumed by millions of consumers, a small amount for each home, an average of 10 to 100 times as much for each Commercial consumer, and an average of 100 to a thousand times each home for the Industrial consumers.
I say again, ALL of that power is being consumed.
Take out just one of those Monsters and the grid struggles. Take out a couple or more, and the grid goes down. FULL STOP.
You can have as many wind plants as you like and two million tiny rooftop systems and guess what? They all go down too.
Why?
There’s no more huge reference. There are now more consumers than power being generated, so ALL of it goes down.
People will go out and look at their rooftop units and scratch their heads. No grid means no rooftop power.
You can cut a huge number of residential consumers as has happened here in Germany, and it means nothing to the grid, because each residential consumer only uses a tiny amount of the overall.
When you have an average small sized city consuming as much as ONE MILLION homes, and a number of those cities connected to the grid, and larger cities consuming as much and more than 4.5 million homes, then if you don’t have humungous monsters connected to the grid, then NO ONE gets any power.
Place stress on coal mining, shame those coal fired power plants. Do what you like. Close them down, and you’ve got ….. NOTHING. For anybody.
People can say whatever they like, Close them down, and it’s unmitigated disaster.
EVERYTHING will just STOP.
Try and make coal fired power expensive, and economically force them out of business, and they close down. The the end result is, well, you all know.
If they close down, then you need to replace them with like for like, a huge amount of power on a 24 hour constant reliable regular basis, not a wind plant here and there providing only 25 to 30% of its rated power on a who knows when basis, and definitely not another million tiny rooftop systems.
It only needs to happen once. It’ll be an absolute catastrophe somewhere, but everywhere else, they’ll learn the lesson.
Pity it’s almost too late now.
Tony.
542
Tony, thanks for your insights – as always. Can you expand a little more on your comment:
Take out just one of those Monsters and the grid struggles. Take out a couple or more, and the grid goes down. FULL STOP.
You can have as many wind plants as you like and two million tiny rooftop systems and guess what? They all go down too.
Why?
There’s no more huge reference. There are now more consumers than power being generated, so ALL of it goes down.
Thanks in advance, Me
80
When demand for power exceeds supply, load shedding has to occur, like rolling blackouts. These are a verifiable pain for consumers but more so for grid operators. It is risky and highly undesirable to the point that you need to design the system so that situation doesn’t arise if possible. With renewables over some critical design amount instability is inevitable without extensive gas backup which makes the renewables redundant.
130
Better a blackout than a brownout. In Spain they like to drop the voltage as a cure, but it can wreck your computer.
20
This is why I think if you have solar, its worth ( hypothetically ) looking at having a small inverter and battery to trick the solar panels into thinking the grid is still there..then in theory they should start up as they will “sense” 240V ( it would make sense to disconnect your house form the grid first, using the mains isolator so you dont liven up the whole street….)
80
Technically possible but generally the grid connect inverters are not suitable for stand alone use. It would be better(stablity wise) to have two seperate inverter systems on a rotary isolation switch like some back up Genset systems are, or a fancier (expensive) interlocked solenoid system. You need to adhere to AS engineering standards by law and regulations apply. Additionally, your grid owner has a chance to have a say also. Some electricians specialize in these things but you need fairly deep pockets.
60
The general approach would be that by disconnecting ( via isolator) from the grid, your home runs as a stand alone setup. That way, as long as the panels can sense 240V AC from a small inverter, they should run. I haven’t tested this and also clearly you would need to know what you’re doing so you don’t get hurt…..
10
It might stack up on paper but what happens in those few minutes of cloud cover rolling in over a city? Quite a lot of sudden switching happening at once.
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I think you should go all-out, or better all-in.
Use the solars and the means, rectified, to charge the batteries and at the same time feed a rather heavy inverter, which supplies everything in your house. Solar drops out, means keep charging and driving inverter. Means and solar drop out : batteries drive inverter, no interruptions, just the same as an UPS, Uninterruptable Power Supply. That may not be exactly the same circuit design but you catch my drift.
With one Tesla Powerwall you have 7 KWhr stored, and can use 3 KW of power.
Ideally, the inverter should be at least 10 KW, and have logic that can shut down the power lines to heavy consumers, like the dishwasher, airco, washer, tumble dryer, (accumulation-) heater, cooking plates, kitchen sockets for water cooker, coffee machine… Since these heavy consumers are after separate circuit breaker fuses and separate circuits already, most of the circuity can stay the same.
You can then manually override with a smartphone app if you need to make coffee or tea, cook with one plate, use the dishwasher.
You can keep using the computers, tv/monitors, and internet at all times, and if the grid totally goes down, you probably need to reroute your internet via mobile 4G. Most mobile cell companies use backup generators for their gsm antenna’s and microwave links.
If you have two PowerWalls, and I would prefer two 10 KWhr models, then it is becomes easy sailing. Use the dishwasher AND make coffee. Have enough energy to bridge 4 to 5 days without sunshine, if you are careful. Postpone washing and tumble drying (which should be a heat pump model).
I think you can add up to 9 of these PowerWalls to get at 90 KWhr stored, and some 36 KW of peak power. Then you will need a 40 KW inverter. To charge that array in 5 hours of sunshine, you will need at least 18 KW of solar power or 90 sq meters. An area of not even 10 by 10 meters, as you can tilt and stack them, put them on the roof. But this is the absolute luxury version, I estimate it at about 60,000 Euro or 85,000 AUS$ . Expect that price to halve in the following years, as demand increases. Then in Europe it will pay itself back in 2.5 years, at current electricity prices, and in about 4.5 years in Australia.
It would take some getting used to : set up the dishwasher, in the morning, and make it autostart when there is enough input from the solar panels.
I have to test my washing machine, I think it loses its mind after the power is cut off.
If you buy a new appliance now, then watch out for these features, the old mechanical machines did it flawlessly. You would set the knobs to the correct programs, and when power was applied, it would execute that program. For instance, when you had it behind a clock switch, to make it start after 10 pm, when electricity was half price.
The funny thing is, that we are contemplating all this, not to save on CO2, but to escape from these loons that make us pay for their anti-co2 malinvestments. They just could not wait for the next paradigm shift in energy, which starts now, and will completely destroy their argument.
And of course, to be totally safe, I am looking out for a diesel generator of at least 6 KW, with low noise production, as the final backup. It runs on domestic heating fuel, relatively cheap, and ideally it could drive the airco compressor directly, or recover its excess heat to warm your house.
And of course, all of this can be used to charge your car, my conservative side is contemplating a KIA outlander hybrid pluggable 2016 model. After you wall-plug charged it, it should be able to drive more than 200 km electrically, and then has the fuel engine. You rarely drive more than 200 km a day.
A lot of technical challenges, but it is actually easy, if you get used to all the ins and the outs. And the peace of mind to never have to worry about consuming to much energy, or be at the whim of oil boycotts and ridiculous co2-tax price increases.
I think this solution is better, more elegant and less messy than having an oil well in your garden.
Uwe Hayek.
20
And Tony, I have been very surprised that those huge power generators have not tired of fighting with thousands of insignificant suppliers that they have to keep track of but who contribute little to the bottom line and started to work to get the whole situation reversed.
Here in the states the power companies have been acting as if they were in bed with the renewable pushers and yet they surely must know it isn’t going to work out. They must know, especially in California that the only solution will be to increase generating capacity or drop our standard of living back into the early days of commercial power distribution, if not even further back than that, where only some have even a chance at having electricity.
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Roy,
I think the power companies have tired of the green push and have decided they have little choice but to go along with it. Anything is possible at a price. I understand in California some power distribution grids have battery storage to attempt to stabilize the green grid. It all adds cost which will be charged for down the line. Ultimately the power companies will give the consumer what they want. Green power is expensive, at least for the foreseeable future.
20
Rob,
Here at least, the power company, Edison, is an investor owned, publicly traded company. Edison’s officers and directors have a fiduciary duty to the stock holders to keep the company profitable and to do that, to keep their costs down. Perhaps the California Public Utilities Commission can distort that relationship between company and stock holders but not so much that the company can start to go downhill. People will sell off stock with the inevitable result to any company. And it won’t only be individuals, it will pension plans and other institutional investors with the same duty to perform profitably that Edison’s officers have that will sell Edison stock.
Perhaps the state would try to nationalize the Southern California Edison Company. But we are not so far gone just yet that they could get away with the theft of billions in assets from the owners of Edison. Obama had no effective opposition when he did that with GM and Chrysler. If he had such opposition I expect he would have been impeached, convicted and tossed out on his ear. But Jerry Brown or his successor won’t be so lucky. When the lights start to go off it will be a lot harder for the average Californian to ignore than what’s happened so far and the stuff will hit the fan.
I don’t know the future any more than anyone else. But I know this. In the place of an Edison director or CEO, I would be fighting for the little guy who’s monthly payments keep the company afloat, millions of them, because when they start getting shut off it’s a very fast death spiral to a very hard impact with the ground as the European example is demonstrating.
70
Roy,
The US system works well to the extent that it can operate unfettered, however, as more eco constraints are put in place (such as mandatory renewable quotas), the power suppliers must conform. Additionally, some may lean towards a green wash as a marketing ploy whilst at the same time not letting the supposed “disruptive technologies” slip past them.
If the regulator says you can’t beat them, you have little choice but to join them.
20
Here in North Carolina and elsewhere that Duke Power services they stuck us with Smart Meters.
Now it is backfiring.
Seems the smart meters catch on fire and some blow-up…. In U.S. and Canada, “Smart Meter” Fires Spark Alarm
Smart meters are getting a bit of bad press in the UK too: The great smart meter rip-off: Energy giants will use devices to DOUBLE the cost of power when you need it most
From an Activist site:
1000’s of smart meter fires: New whistleblower & court evidence (video)
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In a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, there was an experiment with smart meters. Unfortunately, these things failed to work on the cellphone network as they were supposed to, so used the backup Bluetooth (R) frequency to allow a mobile car with computer and antenna to read the meters monthly. Then SOMETHING WENT WRONG! Imagine the problems when about 3000 meters started jamming the Bluetooth frequencies! Car, gate and house alarm remotes didn’t work! It took weeks before the company was able to remotely reprogram the meters – and after that, they weren’t so ‘smart’ any more! Then, the company doing the readings was fired, and for six months, no meter readings at all were taken. I believe Johannesburg is now installing a different kind of meter (imported). I guess the existing company couldn’t match the incomers kick-backs!
50
gai,
And here I am, having asked for a smart meter because they were getting too lazy to read the old rotary one and were guessing at my usage.
So far no problems but now I’m wondering if I made a smart move or a dumb one.
I don’t know how well the whole idea has been thought through. Edison was talking about putting them in as fast as they could about 3 years ago or so but they aren’t doing it yet.
In the long run, of course, the plan is to be able to charge more for usage during peak load hours — just when you need your air conditioner the most. And that means a meter with logic that can be remotely controlled to do whatever Edison wants it to do. I looked up the manufacturer’s specs on the exact meter I have and among the things it can be set up to do is shut off your power without anyone needing to come anywhere near your house. I don’t know how Edison has these meters configured but the potential bothers me a lot.
As I’ve said, it’s time to start getting organized to fight Sacramento and DC.
