Does Solar PV in half of Europe make more energy than it consumes?

You might think we’d know whether a solar PV system produced energy before we installed 1,000 Megawatts of it. But it’s hard to even know after the fact. Dr John Constable points us at an interesting new paper that discusses the odd creature called EROEI. This stands for energy return on energy invested. If you get back less than “one”, it sucks.

That sounds like a fine idea except everyone seems to get different answers to the same question. Solar PV in Switzerland achieves either a tenfold return or it costs a fifth of your energy. Plan your national policy with a Ouija Board?

Constable comes to the conclusion that the whole calculation is so uncertain it’s useless. There are so many subjective estimates on the “energy invested side” that the answer is almost irrelevant. Constable points out that what we really need to know is how the whole system responds to the addition of a new generator –but the whole grid analysis is even harder than just the EROEI to calculate.

His conclusion, it that we really need something more like a neural net to calculate the costs. Luckily we have one — us — and the contractual free […]

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How progressive: ship dead trees 5,000km and burn them (use £450m for kindling)

It would make any hunter gatherer proud.

[The Times] Britain is wasting hundreds of millions of pounds subsidizing power stations to burn American wood pellets that do more harm to the climate than the coal they replaced, a study has found.

Chopping down trees and transporting wood across the Atlantic Ocean to feed power stations produces more greenhouse gases than much cheaper coal, according to the report. It blames the rush to meet EU renewable energy targets, which resulted in ministers making the false assumption that burning trees was carbon-neutral.

The UK tribes can thank chief Huhne (Energy and Climate secretary) for the 7.5 million tonnes of dead trees otherwise known as biomass — which mostly come all the way from the US and Canada.

Naturally, doing something this improbable takes a lot of money.

Drax, Britain’s biggest power station, received more than £450 million in subsidies in 2015 for burning biomass, which was mostly American wood pellets.

Curiously, there are over 200 trillion cubic feet of dead trees stored under Lancashire. They may have been very very small trees, like algae sized, but nonetheless, 4,999 kilometers closer. Apparently when all the trees of […]

Solar Homes use more grid electricity than non-solar homes

There are probably more solar panels in QLD than anywhere else in the world. Back in February last year, the boss of the Queensland state power company announced the awkward result that households with solar panels were using more electricity than those without. Apparently people without solar were turning off the air conditioner because electricity cost too much, but the solar users didn’t have to worry about the cost so much.

Queensland solar homes are using more grid electricity than non-solar, says Energex boss

Feb 2016: Solar-powered homes in south-east Queensland, which boasts the world’s highest concentration of rooftop panels, have begun consuming on average more electricity from the grid than those without solar, the network operator has found.

Terry Effeney, the chief executive of state-owned power distributor Energex, said the trend – which belied the “green agenda” presumed to drive those customers – was among the challenges facing a region that nevertheless stood the best chance globally of making solar the cornerstone of its electricity network.

From October 2014 in Queensland, the average grid electricity use of solar homes started to exceed the average use of people without solar power and stayed higher for the […]

Y’think Donald Trump will bring in a carbon tax? (And pigs will knit socks.)

Bob Inglis is a former Republican congressman who lost out to a Tea Partier (you’ll see why). He’s visiting Australia to talk us into doing climate manipulation. I can’t see his reasoning catching on:

Former Republican congressman Bob Inglis says he knows it sounds improbable to say the US president would impose a carbon price, but he thinks reality will force Mr Trump’s hand.

“Donald Trump said climate change is a Chinese hoax and conspiracy – but he couldn’t possibly believe that,” Mr Inglis told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

Obviously it’s impossible for Inglis to believe Inglis Could Be Wrong.

In the five stages of grief, he’s stuck at number one…

Watch the contortions to fit that worldview into a round hole:

He laments the tribalism of the debate, saying there’s such fear among conservatives about being seen as weak in the face of the environmental left they refuse to hear anything.

He frames the question to conservatives as not whether they believe in climate change, but if they think free enterprise can solve it.

“We’ve got to build the confidence of the right so that […]

Baby corals learn from mummy corals warming lessons

Corals survived through four hundred million years of climate change. Despite that, corals still surprise survivors of four years of academia with their ability to keep dealing with climate change.

It’s been known for years that after corals bleach in warmer water, they acclimatize.

