Weekend Unthreaded

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8.4 out of 10 based on 24 ratings

286 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

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    doubtingdave

    Managed to catch this interview earlier in the week with Myron Ebell by Amonpuor on CNN which he handled with his usual calm demeanour and patience , despite the silly questions from the clueless Christiane who followed up this interview with a counter from the even more hapless Christine Figures , who declared that global warming s no longer an ideological struggle lol , http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/02/08/intv-amanpour-myron-ebell-climate-trump.cnn/video/playlists/amanpour/ The Figures interview follows the Ebell one but is slow to load , but patience has its rewards if you like a good laugh .

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      Curious George

      I think that both Ms. Amanpour and Mr. Ebell were good. He won on the strength of facts. Ms. Figueres clearly lives in a fantasy land.

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      • #
        Radical Rodent

        There are more jobs in solar…

        So claimed Ms Figueres; what a shame that she was not asked: “And who is paying for these jobs?” Considering the rate of return of energy in “solar”, I suspect that it is one reason why solar power will NEVER come even close to less than several times the cost of conventional.

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      CheshireRed

      There’s something unnerving about Ebell. He’s abrupt, doesn’t elaborate unnecessarily, is a brutally effective communicator and very pragmatic. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of any debate with that guy.

      Meanwhile Figueres started out with a flat-out lie re green energy being cheaper than fossil fuels. As for wind energy jobs, that’s solely due to daft political support, all paid for by consumers being rinsed via higher prices. I so hope Trump stays true to his word and kicks the green blob right where it hurts.

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      • #
        el gordo

        ‘I so hope Trump stays true to his word …’

        Put away your concerns, the man fully intends to implement his policy of eliminating catastrophism from the political arena.

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          Oliver K. Manuel

          So far Trump has been remarkably true to his word, although I personally know he faces almost incredible opposition from the scientists who have received enormous research grant funds, promotion, tenure in academic positions and even Nobel and/or Crafoord prizes over the past 70 years for fake scientific evidence in support of AGW, BBC, SNM & SSM

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          • #
            el gordo

            Its incredibly refreshing to see a politician do what he said he was going to do, even if his best efforts are blocked Trump will tell the people why and get the best advice to bring things to fruition. He likes an intellectual rumble.

            When it comes to foreign policy Trump is a dark horse, but my guess he will say to Xi the South China Sea is traditionally yours so keep it without further complaint from the US.

            The provisor is that Beijing must first eliminate Kim, then open up the north to free trade and democracy.

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            • #
              Sceptical Sam

              That is a winner comment El God-0

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            • #

              Very interesting concept! Get China, Russia, Turkey, and the Mideast to become nationalistic\arealistic then get them all to stop waring and instead be willing to trade some of my good stuff for some of your good stuff. Single malt whisky and fine handmade horsehide shoes, come to mind! Ownership of property in the other areas helps for some governmental realization of Don’t bomb your own stuff!

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          Oliver K. Manuel

          The jury trial starting in Vancouver on 20 Feb 2017 (Dr. Michael Mann vs Dr. Tim Ball) will be like the last Presidential election in the United States:

          A public test of government-funded propaganda vs empirical facts.

          May the integrity of the scientific method be confirmed!

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  • #

    Ah the futility.
    You keep telling them.
    You show them the evidence.
    And still their dreams cloud reality during their the waking hours.

    A Winter of Discontent

    Germany’s prime locations for wind power generation have been exhausted. They’re currently devastating protected landscapes and on the fringes of parks to build out more wind power; but even a doubling of it seems implausible; especially given Germany’s population density. It would take around a 5-fold development of wind power to provide the energy necessary to fill the gaps between “renewable” supply and actual demand.

    Will German taxpayers and electrical power consumers pay 5 times as much for electrical power and cheerfully endure restless lives in veritable industrial parks of wind turbines? Just to feel that they’re doing something good for the environment? That’ll take a lot of psychotropic medication.

    Around 600 TWh of electrical power was consumed in 2015; 426 TWh came from conventional generation (excluding hydro) and 119 TWh from Wind+Solar, wind doing the heavy lifting with 80 TWh of that. Nuclear power alone provided 92 TWh of the conventional share; greater than the share of wind power.

    Thus, to replace just the nuclear share; it would take well over a doubling of installed wind power. That is without considering the intermittency and unpredictability of wind. Intermittency that would need to be compensated by either adding more spinning reserve; or by increasing storage.

    Vast over-capacity would have to be installed in order to pump up storage so that sufficient power can be generated when there’s a lack of wind, sun or of both.

    Hydro storage is the most-feasible but the required size makes it impractical (and socially unacceptable) in Germany. Hydropower after all delivered just 20 TWh of electrical power in 2015. Storage requirements would span months so around a third of annual consumption has to be allowed for; i.e. 200 TWh or ten times existing hydro-electric resources.

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  • #
    BruceC

    Just something I noticed regarding SA’s electricity problems (my bolding);

    In South Australia, residents in the outback town of Leigh Creek are demanding to know why they were left without phone or internet connection in the middle of this week’s heatwave.

    Phones were down for hours on Friday in the Flinders Ranges town and surrounding area, as temperatures soared into the high 40s.

    The internet was also down, meaning eftpos machines were not working.

    The local supermarket’s Belinda McCormack said she had to turn customers away if they did not have cash, adding Leigh Creek had lost its phone connection several times in recent months.

    “If anyone needed to ring an ambulance they wouldn’t be able to,” she said.

    A spokesman for Telstra said a power supply cut was the suspected cause of the problem.

    South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill promised to “intervene dramatically in the electricity market” after tens of thousands of homes and businesses had their power shut off on Wednesday night due to insufficient generation capacity.

    The State Government is yet to provide details of the intervention, except to say it will involve a physical solution.

    http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/heatwave-eastern-australia-swelters-as-hot-conditions-continue/525858

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien

      Yes. Ten days ago Mudgee had a big wind storm which brought down multiple power lines including at least one pole. Just about every street had trees or branches down. The power people did well, we were back on before midnight despite the quantity of damage. But during the outage both landline and mobile phones went out.. Telstra. I don’t know about other mobile providers.

      This is not acceptable service. We used to have better security. I wonder if th NBN has something to do with it.

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      • #
        Mark M

        If you have NBN, if there is a blackout, it will not work.

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        • #
          Gorgiasl

          “….it will not work”

          Niether the internet nor the phone will work if you are on NBN and there is a blackout.

          You will need battery backup for your phone or a charged mobile – not sure that this is progress!

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          • #

            Even if your phone is charged, there will be no network to access. There are apps like Firechat on android which builds an ad hoc network out of just mobiles running the app. It may not help much in the bush, given your phone has a transmit range of about 20km, but in built up areas a few users could establish very reliable communication. Satellite net should always work, and Firechat will share one phones internet with others if permissions are given.

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          • #

            “… it will not work”
            I thought fttp (fibre to the premises) has battery backup? I have fttn (fibre to the node). Hopeless. Irrespective of how reliable the fibre bit is, it terminates at a box about 500m away. The box (and the connection posts inside it) is 30 years old. Any techy opening the box to change or fix something usually manages to dislodge somebody else’s connection. The old copper wiring from the box is underground. Telstra rebuilt the pit outside my place recently without breaking anything; quite an achievement. The techies no longer need to be ready to jump after lifting the lid, because it now seems to be snake-proof. Trouble is, the lid is still below the 50 ARI (2% AEP) flood line. There are two other pits up the line to the node that are built in a stormwater drain, so are vulnerable to 5 ARI. Last year 80m of cabling was destroyed as a result of very minor flooding. I sent Telstra an aerial image that shows the pits and the nearby AHD contours. Still getting calls from service providers spruiking their new “guaranteed” services with 24 month sign-up. When I finish laughing I get to explain as above …

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          • #
            Dennis

            I am certain that the NBN is not worth the almost double the estimated (no cost-benefit analysis) cost.

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            • #
              Ted O'Brien

              Dennis. The uncosted NBN was never about providing a service. That was happening anyway in a somewhat freer market. The NBN is another component of the same scheme as the AGW scam, to destroy the capitalist system.

              The NBN was foisted on our construction sector at a time when the sector was already flat out servicing a mining boom, and unemployment was at historically low levels. Competing in this market for resources, the NBN maximized not only its own cost, but also the cost of every construction job being undertaken in Australia. And that was the Rudd/Gillard government’s intention. To destroy the value of private capital.

              Note also that the NBN is a publicly owned institution set up to operate in the same space as another publicly owned institution which they have been trying for twenty years to flog off, and have flogged off half. This is downright evil. The secondary purpose of their NBN is to bust Telstra. Howard used Telstra to introduce “the Mums and Dads” to the stock exchange. The ALP plans to use Telstra to destroy their confidence in the capitalist system.

              Hopefully they may fail, but they are still working on it.

              Meanwhile, it seems that the NBN is the cause of our communications failure. This is not acceptable. It must be rectified.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Thanks Ted. A Good read.

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                The NBN is the unspoken part of the infamous ” internet filter”, namely it forces people down an easy to choke backbone…..

                The NWO mob ( who love killing economies via green communism ) and windmills are also big on strangling and controlling free speech.Anyone who has any level of intelligence who advocates anything green to “save the planet” or argues for more snooping powers etc is a NWO stooge and immediately are under suspicion. I have adopted this stance and been proven correct pretty much every time that ,yes, they are pumping for ” the cause”…ask SA how that goes…..

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        • #
          toorightmate

          I’ll say it again, NBN WILL cost more than $100 billion.
          We sure have been dudded – by both sides of politics on this one.

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          • #
            David Maddison

            I believe the actual cost of NBN IS $6,000 per urban household and $30,000 per rural household.

            For what?

            NBN type speeds can now be achieved over copper wires with new technology and also wireless 5G will also be superior to NBN.

            The speed of NBN is not such a huge improvement over ADSL2+ anyway. Max theoretical speed of ADSL2+ is 24 MBPS vs 50-100 MBPS for NBN.

            I stream a lot of HD videos and have no problem with ADSL2+ speeds.

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            • #
              bobl

              The advantage of VDSL FTTN services is that the fibre terminates much closer to the customer – In the bush where I live, most people live well away from the exchange, (Our exchange is a kilometer away from the nearest house! I am 2.5km and therefore get a max speed of 8-10 MBit depending on how wet it is). FTTN means that the node will be within about 500m of your rural house and so you should be able to get a service that is much closer to the theoretical maximum for VDSL over copper IE 100MBit or more.

              The same would be true for ADSL2+ where I could get 24Mbit from our new node, but if you’re rolling out a new network why would you deploy 10 year old tech…

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          • #
            Dennis

            No, be fair, Labor first promised a $4 billion NBN and then raised it to $40 billion. The Coalition carried out an audit and decided that the costs already exceeded the point where NBN could be sold to recover those expenses so they modified the rollout and saved taxpayers a substantial amount of money. They also announced that if sold by public tender they doubted that the cost would be recovered. Like many things inherited from Labor the Coalition have had to improvise and even borrow money to fund or complete. Like the Gonski Education Grants to the States, Labor 2013/14 Budget, no provision made to pay and the estimated budget deficit was under stated.

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            • #
              Dennis

              I should have added that with the recent news about raising the debt ceiling (Labor media briefing spin) having gone quiet, voters need to know what it is all about. In September 2013 the Abbott led Coalition inherited a budget problem and debt over $400 billion but Labor did not raise the debt ceiling after debt reached $250 billion and they continued to borrow from June 2012 exceeding the debt ceiling. When Treasurer Hockey announced that the debt ceiling would be raised to $500 billion with provision to pay the “black holes” in the Labor Budget and some in reserve as tax revenue was declining, Labor attempted to blame the Coalition for mismanagement.

              Maybe the debt ceiling “news” was dropped when Labor realised it could backfire in their direction.

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          • #

            NBN WILL cost more than $100 billion.

            My first estimate, following Conroy’s release his careful analysis on a restaurant napkin, was that the NBN as proposed would cost around $80,000 million, and therefore commercially unviable and a WOFTAM.

            The con boy’s figures were obviously unrealistic. But when you’re selling a dream; you have to be unrealistic. He sucked in lots of “communications professionals”; and of course those selling the hardware to make it all work weren’t going to make waves.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            nbn isn’t about communication, its about making mass surveillance easier…when you frame it this way, it all makes sense.

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      • #
        scaper...

        Mudgee is a lovely place. Used to own a farm about 64 clicks out of town at Turill. Coal country.

        When not farming I cut railway sleepers. Hard yakka but good money in the early eighties. Used to cut around 25 every two days at $12, deliver them to the Gulgong rail head, then spend the afternoon at the Prince of Wales. Drove home many a times with one eye open.

        They were the days!

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      • #
        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        I was in town that day. The thing that caught me was that all the servos were out. No fuel, and I hadn’t filled up before the storm. Couldn’t get home to get the chain saw to help.
        Chhers,
        Dave B

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    • #
      Mike Murphy

      The crisis was caused by an intervention into the energy market by his government and now he expects us to believe that further intervention by the government will solve the problem. Weatherill and those like him are the problem.

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  • #
    Carbon500

    Today, I bought a copy of Prince Charles’ book entitled ‘Climate Change’. It’s stated to be a ‘Ladybird Expert’ book for adult readership. I can’t wait to start reading it later this weekend.
    Already I note that it contains all the clichés we sceptics love – for example reference to the Skeptical Science website’s ‘escalator’, melting ice and sea levels, heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms, and – yes – I love this one – ‘acid oceans’!
    There are lots of painting-type illustrations, including one of a puzzled farmer looking at a dried-out field, firemen and a helicopter fighting a forest fire and more.
    I’ll be very interested to read the responses to this book once it becomes more widely circulated.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      His highness is a Kool-Aid drinker. Don’t expect anything else. That way you won’t be disappointed.

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    • #
      Mark M

      That’s where the resident red-thumber gets their 97% bedwetting doomsday climate science from.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I prefer the Five Books (after Enid Blyton) by Bruno Vincent – Five go gluten free, Five give up the booze, Five on Brexit Island. At least the buyers know they are a parody, and not to be taken seriously.

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      • #
        Carbon500

        Graeme No.3: As part of my wife’s birthday present, I’ve bought her a copy of ‘How it works – the Wife’ from the same Ladybird book series – she has a sense of humour, so I’m safe (I think).
        I’m sure that Prince Charles’ book should be marketed as part of the same series.

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  • #
    James I

    I am planning a trip home to Australia today. Living in the United States I am accustomed to having reliable electricity. Since South Australia no longer has reliable electricity in the Summer I decided to go in April rather than over the Summer. Perhaps this needs to be in the visitor guides, so they know when to come, if they like or need electricity.

    Would any one on here like to update me on the political situation in Australia. How do people feel about the current crop of politicians, and are there any good alternatives right now? Are people seriously considering outsider political parties or politicians in Australia. Are there any alternative news sites starting up similar to Breitbart, Townhall, or Daily Caller?

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    • #
      James Bradley

      James,

      FYI:-

      Political situation in Australia is dismal, but with growing hope of common sense in the next several state elections, the French election and several European elections which should give impetus to the average ozzy to vote against the status quo.

      The status quo is Liberal, Labor and Green. Liberal and labor seem hell bent on proving the voter majority with conservative views are insignificant in the face of separate groups of very small minorities all clamoring for attention under the ‘Green Flag’ with ever increasing and petulant demands.

      In Australia this is viewed by the current politician as ‘polling’ because they only receive positive feedback from these minorities each time they accede to a rock star’s list of ridiculous ‘Green Flag’ demands.

      This is curious to everyone else (the majority – which appears to be coalescing out of a general despair regardless of previous left/right historical attachments and driven in no small way by an optimism following Trump’s succesful election.) who discuss such during lunch breaks during work, or at the pub after work.

      The common denominator discovered by the conservative majority discussing these issues is ‘the act of meaningful and productive employment’ a concept that is decidedly absent from those who join the non-contributing minorities seemingly with the intent to continue drip feeding from the tax payer purse.

      Current crop of Liberal, Labor, Green – hated, despised, mocked and ignored by all and sundry except the MSM. Which is also largely hated, despised, mocked and ignored by all and sundry who do not inhabit the MSM’s politico demographic.

      All and sundry are supporting Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, watching and reading Andrew Bolt, and reading Tim Blair, Michael Smith News and Breitbart.

      PS – The ABC recently had the audacity to laugh heartily at a suggestion that Pauline Hanson may one day lead our country yet several years ago seriously made the same suggestion about Clive Palmer. I’m sure Pauline Hanson will do well from now on and may actually end up holding the balance of power in most states and in both houses of the Federal Parliament.

      For the record I’m batting 3 for 3 with political predictions – 1. Aust minority Gov with strong conservative balance of power in upper house. 2. Brexit. 3. Trump.

      Also for the record – I’m a sucker for red heads…

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        ‘ I’m a sucker for red heads…’ Then you and Pauline are a perfect match…….. 🙁

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        • #
          TedM

          Striking. Perhaps a new flame.

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          • #

            Striking. Perhaps a new flame. Good GOD the color of ignited fine milled carbon deposits plus CH4 plus lots of pressurized atmospheric O2, has no limit, goes to da color of gamma rays! ‘Entropy is limited. Human stupidity appears limitless. Oh WhOA are we!

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      • #
        Robert Rosicka

        Well put James , if only we had put a bet on Trump to win when he first announced his tilt at the presidency. 360 odd to one , a farmer in the US mortgaged his farm and put a million dollars on Trump to win , his family disowned him , until after the election that is .