50
I’m not seeing why two things mentioned in your last link are anything to worry about. In the absence of supporting technical details I’m not going to give the 4 sources of arcing in smart meters the time of day. I don’t know of any reason for this to exist in the necessary electronics to do the job. That they catch fire can happen from overheating of something inside the sealed meter case. In the meter I have, all the logic is powered by a battery which they will need to replace at intervals. So it’s low voltage stuff not very likely to do anything but fail harmlessly if it ever fails. Measuring the current and voltage isn’t a hard trick either and the measurement can be passed off to the low voltage logic without needing many components running at line voltage.
The other problem is the supposed health risk which has been the hobgoblin of cell phones and everything else that generates an RF field. But there have been no documented cases of harm from them, no court cases (and believe me they would make headline news if even one suit was settled in favor of the plaintiff), no actual evidence for this supposed harm at all.
I have worked around electrical equipment that generates RF for years, I’m sitting not even 6 feet from a smart meter outside my window right now and have used my cell phone at will without the slightest worry about the health danger. Let someone actually document it, show me the evidence, then I’ll believe it. Otherwise no.
No one else should believe it either unless it’s got actual evidence. That’s what Jo’s blog is all about, actual evidence.
The biggest trick in these smart meters is to calculate the power factor, the cos of the phase angle between current and voltage so you can multiply the product of time, current and voltage by that number to get the actual instantaneous power usage to record. And even that is just a calculation problem once you have the current and voltage to work with. In the rotating disk meters all that happens automatically.
20
Roy Hogue,
The North Carolina company, Sensus that builds some of them said it was water getting inside the meter causing the arcing however it denied any problems with the meter. (lost link)
Fire chiefs call for smart meter probe after blazes
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/16/fire-chiefs-call-for-smart-meter-probe-after-blazes/15751373/
Richard North at EU Referendum has these three articles on smart meters and related issues.
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83847
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2013/04/energy-they-really-are-serious.html
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83184
41
What nonsense. This statement taken from one of your linked articles is, of course, pure politics gone off the rails — well… …no, gone completely off a cliff. They have no clue about what that will cause by way of hardship and possible death because these days many people live only because of electrically powered life support equipment.
But there’ll always be someone there willing to go along with the politicians who think their own agenda trumps doing their job in order to make a buck.
How do we fight this?
And a postscript: On the 19th we were scheduled for a maintenance power outage, the first I can remember since becoming an Edison customer in 1969. They didn’t say what they needed to do but it must have been a fairly big transformer or distribution station because I’ve seen both Edison and the Los Angeles DWP up on poles doing transformer replacement and a lot of other work, even replacing poles, without cutting the high voltage feeder line. I know they didn’t cut the power to replace a transformer because the transformer serving my office building was on the very next pole and we didn’t lose power. I know they can also work on the big half million and million volt lines without shutting down the power. It takes something pretty bad before they can’t handle it with the power still on. I don’t think I would like working on any of it while it’s still hot. Too much chance of a mistake and you don’t get even one pass on a mistake with high voltage. It takes a lot of guts and very careful attention to every move you make.
My boss got himself zapped by about 16kV one day and the sound of it would have awakened the dead. He was dazed afterward for a few seconds but thankfully there wasn’t enough power behind it to do any lasting harm. Bad stuff !!!!
By the way, I said my smart meter is powered by a battery (the literature I downloaded says it is), yet during that outage I noticed that the display was blank. So something is powered by 120 from the grid or they shut down the display if there’s no input to the meter. Mine is not the same manufacturer as those shown in Reno and Sparks. But the more I think about it the less I like it.
00
There is nothing that cannot be fought if you have enough people with the will to fight.
The regulators, like anyone else, need the support and active help of a lot of people to keep their power over you. When that support begins to disappear you lose that power to regulate.
It’s time for a fight to get started. The only thing lacking is the will in enough people. And as I said, getting your electricity shut off is going to be the biggie, the elephant in the room — no 100 elephants in the room, all in a terrible rage.
The fight could get very tough and it will get worse the longer we wait to start it. So let’s start it now rather than later.
70
As you said Tony when the coal stations go down, or the interconnector from Vic. goes U/S, the S. Aust. windmills can’t even prevent black-outs in Adelaide. How could they possibly build submarines in S. Aust. without a reliable source of electricity for the complex welding tasks.
The Macarthur windfarm, Australia’s biggest, is rated at 420 MW, 140 x 3 MW units over 5,500 ha., but it only operates about 26% of the time so where is the back-up power coming from if we go renewable to save the planet?
160
And yet you think my idea to be totally independent of the grid by Solar+Batteries is not a good thing.
…Whilst paying less, even without subsidies.
Uwe Hayek.
31
Uwe Hayek,
fine thing if you want to do that, install rooftop panels, batteries, your own system. Go ahead. Think on the micro.
Now we have the macro, as I mentioned at two places in the main Comment I made. Point One:
And Point Two:
It’s all fine and good if in the event of power going down ….. FOR EVERYBODY, that you have power from your rooftop system at your home in isolation, but tell me, of what use is that if everywhere else has nothing. You can’t go anywhere, you can’t do anything, you can’t buy anything.
That’s what gets me every time with these green dreamers. They think personally, their own homes with rooftop power. So, if you like, it’s their own personal revenge on the power supplier, their own irrational thinking of a saved matchbox load of CO2 compared to a shirtload of it, and they’ll spend a huge wad of their own money, and with the subsidies involved, other people’s money, because, after all, it’s the other consumers who pay for that rooftop system.
If the whole grid goes down and stays down, and then stays down for an extended period of time, or even forever, then of what use is it to have power in your home from your independent rooftop system, if there is no power anywhere else. You can’t do anything. And, if the truth is told, if the grid goes down long term, those rooftop independent systems might even make you a target.
Tony.
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Tony, one has to wander just what is the mindset of these people (the green dreamers) who believe in the idea of ‘total independence of the grid’.
Unfortunately, however many times that you explain it to them they just don’t get it!!
The answer is one of a selfish ideal self survival and to hell with the rest!
Geoff W Sydney
71
Those green dreamers look at this deceptively simple diagram, (shown at this link) and discount it utterly, but only because they cannot understand it, and will not take the time to even attempt to understand it. It is however the single most important diagram in this whole electrical power debate.
This is a load curve for actual power consumption. This one is for all of Australia East of the WA border, and while you think that this is just for Australia, it is the same everywhere there is a constant and reliable supply of electrical power across the whole Planet Earth, and the only difference is the vertical axis which shows Nameplate in MW. This is a typical warmer Months load curve as the Winter one (shown here) has two peaks one in the early AM and the second in the late afternoon early evening.
I have added colour to that first diagram for ease of recognition. The largest colour is pink, and this shows only coal fired power. The blue colour is a mix of coal fired and natural gas fired power to top up the grid as demand (actual consumption) rises. The yellow colour at the bottom is ALL Australian wind power. ALL Solar power, including rooftop solar is so small as to not register, but is around the equivalent of the thick black line indicating the actual curve itself. In Summer it is a tiny bit thicker in the mid daylight section of the curve but averaged across 24 hours for the whole year, it is around the thickness of that black line of the curve.
However, of greatest importance is the absolute minimum, the low point of that curve. See here it is 18,000MW. it never drops below that level, Summer of Winter, except for one day of the year, Christmas Day.
So, 18,000MW absolutely MUST be available all the time 24/7/365 to actually keep Australia operating.
Green dreamers cannot explain that, and dismiss the curve out of hand as irrelevant.
That’s almost two thirds of every Watt of power being generated being required …… ABSOLUTELY, all day every day.
There is not ONE renewable of choice which can supply that or will ever supply that.
When people actually realise that THIS actually IS ….. THE MOST IMPORTANT diagram in this whole electrical power debate, then, and only then will this debate begin to turn around.
This diagram applies here, in Germany, in the UK, everywhere in the already Developed World.
It’s not some ephemeral modelling. It’s actual physical power consumption.
I can see why green dreamers ignore it. They do not understand it, it looks so simple, and because they have no response to that, then they dismiss it out of hand or ignore it.
Tony.
151
Dear Tony,
I read that when you apply for a job at Google, one possible question you might encounter, is “There is a catastrophe in San Francisco, set up a disaster plan”
The correct answer is a question : “What kind of catastrophe are we planning for ?”
This is my answer to your apocalyptic scenario, which is even further away from reality as what you unjustly accuse me from. I am not green-dreaming, nor nightmaring as you do, I am addressing a real situation with a real solution.
In Germany, Belgium and The United Kingdom, all the talk has been of “(planned) blackouts for several hours in the evening”. This led to retail chain Aldi to supply a cheap and noisy generator, and they were sold out as soon they reached the stores.
I beg to differ on your statement that “you can go nowhere and buy nothing”, as many stores that sell food have backup generators to keep their refrigerators working. Trucks will still drive and their cooling systems will still operate.
And I am used to stack up food that is in promotion, and that I can deep-freeze. That is not a green dream, but a poor man’s necessity. And a habit I intend to keep, even when my plan of getting rich succeeds.
I remember the worst blackout Belgium ever had, early 80ies. One small generator plant even exploded confronted with sudden excess demand, and the turbine shaft of some 20 meters of steel landed on the streets. The blackout was total, and we could not get gas for the car, as the pumps in the gas station did not work. I lasted for about 5 hours, in some regions 8 hours.
So, a (total) blackout that will last for weeks on end, is not really realistic. After the first small blackouts, politicians and utilities planners will come to their senses, and do whatever it takes to avoid repetition. But the bill for their green lunacy will again be passed on to the consumer.
I am a true believer of the faith of Free Marketism and laissez-faire. If the solar/battery rigs I propose are economically viable, then other people will soon adapt and install them.
I did not include ANY subsidies in my calculations, besides, I think they were abolished in Belgium, and now only reserved for political friends, the ex monopolists, for capacities as from 100 KW. And you need a license for that, so they pretty well wrapped that up.
Where I plan to live next, is no main grid worth speaking of, and certainly no subsidies. Maybe some tax friendly EV regulation, that I don’t mind.
Also, I plan on getting rich, so being a target belongs to that plan. Yes, I will make a large donation to Joanne, a beacon of sanity in a mad, mad world.
I will continue in another post, were I will address the demand/supply problem you mentioned, as an answer to that post.
Uwe Hayek.
30
Dear Tony,
I assume you are well versed in electric and electronic theory.
I tried, with very moderate success, to apply and use the readily available operational amplifiers, or op-amps.
So, a textbook about op-amps, started with the notion of an “ideal amplifier”. It helps you understand what an op-amp is doing, although in practice, the available op-amps, are far from perfect or “ideal”.
I want you to consider an “ideal battery” and then apply it to the diagrams you so skilfully illustrated in your post.
Theoretically, if we could store enough energy in an “ideal battery” when there is lots of production, and discharge that battery when there is lots of demand, you have to agree with me that it would simply solve the problem. Of course, you need enough overall capacity to satisfy average demand, but any temorary mismatch between production and consumption would easily be adressed.
Such a battery would be a game changer, in expensive buzzwords, a paradigm shift.
Mind you, two months ago I was planning to pump seawater some 120 meters up, when I had excess production, and then have it rush down and drive a turbine, when I needed to consume it, a rather messy solution, but the only one I then saw available. I did not mind the losses, they do not really matter, because excess production is free, as it would be lost otherwise.