Here one shiny young researcher shows her carbonnointed worldview. She asks a really interesting question:

In one study of corals, for instance, she exposed adults to increased temperature and acidification, then exposed their offspring to the same conditions to see if they are more successful because of their parents’ previous experience.

Then sees the answer through AlGoreEyes:

“Interestingly, we found that there is potential for beneficial acclimatization because of parental history,” she said. “There is a more positive metabolic response and ecological response, greater survivorship and growth if their parents have been preconditioned to future scenarios.”

What’s the difference: “Preconditioned to future scenarios” or “Evolved to survive past ones”?

Not a reference

University of Rhode Island. “Professor examines effects of climate change on coral reefs, shellfish.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 February 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170221082101.htm>

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If Greens cared about CO2 they would dump renewable targets

Those who say they want a “free market” in carbon still don’t understand what a free market is.

RET’s or Renewable Energy Targets are screwed (in the head): If Tony Abbotts Direct Action plan was useless, RETS are five times more useless.

In Australia the Renewable Energy Target (RET) in theory, helps wind and solar, so we lower CO2 emissions and cool the world, slow storms, things like that. But Tom Quirk calculates it costs $57 a ton (at best) for those “savings”. Since the Direct Action plan cost $11 a ton, we could reduce five times as much CO2 if we blew up the RET scheme.

The secret is that the Abbott plan tackled CO2 directly rather than picking winners (see “competition”, “free markets” that sort of thing). Predictably, the Greens hated it — who needs CO2 reduction if you can support big-government-loving industries instead? (Especially the kind who lobby for the side of politics that wants more bureaucrats, more handouts, and less independent competition?)

Those who say they want a “free market” in carbon still don’t understand what a free market is. It’s pretty simple, if they want a reduction in CO2, they need to pay for a […]

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Big-gov-brain wants “half a trillion” to add ice to the Arctic

Sometimes an idea comes along that adds another chapter to the Book of Stupid. You might think windmills on land are an indulgent, pointless fantasy, but take that idea and make it worse:

(CNN) A team of scientists has a surprisingly simple solution to saving the Arctic: We need to make more ice.

A team at Arizona State University has proposed building 10 million wind-powered pumps to draw up water and spill it out onto the surface of the ice, where it will freeze faster. Doing so would be complicated and expensive — it’s estimated to cost a cool $500 billion, and right now the proposal is only theoretical.

It’s not like we have anything better to do with half a trillion dollars. Should we cure cancer or refrigerate one of the coldest places on Earth? Should we teach our kids about the fall of civilizations, or teach them to bow before prophets who keep predicting the end of the Arctic and getting it wrong?

Or we could add ice to the whole arctic for just $5 trillion

Tristan Hopper explains the beefed up plan would absorb the “entire steel production of the United States”, […]

WA State Election Tidbit: Bill Crabtree. Wheatbelt. Launch in Northam Sunday

Click to read.

I’m happy to help a few dedicated skeptics and sane candidates with the gumption to try to improve the system from within. So this is a quick note for residents of the Central Wheatbelt WA. Check out Bill Crabtree, the no-till farming expert running for the Liberal Party at the State election in three weeks, he’s as honest and hardworking as they get. I know Bill personally, and he’s just the kind of guy I’d want in Parliament. A real farmer, not a career politician.

Meet him tomorrow: Sunday 4pm-8pm, Northam Country Club, 15 Wood Drive Northam.

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Australia “invented airconditioning” but can’t keep them running

James Harrison (click to enlarge)

Peter Hartcher points out that the country that invented refrigeration and thus airconditioning can no longer guarantee to keep them working.

In 1854 [James Harrison of Geelong] invented a commercial ice-making machine. He expanded it into a vapour compression refrigeration system, the basis for modern refrigeration.

“That’s right – an Aussie invented the fridge and it’s first real use was making beer,” remarked the US technology website Gizmodo. “You have to love this country.”

And one more big coal generator shuts down soon in Victoria:

In the next few weeks 4 per cent of Australia’s power supply will vanish when Victoria’s big Hazelwood power station shuts down, clapped out after 50 years of turning coal into electricity. It’ll be the ninth coal-fired power station to close in the past five years. New solar and wind plants are being built, but they are intermittent, and that means they are unreliable.