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        • #
          Leo Morgan

          @ Robert
          I’ve been trying to verify that story for some time now. The best I’ve been able to find was one gambler who won USD 2.5 million through Betfair. http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/09/news/betting-election-donald-trump-win/ BTW, I recommend the link to Trump supporters; there’s a gem of a story I hadn’t read before about the firm Paddy Power. Read the last two paragraphs, you’ll love it.

          So Robert, if you can give me a source, I’d love it.

          If it helps, I’ve repeated that story myself without verifying it, then felt embarrassed when I couldn’t prove it.

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    • #
      Dennis

      I understand that you can pay a premium here and specify that you want green electricity … LOL

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      Graeme No.3

      “The Liberal Party was captured by the ‘moderate faction’ …and you cannot tell the difference between them and the Greens”. A little snippet on the ABC** and the speaker Martin Hamilton-Smith, ex State Liberal Leader who crossed the floor and is now an independent Cabinet Minister in the State Labor government.
      He was discussing why Bernadi had given up on the Liberal Party because in his opinion Pyne and Birmingham had control of the apparatus, and selection of candidates, and why it was such an inept opposition. Whatever your views on him I think he had a point, and it might explain why so many Liberal members are retiring at the next election despite them expecting to be the next government. If Pyne and Birmingham are going to determine the future of S.A. then moving to Tasmania looks attractive.

      Otherwise I have been amazed at the number of people expressing support for Pauline Hanson lately. Whether that translates into votes I can’t say, but the DefCons are looking for somewhere to go, and the Liberals may look back on the 2016 election in future years as their high point before they slid into irrelevance.

      ** while driving, it’s the only time I listen and in the ‘country’ the best signal, despite my habit of hitting the off button a lot.

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    • #

      If visiting South Australia, bring a friend: Gennie.

      Gennie will keep you warm or cool at night, cook your meals and wash your clothes.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      James I:

      the WA election will be on March 11, this year. The Libeal government is seeking a third term, the local economy is bad and the Libs. in Canberra are on the nose. Normally this would guarantee a win for the Labor opposition, esp. as the National Party is sniping at the Libs. as well (with a policy which even Labor thinks ill advised). The Labor party has done its best to lose the election, firstly by talking of a 50% renewables scheme despite the troubles in SA, then saying they haven’t made up their mind (which means we will do it after we win the election) so sensible people don’t trust them. The Liberals have decided to swap preferences with One Nation in some seats (esp. those belonging to the Nationals) giving themselves a chance. Still the weather is against the Lib. (cold and very wet in Feb. meaning the Greens will be frothing at the mouth – more than usual).
      Events are likley then to be revert to normal, abuse, incompetence and outright lies, until early next year. Qld. has to hold an election before Jan 21, S.A. goes to the polls March 17, Tas. by May 26, and Vic. by Nov. 28 (and the Nation can only hope that is the last of Dopey Dan).
      So by all means come this year and plan to come again in 2020 by which time I, a an optimist, hope there will be an unrecognisable but improved political landscape.

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    • #
      Analitik

      I am planning a trip home to Australia today. Living in the United States I am accustomed to having reliable electricity. Since South Australia no longer has reliable electricity in the Summer I decided to go in April rather than over the Summer.

      April onwards may still prove to be problematic for reliable electricity in South Australia since Hazelwood is scheduled for shutdown in March. Without Hazelwood, Victoria will have far less reserve for propping up the SA grid (via the Heywood and MurrayLink interconnectors).

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    Environment Skeptic

    The consultants and the smart meters installed in Australia are hopelessly out of date and should and must have the feature that enables the power company to throttle or reduce the maximum power being drawn by households without shutting down the entire grid.

    The European smart meters are capable of this and if the generating capacity is temporarily reduced, the grid does not have to shut down. Instead, the power can be be reduced. This feature is also used to diminish the supply of power to households/business that have not payed a bill until the do pay as like water, it is considered an essential service.

    Water companies in Victoria (Don’t know what happens elsewhere in au) currently throttle the supply of water without cutting it off altogether if a water bill is not payed, and the same mechanism can be used to ensure everyone still has water and electricity for what ever reason and the advantage with smart meters that are up to date is those that might qualify for not having their electricity throttled/reduced would still be able to get full power.

    In any case, i maintain Australian smart meters are amazingly primitive considering the advantage that could be obtained if up to date meters were installed that would not have to be changed in the very near future after the first wasted money was spent/borrowed on the meters without the highly desirable maximum power limiting function/throttling. Any smart meter without is primitive in comparison and not at all very smart.

    After all this obvious poor knowledge of basic smart meter technology and the poor electricity management results like black outs and the like therof, i think the public are being groomed so that nuclear power can continue to present as part of the so called, Clean Nuclear campaign.

    File:Intelligenter zaehler- Smart meter.jpg
    “features, it uses two way communication for smart meter ability to reduce load, and connect/ reconnect remotely

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Intelligenter_zaehler-_Smart_meter.jpg

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      Environment Skeptic

      Then there is the desal plant in Wonthagi. That plant would probably need its own Hazelwood power generator to run it.
      I always had the suspicion it would be used as an excuse to groom us into accepting nuclear power that i maintain is ok if the people that are for it would also be happy to send their kids/themselves to help in the decontaminate efforts if something like Fukushima or Chernobyl were to happen again.

      I hear Tepco in Japan are looking for people to clean up all the time and the pro nuclear lobby could start by getting some work experience there.

      I have no problem with the people who are for nuclear power if they would further not mind being one of the tens of thousands that have and continue to be employed in cleaning up the last two nuclear disasters. Nothing “greenie” about it.

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      David Maddison

      How does throttling the maximum power to a household actually work? Unless there were separate circuits for air con etc that could be individually turned off, if there were not enough power available circuit breakers would trip if the power limit was exceeded.

      This feature should never be implemented because it would allow governments to hide the deficiencies of weather dependent windmill power. When the grid goes down there should be statewide blackouts for everyone, not load shedding of air cons etc..

      Also, smart meters can already be used to turn power off and on to individual households. One useful feature NOT implemented is a very simple one – to let you see instantaneous power consumption on the meter. It is there as a menu item but not turned on.

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        Rick Will

        Environment Skeptic has no idea. He is interpreting shutting down individual households and throttling demand at distributor level as throttling individual houses. How can your Smart meter tell a dumb oven, toaster or any other appliance to reduce its power demand.

        The Smart meters do have multiple circuits. My on-grid solar inverter is metered separately by the smart meter and it has an unused separate supply circuit. The latter could be used for controlling off-peak load.

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          John A

          Regional power providers use powerlines signalling to reduce power to households. I think Kalumbaru has it. Things like AC, HWUs and ovens etc are on separate circuits load shedded by the authority , on a rotational basis to limit loads to match capacity.

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          Environment Skeptic

          The throttling is achieved by making the smart meter that is enabled with this capability go into current limiting mode controlled by the distributer of power.

          For example, the same principal is applied in water distribution. If someone does not pay a bill, the water company installs a water restricting device so that if someone is doing the washing, instead of taking a few minutes to fill up the washing machine, it takes an hour. Poor example because the water company does not merely push a few buttons.

          In Italy, if a customer does not pay an electricity bill, the power company sends a packet of information to the smart meter so that the smart meter will only deliver a maximum of say 500 watts for example. My cousin in Italy did not specify the exact wattage, but he did say it is limited so that a fridge and a washing machine cannot be turned on at the same time. The person who failed to pay a bill would need to turn off the fridge or something else if they wanted to do the washing and so on. If they wanted to do some welding, the welder would not work or if they wanted to turn on a 2000 att floodlight, it would not reach full brightness and instead only glow red for example.

          Smart meter current limiting is not new technology. It is just that here in Australia our privately owned electricity grid operators are so mind bogglingly far behind. Here is a page with a bunch of smart meter technology with current limiting capability. http://www.mouser.com/pdfdocs/Solar-Maxim-Smart_Meter.pdf

          From:https://tools.smartsteep.eu/wiki/Smart_Grid_and_Smart_Meters
          “An Open smart grid protocol (OSGP) compliant meter that has the ability to reduce load”, disconnect-reconnect remotely, and interface to gas and water meters.

          ” Energy Efficiency How Italy Beat the World to a Smarter Grid

          “An aggressive rollout of intelligent electrical meters is saving Italy’s Enel 750 million dollars per year — and cutting customers’ bills”
          http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/energy-efficiency-how-italy-beat-the-world-to-a-smarter-grid-a-661744.html

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        Environment Skeptic

        throttling power most likely works using Pulse Width Modulation. Essentially, if a 2500 watt light globe is is turned on and the smart meter is remotely throttled to only supply 1000 watts, then the hypothetical 2500 watt light globe will only get approximately 40% of the AC duty cycle and thus not reach full brightness.

        In Italy, if the electricity bill is not payed, the electricity company can throttle the power so that if the household needs to do the washing, then the resident needs to turn off the fridge, so that the combined load of the fridge and the washing machine does not exceed the maximum wattage the smart being being throttled can supply.

        I absolutely agree that smart meters can already turn power on and off to individual households and so this feature could be used to stop power from certain households that contain strong healthy residents that are designated as being happy to rub two sticks together to produce fire for cooking. Hospitals would not have their power remotely turned off etc…yes yes. However…….throttling is the way to go because at least every household can access the web, charge their communication devices and so on and at least have ‘some’ power.

        An electricity company that is preferably publicly owned would be able to maintain power to all households so that some households would not be able to draw maximum power.

        The idea that an entire grid needs to go out during some excessive demand is a sign of something more sinister in todays age of modern power electronics. Things like electricity, the ability to print money, water, agencies that monitor pollution to name a few should absolutely never be allowed to fall into the hands of private ownership.

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          David Maddison

          There should be no need to throttle power to anyone (except for non payment of bills) in a modern industrial society.

          Power is only restricted, unreliable and expensive due to “green” energy.

          With traditional coal, gas or nuclear production in a free market there is never a problem with availability, cost or reliability.

          It is socialist policies that force people to buy bad quality products like windmill power.

          In capitalism, if someone doesn’t like your product they won’t buy it and you have invent a better one (like coal or nuclear in this instance).

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          Rick Will

          Environment Skeptic said

          throttling power most likely works using Pulse Width Modulation.

          This shows how a little knowledge is dangerous. You can write the words Pulse Width Modulation but you have no idea what they mean. You start Pulse Width Modulating power to any of my appliances and I will see you in court.

          A power meter can be on or off. It may have more than one metered circuit and more than one controlled circuit. Italy may have rules where customers have essential loads and non-essential loads on different circuits. Or they may simply have a demand cap and meter turns off if it is exceeded. In Australia it is not easy to disconnect supply for legal reasons. In fact it is not even easy to threaten to disconnect supply:
          http://www.aemc.gov.au/getattachment/8025038a-4fac-4447-9efa-b4f881694bbe/National-Energy-Retail-Rules-Version-7.aspx

          The NEM operator made requests to households in NSW to reduce load where they could on Friday. They claimed a good response. The operator has the facility to disconnect Tomago in an absolute emergency for grid stability but where there is a forecast lack of reserve they would set a time to reduce demand and the duration of the reduction; similar to scheduling generation. The worst possible condition for a smelter is total loss of power without warning. Voluntary load reduction still comes at cost as it destabilises the pots but Tomago’s supply contract will have negotiated power prices that usually more than compensate for any losses. A power outage beyond 5 hours is often fatal for a smelter as was the case for Portland a few months back.

          I gave evidence to the Industrusty Commission hearing into Australian electricity supply that was set up by Treasurer Keating. It highlighted the price gouging of State power monopolies that were obscene and lead to the development of the national grid. I was the heavy industry representative on the first market systems committee for the national grid. The monopolised State owned generators of the time were far worse than what exists now. You now imagine all these conspiracy theories and think it can be solved by public ownership. You are simply not connecting the dots. The intermittent energy zealots have created an impossible task for AEMO. They want coal out of the mix and it is happening. The consequence of that is the lights go out and air-conditioners stop when the wind is slow OR too fast or the sun is not shining.

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            David Maddison

            Well said Rick. I too couldn’t understand how PWM was meant to be used. It would destroy most modern appliances.

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            Environment Skeptic

            it6 is more accurate to call it current limiting.

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              Rick Will

              it6 is more accurate to call it current limiting.

              You might think it is more accurate to call it current limiting but it is not current limiting or load throttling or PWM. The power can be either ON of OFF. It would contravene regulations in any civilised country to not supply power between narrow voltage limits. The international standard IEC60038 sets out the standard voltages and the allowable range:
              http://www.teias.gov.tr/IEC/iec60038%7Bed6.2%7Den_d.pdf
              Australia traditionally had a nominal voltage of 240V. The Australian Standard range (usually mandated) is now 230V plus 10% minus 6% at point of supply so should not exceed 253V and should not be less than 230V.

              Italians might accept having to turn off one appliance before starting another at risk of being cut off but it would not fly in Australia.

              Please do not come back and say I am confusing voltage control with current limiting. Voltage control means the appliance can take whatever current it needs to perform its function. If the supply is current limited the voltage MUST drop. That is the problem with your puny 1.5kW solar system if it had to stand alone. It would not run your washing machine because it could not supply the initial current to get it started. The voltage would droop and it shuts down on under voltage.

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                Rick Will

                Correction – Voltage range 216 to 253V. Not 230 to 253. 230V is the now nominal voltage.

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                Environment Skeptic

                The reason it does supply power to a big front loader is because the front loading washing machine is one i built to run on 12-24 volts using a retired wheelchair motor and a circuit i designed to make make maximum use of the soaking so that i can program how long i want the front loader to stop and wait before changing direction.

                It ‘does’ use PWM to control motor speed and the soak function allows it to sit idle for over an hour between changes in drum direction.

                The PWM control for the washing machine has a soft start function and so high inrush current is of no concern though it would be if the soft start function was not there. These days any good motor control circuit will have soft start. Of course mine uses Mosfets.

                Our fridge uses 12-24 volt Danfoss pump as fractional horsepower motors are ultra amazingly inefficient when using 240 volts. People running fractional horsepower fridge motors are a main reason why our whitegoods are still so primitive in terms of efficiency. Get rid of them and go 12-24 volt even though there are some losses converting the power down to 24 volts, the fridge motor efficiency gains are warranted.

                Of course, there is no good reason to do this if the primitive fridge insists on only having 25mm of insulation. Might as well forget it and live with having to pay 70% more to run it.

                Stand alone on 1.5Kw is a piece of cake and very do able. having back up town power is nice to have as backup.

                At least it is not yellow cake. 🙂

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                Environment Skeptic

                The idea of current limiting is to prevent the entire grid from going down.

                No matter how meticulous your laws, they cannot prevent brownouts which are the same as what you are describing would happen to a voltage under high current load, that is, it would “droop”.

                So there you have it. The power grid is breaking the law all the time with its brownouts so setting temprary current limits are a way of artificially simulating a brownout in a controlled environment, in other words using up to date smart meters with the ability to go into brownout mode or current limiting mode.

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                Rick Will

                So there you have it. The power grid is breaking the law all the time with its brownouts so setting temprary current limits are a way of artificially simulating a brownout in a controlled environment, in other words using up to date smart meters with the ability to go into brownout mode or current limiting mode.

                NO – They grid operator avoid brownouts at all cost. There is automatic protection to prevent such conditions. The aim of load shedding is to avoid brownouts. Brownouts are what cause burnouts and fires in AC motors. Their current rise dramatically as they try to maintain speed at reduced voltage and they overheat. If they do not have thermal protection or protection is faulty they motors get very hot and can start fires.

                There is no form of load management at the grid level that is progressive on a single appliance basis other than the very latest that can respond to impressed signal on the supply line. Unless it is a modern appliance with that technology, the appliance is either ON or OFF.

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                Environment Skeptic

                Thanks Rick It has been an edifying convo. Always good to learn something new. Looks like the term “current limiting” is a term that is used differently according to the scenario in which it is used.

                Here is how the use of the two words “current” and “limiting” are used in the municipality of Drakenstein.

                I accept that you are very likely right about an appliance being either off or on and the possibility of damage to appliance when underpowered. Very good. Yes voltage will drop if the correct current is not available. Agreed. I still maintain shutting down an entire grid is like going back to the stoneage with “on/off” smart meters available.

                I will keep studying it just to be sure. It could possibly be that current limited smart meters go into an ‘off’ then ‘on’ mode with intervals of perhaps 30 seconds or more likely longer in the case of refrigeration considerations before coming to a longer completely ‘off’ mode if the 30 second warnings are not heeded.

                Very interesting

                Fromm: http://www.drakenstein.gov.za/Administration/infrastructureservices/Pages/FAQ-ELECTRICALSERVICES.aspx

                CURRENT LIMITING AND SMART METERS
                WHAT IS CURRENT LIMMITING
                Current Limiting is a technology that enables Drakenstein Municipality to gauge household consumption in relation to available generating capacity and disconnects households that use electricity excessively during periods of constrained supply to relieve pressure on the grid. When the grid is under pressure during peak periods, Drakenstein Municipality alerts households via smart meters to reduce consumption by switching off non-essential items such as pool pumps and geysers. The deployment of Current Limiting will enable Drakenstein Municipality to forestall the implementation of the early stages of load shedding in its areas of supply by curtailing consumption.

                WHY IS DRAKENSTEIN MUNICIPALITY EMBARKING ON THIS INITIATIVE
                The demand for electricity far outstrips the available generating capacity. During peak hours between the hours of 17h00 and 22h00, the grid gets under severe pressure as households connect energy-intensive appliances. When the generating capacity fails to meet demand, Eskom has to shed or reduce the load to ensure that the grid doesn’t collapse. Certain areas will be disconnected to in order to avail power to other areas at the same generating capacity. Current Limiting then enforces compliance by reducing household consumption during periods of constrained supply without having to switch of the entire neighbourhood.