Now I want you to look attentively to Elon Musk’s presentation, because I am sure that you did not watch it attentively or that you did not watch it at all.
That man is truly a genius. After you watched it, then we can start a discussion about if there is enough lithium in the world for doing what he wants, and I do not agree with him that emission reduction is the main necessity, I see more a oil strategic/geopolitical reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVjW9XdPlhg
Uwe Hayek
20
Um, no
The price of the setup you described is Ca $100000 and it has a life of about 10 years, thats an electricity equivalent of $10,000 per annum. You get a lot of grid power for $10,000 even considering the inflated price. The solution is a small islanding solar array, say 5kW a small battery system which needs to be only about 1 kWh and a diesel generator with electric start/stop controls. This can be built for under 10k and supply power at about zero cost if the solar power is sold to pay for the diesel.
Diesel power is pretty cheap about 25c per kW hour but it needs a baseload. There is a minimum fuel consumption for the generator so you do need a battery system, its not cost effective to use diesel power for a 100Watt baseload which is where my house is at. Run the diesel at its most efficient current, storing the excess power in batteries for only as long as it takes to charge the battery.
The diesel can be soundproofed by building an underground plant room but be careful to make sure it’s floodproof with just the air intake and exhaust protruding. Maybe some sort of automatic bilge pump as insurance against leaks.
00
Exactly, I have done the calculation, this “luxury version” generates about 16,500 Can$ worth of Grid Power yearly, at German/Belgium KWhr prices.
This “luxury version” was the extreme version, just to show that even large consumers can use this system. And the solar panels have a longer life span than 10 years. I reckon that only the batteries need to be replaced after 10 years, and that total of 92,000 Can$ is expected to halve in the next few years.
You further describe a 5KW system, which delivers 25KWhr a day, and then use a 1 KWhr battery, so you generate 25 times more than you can store. Why ?
A minimal system with 7 KWHr (one Tesla Powerwall) with 2 KW solar, and a minimal inverter will cost 3,000+2,000+1,000=6000 Euro or 8,500 Can$. It gives you way more facilities than the one you propose. The power it generates AND stores is cheaper than what your diesel can deliver, and me thinks your diesel generator will not even reach 10 years of service life without some costly maintenance.
My minimal system can replace a grid consumption of some 9 KWhr a day, a yearly worth some 1,200 Can$ at German/Belgian KWhr pricing.
Should battery-solar-inverter prices halve due to ramped up mass production, then it will pay itself back in 2.5 years here, In Canada probably in about 4.5 years. That is a decent period, and it would mean that in Europe you would pay one quarter of a grid KWhr and in Canada you would pay half of the price of a grid KWhr. (I assume the price of a KWhr to be the same in Canada as in Sidney, correct me if I am wrong)
And you have the extra luxury to be independent of the grid, in the event of grid power outage. Companies and individuals install same price systems just to keep their computer data safe for 30 minutes so they can safely save data and shut down.
Uwe Hayek.
10
And don’t forget the issue of spinning reserve, which is keeping plants ready to pick up the slack when a cloud passes through, or the wind dies down. You need to keep the boilers hot and this is far from free.
100
The thing that Tony has forgotten to mention, is the concept of reference voltage. The major power generation plants produce a standard 50 Hz alternating current (60 Hz for our American friends).
This is determined by the speed of rotation of the generator turbines themselves, and is held within a very narrow range of variability by comparing and referencing all of the generation plants on the grid, all of the time, to every other generation station, and to a central point, where there is an accurate reference source.
When a plant shuts down, the power it generates needs to be shed, as Tony says, but the actual generator has to keep spinning at the standard number of revolutions, until that process is fully completed.
Home generation units have no simple way of cross-referencing, to other home generation units, and so they need to have a mains input signal to provide a syncronous output. Without that, they drift, and the overall voltage frequency becomes “noisy”, and confusing to household appliances (like clocks) that are dependent on the constant mains frequency reference. Also, if you are feeding onto the grid. and your generator is not syncronised with all the other generators, the frequency drifts out of phase, which can result in power spikes, and damage to other electrical equipment.
Right now, with few home generators, these issues are not really important. But the problems will increase as more and more home generation units try to feed back into the grid. I can forsee a time when people wont be paid for inputing to the grid, but rather, are charged a fee by the network operator for disposing of the excess and dirty electricity they are expected to remove.
70
So last century
34
And your alternative, would be what, exactly?
Explained in engineering terms, of course.
For illustration, I suggest you explain how an air traffic control system could function, without a consistent, interference free, national reference frequency.
61
Few things use mains frequency as a time reference anymore, big systems tend to use GPS time which is synchronised across the world. Frequency stability isn’t the issue it used to be. The big problem is rapid changes in effective load, the governers can’t handle this and you can get significant overvoltages occurring. Overvoltage breaks things. Rooftop systems can even cause localised overvoltage because tap changers don’t respond instantly to these things. Undervoltage (brownouts) can also break things that have a constant power characteristic because in constant power devices low voltage causes more current to be drawn which can cause overheating or tripped fuses/breakers.
10
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Whakaaro!
10
Tony,we all know what will happen.Just look at what went on when South Aust lost their power from Victoria.Another “Lefty”scheme gone wrong.
10
Richard , i share your optimism for fracking , but it will give little comfort for the poorest and most vulnerable citizens of the UK . The most vulnerable people tend to live in social housing owned and run mainly by local councils and housing associations, and they have a policy of installing pre paid metres in their properties , energy providers have a policy to charge customers with pre paid meters much higher rates than they do to other customers , based on the excuse that the poor and vunerable are more likely to be bad deptors ( how can people that have to pay for their energy before they use it, be more likely to get into dept than those that pay monthly or quarterly ? )Now it appears the government want to start the roll out of “smart meters” and guess where they want to start ? thats right social housing properties with pre payed metres !! , which means ofcourse that the most vunerable will have to pay even more for energy during peak hours, the government are also in negotiation with energy suppliers to see if they can find a way to pass the cost of installation onto customers who will have no choice . We are already in a position in the UK where thousands die of cold related illnesses every winter some because that have to make the choice between heating and eating, and the majority of those people are on pre paid metres, its a scandal and i couldnt put into words on this site , how i feel about it .
250
Pierre Gosselin obviously does get the whole message:
“The main reason for the increasing number of barriers are the rapidly rising electricity prices. Since 2002, the costs for consumers almost doubled, partly because the levy for renewables rose, on the other hand because the big power utilities reduced costs not passed on to consumers.”
In other news:
“The growing share of renewables forced German wholesale electricity prices down to among the lowest in Europe last year, according to a study by grid operator TenneT. And government figures indicate that consumers are benefitting too, as the average cost of a basic supply contract fell for the first time in more than a decade.”
[Let’s continue to see what readers think. But don’t expect any more like this to get through.] AZ
545
sf:
the whole sale price of electricity is forced down by the excess supply (at times) from the wind farms. See the theory of Supply and Demand.
The retail price to household customers GOES UP because “renewables” are subsidised by a levy which is paid by those consumers. And the levy keep getting bigger and more costly to consumers so wind farms remain profitable.
If “renewable energy” is so cheap why are Danish and German retail prices so high compared with other countries? Why do south australians pay higher electricity prices when over half australia’s wind turbines are there?
371
Wind Turbines Dirty Little Secrets
Those 1.3 and 2.4 MegaWatt Turbines only deliver those energies at strong gale force : 6.5 Beaufort.
On average the wind blows at 3.8 Beaufort, and at that wind speed the turbines deliver only 11% of their nominal power. A 1.3 Megawatt turbine on average, delivers 145 Kilowatts, something a medium car engine can deliver.
Since we are not sure that there will be any wind, wind turbines need a 100% conventional back-up.
These conventional power generating plants have one big problem : they are designed to deliver so many watts, continuously. They are not designed to operate at 50%, there is some variaton between 90 and 100% or complete shutdown. And it takes quite some time to get them running again. Steam has to heat up and pressurise , before it can start rotating the steam turbines. You can keep them running, by letting the steam out, which results in ZERO ENERGY SAVINGS
So basically,each and every penny you put in Wind Turbines is TOTALLY WASTED
It gets worse : these wind turbines look solid, but are actually very fragile, I have personally witnessed that a 600 MW turbine had lost its wind-blades, very close to a huge liquid gas container, each of these blades weighing 1.2 tons. No wonder the press hushed it up for more than a week, and then reported it on page 10, in small print. Everything in a radius of 10 miles would have been set ablaze if one of the blades had pierced this huge gas tank. (Summer of 2004, port of Zeebruges, Zeebrugge)
Later, I read reports from everywhere, that wind turbines had collapsed, or were destroyed by heavy winds. The slightest malfunction causes a fatal vibration that totally destroys the turbine.
It got so bad that neither the Government or Private investors from Denmark wanted to invest a single penny in Wind Farms anymore.
Lastly : they are not cheap, and since they only operate at 11% efficiency on average, means that the price per KWhr is actually quite expensive, ten times more than coal, which produces at 1 Eurocent per KWhr, so they cn only be competitive if subsidized for the other 9 cents.
The way they do it, is slapping a carbon tax on coal, so that the prices are more “equal” read “expensive” for the consumer.
There is a way to solve many of these problems but producers are totally not interested, they are too busy collecting all the free money politicians throw at them and waste.
These are the reasons I am so urged to go independent, with solar and batteries, so I no longer have to pay for these cascades of malinvestments by the Robberments.
Uwe Hayek.
141
The NoTricksZone blog has many references where power suppliers are struggling because they have to play second fiddle to renewables producing at an artificially high price(subsidized).
141
When the wind blows hard in Germany and Denmark there is so much unusable power they can’t give it away. When the wind doesn’t blow they have to import nuclear power from France at top dollar. Go figure.
270
Actually, judging by the instances of negative pricing, I do not think they give it away, rather they have to pay for someone to take their excess power.
120
Yes, you want your network to be full of electricity, but not so much that it overflows.
30
So SillyFilly,
Wholesale electricity prices are so much cheaper due to renewables (according to you), yet the retail prices in Germany are shown to be comparatively exorbitant, and in 3 short years 1 million people in an advanced industrial society which is otherwise wealthy and successful will soon face a winter where they either freeze to death or starve or both, and you think that vindicates you in your suggestion that renewable energy is such a boon to mankind?
There is a massive disconnect between what you advocate, SF, what you then suggest are the alleged benefits of such a policy, and the hard reality on the ground in the non-virtual, non-fantasy realm that most of us are forced to exist within.
Do you take any responsibility for the plight of these people, as victims of your advocacy? Do you care? Is that what you actually hope for, for there to be less unskilled workers and proles to have to contend with in the brave new world of ecocatastrophism and sustainability? If so, have the guts to say so. Lay out your plan for society, what are the costs and how will it be of benefit, and to whom. Or haven’t you thought that far ahead? Or are you leaving it up to others to do your thinking for you?
291
I presume this is a rhetorical question.
The only explanations for how anyone can believe in the agenda driven science pushed by the IPCC is if they don’t understand how the scientific method separates what’s possible from what’s not, otherwise unsupportable political agendas are more important to them then the scientific truth or they lack the ability to think for themselves. All CAGW adherents suffer from at least one of these intellectual deficiencies.