“Taking out Hazelwood is taking out a big buffer,” says Tony Wood, energy program director at the Grattan Institute policy research centre in Melbourne. And, as we’ve just witnessed, Australia’s power system lacks buffers. “Managing intermittency is […]

SA Blackout: a grid crippled by complexity

South Australia suffered it’s fifth blackout in five months last week. The AEMO report on that incident came out today. There are lots of faults, errors and small problems, and one overriding theme — it’s too complex:

AEMO (Grid market managers) thought they’d have more wind power. It fell to only 2% of “total output.” There was a computer glitch which “load shed” more people than necessary. Oops. SA Power Network apologized today. Demand was higher than expected. The gas plant generators at Port Lincoln were ““not available due to a communications system problem”. (Whatever that means.) That was 73MW out of action. One turbine at Torrens Gas plant was out for maintenance (120MW gone). Another was running 50MW low because of the heat. (Seriously, these machines operate at hundreds of degrees and work at 35C but not so well at 42C? (Or whatever it was). Color me skeptical. Perhaps some grid engineers can comment and tell us if this is normal?

So in a modern renewable grid we have variations in supply and demand that are of the order of the average grid load and at the whim of The Wind. What could possibly go wrong?

Finally the SA […]

Kelloggs sells Social Justice Cereal, calls half the population names and posts $53m loss

The new marketing move by Kelloggs to insult half its customers doesn’t seem to be working out too well. Last year Kelloggs jumped into politics by loudly cancelling advertising on Breitbart saying the new media outlet didn’t fit their values. It was an attempt to punish the big winner in the new media for reporting politically incorrect news. Breitbart responded with the DumpKelloggs petition, and 436,000 people pledged never to buy Kelloggs again.

The company has now reported a $53 million dollar loss in the fourth quarter. It’s shutting down 39 distribution centres, potentially sacking 1,100 workers. Kelloggs share prices are back to where they were a year ago, but Kraft-Heinz is up 31%, and Post is up by 37%. Hey, but it could be a coincidence.

To get some idea of the depth of the goodwill crater left by the Kelloggs political bomb, check out Chiefio’s Bye Bye Kelloggs flaming rant last December. He won’t give a trigger warning, but tells people who need one to “get out now”. I’ve picked a tamer paragraph:

Dear Kellogg’s:

We, the Average Joe and Average Jane have put up with this Protest Shit to the absolute limit, […]

Help failing sad climate scientists deal with their dark moods

What happens when your world view is wrong and you can’t deal with reality?

Climate change: Scientists sad, frustrated as extreme weather becomes the new norm

“There is definitely what you would call ‘climate fatigue’ on the part of scientists,” said Dr Andrew Glikson, from the Australian National University’s School of Archaeology and Anthropology.

“There were hundreds of scientists there, and my impression is while we continue to do the science as best we can, there is a fatigue when it comes to arguing in public.

“You can explain to them as long as you like but if they don’t wish to understand, they won’t.”

There is major cognitive dissonance going on here

Climate scientists know they are right, the media loves them and repeats their message, their fears and even their mood swings. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, levels are rising, what could possibly go wrong? But despite pushing a simple message for 30 years, they can’t convince the people that matter most, the other scientists like meteorologists (survey one, survey two), most geologists and engineers, and thousands of doctors, physicists, chemists, maths guys and all the people who build planes, mobile phones, […]

Prediction in 1941 — the gradual end of democracy in Europe

Thierry Baudet, leader of the Dutch political party “Forum for Democracy” writes about the inexorable attrition of democracy, as predicted 75 years ago.

James Burnham, 1941 foresaw so much in “The Managerial Revolution. It’s a book that George Orwell used for inspiration.

According to Burnham, the civil democracies of the second half of the 20th century would – more or less gradually – be overgrown with backroom bureaucratic networks that make the actual decisions, all far away from the electorate and public debate.

He predicted that separate nation states would still exist, but as their sovereignty was gradually absorbed into a superstate, the nation states would become just administrative subdivisions.

Elections will also remain in place; they will provide managers valuable insights into the preferences of the consumer-citizen, while at the same time functioning as an exhaust valve to possible opposition forces. Burnham predicted a form of political theatre in the guise of sham elections between candidates who happen to be like-minded on every fundamental subject, who are paid to debate in front of clueless spectators in mock parliaments, while the results were known in advance – after all, the actual decisions have already been made.