                HOW DOES IT HELP TO AVERT LOAD SHEDDING
                Different stages of load shedding require Eskom to reduce varying amounts of consumption. Stage 1 load shedding requires a load reduction of 1000 MW, Stage 2 up to 2 000 MW and Stage 3 up to 4 000 MW. When Eskom announces the onset of Stage 1 and Stage 2 of load shedding, administering Current Limiting by reducing household consumption would free up this energy shortfall, particularly the early phases of load shedding.

                HOW DOES IT WORK
                When Eskom issues a directive to municipalities to reduce the load, Drakenstein Municipality activates Current Limiting by sending a signal to households who are over the consumption threshold between 17h00 and 20h00 to reduce consumption.
                The power supply would go off in 30 second intervals to alert the household to disconnect electricity appliances to within the required level. The household that hasn’t reached the required consumption levels will continue to get these recurrent power outages until they have reduced their consumption to the mandatory level.
                By switching off non-essential appliances and being Current Limited, customers have saved themselves the inconvenience of being left completely in the dark by being completed load shed.

                DO I NEED TO HAVE A SMART METER?
                Yes. Current Limiting technology requires a smart meter. Drakenstein Municipality is in the process of continuing with the project of rolling out smart meters across Drakenstein.

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                Rick Will

                I can imagine how well the Drakenstien load shedding would work in Australia. The residence leave for work in the morning but forget to turn their air-conditioner off. The local power supplier gives the 30 second waning outage (means all clocks and power saver switches need to be rest) but there is no one at home to respond so the power is shut down. They gat home at 10pm to find the power still off and ring the supplier. The supplier tells them they did not respond to the command so they were cut off.

                Check the contents of freezer and the frozen vegetables are a tad soggy and the chicken pieces just a little slimy. Do they risk a health issue or do they cook their late dinner and hope for the best?

                I can extend my off-grid portion of the house load for 50c/kWh. I would do that as soon as anyone in Australia offered load shedding deals that has me switching appliances on and off at their whim.

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            Environment Skeptic

            Thanks Rick…..So now that we have moved on from the PWM question we might focus a bit more on the main topic i raise. My bolding in the quote below and why in my amateur opinion Au is so way behind in the tech world of smart meters which i claim in Au are not so smart perhaps through no fault of their own.

            From:http://greenforcesolar.com.au/knowledge-base/smart-meters/

            Smart Meter Functions

            Whilst in NSW Smart meters have only been used in limited trials, the extra functions of sophisticated smart meters may include:

            measuring consumption during different periods, such as for Time-of-use (TOU) billing;
            the capability to measure in two directions, such as bidirectional meters for solar PV systems and Feed-in Tariffs;
            providing a network communications interface for remote probing or data collection;
            providing a local communications interface for proximity interrogation, such as via Bluetooth, infrared, a dock, or cable;
            throttling or remote disconnection, such as in a SMARTgrid, or when the grid is in danger or under pressure;

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              Rick Will

              For your benefit ES I will basically repeat what I have a few posts further down but firstly I must correct your not so technically competent linked source greenforcesolar – the term throttle means;

              A device controlling the flow of fuel or power to an engine:
              ‘the engines were at full throttle’

              You do not control an engine by turning it ON and OFF – at least I do not. The control is progressive.

              When you only have a little knowledge on a topic you need to verify the scraps of information that you might find on the internet – some sources are competent and reliable and others are incompetent and unreliable. Hence I cannot excuse you for regurgitating something that you read on greeforcesolar. In this case you displayed your lack of knowledge on the subject matter by using terminology you do not comprehend and did not take the time to research it from a reliable source.

              Back to the Smart Meter Topic –

              Load management by power grid operators has been around since the 1950s. In Brisbane as far back as the 1960s it was common to have two power meters. One was for normal use and the other was for hot water. To my best recollection the normal use was 7c/kWh and the hot water was 2c/kWh in the mid 1960s. The hot water was controlled through a Zellweger ripple control relay. It responded to high frequency ripple control impressed on the power system. The grid system controller could effectively control the demand in small steps by selecting when and how long various suburbs had power to their hot water. The demand control was viewed as being almost linear as it was small chunks of load but the customer’s hot water was either connected or disconnected via the Zellweger relay i.e. ON or OFF. With 6 children in the family home at one time (including 4 girls) I had a reasonable awareness of the times the hot water would be on.

              Smart Meters have been mandated in Victoria for a number of years. This link shows my 30 minute metered data for Friday this week:
              https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgWkxXTgkVGODPpdP
              I just download this information from the regional distributor. As you can see my solar to grid is metered separately from what I import. I have different tariffs applying to each. If I had electric hot water I could have it supplied separately and no doubt the metering entity could control that as they wish. My off-grid system is entirely separate and not monitored by anything grid related. It would be illegal to have any electrical connection between them.

              Having controllable load can be as effective as grid batteries in maintaining system stability so, as the grid gets more fragile with increasing intermittent generation, the value of controllable load increases. Some modern appliances are being fitted with impressed signal control. Those that can afford these applianced will receive incentives to allow the grid operator to control them. Having the control in the appliance avoids having to wire in different power circuits for the different classification of loads as was the case with ripple control relays and the present smart meters with more than one controllable circuit.

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            Rod Stuart

            Indeed. Knowledgeable pundits with their law and arts degrees expound infinitum about an industry which is well beyond their comprehension.
            Unfortunately, these are often the incompetent idiots that we elect to govern us. All too often they are the great unwashed loud mouths who steer the legislative process through lobby groups and fascist protest marches.
            One thing to be wary of, however, is the technocratic “Internet of Things”.
            Once a sufficient number of household appliances are networked in this internet of things the Orwellian concepts expounded upon by this character in fact do become possible.

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            bobl

            I was about to say that – If they used PWM current limiting here then I would be suing pretty quickly for compensation for all my damaged appliances. From what I understand they just use power line signalling to instruct suitably equipped appliance to shut down. The data channel is trivial to filter out if you don’t want it.

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              “The data channel is trivial to filter out if you don’t want it.”

              Perhaps, if you know where to look for it. Are you claiming to have done such filtering of the ‘power’ lines?

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          Geoffrey Williams

          The old saying ‘a little knowledge is dangerous thing . . .
          Thats where you’re at Mr enviro skeptic.
          Please try and catch up.
          GeoffW

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            Environment Skeptic

            Indeed Geoffry,
            I only use the word “likely”
            “throttling power most likely works using Pulse Width Modulation.”

            That is not a definitive answer, and thankyou Rick Will .

            My main limited opinion is with respect to why we have such primitive smart meters in Au, in particular, to meters without the capacity to control/throttle the maximum current drawn to prevent impending grid failure. i would like to concentrate on that.

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              Rick Will

              Environment Skeptic
              This is a brochure for the smart meter installed throughout the Ausnet network that manage the poles and wires in my part of Australia:
              http://www.landisgyr.eu/webfoo/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/D000028193_E350_d_en11.pdf

              Can you please find the specifications for the dramatically better meters being used in Italy so all of us can see the difference?

              My view is that you read the word throttle in relation to smart meters on an unreliable reference and are still not appreciating you have been mislead by the poor terminology. You will need to pinpoint where the specifications use the word throttle or anything remotely resembling that.

              I do not consider your cousin making certain his/her refrigerator is turned off before turning on his/her washing machine could be described as throttling.

              The E350 can support up to 6 different tariffs. I have at least three available but only use two.

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                Rod Stuart

                Rick
                As I am sure you have noticed, ES tends to be long on opinion and short on understanding.
                Outlandish claims, such as the one that fractional horsepower squirrel cage induction motors used in appliances are “inefficent”.
                If this claim were the case, heat dissipation would be a major problem which it is not.
                People with law and arts degrees often misunderstand the term “efficiency”.

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                Environment Skeptic

                Thanks Rod..

                Here is an extract from Wikipedia.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_motor#Comparison_by_major_categories

                “AC induction shaded-pole
                motor Low cost
                Long life
                Speed slightly below synchronous
                Low starting torque
                Small ratings
                low efficiency Fans, appliances, record players

                And

                “AC polyphase
                squirrel-cage
                or
                wound-rotor
                induction motor
                (SCIM)
                or
                (WRIM) Self-starting
                Low cost
                Robust
                Reliable
                Ratings to 1+ MW
                Standardized types. High starting current
                Lower efficiency
                due to need
                for magnetization. Fixed-speed, traditionally, SCIM the world’s workhorse especially in low performance applications of all types
                Variable-speed, traditionally, low-performance variable-torque pumps, fans, blowers and compressors.
                Variable-speed, increasingly, other high-performance constant-torque and constant-power or dynamic loads. Fixed-speed, low performance applications of all types.
                Variable-speed, traditionally, WRIM drives or fixed-speed V/Hz-controlled VSDs.
                Variable-speed, increasingly, vector-controlled VSDs displacing DC, WRIM and single-phase AC induction motor drives.
                Small ratings
                low efficiency Fans, appliances, record players

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                Environment Skeptic

                I think we can move on from the efficiency discussion and call it settled

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                Rod Stuart

                That’s the problem with Wikipedia.
                Lower efficiency that what?
                At about 98%, what is it that you claim is superior?
                How much are you willing to spend to get 98.5%?

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                Rick Will

                ES said:

                I think we can move on from the efficiency discussion and call it settled

                In your mind it might be settled but there you go regurgitating something you do not understand from a web site that does not give any numbers on what is a numbers game. You need to question what you read and try to understand it. You should have learnt that lesson from the throttle nonsense.

                We bought our first Fisher Paykel washing machine 25 years ago. It was replaced by a unit of similar design about 5 years ago. Both use SmartDrive technology:
                https://www.fisherpaykel.com/au/company/innovation/smartdrive-technology.html
                I have never bothered to find out the basic motor efficiency. Just knowing the machine did not have a belt drive and complex mechanical linkages in it was enough to sell me on the first one. After 20 years of almost daily washing it was an easy decision to go that way a second time around. I expect I will beat the current one to the grave.

                The use of split phase inductions motors is diminishing in appliances. Not because of low efficiency but because they have relatively low starting torque and are not suited to fine speed control that is possible with three phase induction and 3 phase permanent magnet synchronous motors. Modern electronics make all this easy.

                The motor efficiency does not mean much anyhow. A high efficiency motor might be 95% efficient. A low efficiency motor might be 85%. If you want an electric motor for a model airplane you could be very pleased with 60% efficiency as power to weight is the key performance parameter.

                There are regulated testing and labelling regimes that simplify the selection process for energy intensive appliances for those with limited understanding on these matters, such as yourself, that gives a reasonable idea of how much energy the appliance will user over a year if used in accordance with the testing regime. Here is the listing for washing machines:
                http://reg.energyrating.gov.au/comparator/product_types/49/search/
                Our F&P GW712 is not the lowest energy on the basis of these test but it is a big machine and with just two of us it is down to two loads per week. We also ever only use cold water washing on the “normal” cycle with minimum fill level.

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                Environment Skeptic

                The question of the ultra poor efficiency of fractional horsepower motors is a claim i can claim to know something about and so here is evidence in the link below. It is not up for negotiation on this occasion.

                240 volt 1 horsepower motors are significantly improved, but to run fractioanl horsepwoer motors efficiently, lower voltages must be used.

                http://www.designworldonline.com/doe-mandates-more-efficiency-for-small-electric-motors/#_

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                Environment Skeptic

                Oops that post should have been here.

                “And that is why the most efficient domestic fridges use 12-24 volt motors. At fractional horsepower specs, motors designed to run using 12-24 volt are best.

                Motors around the 1 Horsepower range begin to operate better using higher voltages.

                The Fisher Paykel motor uses around 200 volts. It is probably a little under 1 horsepower nominally.
                https://www.element14.com/community/thread/34177/l/smart-drive-motor-as-a-motor-and-as-a-generator?displayFullThread=true

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                Environment Skeptic

                And here is an efficiency chart for motors starting at around 1 horsepower in the ac range. You can see that once motors reach the the one horsepower mark they begin to be markedly more efficient at using town power voltages.

                At 500 horsepower, the motors begin to approach 95% efficiency.

                http://www.pamensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Understanding-the-new-Electric-Motor-Energy-Efficiency-Regulations-rev-Nov-2011-tables.jpg

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                Rick Will

                ES
                Well done on finding the new regulations for fractional horsepower motors. Now you have to test your assumption that the poor efficiency of fractional horsepower motors is destroying the globe. To do that you will need data from a an older motor that provides efficiency information.

                The only fractional horsepower motor I can think of still in this house is a disused fan. We bought it maybe 20 years ago and it has probably run for 100 hours over its life. It was only used when my wife was in the western exposed spare room sewing on a summer afternoon. Lets say it was awfully bad and was 50% efficient at full load . It is rated at 65W but was never used at the full setting so I am guessing it was drawing 50W. At reduced output the efficiency likely dropped so it was taking say 20W to stir the air around the room. The other 30W was added heat in the room, which is not a good thing but small compared to her BMR of about 60W and the heat input through the single glazing and curtain of say 500W.

                So over its useful life it has wasted 3kWh. About $1 if you par for electricity at 33c/kWh or $2 if you are getting a FIT of 66c/kWh.

                Now we go to the new efficiency standard and the rated efficiency climbs to 65%. Lets say it now only takes 40W to do 20W of string so the wasted power has drop by 50% to only 20W. In this case the energy wasted over its life is 2kWh. Equates to 66c from grid or $1.32 if FIT forgone. This fan was all pre-FIT so the benefit I would have gotten from the higher efficiency was 34 cents over a 20 year life. I can tell you that I was not worried about the energy consumption when I bought it.

                My most critical focus on wastage is the standby power of items that remained powered all the time. I know the standby power consumption of all the gadgets I have connected and switch on. Four years ago I changed a video recorder simply on the basis of standby power. The new unit payed for itself in power saving within 3 years; mainly because my daytime power costs me 66c/kWh in foregone income. All the TV sets have their own power saver switches.

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              Graeme No.3

              ES:
              I am not sure that many companies, publicly owned or otherwise, should be encouraged to ration supply. The law of supply and demand etc. (or if you don’t grasp that the law of Enron – restrict supply and make higher profits).

              Yes, remore reading is desirable, my neighbour received a cheque for $1900 after many complaints until an actual meter reading revealed that the meter reader had been ‘estimating’. No doubt he has since been snapped up by the BoM to work on their temperature records.

              Regarding your enthusiasm for super capacitors I suggest a little more research, esp. the difference between short and long term supply. In any case step carefully here where the readers are knowledgeable and even more carefully at euanmeans.com where energy matters are discussed.

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                Environment Skeptic

                In the event of impending failure of the grid, we have the technology to temporarily reduce the load on the grid to avoid complete power blackouts and the fact that it is not used shows we are still in the stone-age in my opinion..

                Super capacitors are a developing area that i am very fond of at the moment because i can instantly implement them as a solution for temporary high density storage of energy to continue running my small off grid power which is completely separate from the town power in the event of failure of my batteries.

                For example, i cannot store enough energy with a set of 100$ super capacitors to store power for night use, however, should my existing lead acid batteries fail i can continue using power during the day because the super capacitors are able to supply the inverter with 12 volts and give the solar charge controller something to charge.

                The fact that they are cheap, very low toxicity, environmentally ultra friendly, very long life, capable of delivering mind bogglingly high currents, and i repeat “cheap” make them a very good solution to fall back on to keep a solar system online in the event of the failure of lead acid batteries or other expensive batteries..

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                Environment Skeptic

                Sorry…i meant high energy storage…

                Here is an example of how super capacitors can be implemented.

                “Building the SOLN1-2000 Watt Capacitor Solar Generator”
                lasersaber

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMKojcYP7QQ

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                Environment Skeptic

                Will.
                We are living in ultra primitive times in terms of efficiency of our whitegoods/etc (At least there are some improvements). The household fridge only has 25mm of insulation. Back in the days of endless power, they called these fridges “space saving” because it was discovered that by reducing the amount of insulation, the space inside the fridge could be increased.

                Lets face it, some energy efficient technology has been incidental like LCDscreens and Iphones that mean people are consuming even less power, but the amount of energy that is wasted needs to be addressed before anyone dreams up ideas of needing to build clearer power stations so humanity can persist in throwing away energy by using inefficient devices. In my opinement, efficiency is the great untapped human resource hiding in the brain fog of emitting more power.

                The real battle is not with renewable and energy, the real battle is the kind of psychology which thinks it is somehow a right to actually waste so much energy.

                One example i use is that of heating and cooling. In this example a house must have at least one room with a low thermal mass interior consisting of very thin walls and say 100mm high density styrene on the back of it. and what every is possible for the outside walls like brick or whatever.

                This room will then take very little energy to heat or cool. A fridge is a good example because if a fridge had internal walls made of plaster and a floor made of concrete common sense would indicate that a fridge constructed of concrete and plaster would take a of time and energy to cool

                We are stuck with it.

                Do we want to keep heating and cooling bricks, tiles, plaster, into the millennium or do we want low thermal mass environment, at least in part, just one room to start with in order to survive when everyone else has to heat up a few tons of concrete just to stay warm in winter for instance. And yet, this is the case.

                We don’t need more power, we just need to know how to use it.

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                Environment Skeptic

                In this scenario a person finds themself without a source of heat and it is sub zero. No power or means of creating fire, just a rather large freezer on a scrap heap. The way to keep warm and get a good night sleep is to take the freezer off the scrap heap, belt a few holes in the bottom of the freezer for ventilation and hop in.

                The walls of the freezer are low thermal mass so they take very little to warm up and the heat rises and remains inside whereas the ventilation comes in from below. There is no need to freeze to death in sub zero temperatures without means of heating if a decent size freezer is lying around on a scrap heap.