111
Go easy on the stupid horse. It has moments of rationality, from time to time.
10
Um, bull-snip.
Most power systems are still running subsidised, particularly in WA, and rural power systems even with diesel power (most rural systems are gas or diesel), there are no profits to pass on, then you add in your completely ineffective renewabubble power silly, and you have a financial disaster waiting to happen.
Basic economics isn’t your strong suit is it?
Not only that silly, you seem to advocate stripping an area twice the size of Victoria of every tree, and laying 100,000km of expensive cable which is what it would take to deliver Short on common sense’s green dream of 50% renewabubble power by 2030.
Environmental vandal is the only phrase that springs to mind at this moment
30
“1 million German households had power shut off in last three years due to green energy cost”
Imagine what will happen when the LIA rears its ugly head either later this decade or early next decade – Will Chancellor Merkel be remembered as Frau Dummkopf?
The next Deutsch Federal Election is in 2017 – Angela Merkel will have been Chancellor for 12 years (2005 – 2017), ie served 3 terms.
171
I suspect when people are faced with freezing to death and Frau Merkel is faced with millions of people with flaming torches and pitchforks, she will see the error of her ways…
We are at a cross roads – either the Germans commit green-tinged economic suicide persuing the Socialist nirvana of equal misery for all, and the EU will thus collapse, or, the german people will spit in the eye of the globalists and make an example of Merkel for the whole world to see while the globalist paymasters froth at the mouth.
The globalists at that point will panic – they will need to create a distraction using either :
(a) create another false “pandemic” ( bird flu/ebola/ )
(b) More civil unrest by stirring up far right wing /left wing / religious extremist / “terrroist” groups that they control ( yes you read that correctly…. )
(c) Create an short sharp economic crisis
My money is on (c).
132
Look up Marine Le Pen.
She was dragged into court on [self-snip] charges. (No freedom of speech in France either) Le Pen “faces a year in prison and a fine equivalent to £33,000.
The Economist even had an article appear on line just after the Paris ‘incident’ Phantom menace: Marine Le Pen may win elections on fear of a non-existent migrant wave
Why do I bring her up? For two reasons.
She is gaining popularity and her trial for issuing warnings about [self-snip] a month before the Paris ‘incident’ has not hurt one bit. She is strong on national sovereignty, withdrawal from the EU and bring France out of the economic mess it is now in. Also Marine Le Pen’s National Front has launched the “New Ecology” movement. The French nationalist party’s take on environmental activism will include opposing international climate negotiations and promoting nuclear energy.
Like Nigel Farage in the UK, I think she (and her party) are someone to watch.
Don’t forget that France has been toying with the idea of abandoning nuclear power and that would be a real problem for Europe’s power grid.
150
I think the EU is broken and it should be got rid of – the main reason it exists is creating a European Soviet prior to a global one.
I don’t support fringe ratbag groups. Some smaller parties that actually have the backbone to call out the entrenched interests can only be healthy as long as things are done legally and ethically.
I think the powers that be are very very scared that the sheep will wake up, which is why they put so much energy into demonizing anyone ( ratbag or not ) who exposes them.
I also am frustrated by the apparent slide of the majority of people into the state of “irretrievably stupid” brought on by a push to make everything 24×7 and conditioning people to work in 30 second sound bites.
Sometimes I wonder how people can be so stupid, however in olden days, people were happy to throw their kids into volcanoes to appease “the gods”, or in modern time encourage them to trot off to any number of pointless wars, so….
70
I probably also should point out that these days too the propaganda machines are very slick and create a huge amount of peer pressure to conform.
I think that most people if given the right info and space to think about it will usually reach the right conclusion, however these days smart phones and other intense media crowd out quiet thinking time…..
60
Replace: “national sovereignty” with “The Fatherland”; “EU” with “League of Nations”; “France” with “Germany”; “Marine Le Pen’s” with “Adolf Hitler’s”; and “New Ecology” with “Sturmabteilung” (conservation movement).
Do you believe that history repeats?
20
Is her party called the
National-SOCIALIST French WORKER’s Party ?
Does’nt that actually sound more like Hollande’s Party ?
History is already repeating, no need to drag Marine into that.
All of Europe is already socialist and Jew-hating, I think it was a big mistake of the US to free Europe from National-Socialism. 45 years later and Europeans voted for it again.
If a farmer puts a fox into a hen-house, because he wants to experiment with agricultural diversity, is the fox responsible for all the dead chickens or the farmer ?
I think Hollande should resign. He can’t even protect himself. Same for Merkel. If the [snip 18C] had planned their attack a little better, both the stadia in France and Germany would be reduced to rubble, Hollande and Merkel would be history. As was planned, but security at the entrance body searched the [snip 18C] terrorists, and they did not get through.
Next time, they will put the bomb vests inside the stadion beforehand, and they will succeed.
The killings at the Bataclan were just a decoy.
Three suicide bombers would enter the stadion, wait until the scene at the Bataclan developed, ambulances would rush there, then the three in the stadion would detonate themselves, then there would be no ambulances available, the first ambulance to arrive, would be one full with explosives.
Same scenario in Germany Hannover, Germany-Holland.
There, German Police actually found the ambulance full of explosives, but made it disappear and denied it was found, as “not to provoke panic”. The public was told the lie that the “alleged” bomb was “an empty suitcase”. Then a police insider send the police report of the explosive filled ambulance to a German newspaper.
If everything had gone according to the [snip 18C] terrorist plan, there would be over 20.000 deaths and we got rid of Hollande and Merkel.
00
By the next LIA Merkel will have an amazing European Monorail system powered by pyramids and crystals, so no need to panic folks it’s all good.
151
Drawn by unicorns…
I’ve heard that santa claus has gone commercial cloning his reindeer for european transport networks.
00
‘…imagine what will happen when the LIA rears its ugly head either later this decade or early next decade …’
Or maybe earlier, at the height of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) Europe slipped into the LIA.
The winter of 2004/05 ‘was one of the severe winters of history and most rivers including the Thames were frozen completely; the frost prevented ploughing and all agricultural work was suspended from 14th January to 22nd March, the winter seed was destroyed and there was widespread famine.’
90
oops … that should be 1204/05 AD.
90
El Gordo 1204/05 AD was 810 years ago – I suspect in another 810 years, ie 2814/15, planet Earth may well be in the grip of the next Ice Age [IA] with SL having fallen dramatically. The bad news is that it will last a considerable period, just like the previous 4 Pleistocene IA’s. So spare a thought for our descendants. No doubt they will read about the well known myth circa early 2000’s entitled “The Theory of AGW”.
120
‘I suspect in another 810 years, ie 2814/15, planet Earth may well be in the grip of the next Ice Age’
It doesn’t quite work that way, there are cycles within cycles and when the oscillations fall into sync we get abrupt climate change.
50
You are right El Gordo – there are cycles within cycles within cycles, ie small scale events. On a large scale the last 2 Pleistocene Ice Ages have been ~ 100,000 year cycles (~90K of IA & ~ 10K of Interglacial). The earlier Pleistocene Ice Ages were ~ 40,000 year cycles. We have been in the current Holocene Interglacial for 11,700 years. During this period eustatic SL has risen 130m. The next IA is imminent. Human CO2 emissions have little or no impact on GW. If you look at the Antarctic Vostok Ice Core data it clearly shows that CO2 goes up during Interglacials & falls during Glacials, ie it is reacting to temperature change not the reverse. This is scientific fact. The “Theory of AGW” is complete nonsense, a fantasy born following the 1998 “Super El Nino” event. Mann’s “Hockeystick” is a complete farce and Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” even more farcical.
90
Thanx, I can’t help but agree with you. At the moment I’m focused on this northern hemisphere winter to gauge where we are at present, there are smaller cycles to consider.
70
Nah. They will have lost the ability to read, and YouTube will haved ceased to work around 2500, when the last wind turbine finally fell over.
70
Oh good, they are finally learning something the hard way. Just need a lot more of it so the public goes to the next step and demands those responsible are expelled from their positions, and replaced with common sense people. The trouble is we are going down a similar road. We have sufficient cheap coal to produce the cheapest electricity in the world yet we don’t by a long shot. Shame on all sides of politics – they have betrayed our trust and deliberately forced upon us electricity that costs far more than it should, all in the name of science fiction and lies. One can only hope that one day a Royal Commission was set up by a new and unique government. It would make the current one looking at trade unions look like a holiday. Obviously I won’t be holding my breath.
170
Please explain to Malcolm Turnbull & Partners, and Bill Shorten & Comrades.
172
You may recall I have mentioned a few times that left/right is the wrong way to look at politics – all work for th eglobalists, which is the only logical explanation as to why the same agendas keep moving forward, zombie-like, regardless of who is in power…..
130
Except when an true conservative is in power, such as Abbott. Unfortunately though enough Australians hate conservatives so much they prefer a buffoon like Turnbull or a numskull like Shorten. We are in a lose lose situation. Oh for another Winston Churchill. Unfortunately, Abbott was no match but he was the best we had. I think Howard would be closer but too bad he is retired.
120
The USA has the same. The Republicans are the controlled opposition.
80
Solar panels at 50+ degrees north, before a panicked lurch back to coal power. No nukes but plenty of Russian gas. Open borders for an immigration rush helped along by Erdogan, Qatar etc before a panicked closing of borders. Germany hasn’t seen this quality of leadership since the Barbarossa decision.
But it’s okay, people. We’ve got Malcolm.
170
Excellent suggestion! Send Malcolm to Germany (and don’t bring him back).
130
No please don’t send Turbmull to Germany as he would end up making Europe fight a war against Australia. Instead make him PM of Antarctica. That would be out of harms way for all of us.
70
PeterS – “No please don’t send Turbmull to Germany as he would end up making Europe fight a war against Australia. Instead make him PM of Antarctica. That would be out of harms way for all of us.”
Nooooo – not Antarctica – think of the penguins…….
80
Actually why don’t we slam shut all our borders and leave all the Paris-ites in ‘Gay Paree’?
60
Because then they would be stuck here with me…? I do not want to have to deal with thousands of victimised eco-warriors on top of the other problems currently being investigated (and detonated).
30
When it comes to fuses, size is important.
20
It is an issue – political power
It attracts the worst of people and corrupts the best of them
Progress as most of those here may define it is achieved despite politics
Progress as defined by the leftoids can only be achieved through imposition, which requires political power
One may argue that it’s better than lawless anarchy. I argue that the Swiss system of political power is the best of a motley lot
100
Scary,isn’t it.
00
Technology decisions by politics — meaning, what should I do to benefit me the most, rather than what should I do to benefit my constituents the most? Or is it science decisions by politics? But maybe there’s no difference. Both are run according to the answer to the wrong question.
And those in politics wonder why they’re despised so much and they can’t seem to figure it out.
Truly a shame! Worse than a shame, a disaster for millions of innocent people whose only crime is not having the ability to control their own destiny enough to protect themselves from corruption — malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance in high places.
Big words but they have dire implications. 🙁
90
Oh, they know all right. They just don’t give a rat’s ar!!@e. In fact, I have been told by a now-retired State politician that most politicians, and senior bureaucrats, think that we the great unwashed are so greedy and unruly that we deserve to be lied to
And so they do just that …
130
They might as well come out and admit to being Marxists, I’m surprised the great unwashed aren’t referred as the Bourgeoisie yet.