[…]

Pause-deniers finally get busted by mainstream media

It’s been a rotten week for Pause denial

David Rose and the Daily Mail let rip, telling the world that retired NOAA insider, John Bates, was blowing the whistle on how global warming was being exaggerated by scientists to score political points. The hallowed pause-buster paper (Karl et al) broke practically every rule: it was based on misleading “unverified” data processed with a highly experimental, unstable program. There were bugs in the software, the results changed with every run, the data wasn’t archived, and no one could repeat it. They tripled the previous rate of warming by using old-bad-data to adjust better but still-not-very-good-data. They ignored the much better data from ARGO buoys and the satellites (see below) which showed they were wrong. (Rose didn’t even mention that the error bars on the magical adjustment were 17 times larger than the adjustment itself. Too many errors….)

It’s hard oo believe it could be worse, but then the one sole computer holding the program broke, and apparently (what bad luck) none of the eight authors had their own copy either. Nor did the reviewers. The Planet is going to hell, but no one thought to back up the data.

It all […]

California: Oroville Dam emergency, evacuations underway

UPDATE #2: While the imminent threat is lower, the evacuations are still underway and now include 188,000 people.

See what alarmed dam management: (Shots from the 7SanDiego News footage.)

Oroville Dam erosion on the emergency spillway. The road washed away.

Oroville Dam Spillway erosion (the arrow points at the people inspecting one part of the erosion which was headed for the spillway wall.

A close up of the erosion looking down from over the spillway wall. We can see just how much ground disappeared on the weekend.

UPDATE #1: For the moment the dire threat is lessening as water has been successfully released, but the evacuation order remains in place, and around 130,000 people are or have been moved. They are even evacuating some baby fish.

LATEST NEWS: CA – DWR ‏@CA_DWR

Flows over the auxiliary spillway have ceased. 100,000 cfs continue down the main spillway. @ButteSheriff

_________________________________

A remarkable situation in California is taking place where tens of thousands of people and animals are being shifted away from Oroville Dam as a precaution.

“EVACUATION ORDER. Use of the auxiliary spillway has lead to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of […]

Asian sea levels changed rapidly 6,000 years ago — natural sea level rise “unprecedented”

If you thought seas were constant 6,000 years ago…

Microatolls are apparently very accurate proxy for sea levels, giving a higher resolution estimate of sea levels. But the extra data suggests more natural oscillations in seas than the experts used to think. Six thousand years ago, near Indonesia, seas apparently rose and fell twice by as much as 60 centimeters in a 250 year period. A similar pattern happened 2,600km away in SE China. Seas were changing so fast researchers estimate the shift occurred at 13mm per year and comment that these regional changes are “unprecedented in modern times.” (Or unrepeated, perhaps?) At the first peak 6,750 years ago, seas were 1m higher than today. The current rate of sea level change is 1mm a year in hundreds of tide gauges and 3mm in “adjusted” satellite data).

From the paper I gather that sea levels in this region change a lot even now. ENSO and the Indian Ocean dipole slop the oceans back and forward. Meltzner et al don’t know why the seas around asia changed so much in the holocene, nor do they know if this is a global phenomenon. They talk about other studies on the Great […]

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It’s that bad — talk of “declaring emergencies” and nationalizing South Australian electricity

Smell the desperation

Here in Oz, political lives are in turmoil. Suddenly “load shedding” is the topic de jour, and there are hit lists of suburbs in the firing line. It’s a long list. Welcome to your green future.

The language is ramping up. The SA state government is talking of a “dramatic intervention in the electricity market”.

The plans are “advanced” but they apparently don’t know what that intervention is. It could be a script for “Yes Minister”:

Premier Jay Weatherill said the plans were well advanced, and all options remained on the table.

“One option is to completely nationalise the system,” Mr Weatherill said.

“That’s an extraordinary option. It would involve breaking contracts and exposing us to sovereign risk and the South Australian taxpayers to extraordinary sums of money. “It’s not a preferred option but we’re ruling nothing out at this point.”

Even if there were no more blackouts in SA, how much stress is added by not knowing if the electricity will be cut off without warning? How many people are preemptively running air conditioners early or all day?

The situation has changed so much that even Malcolm Turnbull, the […]