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                Rick Will

                Environment Skeptic

                One example i use is that of heating and cooling. In this example a house must have at least one room with a low thermal mass interior consisting of very thin walls and say 100mm high density styrene on the back of it. and what every is possible for the outside walls like brick or whatever.

                You go ahead and line your room with polystyrene foam – do not tell your insurer though.
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJAWPfZzIKY
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AimeoIgReEs
                And do not be sucked in by claims made about foam with fire retardants. They do not stop melting, gas evolution and flashover.

                My house has very high thermal mass. We do not have air conditioning and the highest internal temperature this summer so far has been 26.5C. We do use heating in winter. The biggest heat loss is through the windows but that is relatively low because we have heavy curtains. It is not economic to retrofit double glazing on the basis of saving power four our house.
                http://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/thermal-mass

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                Environment Skeptic

                Using high thermal mass is useful/desirable in some parts of the house, however, low thermal mass is the way to go where artificial heating and cooling is required. I have a shipping container that is of the insulated variety. Because it contains a fair bit of mass in terms of metal and such, i pump air into it at night if it is anticipated that it will be hot during the day and enjoy passive cooling during the day.

                The principal remains. Low thermal mass dramatically reduces energy consumption if man made temperature changes are required.

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                Environment Skeptic

                The mass is not comprised of the ultra thin aluminium lining of the container in the example. I just want to be clear that the mass inside the container is in terms of machinery and such inside.

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                Environment Skeptic

                And do not be sucked in by claims made about foam with fire retardants. They do not stop melting, gas evolution and flashover.

                I suppose you are advocating that cool rooms and cool room panels are too dangerous for human consumption. Using that rationale, houses lines with wood should be banned.

                Good grief Will !!

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                Rick Will

                I suppose you are advocating that cool rooms and cool room panels are too dangerous for human consumption. Using that rationale, houses lines with wood should be banned.

                Exactly – I definitely do not recommend eating styrene foam.

                Many insurers will not cover fire damage to installations having large EPS foam panels in such things as cool rooms. Fire fighters have learnt that they watch them burn and try to prevent the spread of fire to adjacent buildings. But you go right ahead and make your styrene foam cool box. Just take care what heat sources it is exposed to.

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                Environment Skeptic

                I agree many building products generate smoke when burned, like isocyanate’s in floor and wood coatings treatments of wood using cyanide,Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) and and so on. Safety needs to be consulted using a qualified building practitioner.

                The subject of poor energy efficiency of fractional horsepower motors is well accepted. You could perhaps explain why this might be wrong. My current knowledge is that fractional horsepower motors do best and efficiency is improved when they are designed using lower voltages. When higher horsepower above 1 horsepower, domestic supply voltages can offer better efficiency. Even various new standards cannot approach the efficiency of motors using 240 volts for example when powering motors over 1 horse power. This is why the acceptable efficiencies accorded by the new standards are still well below 80% when using fractional horsepower motors powered by 240 volt power. To get the high efficiency out of fractional horsepower motors, low voltage needs to be used.

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                Environment Skeptic

                Will.
                In particular i am saying at least one room should be highly insulated.
                I do not know where you interpret that this is something for an entire house.
                I am advocating at least one room built to very high insulation standards as a concept.
                http://www.foamex.com.au/polystyrene-products

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                Environment Skeptic

                I agree many building products generate smoke when burned, like isocyanate’s in floor and wood coatings treatments of wood using cyanide,Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) and and so on. Safety needs to be consulted using a qualified building practitioner.

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                Environment Skeptic

                In particular, in countries that have extreme cold, having at least one room built to high insulation standards of low thermal mass will save a life in the absence of power or fuel to burn. It is a massive mistake in my opinion, to pin all hopes on cheap energy to burn and complain that all the fault is upon whatever power source has become unreliable or unavailable during unexpected events.

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            • #

              You are so truly insane! Why not go somewhere and buy a clue?

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      Hasbeen

      No way Hosay. I’ll cut the dam supply off, before I’d let them control my usage.

      I’ve already bought the 10 KVA generator. After 5 days with no power in the last flood, when we country customers were left until the city was fixed, I decided they could not be trusted.

      Ran on it for a week, & it was not that much more expensive than grid power.

      If I got a bit serious, & set the place up to only run minor loads, [pool pump, grey water, irrigation & a few other things] when nothing much else was running, I could bring that down a fair bit too. Probably to parity.

      What ridiculous alternatives the green blob force us into.

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        Environment Skeptic

        The power company would have a list of customers who would be willing to undergo throttling during possible power outage. Perhaps be rewarded or the like.

        We do not all have the same power needs.

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          Rick Will

          Environment Skeptic
          You should avoid the term throttle. A much preferred, and well accepted term, is load shedding or demand management.

          Large customers will certainly have negotiated load management arrangement with their supplier. They will be compensated for their willingness to shed load, for a given period and with an agreed minimum warning period.

          If you have electric hot water you might be able to opt to have that on a reduced tariff and it then becomes managed load at the suppliers discretion within certain limits.

          There is nothing new here. Just that load management has increasing focus because it is another tool to combat the growing instability created by the increase in intermittent generation. The aim is to manage as much load as possible so it is easier to tolerate the ups and downs of the intermittent generation.

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            Hasbeen

            Rick we have been on Off Peak controlled supply on our hot water system for the 24 years we’ve had it. It used to offer good savings.

            It used to run at $13 to $16 a quarter back then, with 5 people, including 3 ladies with long hair using it.

            Today, with just 2 of us, neither with very long hair, my current bill for the Off Peak hot water was $167 & 34 cents.

            I have heard there has been a bit of inflation in that time. The value oh the property has increased by 315%, & council rates by a similar amount. Wages have only gone up by about 165% in the same period.

            But my cheep, Off Peak electricity has increased by 1013%.

            Thanks Peter Beattie, & the green blob.

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          Hasbeen

          Environment Skeptic service will go to where the greatest noise can be expected.

          Out here we all depend on tank water. No consideration or priority is given to those for whom no power means no water.

          Many in newer homes, particularly the tree changers, have their tanks underground. This is a big mistake when access to the water has to be manual.

          A number of us went round the district, 800 homes in about 50 Sq. kilometres, with buckets on a rope, bailing water out of some elderly folks tanks. First to flush their toilets, then leave them with some drinking & washing water for a couple of days.

          The gratitude was overwhelming, particularly from some of the recent arrivals, most of whom who had not realised the problem of getting water with no power, & who had not expected the locals to care.

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            Annie

            Our place had the same problem with a good underground tank, but! Sonce rebuilding we have put in a good above ground one too so can use gravity feed if necessary.

            That’s good to know about the help for the older people during trouble. I like a bit of good news; it helps when coping with the bad.

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            Environment Skeptic

            I am doing my part too

            There are many who freeze in winter. Their power has been cut off and the like and the government has no money because its credit rating has been downgraded due to failure to make interest payment on a newclear reactor……Perhaps if they have access to a freezer they can modify, they will be able to stay warm if conditions are inhospitable and they find they have no power or fuel to burn for warmth to get a good nights sleep. (The insulation in an ordinary fridge is not at all optimum. A freezer is vastly better.)

            I posted it above but will again here

            In this scenario a person finds themself without a source of heat and it is sub zero. No power or means of creating fire, just a rather large freezer on a scrap heap. The way to keep warm and get a good night sleep is to take the freezer off the scrap heap, belt a few holes in the bottom of the freezer for ventilation and hop in.

            The walls of the freezer are low thermal mass so they take very little to warm up and the heat rises and remains inside whereas the ventilation comes in from below. There is no need to freeze to death in sub zero temperatures without means of heating if a decent size freezer is lying around on a scrap heap

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              Environment Skeptic

              I have seen something similar on a website showing a preferred way to construct such a shelter, but it was some time ago and will post it if i can find it again.

              The salient principal behind this is that everyone should have at least one room or space in a house that is constructed so that it is of low thermal mass and freezer rated insulation as building an entire house using very high rating insulation and high quality thin laminate walls like in a freezer container would be too expensive for most people.

              A room, or an insulated low thermal mass space offers protection and means of using little other than ones own body heat to stay warm, especially because ones body heat is not being used to keep plaster and concrete, stone walls etc warm as well. No need for fire or heating means or if heating means are used, it takes very little energy.

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          “We do not all have the same power needs.”

          What you mean ‘we’, white man??

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        Your 10 KVA generator. May work better\cheaper on propane than gasoline! I do not know the price difference at your location. My HOBART 10 KVA shows no fuel wear after 6 years! The Kohler engineers predict continuous 35 years of 10 KVA with USA commercial propane.

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      The consultants and the smart meters installed in Australia are hopelessly out of date and should and must have the feature that enables the power company to throttle or reduce the maximum power being drawn by households without shutting down the entire grid.

      I vehemently disagree that Australia, in an ocean of reliable, primary energy sources, should drink it through a knotted straw.

      The demand-side load reduction BTW occurs by a signal on the main that tells large appliances (such as airconditioners) to reduce their load. The system is called Demand Response and is “enabled” on many airconditioners sold in Australia. The Demand Response Enabling Device (DRED) is aptly named. (AS 4755) DRED can go as far as shutting off the compressor completely (d1) or its power consumption “merely” reduced to 50% (d2) or 75% (d3) of maximum.

      The bfeature cannot be over-ridden by the user.

      Refer to these things by what they are: Tools for rationing. In a land of plenty.

      I trust that those are sufficient keywords to educate yourselves. Before the lights go out.

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        David Maddison

        This is disgraceful.

        I looked to see if anyone has worked out how to disable DRED but could see no hacks or cracks.

        I guess if you ran the A/C off a generator it would not see the signal from the grid (and home petrol, diesel or natural gas generators will soon be cost competitive with grid prices if the price of electricity goes up much more). Or perhaps you could build a black box that simulated the signal that returns the A/C to full power.

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          Rick Will

          Controllable load management has been around since I was a boy in the 1950s. As far as know all houses in Brisbane had Zellweger ripple controllers on electric hot water in the 1960s. There were two meters and the one for how water had the Zellweger on it.

          Now you can buy appliances that have the control device in the load rather than part of the supply. And digital control signals allows more function. I do not know how the incentives to have these devices fitted work but I have little doubt if there is an incentive and the load did not reduce then the metering entity would soon know. Metering companies have a good view of the power flow:
          https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgWkxXTgkVGODPpdP
          Having the smarts built into an appliance avoids the need to separate circuits.

          If you did not want the incentive you would not buy a unit with it fitted.

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          bobl

          A low pass filter is sufficient to disable this “Feature” you should be able to buy one that plugs into an outlet.

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      As wind turbines use power when there is no wind, how about fitting smart meters to wind turbines so they can be prevented from using power to extend bearing life at the expense of people.

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        Environment Skeptic

        I will look at the problem later. We should focus more on how to increase beaver populations to build safer dams at this time.

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    Lionell Griffith

    Rules for Greens

    1. Never allow a good crisis go unexploited.

    2. If you don’t have a good crisis that you can exploit, create one.

    3. Always blame the victims of the crises as its cause.

    4. Always claim that your policies are the solution.

    5. If it can be shown your policies don’t work, claim they were not executed well enough and to a sufficient extent to work.

    6. Rinse and repeat using different words having the same intent.

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      Ted O'Brien

      Looks like our Greens might be broke. We are living in interesting times.

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        toorightmate

        One can only hope.

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        TdeF

        They can join Malcolm’s Liberals as bankrupts. I cannot believe banker Malcolm ‘gave’ $1.75m without a clause, condition or interest. Bankers do not do that. However if there is an IOU, the Australian Electoral Commission would love to know as Malcolm would be possibly in breach of Federal laws. Pauline Hanson went to jail for a single signature without a cent of debt.

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          toorightmate

          Malcolm’s donation was toward job creation. His.

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            TdeF

            That might be legal. However being repaid by the Electoral Commission is not. Also you have to question whether this donation gives Malcolm and influence on the direction of the party and thus the country which overrides the wishes of the electorate.

            I just wish the Liberal/National Party would take Tony Abbott’s stance, call Climate Change crap, bag the UN and remove all laws relating to it. Disband the Clean Energy groups.

            Even in Victoria the minister for Energy is also the Minister for the Environment? There is a presumption now embedded in the administration and politicians that these are the same thing. Gender is determined by genes. Aboriginality is determined by genes. The weather is not affected by coal and oil and gas. These are separate things but in the new world, they are allegedly the same. Even Germaine Greer disagrees dramatically with the new thinking, the new science, the new sociology, the new political science fiction.

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          pattoh

          “Pauline Hanson went to jail for a single signature without a cent of debt.”

          For anybody old enough or interested enough to remember the Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland; I am sure they will well remember that Bjelke Peterson was nailed on failure to observe the principal of the Separation of Powers.

          The Self Righteous [ fully triggered ] MSM went into about a year of histrionic condemnation.[ it was messy to the point of almost being un-sanitary]

          Irrespective of what anybody thought of Pauline Hanson or her policies & actions, any objective observer would have to conclude that her position was from the heart &, refreshingly, genuinely what she believed was in the best interests of the country.

          How is it that a combined alliance of the major parties from both ends of the political spectrum ganging up & ultimately using the judicial system to incarcerate an inconvenient political opponent was never viewed & roundly condemned as a breach of the Separation of Powers?

          Perhaps Pauline should seek a retrospective opinion from the “controversial” Gillard appointed Gillian Triggs.

          It could be a history making demonstration that justice is blind and that we are all equal before the law……….

          While simultaneously creating the opportunity for a bit of fully triggered “Girl Power” Self Righteous Indignation.

          Could be fun to observe a bit of squirming in an Ivory Tower…./sarc.

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      TdeF

      7 Use the crisis you have created to nationalize industries and put politicians in control

      8 assume control of all utilities previously privatized

      9 take control of the all communication with a single government system, say an NBN

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    Roy Hogue

    We’re 3 weeks into the Trump administration and… …well all I can say is that I don’t envy him the job of navigating through all the opposition obstructionists. I’ve never seen more rabid-dogs after one president, not even on the pages of a history book.

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      Ted O'Brien

      Enough hysteria for three years in that three weeks.

      With a little luck another three weeks might see them burn out.

      I have seen only the headline about the Greens’s financial problems, but they have been attacking each other in recent times. I wondered if that might have been posturing for a new position, but it could be destructive.

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      Yonniestone

      Roy I watched a very good explanation by Stefan Molyneux about the current court obstruction regarding Trumps immigration restrictions, Trump is basically waiting to get Judge Neil Gorsuch sworn into the SCOTUS as currently any supreme court vote would end up a 4/4 tie thus affirming the lower court 9th circuit decision, which would set a disastrous pattern for future orders, as he correctly points out when the people lose faith in their own laws the republic is in dire threat.

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        clive

        “A man with a firearm is a citizen, without one he is a Subject”

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          clive February 13, 2017 at 12:18 pm

          “A man with a firearm is a citizen, without one he is a Subject”

          Interesting! Youusuns remain a subject always. To what, is unknown! Large numbers of firearm, pitchfork, or torches, seems to worry ‘the unknown greatly’! Some ‘man’ may organize da local unknown, to formidable force\power for\against da other unknown! How to promote ‘goodness’ without understanding? General Mathis understands “be polite, professional”, but always have good plan for quickly destroying all earthlings you may come across. Perhaps Ruthless, but who is Ruth?
          All the best! -will-

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        Roy Hogue

        I think you’re absolutely correct, Yoni.

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      James

      It has been comical to watch. There was the Womens’ March in DC. These women ran around with fake vaginas strapped to their heads. Then there were other protests where people were running around yelling ‘Not my President’ while waving Mexican flags. They looked extremely stupid indeed. Which country did they think they were in?

      Out in the rest of the nation we keep hearing about more hiring going on. There should be tax cuts by the end of the year as well. So I hope that people will get behind Trump as their own economic conditions (in their own hip pockets)improve, not just the make believe economic numbers.

      I think as things improve here, more and more countries will follow his policies, although with the likely collapse of the EU is hard to predict exactly what will happen.

      Then main stream media is very poorly regarded here. The New York times recently had to lay off a lot of journalists and rent out 7 floors of their building. Newspapers are not doing well. Who wants to spend money on biased nonsense.
      They now have reporters from outside Washington DC asking questions via Skype at the daily press conference. It has been fun to watch the traditional media getting upset about this. One CNN reporter, Andrew Cuomo, said that calling the reports ‘Fake News’ was like calling blacks the N word. He later had to retract that comment. CNN is the leader in Fake News.

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    Gorgiasl

    “A WORLD-leading scientist has warned Donald Trump may signal the end of the world — and Australia could be first to face the catastrophic consequences.”

    How shocked was I to read on and discover that the WORLD-leading scientist was the data torturing Nobel laureate Michael Mann.

    No wonder the weather in Sydney and Perth was stuffed up.

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      Graeme No.3

      Please do not call Mann a Nobel laureate, he is not that except in his own mind. And in any case it was a Nobel peace Prize that was given to the IPCC and Al Gore. Nothing to do with the real Nobel prizes.

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      Mark M

      97% climate activists will fly and drive for thousands of fossil-fuelled miles to promote their failed doomsday books and complain about other peoples over-use of fossil fuels.

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      TdeF

      Firstly the Nobel prize in this context is as significant as Australian of the year. A political appointment to allow someone to run down Australia and Australians.

      Secondly, Michael Mann has as much knowledge of international politics as Tim Flannery does of hot rock science or nuclear science or any science. Both ‘World leading scientists’, which does not say much for science these days. There was a time when scientists were respected, before bad statisticians, psychologists and dead kangaroo students were considered leading scientists.