50
The Elite despise “the Great Unwashed’ and view them as cattle (chattel). They HATE the Bourgeoisie aka the middle class and fear them because they might usurp the positions of the Elite through brains and hard work.
Ever since the middle class upstarts evolved in the 1700s the Elite have been working to get them back under control. Karl Marx is their greatest weapon.
Can’t be much more blunt than that. Seems certain men of science want back up on the pedestal so the Great Unwash will again “honor and look up to [them] with reverent awe.”
80
No, sorry, he’s not. The Elites aren’t afraid of Karl Marx. They know he and Engels got it wrong. They were very afraid of Henry George who wrote the world’s only economics best-seller (which is still in print along with all his other books.)
George exposed how they attained and held on to their money and economic power. He had to be silenced.
They successfully buried (PDF) George and his ideas. Since WWII, the World Bank and the IMF have successfully dismantled most of the applied Georgist ideas and policies around the world. Australia and New Zealand owe much of their immediate post-war posterity to those policies and much of the more recent rapid growth of poverty and the rapidly increasing economic disparity in what are ostensibly `wealthy’ countries to their demolition.
Interestingly, the whole climate propanganda campaign bears great similarities to the Elite’s reactions to Henry George, which ranged from firing academics who espoused his ideas to publishing contrary books and papers. It’s all laid out in the PDF linked to above.
50
George gave the world the intellectual tools and understanding to analyse economic proposals and policies, and expose the one-sidedness of them, showing up the lack of justice and fairness in them. That’s why his ideas had to be buried.
That is the greatest weapon the Elites have used to enable the destruction of the educated Middle Classes. Marx et al are nothing.
40
It is so sad that one poor person has to die for a false global warming-CO2 theory that all but the useful [snipped] know is false.
But if fact, it isn’t 1 person but hundreds of thousands with millions coming just around the corner. The inhumanity of the leftists is staggering.
92
Thank you Jo, did any news outlet in Australia give this any Fanfair?
80
Craig Thomas, could you please come back to this blog site (you were so busy here last week) and explain why Germany’s socially destructive energy policy is justified? I mean, if you care so deeply about appropriate energy usage, you would no doubt would be delighted to educate us lesser mortals.
111
Craig Thomas was probably just a brief gap filler between Harry Twinotter and Sillyfilly John , Twinnotters persona was outed on anthony’s site and became persona non grata here ,so they’ve taken nodding donkey ( sillyfilly ) out of retirement ( rescued her from the knackers yard )and craig was briefly hired as a temp
92
Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has been spamming Facebook with propaganda again; complaining that most building haven’t been renovated to make the Energiewende work.
Alas; the energy savings in heating over the past year is 3kWh a YEAR per m² of occupied space. Semi-detached homes have areas of between 60 and 200 m². Renovation to save energy is not economically viable if the individual gains are so small.
It seems that the government is so much out of touch with consumer advice given in Germany; the “popular” facade insulation where polystyrene (!) panels are glued to the existing outer walls and then rendered over with synthetic mortar; is a money pit, fire risk (duh!), will make the buildings “sick” by preventing moisture escaping from walls and it promotes the growth of mold on external walls. An investigation a couple of years ago found that a cartel was operating to keep the price of the foam insulation artificially high.
The RoI against costs of energy saved calculated by one consumer protection body would be on the scale of centuries; certainly longer than the life of the insulation. And that life for many seems to be of the order of 10 to 20 years. Insulating exterior walls saves at most a couple of percent in heating energy; at the expense of much higher costs in building maintenance. Some buildings have been condemned as a consequence of the insulation facade; which does nothing towards the governments obligation to maintain an affordable stock of housing.
Obviously the Bürger have been lax in their contributions to the Energiewende, failing to take up loans to fund energy renovations to the tune of perhaps €100,000 as recommended by the energy experts who get paid money extracted by the threat of physical force; directly by taxes or indirectly by subsidies and laws by lobbyists; lobbyists funded by the same mechanism. (Ask David Evans about the stability of a system with only positive feedback.)
German taxpayers are growing impatient with the fictions being published in a frenzy of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of public servants; and many thousands more PR agents with vested interests in maintaining the myths.
120
Google “Electricity Freedom”. They sell ($39, unlimited copying ok) plans for a small pressurized composter/generator/alternator rig anyone can assemble for <$200 and use any waste biomass to get free power for life. Or email me at [email protected] subj. 'Power plans' and I'll send a copy.
10
For the USA or parts thereof, I have not been able to find information like for Germany. The differences in how electricity is provided may be the reason. I did find a report for AU that claims 1 in 8 Australians cannot afford to pay the electricity bill. Link.
In my case there is a Public Utility District (PUD) and there is a way, called the Helping Hands Program, for customers that can pay to offer something extra when they do pay. The PUD passes all the money collected to another group called HopeSource, a private, non-profit organization, to which people can apply for funds to pay the bill. But this is only one source of funds. Many other charities collect and disperse funds for utilities (any of them, not just electricity), for food, for clothing, for medicines, or other things.
I do not know if any of these groups report all of what they do to one place such that aggregate number, by region, could be summarized for the Nation. As said above, I have not found any such information.
[An aside: A group collects non-perishable food. When one donates, someone weighs what is dropped off. The weight we might give is added to the weight all others give. Beans, peaches, cereal, canned ham – just add the weights. I do see why more info is not recorded, but still categories might be nice.]
60
Wow looks like we may have finally nailed them. This is VIP because there are WHISTLEBLOWERS https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/11/18/congressional-climate-change-skeptic-threatens-to-subpoena-commerce-secretary-to-get-noaa-documents/
This is much bigger than thought. No wonder Lamar Smith is pursuing it full on!
[This is somewhat off topic for this article, but considering the implications, I am letting it through moderation] Fly
141
We had a “green” shutdown of power for an unprecedented 4 days earlier in the year.
So much for the state governments concern for citizens.
This hasn’t ever happened before in my lifetime.
Some people were off for longer.
All caused by TREES GROWING OVER POWER LINES and then FALLING on those lines.
Totally lacking in engineering sense.
Where were the engineers when this was allowed to happen.
Hiding under their desks from the green mafia????
KK
143
I understand your grievance but that is more a maintenance issue between grid operators, the councils and/or landholders.
50
NO Rob.
This has nothing to do with Landholders.
They have NO say.
This is strictly politics causing BLACKOUTS.
Trees MUST not be allowed to grow near power lines.
They pull the lines down eventually.
Some were off the grid over a week in 2015.
100% predictable.
KK
113
Keith,
In that case, I stand corrected. There’s no accounting for the (non)sense of some eco bureaucracy it seems then. I’d be tempted to move Keith, no telling what surprise/imposition you’ll find next. Not unlike the councils in Victoria encouraging vegitation near houses in bush fire prone areas…madness.
91
Sadly, how many of 179 deaths in the 2009 fires in Victoria were attributable to green council by-laws preventing people from keeping their property clean and safe from bushfire in a fire evironment? Eucalypts shed bark, twigs, leaves branches, which slowly accumulate over the years: the only practical solution is to periodically burn-off under benign conditions to reduce the fuel load, otherwise disaster as has happened many times previously, 1939 in Victoria, 1967 in S. Tasmania and countless other times.
73
Robert O
You point to one of the saddest preventable tragedies in recent times in Australia.
Here in Newcastle and surrounds we have only had any sort of controlled burns after serious out of control fires raging unchecked.
Even so it is still very difficult to buck the green monster and clear safe zones around residences.
Just as important is to keep a safe margin cleared of scrub along roads leading out of residential pockets to safety.
This is also not allowed by politics. The Blue Mountains fires of last year were a result of the “no clearing” policy.
61
Despite Black Saturday, once again there is scrub along the roadsides of routes needed to escape. Plenty of money being spent on silly projects like walks and paths and parks by local “progress” groups. There’s a “lefty” sort of name, and they are wasting money hand over fist but not doing what is really needed, which is roadside maintenance.
50
I think the ratio of likes/ dislikes, 5/2, belies the problem. The 40% of folk have probably never lived in the bush and certainly do not understand the ecology of the eucalypts. After the 2009 fires there was a photograph in a Melbourne paper of a house in a clearing in the bush: it and the owners had survived the fire, but were being pursued for illegal clearing. His law abiding neighbours lost theirs and sadly some of them perished as well.
If you want to live in nature, keep your property clean, have a fire pump, or two, and a source of plenty of water, a dam, or swimming pool, otherwise go back to the city; even then your house may succumb to ember attack as most houses seem to be lost after the fire front passes.
50
No its now 5/3, 60% of the folk don’t like the proposition that the deaths of 179 people were an indirect consequence of green by-laws preventing commonsense in the bush. Take the Dunalley fire last year where people were driven to the water’s edge. Cause, a build-up of dry fuel in the surrounding countryside due to a lack of Spring burning being permitted by authorities, severe weather conditions, a strong northerly and low humidity, and I think it was a spark off an angle grinder which started it, usually it is lightning in Southern Aust. e.g. the current Esperance fires.
30
See http://joannenova.com.au/2015/11/1-million-german-households-had-power-shut-off-in-last-three-years-due-to-green-energy-cost/#comment-1765567 . All that slash = free power.
11
Keith , its a similar story on uk railways , most of the lineside is remote and not accessible to people, so the lineside has become something of a wildlife haven , there are many plants that thrive next to the track that don’t do well elsewhere , for example victorian train users would eat dates and throw the stones from train windows so now we have a few date palms growing at lineside , of course it is very necessary for safety of the line reasons for us to cut back the vegetation and this is heavily regulated and often complained about by local conservationists and green groups. overhanging trees are the biggest problem ,cutting line visibility and dropping leaves on the line in autumn, leaves on the line delaying trains has become a standing joke amongst the puplic but it is a serious problem because train wheels crush the leaves into the running lines, forming a teflon like coating that causes trains to lose traction and skid through red signals , road crossing barriers and station platforms etc thanks
110
Dave, the stranglehold that the gr%%ns and Labour have on engineering infrastructure and on home safety is crazy.
Here in NSW we spend billions of dollars statewide “trimming” trees and undergrowth from around power lines.
In one particular case a stretch road about half a kilometer long had trees directly under the lines.
The trimmers hollowed out the centre of the crown to clear the lines and eventually the weight of branches either side of the lines pulled the trees apart.
They were eventually all cut down for “safety” reasons.
We are going round in circles.
92
Took the train from Sydney to Newcastle yesterday and noticed that the big HV electricity lines from the power stations looked to be well maintained under the lines,no big trees just low scrub kept low by slashing. I take your point about the household electricity lines around suburbia with strangely shaped trees trimmed by contractors,money for jam for the tree loppers,but it all adds up for our power bills
60
I’ve never understood why, in a suburban situation, eg Melbourne, power lines aren’t underground. Firstly, the poor trees look ridiculous the way they are pruned (hacked) to allow lines to run through them. Secondly, a wind storm soon causes trouble with falling branches, if not whole trees. Suburban streets do need shade trees. Underground does cost a lot but that should be weighed against the costs and dangers presented by overhead lines.
50
I remember the closed railway lines at Fleet thanks to trees falling all over them during the hurricane of Oct 1987. I couldn’t get up to London that day.
50
Underground household power lines are the way to go,but it costs more than overhead. New subdivisions are more likely to have underground lines,also parts of Sydney with built on Sandstone rock are way more expensive to service than in areas with softer material.
10
eliza –
a big story indeed.
Smith told Pritzker that the whistleblowers’ allegations make it more crucial that he be provided with the scientists’ internal e-mails and communications. If NOAA does not produce the e-mails he is seeking by Friday, the chairman said, “I will be forced to consider use of compulsory process,” a threat to subpoena the commerce secretary herself.
Whistleblowers have told the committee, according to Smith’s letter, that Thomas Karl — the director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, which led the study — “rushed” to publish the climate study “before all appropriate reviews of the underlying science and new methodologies” used in the climate data sets were conducted…
An aide to the Science Committee told The Post that the committee “has been in continual contact with whistleblowers for some time and received new information as recently as yesterday.“
71
What’s the point?
1. “It’s horse and buggy days as far as solar is concerned at the moment.”
Quote, December 8, 2014 (fairfax): “Pioneer” Professor Martin Green, director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at the University of NSW.
2. January 22, 2015:
The Queensland Leader of the Opposition Annastacia Palaszczuk has spoken of her desire to triple the number of Queenslanders with solar.
Says @0.17 secs: “I can’t control the weather.”
3. ABC, 29 Oct 2015: Queensland power bills will not rise but ‘may not fall’, Government says
4. November 16, 2015, (fairfax): Household batteries still five years from making financial sense for Australian homes
110
.
The scary thing is:
1. Disconnections have doubled over the last five years in Australia!
2. QLD reached a record 30,000 disconnections last year for non payment?
3. In NSW alone, about 90 homes were cut off each day in 2013/14
4. Origin, cut off 1 in every hundred of their customers during the year 2014
5. QLD cut offs jumped by 17% from 2014 to 2015!
6. Electricity bills rose by two-thirds on average over the past 5 years!
And the Greens want everyone to lower their Carbon Footprint?
Many footprints will be obliterated without a concern for CO2 through renewable GREEN GREED
I am disgusted with the power situation, RET etc in Australia!
151
We’re dreading the Queensland summer. Just got our last power bill and even without using heating at all over the winter/spring, it’s going to be a struggle to pay for it just on Christmas. Today is 34 and tomorrow 35. It’s the humidity that’s the killer. Unless you’re young and of good health then it’s either pay or suffer (and we’re not old, but my partner more so really suffers in the heat because of his health).
So angry at these nut job eco-jihadis and their dumb, illogical pushing for a low, intermittant energy dystopia – where all but the political elite are equally miserable!
80
the big charities are so compromised by the CAGW scam, it takes a small charity to bring this information to the public, and Guadian/other main MSM are not even reporting it!
17 Nov: UK Independent: Simon Read: Cold winter in store for many who can’t pay energy bills
New research suggests that even those in work are struggling to find the funds to heat their homes
There are 2.3 million households living in fuel poverty in England alone according to the latest official figures, and it’s estimated that nearly half of them are in work.
But many aren’t just in fuel poverty, meaning they’re struggling to pay their gas and electricity bills, a third say they have skipped meals and two-fifths are struggling with other essential bills, the charity (Turn2us) warns…
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/cold-winter-in-store-for-many-who-can-t-pay-energy-bills-a6738391.html
same up in Scotland…tho neither of these articles blames CAGW policies for the problem:
17 Nov: ThirdForceNews: Robert Armour: One million Scots frozen out by fuel poverty
They’re all talking about super complaints, smart meters and something called the Energy Companies Obligation in a packed conference hall in Peebles Hydro. All this against a backdrop of Scotland’s worst weather of the year, Storm Abigail, which is increasingly testing the build quality of the 19th century spa.
Despite the brewing storm, the mood in the annual Energy Action Scotland (EAS) conference is upbeat. That is until the charity’s chief executive Norman Kerr delivers an icy blast to the 200 delegates packed into the conference hall.
He quotes George RR Martin, the author behind the novels adapted to create the hugely popular TV series Game of Thrones: “Winter,” he says, “is coming”. And it is a winter where thousands will die needlessly, one in which thousands will struggle to pay fuel bills because successive governments have failed to address the growing problem of fuel poverty, Kerr tells delegates…
Two pre-payment meters, one for gas, the other for electricity are the bane of Karl Swoicizi’s life. They “eat money” he says and seem to have an insatiable appetite for his hard earned cash.
They were installed 18 months ago because Karl, a Romanian immigrant, didn’t have a credit rating when he first arrived in Scotland and the energy company suspected he might default on his bill.
Now he pays on average 15% more than a customer paying by direct debit despite the fact he’s on a low income…
http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/features/one-million-scots-frozen-out-by-fuel-poverty
51
For those interested, the UK names it significant weather events alphabetically within each year.
Therefore, “the worst weather of the year”, is currently “the worst weather of the year”, because it is the first Storm of the year.
Journalism at its finest, folks.
70
17 Nov: ImpartialReporter: Rodney Edwards: 55 per cent of people in fuel poverty
FIFTY five per cent of people living in the West of the Province are in fuel poverty, Independent Unionist Raymond Farrell has told a meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council.
“I think it’s alarming that here in Northern Ireland and the West we have something in the region of 55 per cent of people in fuel poverty and the struggles that those people are having to make as we come in to the winter season,” the Erne North councillor told the Chamber last Tuesday.
http://www.impartialreporter.com/news/14036373.55_per_cent_of_people_in_fuel_poverty/
51
Reality Bites
Any guesses as to how much longer before the “Green Dream” capitulates? I give it less than 10 years. Either riots will ensue, or governments will concede “defeat”, or both.
“Sustainable” will have quite an ironic ring to it. That said, I still believe there’s a future in renewables; just nowhere near as soon as some would hope.
60
Dave,
I suspect capitulate is too strong a word. They will defend the indefensible until some other catastrophic cause can be brought to the fore. There’s no shortage of causes, just ask Paul Euhlich or David Suzuki.
100
The misguided Greens will ensure,
To shut down the industrial Ruhr,
With electric supply,
So expensively high,
That millions become the new poor.
190
Is it a co-incidence that these problems with power supply are coming to a head at the same time as Merkel & Co are welcoming millions of illegal immigrants into Germany & Western Europe.
I could not imagine a better recipe for wholesale civil unrest (& the resultant loss of freedom / martial law).
90
Have you seen the news! Whistleblowers in NOAA are about to blow the lid off NOAAgate!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/11/18/congressional-climate-change-skeptic-threatens-to-subpoena-commerce-secretary-to-get-noaa-documents/
111
Mike
The interesting thing about that is it is in the Washington Post. It is the sort of thing a very pro Government paper would conveniently “forget” to publish.
71
1 million will become 1 billion plus and ISIS will seem only like a minor irritation in comparison to these Mad Malthusian Totalitarian Maniacs….The Unelected Nutters and their CAGW True B’lvers !
The psychotics are now in charge …..so much for Dumbocracy and FreeDumB !
To the CON 21 ….. https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/562828409232171009/WW3H2bwX_400x400.jpeg
51
Real prices talk and BS walks. Germany and Denmark sitting at top of the world in consumer electricity charges per Kilowatt Hour. Adjusting for purchase price parity Germany and Spain are at top of the chart – surprise surprise Germany and Spain also have huge Wind and Solar energy programs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#/media/File:Electricity-prices-europe.jpg
https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-electricity-prices-kwh.html
I fight daily blog arguments with alarmists who try to claim wind and solar energy can be cheaper than coal. But this isn’t possible except when coal is taxed to make wind and solar relatively competitive – you still end up paying much more for your energy.
Plus the renewable cost is only low when measured in best case scenario – ie, when the wind is blowing and the sun shining brightly and when coal is taxed to make it deliberately less competitive. The real facts do not add up. The misinformation over the affordability of wind and solar energy is staggering. Feed in tariffs and subsidies have completely muddied the waters on renewable energy costs for the ill informed or gullible public.
110
Just wait until the German people discover that the new immigrants get power free of charge!
100
Germany is our poster boy victim of renewable energy policies.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/examples-will-have-to-be-made-germany/
Pointman
81
I can’t help but notice that Greens, protecting life and limb from global warming, display the following attitudes:
Human deaths due to hot weather–Terrible! Horrifying!! We must do anything and everything, including destroy entire economies and reduce the world to 18th century technology, in order to stop such tragedy.
Human deaths due to cold weather–*yawn*
122
Brandon Miller and John Sutter two well informed CNN journalists
Brandon Miller reports
Less than two weeks before a crucial global climate summit in Paris kicks off, NOAA, NASA and other global temperature monitors released data showing that the planet is halfway to two degrees of warming, the much publicized limit of “controllable” climate change
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/19/us/october-temperatures-two-degrees/index.html
he goes on and makes several reference to the authoritative John Sutter his CNN colleague (the guy who thinks Americans will give up eating red meat)
Beyond two degrees
So what happens if the planet breaches the two degrees of warming threshold? Nothing good, according to reports reviewed by CNN’s John Sutter, who has written extensively on the subject.
Sutter — who pulled reports from the National Research Council, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Bank — says wildfires in the United States could significantly increase in size, hurricanes would be slightly more intense, more species would be at risk for extinction, Arctic ice would continue to melt, crop yields would decrease and the availability of freshwater would significantly decline
… the ending line in the article (see Jo’s previous article on this particular gem )
and finally…
There is a word for this type of journalism
80
Couple of points:
1. It looks to me as though there is also sneaky gouging going on with electricity retail companies taking advantage of the artificial energy wholesale market – both here as well as in Germany. This has an inflating effect on retail.
See graph at http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/chart-german-wholesale-electricty-prices-down-retail-prices-up-57272/electricity-costs-germany-490×366
The green line is wholesale and shows that by 2009 wholesale prices were in freefall, whilst retail prices did their step price increase each year, apparently blithely unrelated. Pity but it would be good to see graph continued to today, rather than 2011.
2. This link (translate it) shows price components of power in Germany including EEG increasing each year, as well as other stuff. From note 1 it appears that if wholesale prices have continued to fall, they are still not being passed on.
3. Looking at just households, it will soon be possible for whole residential groups to be self-supporting using batteries. *IF* there is sufficient individual reserve for the darkest days of Australian winter, THEN no outside grid would be required. Groups of dwellings with sufficient solar, can “island” together whilst sun > load. In conventional grid-inverters it is deliberately discouraged through anti-islanding algorithms for obvious reasons. However, later inverters are moving to firmware that supports this when coupled with stand-alone inverters.
4. Loss of Heywood interconnector would have caused blackouts with or without renewable power – it is just the parlous State of SA.
In summary, I see power retailers jumping in at every opportunity to manipulate profit for themselves at every change in the ‘market’, no matter what the source is.
60
Des,
You are right of course companies are in it for the money, not withstanding the regulator, a couple of points to consider:
1) The more small scale (domestic) producers feed the grid, the smaller the pool of contributors to the upkeep of the grid itself. This is also true for those who disconnect. The poor who can’t afford the up front cost suffer because grid upkeep is spread over a smaller base. This makes the retail power cost higher.