      I did wonder though which ‘scientist’ was predicting the end of the world but refused to click though to the usual nonsense. Maybe Al Gore? It had to be Mann. This is the second time he has predicted the end of the world? Firstly from tree rings. Now Trump. Would that be tea leaves?

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    alwaysBskeptical

    Energy Australia is emailing customers to go “CARBON NEUTRAL”
    Looks like a plan to emulate SA.
    To find it search your browser with “light the way Energy Australia”

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      David Maddison

      I want to buy my electricity only from high CO2 producing sources. Is there an option for that?

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        bobl

        I will be asking for that, I only want the cheap coal powered electrons, and I don’t want ANY overpriced green ones – make sure therefore my rate is no more than 15c per kWh…

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      Graeme No.3

      Like the Labor government in S.A. which has an objective “to make Adelaide the first carbon neutral city in the world”.
      They are trying to do this by
      halving the road widths to allow bus only lanes.
      closing streets to make pedestrian and pushbike friendly zones (and force cars go aroud the block)
      Putting a tax on car parking stations (to make it more expensive to bring your car into the city.
      cutting down on street parking.
      spending $2.6 million p.a. hiring car park spots so that (approx. 1,000) public servants can commute to the city

      That figure might be conservative as at the lowest rate it would cost $3.5 million.

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    Robber

    There should be a moratorium placed on achieving Australia’s 2020 23.5% renewables target until electricity supply security can be guaranteed.
    To achieve the target, wind must go from its current average 7% of supply to 18%. That is an enormous and rapid change impacting the entire network. With the current market forces in place, it is likely that the owners of further coal stations like Hazelwood will decide it is uneconomic to continue operating as their average utilisation declines. For when the wind blows hard, those wind generators will be able to deliver over 50% of demand (assuming 35% capacity factor), forcing shutdowns of base load supplies.
    But when the wind doesn’t blow, and wind’s share drops to 1-2%, all of the coal and gas stations must be available, else we will have more and more instances of “load shedding.”
    Governments must take action NOW!!

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      Gorgiasl

      The tragedy is that the stupid state and federal governments have made investment in new thermal power plants uneconomic because investors can’t be assured of the necessary base load and the risk that any new plant will be sidelined by continuing renewable stupidity.

      Coal has been demonised and natural gas (including coal seam gas) is increasingly too expensive as export demand increases. Nuclear is a political non-starter.

      The rent-seeking renewables investors and the energy suppliers, such as AGL and Origin, have been working on optimising their own short term positions at the expense of our energy, manufacturing and quality of life futures all ably assisted by the media, the greens and gutless politicians.

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    Mark M

    The analogy of ‘pointing in the wrong direction’:

    Renewable energy: Most solar panels ‘next to useless’ at key times, expert says

    “Given generous feed-in tariffs offered by states to kickstart the industry, it made sense for households to face panels northwards to maximise the photovoltaic generation they could export to the grid.

    “At around 5pm, these panels are next to useless,” Paul McArdle, chief executive of energy software firm, Global-Roam, said.

    If those panels were facing westwards, they would catch more of the summer sun and smooth more of the hump in household electricity demand that contributed to this week’s strains on power supplies in South Australia and NSW.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/renewable-energy-most-solar-panels-next-to-useless-at-key-times-expert-says-20170207-gu7vxr.html
    . . .
    Ka-ching!

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      BruceC

      Due to the design of my house, I have two panels facing north and three panels facing west.

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        brill

        I had to make a similar decision. I have 12 on the east side and 12 on the west side. The north side roof is much smaller and already has the hot water system.

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      David Maddison

      So now they’re blaming bad placement of panels for grid failure.

      That must work well at night.

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      Robert Rosicka

      Mark mine are facing west as that’s the only choice we had as for infeed tariffs, we now get a mighty $25 every three months on a 5 kw system , given what we used to pay a quarter and what we now pay a quarter I reckon we’re saving about $500 a quarter taking into account how much electricity has gone up since the install .
      Putting up solar was a financial decision not an environmental one , if I could have found a coal fired small scale generator that was comparable I would have gone that way .

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    Ross

    Looks like the Aussie Greens are having a little “bun fight” behind the scenes.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/02/01/gree-f01.html

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      el gordo

      Good catch Ross, the inner city enclaves would be upset and confused by a split.

      A couple of Rhiannon ideas are worth discussing.

      ‘In late 2015, for instance, she denounced the US-led Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade bloc directed against China, on the grounds that it would “constrain our sovereignty over critically important issues.” She has prominently called for the protection of Australian steel companies by the introduction of procurement policies that mandate the use of Australian-produced steel in public construction.’

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      el gordo

      While we are talking of splitters, this is serious.

      ‘The Turnbull government is defending an unprecedented preference deal that could see the Liberals put One Nation ahead of the Nationals in Western Australia, with a senior frontbencher saying Pauline Hanson’s party is more “sophisticated” than it was in John Howard’s day.’

      SMH

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      el gordo

      ‘But National sources told The Sunday Times yesterday that some MPs were so incensed by the Liberals’ preference deal that they believed the alliance should be broken.

      ‘Nationals sources said the preference deal could result in them losing one or two of their current five seats in the Legislative Council, potentially delivering Pauline Hanson the balance of power in the six-region Upper House.’

      Perth Now

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    tom0mason

    I really like the idea of an Open Source Temperature Reconstruction Project, IIRC I suggested it decades ago when AGW was in its infancy, a suggestion that died of ridicule.
    However I am always amazed how people have been so easily deflected into the belief of CO2 causes….whatever argument without observable or experimental evidence. A virtual tower of Babel founded on the soft ‘science’ of rough approximation by climate modeling.

    I do note though that throughout the centuries humans have affected climate by their action. The major ones are deforestation, draining swamps, land reclamation and watercourse alterations.
    Did anyone (scientist, statisticians, etc) look at these effects when the UN-IPCC put forward their spurious ideas of AGW? Surely one of man’s biggest contributions to global climate change is the of building dams and the altering of natural watercourses. For instance America has been damming waterways for centuries and making natural deserts like California very much greener, while the Russians were draining massive inland lakes like the Aral Sea. Russian action that has cause a vast desert to open up across the region. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea)
    Or Bangladesh where mountains were torn down for coastal land reclamations, and ballast for huge dams to feed irrigation schemes of the enormous rice fields that have replaced the native forests.
    Surely these actions have changed the local and global climate.

    Along with deforestation, the altering of waterway throughout the world has, and will continue to cause more manmade climate change than any amount of atmospheric CO2 vented by humans in their industrial endeavors.

    I ask again were these actions properly assessed as man proceeded through the industrial age by anyone carrying out the orders of the IPCC, or maybe they have but are all still suppressed?

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      “I ask again were these actions properly assessed as man proceeded through the industrial age by anyone carrying out the orders of the IPCC, or maybe they have but are all still suppressed?”

      No not ever! The ‘only intent’, at least in the USA, was an attempt to ha rm the coal industry in order to promote the gas (CH4) industry! Blame everything on atmospheric CO2! Did not turn out so good! Continued:

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        The underlying global warming hypothesis the models support has always been based on the mistaken Idea that IR-EMR exit flux originates at Earth’s surface. The S-B equation now can be used to show that the minimum radiometric temperature of whatever is ‘radiating’ must be at least 255 K, but the surface has a higher thermometric temperature. The atmosphere is measured to have temperatures bracketing that minimum, thus demonstrating that exit flux originates somewhere in the atmosphere. Never from the surface. Can we all go back to sleep and put this sc am behind us? con’t

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          “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” -J. Robert Oppenhimer-

          It is the incessant kvetching about CO2, by folk arrogant academics, that understand nothing of the generation and propagation of thermal electromagnetic radiation (EMR) that now seems to lead to the destruction of civilization! Mankind has always fouled its own nest with never the ‘actions properly assessed as man proceeded through the industrial age by anyone’.

          So far the designers of this Earth knew quite well how to compensate for such nonsense among the current top predator! If such can be maintained when the predator’s main nutrient becomes itself; is doubtful! Is it perhaps time for a new top predator? Roaches anyone?
          All the best! -will-

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      tom0mason

      My main point is what are the consequences of moving a significant amount of mass on the planet.

      It has been mooted (but I’ve lost the reference) that as the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Aral Sea were drained the North pole moved in direct correlation. Now correlation does not equal causation but …

      Certainly the almost complete draining of the Aral Sea has significantly changed the regional climate and probably caused some global climate effects.

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    toorightmate

    Brussels recently had a major blackout.

    What do they have in common with South Australia? Terrorists.

    Brussels’ terrorists are at the bottom of the political pile. SA Terrorists are on top of the political pile.

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    el gordo

    ROM the first wave of migration probably came through New Guinea, note the genetic split around 52,000 years ago.

    http://www.australasianscience.com.au/article/issue-november-2011/aboriginal-genome-reveals-new-insights-early-humans.html

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Thanks to those that responded to my idea of publicly voicing concerns of the closure of Hazelwood power station and Victoria’s energy future, its still going ahead and any ideas about what to say or print on flyers would be greatly appreciated.

    As mentioned before any emails or contact is welcome the more the better, I would be OK with meeting anyone beforehand as most only know me as a pseudonym and an auto generated avatar so hesitation is understandable.

    Also to those that attended the Q society talk last Friday I hope you are OK and didn’t endure too much abuse, the social regression in this country where people have to meet in secrecy to discuss freedom of speech is truly disturbing, almost as bad as the police presence turning a blind eye to public assault.

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    toorightmate

    Here is a competition for all of you out there.
    There is no prize, only kudos.

    About twenty years ago the word was “EXTREEM”.
    This was replaced by “DEVASTATING”.
    That has been surpassed by “CATASTROPHIC”.
    What is the next word that will beat “CATASTROPHIC”?

    50

  • #
    David Maddison

    Defence is to spend $20m (I bet it will be more) on a diesel generator for SA just so they can waste $50 billion plus on a nuclear submarine redesigned as a diesel submarine which will be obsolete before it is even built.

    $20m to keep the lights on for Defence subs build
    The Australian
    12:00AM February 9, 2017

    South Australia’s energy security crisis has forced the Department of Defence to commission an emergency $20 million supplementary power source to safeguard the federal government’s $90 billion submarine and ship construction.

    The back-up power plan was revealed as SA was hit by rolling blackouts again after the Australian Energy Market Operator yesterday ordered load shedding because of “a lack of available generation supply in SA”, where the temperature was over 40C.

    Defence officials late last year began developing a contingency plan to build a large-capacity generator in response to concerns the state government could not guarantee reliable power because of SA’s reliance on ­intermittent ­renewable energy sources, chiefly wind.

    Danish firm Odense Marine Technologies has been commissioned to design a power generator — most likely diesel-fuelled — to ensure power at the ­Osborne South shipyard, which will employ 5000 people.

    It will be designed to operate up to five days a week as an off-the-grid power supply to mitigate statewide failures such as those last September and December. A Defence source said the department was working on a cost estimate of up to $20m, before the running expenses of fuel and fuel storage were factored in.

    Defence Industries Minister Christopher Pyne said yesterday the SA power crisis was a threat to the shipbuilding industry and the federal government would have to pay for supplying its own back-up power source.

    “So the massive obsession that the Labor Party has with renewable energy … has meant in South Australia, Australian taxpayers are going to have to pay millions of dollars more,” he said. “Power in South Australia is more akin to what you would expect in a backpackers’ hostel in a third world country.”

    Defence is believed to have been spooked when the SA government told BHP Billiton to buy its own generator after the ­December blackout shut down the miner’s Olympic Dam operation.

    Supply security was not the ­department’s only concern, however, with the state’s skyrocketing electricity prices threatening to hike construction costs at ­Osborne South. Last July, the ­National Electricity Market spot price for SA surged from averages of about $100 a megawatt hour to more than $14,000/MWh for several hours, leading to a period of average power prices 60 per cent higher than the rest of the country.

    Mr Pyne said a design and cost was still to be supplied but he was told it would run into the millions of dollars.

    “It is a pressing problem,” Mr Pyne told The Australian, with construction due to begin for nine frigates next year, followed by the offshore patrol vessels, and the contract for delivery of 12 submarines due to start in the early 2020s. “I called the department and asked them if we had a contingency plan for this … what happens to the submarines and frigates if we can’t supply power?”

    “And it’s not just the cost of the generator but the cost of the fuel and the cost of storing the fuel on site.

    Mr Pyne said the department advised it had begun work on commissioning its own generator from the company contracted to design the new shipyard.

    Premier Jay Weatherill has consistently denied the blackouts had anything to do with its renewable energy targets and significant reliance on intermittent power sources.

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      Dennis

      That is a disgraceful waste of Commonwealth of Australia taxpayer’s monies, and added to the premium price being paid for French submarines when our allies, US & Japan, were offering what is said to be the best conventionally powered submarine available designed and constructed in Japan. They were willing to allow their submarines to be constructed in Australia under their management.

      Similar to the ANZUS Treaty there is now a defence treaty or agreement between Australia, Japan & US and our US allies are using ADF bases to a greater extent that in the past after WW2.

      If conventional powered technology was right for the RAN, and I would have thought US nuclear would be a better buy, then Japan should have been the supplier, as was intended before PM Turnbull and his mates took leadership control.

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        PeterS

        I wouldn’t worry about the wasted money for the subs – they won’t be built or at least most of them won’t as we go broke and people feel so much pain they question the logic of wasting so much money on almost useless subs that will be easily defeated by nuclear subs built for other countries. If you really think about it it’s a total joke. It would be like arming our defense forces with bows and arrows instead of modern firepower.

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    David Maddison

    Here is a link to a paper documenting a pre-Global Warming scientific fraud concerning the alleged harm of DDT. As a result of the false claims in the book Silent Spring, DDT was banned which has cost tens of millions of lives due to malaria and continues to do so.

    http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf

    There is a movement to restore the use if DDT.

    http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/DDT.html

    30

  • #
    Oliver K. Manuel

    Fake News and Nobel/Crafoord Prizes for false scientific evidence of:

    _ a.) AGW: Anthropogenic Global Warming
    _ b.) BBC: Big Bang Cosmology Model
    _ c.) SNM: Standard Nuclear Model
    _ d.) SSM: Standaed Solar Model

    were all developed to hide the logical error in Dr. Carl von Weizsacker’s definition of “nuclear binding energy” because Stalin acquired the world’s remaining inventory of atomic bombs from Japan in AUG 1945 and united nations and national academies of sciences under the UN on 24 OCT 1945:

    Weizsacker’s mistake is obvious (Compare left and right sides of Fig 1) in this tribute to the nuclear, geo- cosmo- chemist, who secretly retained a personal copy of Japan’s atomic bomb design in his home for the next 57 years so the world would eventually know NEUTRON REPULSION powers atomic bombs, the Sun and the cosmos:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/TRIBUTE_TO_KURODA.pdf

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  • #
    Mark M

    I’m old enough to remember when

    … BoM (2001): “Australian meteorology in the twentieth century was magnificently served by a tradition of excellence in observational practices and high quality climate records inherited from its pioneers, but these were all simple measurements of quantities such as temperature, wind and rainfall or visual observations of weather, visibility and cloud.

    Now … BoM: “Temperature data prior to 1910 should be used with extreme caution as many stations, prior to that date, were exposed in non-standard shelters, some of which give readings which are several degrees warmer or cooler than those measured according to post-1910 standards.”

    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/about-airtemp-data.shtml

    When … BoM (2001): “The launch of the first weather satellites in the early 1960s and the special arrangements put in place for accessing their data … By the close of the century, international weather satellites were providing continuous hour-by-hour monitoring of weather patterns over the entire Australian region as well as detailed vertical profiles of temperature and wind to complement and integrate the data from the surface-based rawinsonde network.”

    Now … NASA, G Schmidt: “That’s not to say the satellite measurements don’t provide some value, but it is an indication why the surface temperature data analyzed and reported by NASA, NOAA and others is viewed as the gold standard.

    http://www.climatecentral.org/news/what-to-know-februarys-satellite-temp-record-20091

    20

  • #
    David Maddison

    A few yrs ago I attended a “market research” group interview where they were gauging public opinion about future options for electricity charging. The questions related to both domestic and commercial customers.

    Some options under consideration were:

    – You pay a premium and you have uimited access to electricity (as long as it is actually available).
    – You get a discount if you agree to have certain high power machines controllable via the grid so their load could be “shed” when the wind stopped.
    – You get a discount if the grid can control various thermostats. Eg in summer your A/C would be set to 24 or 25C instead of 20C, winter you would be expected to freeze a bit more.
    – You get a big discount for the lowest grade of supply where they turn your whole factory/shop/home off whenever they want as required to reduce demand.

    We must resist all these proposals unless people want to freely do them in the context of a free market.

    Electricity technology for the production of cheap, reliable power has been around for well over a century and we must get rid of windmills and return to fossil fuels or in countries more enlightened than Australia, nuclear.

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    • #
      PeterS

      Electricity technology for the production of cheap, reliable power has been around for well over a century and we must get rid of windmills and return to fossil fuels or in countries more enlightened than Australia, nuclear.

      Yes but there is one problem with you argument – it’s too logical and much of the public either don’t care or refuse to believe it. Therein is the real issue – the public need to suffer a lot more pain before they realise what you say is the truth.

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    Neville Bott

    I thought perhaps someone here may like the opportunity of a wager that they couldn’t loose.

    Perhaps an Ice free Arctic by 2025 or even more daring Ice free access to the North pole this year ?

    Surely their is someone with enough conviction of their opinions that is willing to take free money anyone interested?