2)”Islands” of off grid”micro grids” are quite expensive to run. In remote areas of Australia there are many examples. Most were diesel based and ripe for conversion to renewables due to high fuel costs. In Western Australia the town of Canarvon springs to mind. Much effort and money has been spent but power is still expensive.
40
Off topic, but relevant to systemic corruption in BOM – from a forecaster who used to work at NOAA:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/19/is-noaa-about-to-crack/#comment-2075285
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/19/is-noaa-about-to-crack/#comment-2075401
The cancer is worldwide.
71
no wonder the Independent tried to disappear their 2000 article by Chares Onians – “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past”:
20 Nov: UK Independent: Alexandra Sims: UK weather: Britain could face snow, blizzards and sub-zero temperatures after mild November
The Met Office have issued a “yellow warning”, mainly affecting northern areas, alerting people to a “major change of weather”…
Met Office spokeswoman: “A yellow snow warning has been issued, mainly affecting Scotland and the north east, however other parts of the country, including Northen Ireland and eastern England, have also been issued wind warnings and this may include snow.”…
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/weather/uk-weather-britain-could-face-snow-blizzards-and-sub-zero-temperatures-after-mild-november-a6740576.html
19 Nov: UK Daily Record: Scotland could be hit with EIGHT INCHES of snow as temperatures fall lower than Moscow
FORECASTERS are warning temperatures could even drop lower than Moscow as arctic winds sweep across the country…
As Arctic winds sweep across the country Met forecasters predicted 3-10C daytime maximums tomorrow (Fri) and 3-7C at the weekend – 12C colder than last week…
The Weather Channel UK’s Leon Brown added that the nation will be turning noticeably colder today and this could lead to large quantities of snow…
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scotland-could-hit-eight-inches-6858956
52
” a yellow snow warning ” lol 🙂 are the MET office refering to their christmas party Pat ?? I guess it wouldnt be difficult to follow them home afterwards would it 😉
60
LOL, I thought Pat was linking to some satirical site or something, yellow snow warning, surely someone at the Met Office has enough normality to see the possible satire in this?
50
Hilarious…I remember yellow snow in the Cotswolds while travelling with my menfolk! 😉
50
Worry when you see an orange or red snow warning!
20
Sorry Pat, don’t know how red thumb happened. I was reflecting on memories of previous mild spells in Nov (1978…up until the first frost on the 26th) and Dec 1988 (still mild on the 13th when we departed overseas; it was oppressive and muggy at that time). There were other years when I froze at the Guy Fawkes night bonfire and fireworks on 5th Nov.
50
North Americans won’t be too impressed by talk of “global warming” in Paris either:
19 Nov: Edmonton Sun: Snowpocalypse? You’d think so judging from the Edmonton traffic
Between 6 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., 19 collisions were reported to police and 911. That doesn’t include files that may have been reported at police stations city-wide…
http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/11/19/its-snowing-in-edmonton-and-theres-chaos-on-the-roads
19 Nov: Edmonton Journal: Paige Parsons: Snow, LRT issues cause commuter backup across Edmonton
Early Thursday, City of Edmonton spokeswoman Melissa Lovatt said the “snow plan” was being followed…
Adding to the delays, there were also issues with the LRT, following a power outage north of Churchill station at about 9:40 p.m. Wednesday night, just as the Oilers game ended, forcing thousands of people onto replacement shuttle buses and taxis.
By mid-morning Thursday, service had been restored to Capital Line, but the Metro Line was only running between MacEwan and NAIT stations. Additional replacement buses continued to run, trying to dispel the volume of delayed commuters that became backed-up when sections of both lines were closed earlier in the morning…
http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-commuters-battle-first-snow-of-the-season
30
19 Nov: Accuweather: Katy Galimberti: Four Ways Boston is Bracing for Winter Following Last Season’s Record Snow
After Boston endured the snowiest winter on record last winter, officials are ramping up snow operations. From bigger and better snowplows to more sites to pile up all the snow, the entire state of Massachusetts is working to improve their snow response…
When June rolled around and the city’s last snow pile still hadn’t melted, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh got creative, asking residents to guess when the last hint of winter would finally fade. On July 15, the pile finally succumbed to the summer heat.
For one Bostonian, a few shipping labels and slabs of dry ice yielded a business of selling the record-breaking snow.
Though some may have had a little fun with the busy snow season, the record-breaking snow was costly and dangerous…ETC
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/four-ways-boston-is-prepping-for-winter-2015-2016-following-record-seasonal-snow-plows-farms/53699543
61
VW should be charged with dereliction of duty to share-holders NOT to question the result of all this “dirty diesel”:
SBS: Australian VW owners launch second $100 million lawsuit over emissions
“I am extremely disappointed that, because of the company’s deceitful conduct, I’ve now got a car that is emitting dirty diesel,” Audi owner Robyn Richardson told a news conference in Sydney.
NOAA: Deaths Caused by Severe Weather Hit 22-Year Low in 2014
30
19 Nov: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: Leaders set for Paris climate summit opening despite attacks, says UN
Christiana Figueres calls on heads of state to offer “vision” of rapid transition to green economy, as new data suggests October 2015 was hottest on record
The French government says over 120 have confirmed attendance…
Figueres said she wanted leaders to offer a “vision of transformation” when they addressed the conference, and explain how their governments intended to accelerate green growth.
“It needs to take place in the next few decades,” she added…
***Figueres was speaking at the launch of a new UN report – Climate Action Now – outlining the scientific case for tackling greenhouse gas emissions and offering a series of low carbon case studies.
Potential co-benefits from slashing emissions include new jobs, poverty reduction, improved public health and greater food security, it said…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/11/18/leaders-set-for-paris-climate-summit-opening-despite-attacks-says-un/
***a whopping 72 pages – no limit to this nonsense:
PDF: 72 pages: Report: Climate Action Now: Summary for Policymakers 2015 – United Nations Climate Change Secretariat
http://climateaction2020.unfccc.int/media/1173/21789-spm-unfccc-lowres.pdf
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Cherry picking one month at the tail-end of an strong El Nino.
Why don’t they look at September instead ?
———————
“Potential co-benefits from slashing emissions include new jobs, poverty reduction, improved public health and greater food security, it said…”
Maybe new jobs cleaning solar panels.. at the loss of 2-3 times the number.
Renewables have been proven to INCREASE poverty
Public health in developing countries would massively benefit from a decent solid reliable supply of electricity, that only fossil fuels can sensibly provide.
Food security comes from INCREASED atmospheric CO2
Basically everything in that statement of the Fig is WRONG, WRONG , WRONG. !!!
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ps.. In UAH, on a “year to end of October” basis, 2015 is currently 3rd place with an average anomaly of 0.245ºC, surpassed by 2010 on 0.386ºC and 1998 on 0.543ºC.
For UAH Australia on a “year to end October” basis, 2015 is in 18th place. !!
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ps….. and October 2015 was 12th warmest October in Australia using UAH.
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Pro 97% Junk Science Tip:
Remember, using El Nino year 1998 as a graph start point is cherry-picking, but using El Nino year 2015 as a graph end point is perfectly OK
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no CAGW nuttiness too fantastic for the MSM:
18 Nov: New Yorker: Why a Climate Deal Is the Best Hope for Peace
By Jason Box and Naomi Klein
The connection between warming temperatures and the cycle of Syrian violence is, by now, uncontroversial. temperatures and the cycle of Syrian violence is, by now, uncontroversial. As Secretary of State John Kerry said in Virginia, this month… BLAH BLAH…
Rather, this tragedy should inspire the opposite reaction: an urgent push to lower emissions as rapidly and deeply as possible, including strong support for developing countries to leapfrog to renewable energy, creating much-needed jobs and economic opportunities in the process…
But even this is not enough. The deepest emission reductions can only prevent climate change from getting far worse…
So there is a critical piece missing from our climate conversation: the need to quickly lower atmospheric CO2 levels from the current four hundred parts per million to the upper limit of what is not considered dangerous: three hundred and fifty parts per million…
We are finally starting to recognize that climate change leads to wars and economic ruin. It’s time to recognize that intelligent climate policy is fundamental to lasting peace and economic justice.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-a-climate-deal-is-the-best-hope-for-peace
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19 Nov: ClimateDepot: Marc Morano: Prominent Scientists Declare UN Climate Summit Goals ‘Irrational’; ‘Based On Nonsense’; ‘Leading us down a false path’
PHOTO CAPTION: From Left to Right: Dr. Will Happer, Dr. Richard Lindzen & Dr. Patrick Moore
A team of prominent scientists gathered in Texas today at a climate summit to declare that fears of man-made global warming were “irrational” and “based on nonsense” that “had nothing to do with science.” They warned that “we are being led down a false path” by the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris.
The scientists appeared at a climate summit sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The summit in Austin was titled: “At the Crossroads: Energy & Climate Policy Summit.”…
http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/
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there goes the “pause”!!! what a laugh:
20 Nov: ABC Breakfast: Global temperature records smash claims of ‘pause’ in global warming
The new records undermine claims in recent years that there’s been a slow down or hiatus in global warming since the late 1990s.
This is the first report in RN Breakfast’s preview of the big issues facing the upcoming UN climate talks in Paris. The series continues next week.
Guests:
David Karoly, Professor of Atmospheric Science, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne
Karl Braganza, Manager, Climate Monitoring, Environment and Research Division, Bureau of Meteorology
Neville Jacobs, Owner, Pink Roadhouse, Oodnadatta
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/global-temperature-records-smash-claims-of/6957266
promising much more CAGW next week!
however, also on this morning’s program: Low-lying Torres Strait Island communities call on Fed Govt to take action on climate change…
on yesterday’s Breakfast program:
Josh Frydenberg says coal will continue to be major part of energy mix, despite new deal to restrict coal-fired power plants
Climate Council releases new report warning Australia’s emergency fire services will be put to test this summer
Richard Denniss on the OECD’s decision to restrict public financing of coal
why not just make ABC a 24/7 CAGW station and be done with it, Fran?
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“Low-lying Torres Strait Island communities call on Fed Govt to take action on climate change…”
Ok, how about we slash the delivery of diesel fuel to those islands?
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Steven Goddard shows the MASSIVE adjustments to Russian temps, which Gavin et al then smear across vast regions.
So easy to CREATE any temperature record they want to if this is how they treat data.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/more-siberian-temperature-fraud-from-gavin-and-tom/
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BBC is no better, but most of their CAGW propaganda is more appropriately in the Business progs these days:
AUDIO 9 mins: 19 Nov: BBC Business Matters: Fergus Nicoll: Is the Mekong Delta heading for environmental disaster?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038hllx
(paraphrasing parts of above audio: BBC’s Fergus Nicoll: temeratures are rising – measured and proven. rainfall is falling, also measured and proven.
Professor, head of some Uni’s Climate Change Dept: if sea level rises 1 metre, 20% of the Delta’s population will be affected….if sea level rises by 2 metres…too dreadful to think about…half the Delta will be lost and three quarters of the population living here will be severely affected.
70-year-old Farmer: I heard something in the press about climate change, something about the weather becoming abnormal and that made me afraid.)
last week:
10 Nov: BBC Business Matters: Farming in Typhoon Season
In the first of two special programmes from the Philippines we find out how an increasingly hostile climate is taking a heavy toll on its crucial agricultural sector. Two years after typhoon Haiyan we meet farmers forced to turn to loan sharks to avoid starvation and find out how they are bracing themselves for what could be the most severe El Nino in decades…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036zqlk
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19 Nov: CarbonBrief: Sophie Yeo: In-depth: UK pledges coal phase out by 2025, but uncertainty remains
Another method is that employed by the UK’s National Grid. To ensure that there is enough power in the winter, the grid uses a tool called the Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR). This means that they pay power stations that would otherwise be closed to instead sit in a reserve, so that they can be called upon in the event of a shortfall.
If the government restricted coal in the style of the latter, it would mean that power would only be generated from coal in emergency situations. This would be a positive approach, Sandbag’s Jones tells Carbon Brief:
***“To restrict coal use after 2023, we would like to see the coal sit in a reserve, so it would only run after 2023 if it were needed to keep the lights on.”…
http://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-uk-pledges-coal-phase-out-by-2025-but-uncertainty-remains?
utm_content=bufferbc62d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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19 Nov: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: Committee urges 100% exemption in 1st year of S. Africa carbon tax, bashes govt offset plan
In a report published last Friday, the Davis Tax Committee, citing the government’s draft carbon tax proposal released earlier this month, noted that the economy-wide levy may now be introduced in Jan. 2017, delaying the measure by another year…
South Africa, one of the world’s top 20 GHG emitters, first suggested the carbon tax in 2010. However, after delays to allow more time for planning and consultation with stakeholders, it was scheduled to be launched in 2016…
South Africa relies on coal for around four-fifths of its energy requirements, which has helped the country to grow its GHG output by 44% between 1994 and 2010…
It also said the offset rules must be clarified, for example in a situation where a large South African emitter invests in a domestic CDM project, receives CERs but then sells them on to a buyer in the EU ETS.
“Such a project would not be eligible as an offset in South Africa. Nonetheless, the firm could gain double benefit from reducing its tax liability by lowering its emissions and using that reduction for CERs to be sold in a market outside South Africa.”…
http://carbon-pulse.com/committee-urges-100-exemption-in-1st-year-of-s-africa-carbon-tax-bashes-govt-offset-plan/
20 Nov: AFR: James Chessell with Reuters: Josh Frydenberg backs clampdown on coal export subsidies
Energy and resources minister Josh Frydenberg has welcomed a decision by the world’s richest countries to restrict export subsidies for coal power stations and defended an Australian-backed exemption that will still allow public finance backing for smaller coal plants built in developing nations.
Mr Frydenbeg said the decision to resist a deal that might restrict Australian coal exports to developing countries in the lead up to critical United Nations climate change talks in Paris starting at the end of the month was necessary because coal would remain a critical part of the “global energy mix” given more than 1.3 billion in the world living without access to electricity…
“Now Indonesia, India and the Philippines can actually still receive financial export credit support for their supercritical plants because they have less than 90 per cent electrification. So that was an important amendment.”…
Mr Frydenberg said the Coalition was supportive of fossil fuels but added there was “at the same time” a commitment to derive 23.5 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 compared with the 15 per cent level presently…
In speech to a business lunch in London following meetings with Rio Tinto boss Sam Walsh and Anglo American chief Mark Cutifani, Mr Frydenberg said he would continue to push the “moral case” for investment in the resources sector given billions of people suffered from “energy poverty”.
“It is very important that we retain public confidence in our resources sector because in some quarters – and we’ve seen this particularly in coal – there is a move to delegitimise investment even though the International Energy Agency tells us th that 40 per cent of today’s electricity demand is met by coal and by 2040 it will still be at 30 per cent…
http://www.afr.com/business/energy/electricity/josh-frydenberg-backs-clampdown-on-coal-export-subsidies-20151119-gl3hpt
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20 Nov: DNA India: Nikhil M Ghanekar: Coal to remain mainstay of India’s power generation through 2035: Global report
London-based WCA is an advocacy group representing the global coal producers. Its members account for 20% of world coal production and 31% of coal exports. Coal-based power as of now accounts for about 60.8% (167.2 giga watt) of India’s installed capacity.
Coal-fuelled power is expected to dominate India’s energy mix even after 2030 as it remains the most affordable option, driven by low domestic coal prices and limited gas availability, said a World Coal Association (WCA) report…
The report has suggested that switching over from subcritical technology to ultra supercritical and supercritical technology to produce energy would be a good bet to reduce emissions and fight climate change…
We also think that Green Climate Fund (GCF) and development banks have a role in assisting projects that adopt clean technologies in coal-fired plants”, told Benjamin Sporton, chief executive of WCA to dna…
“India is hungry for energy and this report highlights that coal can be clean and it will provide a bulk of energy. Even India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) to fight global warming have enlisted use of clean coal technologies as a way to reduce emissions. Thus, coal will continue to be the backbone of India’s energy mix.”…
“Replacing subcritical with supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal technology saves CO2 at a cost of around $10/tonne in 2035. By comparison, abating a tonne of CO2 through the deployment of large-scale solar PV in India can cost up to $40/tonne, even accounting for cost declines expected through 2035.” …
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-coal-to-remain-mainstay-of-india-s-power-generation-through-2035-global-report-2146976
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The hidden cost of the re-unification of Germany is coming home to roost. East German socialism is winning. If throwing Germany 100 years into the past is winning.
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First the electricity scam & now the so called refugee debacle. If the German electorate put Merkel back in power instead of a good hard right wing government, they fully deserve everything that’s dished up to them. I have a feeling that Merkel will win again as the Germans, like the Americans have been so brainwashed. I also fear for the conservatives in Australia being led by our “Pied Piper” of Wentworth!
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Agreed. We should learn from Germany what it costs a country to push seeming rather than doing and in Australia to have an extremely left PM in the job. However I would not push for a good hard wing right government in Germany. You might get one, again. They would even call themselves socialists.
Personally I am aghast that the Liberal party room could bend to media pressure, especially with that openly supported by Malcolm himself as head of Australian media. Remember that only three members had to change sides to get rid of the elected PM and all were rewarded with top jobs. None of the Nationals voted in this. It is wrong.
The spectacle of someone being rewarded for treachery does not sit at all well with anyone. Then you get the hypocritical demands for instant loyalty. Loyalty has to be earned and what has Malcolm done, proposed increasing the State GST by 50% (all the GST goes to the states) without any trade off, so a massive increase in taxation. For what? More windmills? More subsidies for solar cells? Give ISIL their own piece of Syria?
It is impossible to understand how a former head of Goldman Sachs who openly supports an CO2 Trading system run by his friends can go to an election promising an ETS. This is billions of dollars for worthless paper just to push up the price of electricity. China and India and Russia and Asia and South America and Africa.. are not doing this. Why should we?
Malcolm has to go. The Liberal National coalition was elected to do a job, not be the plaything of bankers.
As for refugees, over a thousand men, women and children drowned in the last bit of Green caring in Australia, the worst tragedy in Australian history, more than all the others combined. Seeming to care but not caring at all is the hallmark of the left and the Greens.
As Germany suffers from all this caring, remember it is Greens who are driving it. Wouldn’t it be better to improve living conditions in Syria than to import these millions, mainly m*slim young men? How are these poor refugees going to survive the bitter German winter? Does no one care?
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You could say, there are at least 1 million Germans who do not agree with the Green utopia. I hope they vote.
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They will vote down global warming theory eventually, its only a matter of time.
‘The sun will go into “hibernation” mode around 2030, and it has already started to get sleepy. At the Royal Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in July, Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University in the UK confirmed it – the sun will begin its Maunder Minimum (Grand Solar Minimum) in 15 years. Other scientists had suggested years ago that this change was imminent, but Zharkova’s model is said to have near-perfect accuracy.’
The Nation
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The BS is over the top.
This morning I was driving and listening to ABC Radio National, and the presenter introduced a couple of people, one from the BoM climate change department who explained that October was the hottest on record, November is shaping up to be the hottest, rainfall was a lucky break, etc.
That the now belief that global warming stalled in 1998 is being proven wrong.
What are we able to do about ABC and their fraudulent interviews?
Why am I posting this now?
I have been watching CH9 News.
Read The Electronic Whorehouse by Paul Sheehan ……..we have never been lied to by such sophisticated means as now.
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Off Topic, over recent days the MSM have bombarded us with reports of impending record temperatures on the East coast. As a resident of a western suburb of Newcastle, today’s temperature forecast was for 42.
It reached every degree of it, so easy to buy into the message for the lazy or those with poor memories “me included.”
Two minutes at trove tells me of similar temperatures in November 1912 and the 12 times higher November temperatures had been recorded over the previous 53 years.
In my next life I think I’ll be a Journalist where all I need to do is reprint press releasers, no independent research or fact checking reqired.
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20 Nov: WUWT: Eric Worrall: Back to Basics on Climate for The Australia Institute
Richard Denniss, Chief Economist of The Australia Institute, has written a rather patronising “back to basics” attack on coal, one of Australia’s major export commodities. The only problem is, he missed some of the basics…
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/back-to-basics-on-coals-role-in-climate-change-20151120-gl3q8i.html …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/20/back-to-basics-on-cliamte-for-the-australia-institute/
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There is nothing alarming about 300,000 Power cut-offs p.a. in a 80 Million country.
And in Spiegel there is not mentioned how quick they got their electricity back. Cut-offs are just a threat to get the payment – and it works well.
In relation to the income, even for the lower income, electricity bill is not the big thing – except you heat your home with it. But this is done only by a low percentage.
As a German inhabitant, my power bill has not gone up considerately the last few years and there is absolutely no discussion about high electricity bills.
We are one of the wealthiest countries in Germany and we can even cope with luxury problems like the Energiewende. Even our politicians are clever enough not to do things too extreme.
And be assured, nobody in Germany has to freeze to death because of slight rising costs for electricity.
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Sorry, no tips and notes. So:
Whilst Germans freeze to death Aussie greens can blame climate change for being bl**dy lazy at work:
https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/20/get-nothing-done-at-work-today-tell-your-boss-climate-change-is-to-blame/
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Reminds me of an incident in Gr.1 when I was laughed at by teach when I claimed to be suffering from “spring fever”!
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I sent this article to friends in Germany and asked for comment,and was it true. I received this reply.
Regarding your question what´s up with the electrical power companies and the households here in this rich country, I would like to tell you that indeed Germany has very high electrical power prices, the highest in Europe, and the people are annoyed about the wrong attitude in this matter by the government. Only two examples: We give free of charge at night-time huge quantities of electrical power to Austria. With that the Austrians are pumping water into the mountain lakes at night time and in the morning via turbines and water power they are able to produce new electrical power and this expensive electrical power is sold at high price to Germany, this is not rational, is it? Secondly, in the Northern Sea there are hundreds of wind power stations. But there weren´t build cables in time from offshore to the mainland. When the wind power stations should stop turning, then they would be damaged, therefore diesel engines had to be be installed in these wind power stations to ensure that the rotor blades on the top keep on rotating. This I call bad planning.
A rich industrial nation doesn´t necessarily mean that cleverest people are working in highest positions…..be happy that you are living in Australia and not in Europe.
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