    10

  • #
    pat

    some Sunday fun:

    Youtube: 4mins22secs: 6 Feb: Why I Left the Left
    Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report used to be a big progressive. He even had a show with The Young Turks! But now he’s not a progressive. He has left the left. Why? Dave Rubin shares his story.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiVQ8vrGA_8

    Youtube: 8mins 05secs: 9 Feb: Paul Joseph Watson: Conservatism is the NEW Counter-Culture
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avb8cwOgVQ8

    10

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    David Maddison

    Australia has fallen. We simply have no hope and no leadership.

    May I suggest that the Australian flag be removed from Parliament House in Canberra and it be replaced by the world’s biggest and most expensive windmill as a monument to our destruction.

    Money will be no object, they can just print or borrow more.

    60

    • #
      PeterS

      You are absolutely correct – it’s just a matter of time, and we can thank the voters for it. We are doomed – I have absolutely no doubt about it. All we can do is manage our own affairs as best we can to prepare for the coming disaster. All the rest are just placing their heads in the sand and they will get their buts kicked real hard and wake up surprised asking lots of rhetorical or stupid questions.

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      • #
        PeterS

        I’ll add there is possibly one more chance for us to reverse the trend to oblivion. The majority of voters to stop voting for either of two major parties for a major wake up call to the politicians in general. I doubt that will happen though. Despite the fact voters have the power to change things in a big way they are not going to use that power due to their stupidity, ignorance and/or agenda to destroy our way of life and replace it with something else.

        90

        • #
          David Maddison

          America turned herself around with Trump but who do we have that can actually get elected and form a government?

          41

          • #
            PeterS

            We have no one. One Nation is part of the solution but it will take too long for it to grow large enough to be a threat to the two major parties – thanks to the apathy of the voters. Trump was lucky in that he came in under the Republican banner even though many in his own camp refused to support him and hated him. If he came in as an independent, which he threatened to do I doubt he would have won so easily if at all. Smashing the two-party system although not impossible is extremely hard. Also we don’t elect a leader unlike the Presidential system; we elect a party who then can change their leader at a drop of a hat as we have seen. In some ways our system is worse. In any case a lot can happen between now and the next federal election. It’s up to the voters to decide whether they want to continue down the same insane road to oblivion regardless of which major party wins or they decide to smash the 2-party system once and for all. I doubt their are sufficient voters with the courage to break the shackles. I feel we will just continue down the same road and when the pain is sufficient then people will wake up but it will be too late.

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            • #
              bobl

              Our political system precludes a Trump, Trump was only possible because their president is selected through a separate vote from the Legislative Branch. Here the Parliament votes for the prime minister, and therefore to the leader of the party with the most votes. It’s a political vote.

              So this is our problem, the only way for use to get a Trump is to generate a balance of power situation in the Parliament where the balance of power falls to a Trump like leader. Pauline is close but I don’t think she is THAT leader and she’s a senator, not a rep. Pauline also has some strange ideas on Tax for example that better fit with the greens that she needs to repudiate. I write to them with practical ideas, for example dump the RET but take fuel tax and spread it more broadly across the energy economy to reduce it’s impact then wind it down to zero over time – Less regressive that way.

              11

            • #
              philthegeek

              One Nation is part of the solution

              Must be a stupid and probably non existent problem then.

              11

    • #
      scaper...

      Toughen up, laddies.

      Right and the people always win in the end. History has shown this, over and over. We are getting close to the turning point…no time to despair.

      30

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    pat

    11 Feb: Daily Telegraph: Peta Credlin: It’s time our politicians saw the light
    Forget the Coalition’s devastating Newspoll, Cory Bernardi’s split or the PM’s spray at Bill Shorten, the standout political event last week was the focus on power prices.
    That’s because the next election won’t turn on whether owning a harbourside mansion qualifies you to be prime minister, it will turn on who is most likely to keep the lights on and power bills down…READ ON
    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/peta-credlin-its-about-time-our-politicians-saw-the-light/news-story/6be340ab54b4cee1f50016379f59ac30

    10 Feb: NT News: Premier defends Queensland’s renewable energy target following SA blackout
    by Matthew Killoran, Sarah Vogler, The Courier-Mail
    Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg warned the “horror show” of the South Australian power outages would be inflicted across the country if other states pushed ahead with 50 per cent renewable energy targets.
    But Ms Palaszczuk said any suggestion her government was damning Queensland to summers of blackouts as a result of the 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030 target was “just rubbish”…
    Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Labor’s target would end in disaster and higher prices.

    “With Queensland generating only 4.4 per cent of its energy from renewables, its 50 per cent target will inevitably force the closure of some of Queensland’s 10 coal-fired power stations and lead to higher prices and instability,” he said.
    The 4.4 per cent figure comes from a Clean Energy Council report from 2015…
    A State Government draft report into renewable energy stated about 73 per cent of the state’s supply came from coal-fire power stations, gas contributed 18 per cent, large scale renewables like hydro were responsible for 3 per cent and small scale solar roof panels contributed about 4 per cent…READ ON
    http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/premier-defends-queenslands-renewable-energy-target-following-sa-blackout/news-story/39f197b217134e5048d4e9084a7e0060

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    • #
      PeterS

      Meanwhile India, China, Japan and many other countries are fortifying their base load power generation by building many more coal fired power stations, in addition to building more wind and solar power systems. Go figure. This nation is insane. I wonder how much worse it will get before the public wake up and stop voting for either of the two major parties. Australia used to be the lucky country, now it’s the dumb country.

      50

  • #

    It’s funny how you go looking for something and end up finding something vastly more interesting.

    Nine months back I was looking for some data about coal fired power and stumbled across a graph at the huge EIA (Energy Information Administration) site in the U.S. That site is monumentally huge and you can struggle for a long time to find what you want, and when I found this graph, the other task was put onto the back burner.

    We get so used to having what we have now, and lose sight of how that came about, so this graph intrigued me because I found it hard to actually believe that a Country as huge as the U.S. started from such a low base of electrical power supply, and it only dated back to after the Second World War, 1949 in fact, so only 68 years ago.

    The base point was only 240TWH of consumed power, and for some perspective, that’s a little more than Australia is currently consuming now, but keep in mind that back in 1948/50, the population of the U.S. was 152 Million people, so even then, it was 6.7 times what Australia’s is now, for the same approximate power Australia is consuming now.

    Power consumption increased steadily to where it is now at 3900TWH, an increase by a factor of 16.25, while the population has only increased by a factor of 2.1. Power consumption, and from that power generation has ramped up out of sight.

    That graph led me then to a second one, a graph to show where that power came from, and as you may have guessed, the largest supplier came from coal fired power, far and away the largest supplier as both graphs ramped up.

    You can look at graphs, and go, yeah, okay, but what does it mean, as graphs don’t explain that. It needs to be laid out, and that’s what I did with my Post on that subject.

    Now, while this explains the situation which has already happened in the U.S. across those sixty plus years, what it also points to is what is now happening in China, and to a lesser extent in India, and quite a lot of still Developing Countries.

    Only now, what is happening is that those Countries have the latest technology for coal fire power.

    The article I did write was of interest (I suppose) because it explains how coal fired power actually gave us what we have today. At my Post, I explain what those benefits are and add some ‘meat’ to graphs that nine out of ten people will look at, and then dismiss out of hand because they cannot see the things that someone from an electrical background does see, things which need explaining.

    That Post of mine is at the following link, and if you do read it, I hope I have explained effectively that what we have today is the result of something which is now being vilified unfairly, because without coal fired power on that large scale, we would still be living in the dark ages.

    The Benefits That Coal Fired Power Gave Us

    Tony.

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    • #
      PeterS

      The irony is engineering consultants and others in Australia go to Asian countries, such as China and Vietnam to advise them on how to build better coal fired power stations. Too bad we don’t use them here. We are the dumb country.

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  • #
    el gordo

    Marohasy and Abbot on South-East Australia temperatures back to the late 19th century.

    http://climatelab.com.au/wp-content/uploads/DA-2016-002-SEAUST-TMAX.pdf

    Its easy to believe that the UHI effect is causing global warming, unnatural but not dangerous. ACORN has a lot to answer for, we demand an audit.

    41

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    pat

    9 Feb: Puppet Masters: Media Matters conspiring with Facebook & Google to censor alternative media-leaked docs expose
    by Jay Syrmopoulos, Free Thought Project
    A recently leaked briefing document (LINK) from political operator David Brock’s ultra-liberal, self-proclaimed media watchdog, Media Matters, has exposed the hard-left activist group conspiring with Facebook and Google to create a strategy to marginalize and ban political thought outside of the progressive neoliberal paradigm – essentially censoring libertarian and conservative political speech…

    The leaked briefing book, entitled “Media Matters: The Top Watchdog Against Fake News and Propaganda — Transforming the Media Landscape” (obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon) was privately published by Brock in January to solicit donors, and lays out the strategy for controlling the U.S. media narrative.
    The briefing book advances the narrative of “Fake News,” which actually began with Media Matters, and reveals Brock is attempting to launch what the hard-left calls “a meme.” A “meme” is essentially a narrative designed to discredit news organizations that dare report from anything other than a neoliberal perspective. The goal is to discredit any organization that doesn’t toe the neoliberal line.
    The main thrust of this narrative Brock is forwarding is to paint anyone who opposes the neoliberal agenda as “alt-right”…READ ALL
    https://www.sott.net/article/342191-Media-Matters-conspiring-with-Facebook-Google-to-censor-alternative-media-leaked-docs-expose

    6 Feb: CNN Money: Facebook, Google to help fight fake news ahead of French elections
    by Ivana Kottasova
    Google News Lab and the non-profit First Draft News have launched a verification project called “CrossCheck” that will help French newsrooms identify and quickly debunk hoaxes, rumors and other false claims.
    At least 17 major news organizations are taking part in the project, including Le Monde, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Liberation, BuzzFeed and France Medias Monde, which manages Radio France Internationale and TV station France 24.
    Google and Facebook will provide the journalists with tools to help identify misleading content…
    Google will also train students from France’s leading journalism schools in advanced search techniques that can be used to identify fake news…
    Google and First Draft News partnered on a similar project during last year’s U.S. presidential election…
    Misleading stories and flat out fake news have plagued social media during major elections around the world…
    http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/06/technology/france-elections-fake-news-facebook-google/

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    • #
      pat

      lengthy:

      10 Feb: ConservativeTreehouse: sundance: U.S. State Department Begins Effort To Undermine French Election and Utilize “The Vast Russian Conspiracy”…
      Those who follow the messaging from within the unofficial news agency of the U.S. State Department, CNN or CNNi, might have noticed a report delivered by Wolf Blitzer yesterday claiming the Russians were set to influence another nationalist election victory, this time in France…
      The entire proclamation by Blitzer, and the executive level CNN folks who put it together, was almost identical to the previous claims of a vast Russian conspiracy influencing the U.S. election and the victory of President Donald Trump…
      In essence, CNN – and by extension the progressive State Department officials remaining within the shadow deep state construct – is trying to influence the French Presidential Race. Blaming the Russians in advance is an attempt to weaken Marine Le Pen.
      The U.K. Brexit outcome and the success of President Donald Trump are two losses for the globalist sycophants; a loss in France would be the proverbial dam break…
      https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/02/10/u-s-state-department-begins-effort-to-undermine-french-election-and-utilize-the-vast-russian-conspiracy/

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  • #
    Sane Canadian

    Somebody want to address these idiots….I’m tired.

    http://morethanscientists.org/#/video/852

    10

    • #
      Rick Will

      Sane Canadian
      I fear Seattle is a lost cause. I think it will take quite a few freezing winters with lots of snow there before there is much realisation that what they think they know about the climate is not what actually happens.

      10

  • #
    Sane Canadian

    On another note, I had to euthanize my English Bulldog last week due to congestive heart failure. The vet told me it was “just as well because with climate change the breed won’t survive anyway”. Needless to say, I’m taking my other dogs elsewhere from now on and passing the word in the local bulldog community about that jackass.

    100

    • #
      Dennis

      British Bulldogs as I am sure you know always have had breathing difficulties in warmer conditions. Amazing how seemingly intelligent people have fallen for the man-made warming con.

      52

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    It might be useful to consider the history of the Willard Storage Battery Company.

    The company grew with the automobile industry and after several years of experimental broadcasting, Willard bought station WEAR from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and combined it with its own operation to create WTAM, a 1,500-watt, clear-channel radio station in Cleveland in 1923 (see WTAM). In Nov. 1930 Willard had more than 2,500 employees, additional plants in Toronto and Los Angeles, and distributors in 89 countries. The company produced batteries for submarines during World War II and was a pioneer in the development of small, hand-sized batteries. In 1952 employment had fallen to 1,500 and the firm was owned by the Electric Storage Battery Co. of Philadelphia. In Aug. 1959 Electric Storage Battery announced it would close its Cleveland manufacturing operations, and by 1961 the E. 131 St. plant was vacant. The offices at 1717 E. 9th St. were vacated in subsequent years.

    50

  • #
    pat

    9 Feb: CNN Money: Tom Kludt: Wikipedia bans citations of The Daily Mail
    The decision came after a spirited, ***years-long debate over the Daily Mail’s credibility among Wikipedia’s active community of volunteer editors. The editors explained Wednesday that the decision stemmed from “the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism, and flat-out fabrication.”
    As a result, the Daily Mail and its online offshoot have been “generally prohibited” as a reference on Wikipedia, “especially when other more reliable sources exist.”…
    Such a move is unusual for Wikipedia, which has faced its own share of scrutiny for inaccuracies…
    The Daily Mail is one of the UK’s most commercially successful tabloids, and its website — churning out upwards of 1,600 stories a day — IS THE MOST-READ ONLINE NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD…
    http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/09/media/wikipedia-the-daily-mail/

    *** CNN’s “years-long debate” is reported everwhere else by variations of “In early January, Wikipedia user Hillbillyholiday put in a request for comment on Wikipedia regarding British tabloid the Daily Mail”

    Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard
    SCROLL DOWN TO: Daily Mail RfC
    (right column) CONSENSUS has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version, dailymail.co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles. An edit filter should be put in place going forward to warn editors attempting to use the Daily Mail as a reference.
    The general themes of the support !votes centred on the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism, and flat-out fabrication. Examples were provided to back up these claims. The oppose !votes made three main arguments:
    —–
    Should we prohibit the use of The Daily Mail as a source?…Hillbillyholiday talk 13:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)…

    We obviously shouldn’t use it for anything science related, it is de facto prohibited from BLPs and BLP-related articles, and politics would seem out of bounds given their continual lies and misrepresentation in this area.
    –Hillbillyholiday talk 16:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

    Definitely never for international news or science. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

    OPPOSE: We don’t even have a list that says The Onion isn’t a reliable source. –Guy Macon (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

    ***The summary that Consensus has agreed to a ban does not really capture the views expressed.Martinlc (talk) 20:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
    (FOLLOWING IS STRUCK OUT) Why was this closed before even 24 hours passed from the start? Atleast you made it in the Guardian [43]. I’ll have to comment here then because the discussion was prematurely closed. Given how the tabloid’s right-wing stance was referenced and mocked in several of the !votes, I’ll just point out that the Daily Mail’s reporting style has nothing specifically to do with right-wing ideas: it’s a very British tabloid thing. There are plenty of Labour Party supporting tabloids with the same occasionally sensationalist and brute style such as Daily Record or the Daily Mirror. I can feel the Trump and Brexit angst in here. –Pudeo (talk) 01:18, 9 February 2017 (UTC)…
    Where one can find a list of other prohibited sources? I can’t see it on spam blacklist, so I presume there’s some other place where I can find sources like that? SkywalkerPL (talk) 08:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
    There isn’t one, as far as I know. That’s precisely the problem with what’s happened here. There should have been a general decision first to raise the bar on media-derived content and sourcing – or at least to be more explicit about what should be current practice – and then individual sources added to any such list if necessary, with clarity about when exceptions will apply. As opposed to one newspaper, which may be pretty shoddy in many respects but is not the worst offender at all, being zeroed in on out of the blue. N-HH talk/edits 09:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Daily_Mail_RfC

    BTW 7 Jan was when Daily Mail was one of the few MSM outlets reporting heavily about the heavy snow and below-freezing temperatures sweeping across Europe, Greek Islands, etc.

    RECENT HEADLINES:

    Jeremy Corbyn accuses BBC of reporting ‘fake news’ when challenged on resignation rumours

    WikiLeaks: BBC Is Spreading ‘Fake News’ About French Elections

    Spicer: White House ‘disgusted by CNN’s fake news’

    CNN Cuts Off Bernie Sanders Live On Air For Saying CNN Is Fake News

    21

  • #
    clipe

    Journey to Oblivion: The Empress of Ireland Story

    What fascinates me about the story is my
    uncle went down with HMS Curacoa in a somewhat similar way.

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Farming cockroaches for “milk” is the next big thing!

    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/27/health/cockroach-milk/?sr=fbCNN021117cockroach-milk%2F0930AMVODtopLink&linkId=34377482

    The socialist UN wants us to eat more insects and their products you know. Instead of being a dairy farmer running a few hundred head of cattle you could be a cockroach farmer running a few hundred billion ‘roaches.

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    David Maddison

    This was stuck in moderation so I am modifying some words.

    Here is a link to a paper documenting a pre-Global Warming scientific fra ud concerning the alleged harm of DDT. As a result of the fa lse claims in the book Silent Spring, DDT was banned which has cost tens of millions of lives due to malaria and continues to do so.

    http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf

    There is a movement to restore the use if DDT.

    http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/DDT.html

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    • #
      ROM

      David;
      India was about the only nation that did not stop producing and using DDT.
      Admittedly in smaller tonnages than before the ban. However around the end of the 2000’s a number of nations once agin began to produce and use DDT as an anti malarial mosquito insecticide.

      DDT is again being used widely across the malarial regions as a anti malarial mosquito sleeping netting insecticide coating which is changed regularly between DDT and other mosquito insecticide net coatings to minimise the malarial mosquito developing resistance to any group of insecticides.
      It along with the other groups of insecticides are again now being sprayed on doors and window sills and etc in and around households to reduce the malarial mosquito numbers.

      DDT has the somewhat unique characteristic in that the mosquitos avoid any areas treated with DDT.

      The estimated death toll from Malaria AFTER the use of DDT was banned is now estimated by the WHO as exceeding 50 million preventable deaths since Greenpeace through gross alarmism and straight out vicious lies convinced the politicians against the almost universal advice of scientists and the workers in the malarial science industry, to ban DDT in the early 1970’s.

      This anti DDT action of Greenpeace plus its continuous legal actions in trying to prevent the release of the live saving Vitamin A containing, genetically engineered Golden Rice across SE Asia over the last decade and a half which cost the suffering and eventual lives of around 10 million small kids each year, a total now of Greenpeace policy caused but avoidable human deaths of somewhere around 80 plus millions of innocent victims over the last half century.
      A Greenpeace created and almost completely avoidable death toll that has in my opinion now classed Greenpeace as one of the great mass killers of mankind during the last century and on a par with the Stalin and the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese empire of the first half of the 20th century.

      It has since been claimed by a prominent researcher into malaria who was involved with the control of malaria in the late 1950’s and into the 60’s when Greenpeace used every propaganda technique and lie in the book to stop the use of DDT , that like small pox, the malaria workers were only a couple of years away at the time from eliminating Malaria from the planet.

      63

  • #
    Ruairi

    Australia’s coal reserves are worth a lot,
    To generate cheap power when burned hot.

    The foraminafera acid test,
    In low pH can thrive, is manifest.

    Hawaii’s lava flow we now behold,
    Cascades from cliffs and pours like liquid gold.

    A break from liberal left by Mr. Cory,
    May form a party as a freedom tory.

    Wind-turbine output grossly overrated,
    With hardly any, if the wind abated.

    The warmist projects make the grid unstable,
    When all they do is based on climate fable.

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  • #
    Peter C

    Solar input, Earth Temperature and OLR.

    About a year ago I made a comment here, wondering why the Global Temperature did not respond to the variable Solar input resulting from the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit, which I estimated to be 90w/m2, between the closest point (January) and the furthest (July). I was expecting a regular annual variation in the global temperature signal.
    https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1969-2015

    Recently I found some information about this on John Kehr’s blog.
    http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2012/05/the-science-of-why-the-theory-of-global-warming-is-incorrect/

    John has a graph showing a clear annual variation in global temperature and a corresponding change in the OLR which is exactly in phase. The annual variation in the global temperature is a about 3.5C. However the global temperature is out of phase with the solar input. January is the coldest month, not the warmest.

    John says that his data comes from NOAA.

    So a likely reason that I did not find the temperature variation on the published global temperature graphs is insufficient temporal resolution in the plots.

    The phase difference likely relates to the thermal mass of the southern hemisphere oceans and the effects of ocean currents distributing the heat. The global temperature follows the Northern hemisphere temperatures, which are dominated by the land based measurements.

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    • #
      Rick Will

      The phase difference likely relates to the thermal mass of the southern hemisphere oceans and the effects of ocean currents distributing the heat. The global temperature follows the Northern hemisphere temperatures, which are dominated by the land based measurements.

      Any system with extremely high inertia will respond 90 degrees out of phase with the input signal producing the change.

      In this case the temperature change in the ocean is very small relative to its absolute temperature so the power output does no change much. With the input power varying over a range of 90W/sq.m the energy input swings during power deficit through a peak of 45W/sq.m back to zero then rises to a surplus peak of 45W/sq.m then back to zero. The temperature falls the whole time the energy supply is in deficit and rises the whole time the energy is in surplus. Hence the peak temperature full 90 degrees out of phase with the peak power. In other terms, the ocean integrates the heat input and heat output with the waveform approximately sinusoidal. If you learnt derivatives you will know the integral of a sine wave is a cosine wave.

      The same characteristic occurs at a narrow entrance between the ocean and a large bay. The peak tidal flow occurs when the ocean is at it highest or lowest, 90 degrees out of phase with the change in the height of the ocean; peak flow when the ocean height is is not changing.

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    • #
      Peter C

      Someone is giving red thumbs. Hard to fathom why, unless they would like to explain?

      21

  • #
    David Maddison

    The Fink wants Australia to become a battery operated nation with batteries being occasionally (partially) recharged when the wind periodically blows.

    We will all need to become familiar with battery technology so here is a talk about lithium batteries and their failure modes.

    https://youtu.be/pxP0Cu00sZs

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    • #
      Robert Rosicka

      Willard the troll seems to have an unhealthy fettish for batteries .

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      • #
        Rod Stuart

        We are fortunate to have such a well brain-washed expert on the wonders of the Musky smell of the Tesla scam.
        Without that insight, we might well be left to consider the thoughts of well-recognised industry experts.
        Willard has every right to express his weird opinions, and that leaves it up to us to determine which makes the most sense.

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  • #
    Neville Bott

    So the answer then is that you don’t really believe this bullshit you peddle because your not willing to put your beliefs to a real test.
    Goodbye, I hope you have the courage to answer truthfully to your children when they ask about what you have done.

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    I have asked this before but no one seems to know the answer.

    How long will the natural gas supply continue to run during grid failure?

    10

    • #
      ROM

      Strangely it seems the further you are from the major gas processing and supply centres , the longer you will have gas at useable pressures.

      When Victoria’s ESSO gas processing and supply plant at Longford in Gippsland blew up in 1998 leaving Victoria without any gas supply at all, the only supplies left were in the pipes under about 3000 PSI pressure.
      Here in Horsham in western Vic and maybe 600 or so kilometers of high pressure gas pipe between us and Longford in Gippsland at the other end of the state, very judicious and careful use of the gas under pressure in that supply pipe in the western part of the state enabled Horsham to get through a good part of a week before the gas gave out as the pipe pressure dropped.

      It is likely that the gas processing plants have their own gas powered electrical units plus I think, in a lot of remote area gas processing and pipe line systems, gas turbine driven very high pressure compressors with the turbines drawing off the gas supply to send that high pressure gas down what to a layperson are some quite small sized albeit very heavy walled long distance gas supply pipes.

      [ Read a few years ago of the problems with one of the NW WA gas fields when the big gas driven turbines driving the remote on line gas compressors had trouble and caused all sorts of supply grief to the companies involved ]

      Longford was a very interesting case to look at as it was so damn efficient as a single gas processing plant for the Bass Strait gas fields and only used a dozen or so workers to maintain it with only a couple more engineers in Melbourne a two or three hundred kilometres away to control the entire plant.

      I had an article on an American Combine Forum about the efficiency in machinery operation and I will take the liberty of posting a part of that Jan 2010 article here.
      ————————–
      ————————–

      Can there be such a thing as being too “efficient??

      Well strangely enough, Yes!

      Another good friend of mine who has I think about 4 PhD’s to his credit, was a member of the board of CYMMT, the world centre for maize and grain breeding in Mexico and at one time was in the running to head the CYMMT board.
      I sat with him until a few days ago on a Blue Sky advisory committee for the largest farmer run grains research group in Australia, the Birchip Cropping Group in western Victoria.

      As well Tony runs his own grain farm with only casual help a few kilometres from our place and that consists of a few thousand acres and he is constantly on the move around the world attending number of very high powered ag research groups and committees.
      Tony recently gave a very good presentation to the BCG main advisory committee on how we can become just too “efficient”.

      Becoming too “efficient” means that the maximum of use is being extracted from something and that leaves no flexibility or slack in the system or the machine to handle situations where something does not go according to plan or some small item causes a minor disruption to the system or operations.
      In that sort of situation there is no slack left in that system to allow the system to continue to operate albeit at a possibly reduced rate.
      Instead the system just crashes totally.

      The example of a too efficient system used by Tony was the 1998 Longford Gas explosion at the gas processing plant at Longford in eastern Victoria.

      The state of Victoria in south eastern Australia in late 1998 relied entirely on just one highly automated and very efficient gas processing plant to process Victoria’s entire gas needs from the off shore gas fields in the rugged waters of Bass Strait.
      This plant was at an automated and efficiency level where it needed only a couple of persons per shift to operate it.
      In September 25th 1998 around midday, the plant blew up killing two staff and seriously injuring another eight persons.
      The senior staff of the gas company in Melbourne some three hundred kilometres away did not have a clue as to what to do next or any idea on how the plant actually ran as it was so automated and so efficient and so far away from the flesh pots of the city with just the one plant supplying the entire state that the executives of the large gas company did not bother their tiny brains about it.

      The result was 1.3 million households without gas for heating, cooking and hot water for over two weeks.
      89,000 businesses basically at a standstill and 150, 000 workers stood down or looking for other employment.
      The total cost and losses overall were estimated at $ 13 billion AUD in 1998.

      When Longford blew up the whole gas processing system was at it’s maximum level of efficiency with no other alternative supply systems anywhere around and no other alternative gas sources.
      It used only a miniscule number of essential staff to monitor and run the entire plant.

      It was extraordinarily efficient and a real dollar earner for the company but there was no give, no flexibility, no alternative gas supplier in the system to allow for the unexpected when Longford for some reason could not supply all the gas required.
      —————
      —————
      So when somebody claims to be super efficient then start wondering just how vulnerable they and their operation might be to any sort of interruption or glitch at any level.

      Wind turbines for instance are so damn efficient that they can generate electricity so cheap from the wind which is completely free, that they can undercut [ with the help of a billion dollars worth of subsidies per year ] all of the fossil fuelled generators and drive them out of business, a characteristic of wind turbines that the South Australian politicianss such as Mike Rann and Weratherdill and Konstantmoaning have taken full advantage off [ /sarc]

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    pat

    remember millions of these ***NONPOLITICAL(lol) civil servants were goinng to quit if Trump won! plenty of FakeNews included:

    11 Feb: NYT: ‘A Sense of Dread’ for Civil Servants Shaken by Trump Transition
    By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and ERIC LICHTBLAU
    (Helene Cooper, Coral Davenport and Matt Apuzzo contributed reporting)
    (A version of this article appears in print on February 12, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Civil Servants Sense ‘Dread’ in Trump Era)

    WASHINGTON — Across the vast federal bureaucracy, Donald J. Trump’s arrival in the White House has spread anxiety, frustration, fear and resistance among many of the two million ***nonpolitical civil servants who say they work for the public, not a particular president.
    ***At the Environmental Protection Agency, a group of scientists strategized this past week about how to slow-walk President Trump’s environmental orders without being fired…
    At the United States Digital Service — the youthful cadre of employees who left jobs at Google, Facebook or Microsoft to join the Obama administration — workers are debating how to stop Mr. Trump should he want to use the databases they made more efficient to target specific immigrant groups…
    This article is based on interviews around the country with more than three dozen current and recently departed federal employees from the Internal Revenue Service; the Pentagon; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Justice and Treasury Departments; the Departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development; and other parts of the government…
    ***Federal workers are more likely to be Democrats, according to surveys…

    “I have been through several transitions, but I have never had or seen this level of alarm,” said Nicole Cantello, an E.P.A. lawyer in the Chicago office, who heads the Chicago-area union of the agency’s employees.
    Ms. Cantello, who has worked for the E.P.A. prosecuting cases since 1990, said that during the George W. Bush administration, some career employees had quietly bristled at more industry-friendly environmental regulations. But at no point did they feel the alarm they do now, she said.
    “I have been through several transitions, but I have never had or seen this level of alarm,” said Nicole Cantello, an E.P.A. lawyer in the Chicago office, who heads the Chicago-area union of the agency’s employees.
    “Unless there’s an abject abandoning of E.P.A.’s role in the world, we’ll do what we’re told to do,” she said…

    In a video to E.P.A. employees this past week, the acting administrator, Catherine R. McCabe, acknowledged that “many of you are concerned about” reports that climate change data had been removed from the department’s websites.
    “I would like to allay the fears and rumors that scientific data and information are being deleted,” she said. “That is not the case.”…
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/us/politics/a-sense-of-dread-for-civil-servants-shaken-by-trump-transition.html?_r=0

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    • #
      pat

      shouldn’t have prefaced the NYT piece by saying ***”millions”, as the total number of federal workers is around 2 million (it just seems like more!):

      Nov 2016: Daily Wire: Aaron Bandler: Best Reason to Vote Trump: 35% of Government Workers Might Quit If Trump Elected
      Investor’s Business Daily reports that a Government Business Council/GovExec.com survey determined that only 65 percent of government workers have committed to staying in place at their current jobs if Trump is elected president. Fourteen percent said “they would definitely consider leaving their jobs” if Trump wins, and “another 13 percent said they might consider leaving, while 9 percent said they did not know,” according to Eric Katz’s write-up of the survey at GovExec.com…

      Naturally, federal employees look upon a Clinton presidency more favorably, as 79 percent said they would definitely stay at their current jobs, while “nine percent would definitely consider leaving; 7 percent might leave; 5 percent didn’t know.”
      This is consistent with data from the Federal Election Commission that found that 95 percent of federal workers that decided to donate to presidential candidates donated to Clinton…

      A more recent analysis by the Cato Institute found that federal employees make 76% more than private sector workers. Using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Cato report found that the average federal employee pulls down $123,160 a year in pay and benefits, compared with $69,901 in the private sector…
      What’s more, federal workers put in less time than private sector workers…

      The federal workforce has morphed into what radio host Mark Levin has labeled as the federal government’s “Fourth Branch”, via Kim Brown’s Rebound: Getting America Back to Great:
      “It is a massive yet amorphous bureaucracy that consists of a workforce of nearly ***2 million civilian employees. It administers a budget of over $3 trillion a year. It churns out a mind-numbing number of rules that regulate energy, the environment, business, labor, employment, transportation, housing, agriculture, food, drugs, education, etc”…

      Trump should trumpet this survey, as a 35 percent automatic reduction in the federal workforce would be a very compelling reason to vote for Trump.
      http://www.dailywire.com/news/10445/best-reason-vote-trump-35-government-workers-might-aaron-bandler

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      Mari C

      My experience with “new boss” transitions – even in government – has always been good. I do my job, I do more than I am tasked with (helping coworkers, taking up slack) when I can, and I have never once lost a job because my politics differed from those of the new boss.

      If these civil servants are doing their jobs, are needed (not just padding for some bureaucrat’s ego) and don’t go around shouting how evil and wrong the new boss is (at least not 1. when he’s around, and 2. when people who might tell on them are around) they stand a good chance of keeping their jobs.

      Over-paid, whiny, under-worked, etc. employees may well lose their jobs.

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    philthegeek

    So….Libs in W.A. hae bitten the bullet and done a preference deal with PHON that put them ahead of the agrarian socialist Nats??

    Interesting times. Nats may have to finally admit that actually, they have more in common with the ALP than the Libs. Creates an interesting situation.

    If the Libs win on the back of PHON support, they get comprehensively bent over by PHON after the election who will be pumped up with a HUGE sense of entitlement as to what deserve from the Libs.

    If the Libs still need the Nats……the Nats have every reason to provide as much pain and humiliation for the Libs as possibe in whatever way they can…serious popcorn. 🙂

    and on most likely option of the Libs losing badly….well they will just look like twits for doing the deal anyway.

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘….serious popcorn.’

      They say the WA Coalition is very lose anyway, but this abuse by the Liberals is the last straw.

      I would like to see the agrarian socialists around the country quit the Coalition and join up with Cory.

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      • #
        philthegeek

        quit the Coalition and join up with Cory.

        Nah, i think cory and PHON will end up horizontal before that happens.

        Interesting commentary around that Corgi is positioning to soak up PHON supporters in a year or so after they have gone through their implosion cycle, and that he may well encourage the expected implosion.

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  • #
    pat

    12 Feb: news.com.au: AAP: Three accused of ‘heinous’ arson in NSW
    Three people have been arrested after allegedly lighting fires in NSW as crews battled more than 80 blazes and catastrophic conditions across the state.
    Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons slammed the alleged fire bugs – males aged 13, 32 and 40 – for the “heinous crimes”.
    “How dare they,” he told reporters in Sydney in Sunday.
    “You put the lives of our firefighters at risk. How dare anybody add to the extraordinary conditions we’re experiencing.”
    A 32-year-old man was arrested on Sunday afternoon after two fires were deliberately lit at Nabiac on the NSW north coast.
    The man is being questioned by detectives…
    Earlier, a 40-year-old man was arrested on the Central Coast after fire crews were called to a blaze in Mango Creek.
    Police said the fire was extinguished and nobody was injured.
    Police have also charged a teenage boy with arson offences in NSW’s central west.
    A witness told officers they saw the 13-year-old, who was part of a group of teenagers, light a grass patch in an industrial area of Orange on Saturday evening…
    No structures were damaged but 100 wrecked motor vehicles were affected, police said…
    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/boy-13-lit-fire-during-nsw-heatwave/news-story/43bd16d88a3fef909e3b62cb551d572c

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    pat

    thought they were going to stop being so alarmist:

    12 Feb: Guardian: Melissa Davey: Humans causing climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces
    Researchers behind ‘Anthropocene equation’ say impact of people’s intense activity on Earth far exceeds that of natural events spread across millennia
    The equation was developed in conjunction with Professor Will Steffen, a climate change expert and researcher at the Australian National University, and was published in the journal The Anthropocene Review…
    “Human activities now rival the great forces of nature in driving changes to the Earth system,” the paper said…
    “We are not saying the astronomical forces of our solar system or geological processes have disappeared, but in terms of their impact in such a short period of time they are now negligible compared with our own influence,” Steffen said…
    “The human magnitude of climate change looks more like a meteorite strike than a gradual change.”…
    Failure to reduce anthropological climate change could “trigger societal collapse”, their research concluded…
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/12/humans-causing-climate-to-change-170-times-faster-than-natural-forces

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    • #

      : Guardian: Melissa Davey: Humans causing climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces

      What a load of rubbish from Melissa Davey and Will Steffen. When will they be called to account?

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      bobl

      You just have to be kidding Will Steffen, The same math-challenged Will Steffen that at the Ipswich “Climate Conversation” couldn’t decide whether it would warm 3 degrees for a doubling or 6 degrees by 2100 ( around 8 degrees per doubling!). What was it Will 3 or 8? Also Will Steffen couldn’t work out the apparent cost of a degree of cooling based on the Gillard tax. SO clever is he, nor could he tell us exactly how much Gillards tax would reduce the temperature – Of course WE know that to the nearest 100th of a degree that number was Zero, Nil, Nada degrees C at a cost of 11 Billion per annum.

      I would not believe anything that man said, completely inept and mathematically incompetent.

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    • #
      Mari C

      Here’s the link to the paper http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053019616688022.

      The damn article Pat shared showed up in my FB feed – posted by a very green “friend” who will not even consider researching causes other than mankind for any climate/weather/bad news. Not even pointing out that the “peer reviewed” paper is an advocate/activist rag set up by those who believe humans are the root cause of all evil makes a bit of difference.

      Also was subjected to https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/02/10/its-about-50-degrees-warmer-than-normal-near-the-north-pole/?utm_term=.1acdf40b32c3 , which really irks me as no one can be bothered to access the Danish site the info is said come from, no one can be bothered to look up current or past temps in or around the area, and no one would understand that a few days does not equal catastrophe, the cold dropped south, and the warm is bringing wet, which makes snow, which makes ice (eventually.)

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    pat

    a lot of people think this will backfire on the Democrats, despite the FakeNewsMSM continuing to push the meme of Obama’s undying popularity. it is incredibly tacky, however you look at it:

    12 Feb: news.com.au: How Obama is scheming to sabotage Trump’s presidency
    by Paul Sperry,New York Post
    WHEN former President Barack Obama said he was “heartened” by anti-Trump protests, he was sending a message of approval to his troops.
    Troops? Yes, Obama has an army of agitators — numbering more than 30,000 — who will fight his Republican successor at every turn of his historic presidency. And Obama will command them from a bunker less than two kilometres from the White House…
    He’s working behind the scenes to set up what will effectively be a shadow government to not only protect his threatened legacy, but to sabotage the incoming administration and its popular “America First” agenda…
    He’s doing it through a network of leftist nonprofits led by Organizing for Action…
    Since Donald Trump’s election, this little-known but well-funded protesting arm has beefed up staff and ramped up recruitment of young liberal activists, declaring on its website, “We’re not backing down.” Determined to salvage Obama’s legacy,” it’s drawing battle lines on immigration, ObamaCare, race relations and climate change…

    Run by old Obama aides and campaign workers, federal tax records show “nonpartisan” OFA marshals 32,525 volunteers nationwide. Registered as a 501(c)(4), it doesn’t have to disclose its donors, but they’ve been generous. OFA has raised more than $40 million in contributions and grants since evolving from Obama’s campaign organisation Obama for America in 2013…
    It will be aided in that effort by the Obama Foundation, run by Obama’s former political director, and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, launched last month by Obama pal Eric Holder to end what he and Obama call GOP “gerrymandering” of congressional districts…

    Obama will be overseeing it all from a ***shadow White House located within two miles of Trump. It features a mansion, which he’s fortifying with construction of a tall brick perimeter (AKA WALL), and a nearby taxpayer-funded office with his own chief of staff and press secretary. Michelle Obama will also open an office there, along with the Obama Foundation…
    “You’re going to see me early next year,” he said after the election, “and we’re going to be in a position where we can start cooking up all kinds of great stuff.”…
    http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/how-obama-is-scheming-to-sabotage-trumps-presidency/news-story/186469c1d32a612df427211566d05e95

    ***the Obamas are renting the house, which is two doors from Tony Podesta’s house, in the Kalorama neighborhood of D.C.

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      pat

      ***unnamed pro-Obama super PAC? could they be OFA-connected? they’ve been inside the Republican Town Hall meetings, hurling abuse, etc:

      12 Feb: Daily Caller: Phillip Stucky: Obama PACs Bus Protesters To GOP Town Halls
      Political action committees that fundraised for President Barrack Obama during the 2012 presidential election, bused protesters to Republican town hall events nationwide earlier in February, according to a Sunday report from The Washington Post.
      Democrats nationwide continue to search for ways to oppose President Donald Trump after the 2016 election, and they are digging deep into funding from years ago. An ***unnamed pro-Obama super PAC organized protests at several town halls, going so far as busing protesters outside the member’s districts…
      Since super PACS were legalized in the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, ***this marks the first time that money raised to elect one president was used to undermine another…
      Former staffers of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton are also pouncing on the opportunity. The Center for American Progress, operated by Clinton advisor Neera Tanden, worked with pro-Obama groups in February to encourage Democrats to oppose Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Dave Brat, at several town halls…
      It will take a sustained effort to keep voters motivated until the 2018 mid-term elections, especially considering the fact that neither Obama nor Clinton were able to motivate voters to the polls in November…ETC
      http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/12/obama-pacs-bus-protesters-to-gop-town-halls/

      ugly.

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    pat

    if there is one “journo” at The Guardian who epitomises everything that is wrong with the elites, it is the arrogant, war-mongering Nick Cohen. the fact he continues to write for The Guardian says much about the FakeNewsGuardian’s globalist agenda.
    his hatred for people, and democracy, is clear, and makes the Clinton caption all the more ironic:

    note: Booker was for what is called “Soft Brexit”.

    12 Feb: Guardian: Nick Cohen: How the lunatic fringe conquered world politics
    The left and the right ignored the extremists and we ended up with Brexit and Trump
    PHOTO CAPTION: People knew that Hillary Clinton would always beat Donald Trump
    Three types dominate extremist movements: crazies, cynics and creeps…
    Of the three, the cynics are the easiest to understand. They live in the conspiratorial world of clickbait journalism where charlatans churn out fantasies for sites as various as the Telegraph and the Canary…

    Allow me to let one shabby figure stand for a neglected underworld. For years, Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph fanned every ignorant prejudice on the right. He denied manmade global warming. “Arctic ice isn’t vanishing after all,” he declared in 2007. (It is now vanishing so fast its absence is destabilising the entire global weather system.)…

    Inevitably, he treated the EU as if it were a dictatorship…
    Yet when Telegraph readers took him at his word and voted to leave behind the EU’s bunny boilers, Booker was consumed with fear. Quitting the EU-dominated European Economic Area, with the freedom of movement and compliance with EU laws Brexiters say they abhor, could lead Britain to the “ultimate disaster” of being alone in the world without agreements to trade with the EU or anyone else…

    A majority of MPs also believe it would be a disaster for Britain to leave the EU without securing membership of the single market or the customs union. Last week, they nevertheless gave Theresa May the power to negotiate just that. Hack journalists say they are just giving the readers what they want. Our politicians say they are just giving the 52% who voted to leave – now redefined as “the people” – what they want…
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/11/how-the-lunatic-fringe-conquered-world-politics-brexit-donald-trump

    check the charts:

    9 Feb: ZeroHedge: Are The NY Times, Guardian, And WaPo Buying Clicks? China Jumps From Trickle To Half Of All Traffic In Two Months
    by ZeroPointNow
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-09/fake-newsflow-are-ny-times-guardian-and-wapo-buying-clicks-china-jumps-trickle-half-

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    scotsmaninutah

    Germany moving gold back to the homeland

    As 2017 unfolds and the upcoming elections in Europe draw closer, it would be interesting to know what Germany and France are doing about the possible threat to the Euro …

    France a totally socialist country where even Le Pen has very left leaning fiscal policies appears to be doing very little.

    Germany however has been busy moving Gold back to its Frankfurt depositories after storing it for many years “out of country”

    https://www.rt.com/business/376924-germany-gold-repatriation-euro/

    It should be said that reliable information on the Euro is scant ( there have been no EU parlimentary audits for many (18) years) , but by the end of 2017 we should know when the funeral for the Euro will be announced.

    In truth I have no doubt that the French and German Governments are doing more, but as yet this is not being revealed to the general public.

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    For some understanding I offer but; “You’d better not kvetch, or eat chozzerai, You’d better not greps, I’m telling you why… Yenta Claus in coming to town!” Ba humbug! Ebenezer is such a “kvetch.”

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      For all that did not ‘get’ the 12 Feb 17 at 9:26 pm message! The popular ‘belief” of CAGWis now called ‘science’! The same as when political\religious folk that ridiculed Galliano’s proclamation dat da Sun is near da center locus of dis solar system, never da Earth! Go away religious kooks! Entropy is limited. Human stupidity appears limitless. Oh WhOA are we!

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    theRealUniverse

    Kin ardly wait for the alarmist ‘kilmate thugs’ to blame the recent ‘record temp’ heatwave in QLD to be due to Warmal Globing.
    Me thinks there were most probably heatwaves in the last real Ice Age too.

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    Michael in Brisbane

    We need an update (or at least a reminder) on this post from 2012 in relation to the current heat wave:
    http://tinyurl.com/brj7edz

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    Despite the ABC running its usual scare campaign that NSW would inevitably have blackouts on Saturday, there were none.

    The maximum power consumption was 13,400MW.

    Coal fired power supplied 7,800MW of that or 58.2%.

    Five power plants with 16 units had 14 units in operation with only 45 year old Liddell having two units not in operation due to boiler maintenance.

    And has this fact escaped anyone?

    14 Units were supplying 7800MW in total.

    There are 43 Wind power plants with (around) 9,000 Units. (individual wind towers)

    At the same time as those 14 coal fired units were supplying 7800MW, those 9,000 wind units were supplying 1400MW.

    That is not LIKE FOR LIKE.

    And, every single one of those coal fired power plants are currently older than the projected life span of ANY wind power plant.

    Tony.

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    I know this is the definition of irony, but, hey, isn’t there a message hidden in there somewhere?

    We are being constantly bombarded by scare campaigns which say that without fraction of a doubt, the emissions of CO2 are causing runaway global warming.

    The only thing which saved NSW from an absolute disaster on Saturday was the access to a constant, and, umm, dare I even say it ….. a reliable source of electrical power, and where did that electrical power come from.

    93% of the whole State’s 13,400MW came from sources of power that emit that same CO2 which is supposedly burning us all to hell, coal fired power and Natural Gas fired power.

    Tony.

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    Analitik

    ROFLMAO – Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy provides the clearest demonstration of denial that I’ve seen for a long time!

    The strong performance of wind and solar came despite the loss of more than 1GW of capacity of coal fired power and the sudden withdrawal of two of the biggest gas fired generators on Friday afternoon – at the height of the heatwave and supply-demand crisis.

    Record solar, wind “save” NSW consumers as coal, gas went missinghttp://reneweconomy.com.au/record-solar-wind-save-nsw-consumers-as-coal-gas-went-missing-79390/

    I’m sure home solar PV did help but wind? At 5pm, wind was producing around 350 MW and falling off a cliff (down to 75 MW at 8:30 pm)

    http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/february/10

    And no mention of how the 2 big coal generators were known to be offline for maintenance so the AEMO could accurately forecast their absence, unlike wind which comes and goes in an unpredictable, chaotic manner. Instead, Giles lauds how

    AEMO issued a “non conformance” notice to Tallawarra [one of the CCGTs that tripped during the afternoon] on Friday evening, apparently because it did not follow instructions

    No mention of the non-conformance of the SA wind farms that triggered the total grid collapse on the 28th of September last year.

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    “In order to make progress in science – particularly the older subjects like Physics – we literally need a revolution.”

    De-legitimatize western educational system completely! Start over with parents socially constrained to rearing their own offspring to become ‘useful’ members of that society! Between chores ofsprouts may attend local classes for instruction in written\verbal communication and basic arithmetic (make change for a buck).
    After that trade schools for learning skills, especially that of the joy of learning! The masters of the trade schools broaden their skills by attending and ‘teaching their mastery’ at other trade schools. After 10-20 years of habilitation. some of those masters may be willing to discuss\argue between themselves what might be part if this physical world; and what must remain in the other reality of thought\religion\philosophy\fantasy! Peer review and publishing is only for publishers, never science!

    “We need to reduce the number of social parasites pushing crap like global warming, and start having real free thinkers ready and willing to turn over the stones of established theory and see what creepy crawlies line underneath.”

    Like wild chickens, carefully turning leaves over to discover yummy stuff beneath”

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    Environment Skeptic

    “”The Planet Made Them Do It” – Scientists Claim Left-Wing Violence Is Caused By Global Warming”
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-14/planet-made-them-do-it-scientists-claim-left-wing-violence-caused-global-warming

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    YouCantHandleTheTruth

    CO2 is plant food therefore it’s good for people – really?

    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/three-dead-in-water-tank-tragedy-near-yass-20170216-guewah.html

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      AndyG55

      poor child-mind, they mention carbon monoxide…. not carbon dioxide.

      you do know there is a difference, don’t you ???

      nah… probably not. !!

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        “they mention carbon monoxide…. not carbon dioxide.”

        They, typical SMH, mention carbon dioxide, from an IC engine, typical SMH,…. not carbon monoxide. Some folk can read then spout, but never bother to think.

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    William says: 17 Feb 17 at 1:16 pm

    “Will, average temperature at the equator is higher than at the poles.”

    Indeed, but so what, so is surface area? The phrase, ‘average temperature’, can have no physical meaning. Such can have some statistical value, but still no meaning!

    “Yet you think that has no physical meaning? If temperature averages have no meaning, what happened to the ‘pause’ or to the little ice age or medieval warm period or last summer?”

    Are ‘the pause’, medieval warm period’, or ‘little ice age’ some sort of statistical average of temperatures? Who says so? Why? Temperature can only be a normalized “measurement” of but one form of mass accumulation of power, called ‘sensible heat’. A measured temperature value is always equal to some ratio of other mass properties (sensible heat/entropy) for any ‘power sink’, (sensible heat/specific heat) for all other mass! What meaning can an average of two temperature measurements possibly have? A one m³ Styrofoam container with one kilogram of 95 °C water, and one kilogram of 15 °C air (80kPa pressure), has a statistical average temperature of 55 °C! So what? That average tells nothing about sensible heat, how much sensible heat will be converted to ‘latent heat of evaporation’, pressure, or the single equilibrium temperature value of that combination!

    “I’m still interested to hear from someone whether there is an acceptable process to compute a global temperature index.”

    Why? Only to continue the CAGW scam?

    If it is not GISS or HADCRUT4 or the sceptically sourced BEST, what is it? Paul, as a mathematician, can you not suggest how to remove measurement bias and produce a reliable average?

    Perhaps Paul (Matthews) can tell you some possible meaning of statistical ‘average’ temperature, besides some intent of confusion to continue the scam!

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      Oliver K. Manuel February 17, 2017 at 1:45 pm Now#73

      “Yes. I have described it in several papers cited in this recent tribute to my research mentor, who first recognized Weizsacker’s error on 13 JUN 1936:
      “PAUL KAZUO KURODA,” International Journal of Advanced Research 4 (12) 975-979 (2016).
      https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/TRIBUTE_TO_KURODA.pdf

      Thank you for your references! Always nice to learn about that, that I have no skill; and almost no education. I have many questions!

      Oliver K. Manuel February 17, 2017 at 1:48 pm #74
      “I replied to your message but it appeared as #72 below.” (now #73 above)

      From your cite:

      We do not know if fear of worldwide nuclear annihilation contributed to the misunderstanding of nuclear energy after WWII. We know only a little. More will be revealed, if we adhere to the basic principles of science.
      This paper is dedicated to all those who wish President-elect Donald J. Trump success in restoring integrity to government science and humanity’s contact with reality. Numerous friends, anonymous scientists and bloggers encouraged publication of this summary of the heroic efforts of the late Professor Paul Kazuo Kuroda (1917-2001) to prevent the misuse of nuclear secrets to isolate humanity from reality, including two well-known geo-ethicists Drs. Nils-Axel Mörner and Václav Němec. -Oliver K. Manuel-2016-

      Question 1) Do low density atoms with neutrons have more binding energy/gm than high density atoms with neutrons?
      Question 2) Is it density or mass? Very compressed hydrogen goes bang pretty good.
      Question 3) How do we test and confirm, safely?
      Question 4) Is the US ignition facility safe, if successful?
      All the best! -will-

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      dpy6629 says: 17 Feb 17 at 9:08 pm

      “William, A lot of people do accept the idea of a temperature index and just want to see better science. The only way that can happen is through skepticism and vetting.”

      Some temperature history at any single location (latitude,longitude), indexed by year, day of year, and time of day; would give much insight as to the periodic and deterministic; but not cyclic, nature of planet Earth in relationship to its own orientation within all of this solar system. ANY temporal or spatial aggregation or averaging, simply destroys the very measurements needed, without adjustment, to provide some understanding of the Earth’s weather and the wonderful various CLIMATES available for choice! Some global temperature is the scam.
      All the best! -will-

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      Will Janoschka says: 16 Feb 17 at 10:38 pm
      Paul Matthews says: 16 Feb 17 at 12:03 pm

      (“Another contender for the post of science adviser is apparently David Gelernter, mentioned at the end of the Guardian article. He’s a computer scientist at Yale”)
      “Lest you think he is just some computer scientist:
      “We can’t have artificial intelligence until a computer can hallucinate.” -David Gelernter-”
      Yust how many from a thousand even bother to consider the significance of such admission?

      00