Weekend Unthreaded

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268 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

  • #
    Oliver K. Manuel

    BAN PROPAGANDA:

    The Japanese government knows, as rational analysis and logic reveal to anyone, Hiroshima and Nagasaki soon became bustling cities after being destroyed by atomic bombs on 6 & 9 AUG 1945.

    THE REAL ISSUE: Frightened world tyrants united nations and national academies of sciences on 24 OCT 1945 to control humanity by hiding the HIGHER POWER that:

    1. Endowed mankind with inalienable rights to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/NeutronRepulsionb.pdf, and

    2. Still maintains total control of the whole universe:

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-universe-is-scary?utm_term=.jwjJkDyby#.nqea5V8

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    • #
      TedM

      Interesting paper Oliver, and yes the higher power that it’s become trendy to ridicule.

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      • #
        Oliver K. Manuel

        World tyrants do not want the public to know that they too are ruled by the same Higher Power!

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          The lie that started it all back in the garden of eden….

          The devils best efforts is fooling people into not believing he exists….and its has become trendy to mock Christians and set up minority groups to target christians beliefs through changing laws to make many forms of behaviour the Bible condemns ( for good reason ) legal…. As my grandmother used to say. Its easy to stoop and pick up nothing….

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        • #
          OriginalSteve

          The lie that started it all back in the garden of eden….

          The devils best efforts is fooling people into not believing he exists….and its has become trendy to mock Christians and set up minority groups to target christians beliefs through changing laws to make many forms of behaviour the Bible condemns ( for good reason ) legal…. As my grandmother used to say. Its easy to stoop and pick up nothing….

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      • #
        Oliver K. Manuel

        Yes, TedM, Stalin’s “scientists” used a simple trick to hide the higher power:

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

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        • #
          Oliver K. Manuel

          Worldwide members of National Academies of Sciences will not debate, but continue to promote, the flawed definition of “nuclear binding energyto

          1. Hide the pulsar-centered Sun from the public.

          2. Promote UN’s AGW global warming scam

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    • #
      toorightmate

      People going back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki if fake news.
      I know this because I have been besieged with left wing documentaries on how Chernobyl and Fukashima areas will not be habitable for centuries because of the residual radiation.

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      • #
        Oliver K. Manuel

        To block UN’s false propaganda about nuclear energy after nations and national academies of sciences were united on 24 OCT 1945:

        1. Paul Kazuo Kuroda risked his life by keeping a private copy of Japan’s successful design for atomic bombs in his home for the rest of his life.

        2. Galen Winsor, a safety radiation officer that had worked at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Richmond, Washington made videos on the Scam of Nuclear Radiation Danger.”

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    • #
      Oliver K. Manuel

      In conclusion: “USA’s_Brief_Role_in_History

      1. Humanity always believed in a Higher Power or Creator.

      2. In 1776, Jefferson proclaimed our Creator endowed us with inalienable rights to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to establish a government to protect our inalienable rights.

      3. In 1922, F.W. Aston received a Nobel Prize for measuring the masses of atoms and discovering “powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction” in their cores.

      4. In August 1945, those powers were released from cores of uranium and plutonium atoms to destroy Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

      5. On 24 Oct 1945, nations and national science academies were united under the UN to save the world from nuclear annihilation by hiding the power Aston discovered in ordinary atoms.

      May President Trump successfully reverse USA’s history!

      00

  • #
    Gordon

    Any more info from Elon Musk? He says he can solve power shortage in Australia!

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Trump will cut or eliminate his US Government subsidies so he needs other stupid governments, stupid politicians and stupid taxpayers to give him money. Australia has no shortage of any. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him soon.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        South Australians are fools, they were onto a sure thing with the Monorail….Harold Hill where are you?

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    • #
      Raven

      We should start a countdown.
      I wouldn’t be surprised to see Elon Musk filing Chapter 11 paperwork before that 100 days is up.

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      • #
        Dennis

        The SA Premier would then, no doubt, accuse the Federal Government of engineering it to embarrass SA Labor.

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  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Recent events have highlighted the self interest of the parties in our nominally. “Democratic” system.

    Living here in Australia has similar overtones to many parts of Europe where thieves and pickpockets fight for access to your pockets.

    We have a constant stream of media output that confuses and stupifies anyone trying to make sense of government activity and this allows free flow of treasury contents to the appropriate party.

    We have lined up to fleece us;

    The Liberals, The only good they do is to create some employment during their largely self serving terms.

    The Greens, A nominal group there to protect nature but who know nothing of the Bush or environment outside of the grounds of the local University.

    The ULP parti, this, the parti owned and paid for by the unions but fronting the public as the laba parti. This group will ensure that the voters always get the most expensive public project that taxes can pay for.

    The National parti used to be involved with farming but has lost the plot. Feral animals have taken the plot and it seems to be lost somewhere in the Snowy region; Clancy is looking for it, but we don’t know where he are.

    When the coffers are empty and the last dollar is borrowed, would Trumball please turn off the pumped power before leaving for the U.N. reunion with Julia, Kevin and Julie.

    KK

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    • #

      KK: I was also musing on the current political state of the US, and posted this on my blog today.

      https://notonmywatch.com/?p=1121

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Thanks Old Man. An interesting read. I tend to align with our Liberal party here but have only ever given them my vote on two occasions in my 52 years of voting: I normally vote for an independent candidate who’s not bound to a parti. Our Liberals are the local conservatives.

        I hate the current media laziness which floods the air with loaded terms like left-wing and rightwing or conservatives and liberals and the many variations whose only purpose is to make life easier for the media celebrity and polarise the audience.

        My father came back from WW11 _ New Guinea, with serious skin damage so from a very early age my mother would ask me to prepare a chicken for Sunday lunch.

        The axe, the block, the boiling water to help with plucking.

        It was certainly different from today’s supermarket, frozen chicks experience.

        If only today’s politicians could spend most of their effort actually doing their jobs properly we would all be a lot happier.

        KK

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      • #
        nc

        Why would you have voted for Trudeau? Reading youy posts I do not understand, the man and his campaign where so superficial.

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        • #

          NC: You have a point, but it seemed to me that the Conservatives were getting complacent and a bit self serving. More for the shock value, I guess?. Now that you mention it, it was probably a similar mechanism to the US drain the swamp movement. The Cons were sure not getting the pipelines moving. Interesting tho. thx!

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      • #
        Climateskeptic

        It would be interesting if the Democrats didn’t get 3 million (2%) more votes Than the Republican

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Most of them in California from illegal immigrants.

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          @Climateskeptic: “It would be interesting if the Democrats didn’t get 3 million (2%) more votes Than the Republican”

          That was the point. Popular Vote, because of the cities, will tend to be progressive social and overwhelm, the rest of the country, but helpless for their own physical survival on their urban islands. If they get their way without regard to the rest of the country, it will come apart. Using Popular vote as the yardstick is a journey into darkness… probably literally.

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          Climateskeptic March 19, 2017 at 12:58 pm

          ‘It would be interesting if the Democrats didn’t get 3 million (2%) more votes Than the Republican’

          Dat erection was ‘tween da Donald and the Deep state\sh*t. no political parties left. Da Erectorial college again saves da ‘hole’ US from da deep sh*t.
          Get used to it, cave dweller PUNK! We cuts yo food, yo all disappear. To many earthlings hiding in caves anyhow, rather than pulling a plough! 🙁

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        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Well, climateskeptik, it seems that you are getting some good comment back from The Old Man and Will, both Nordern Americans who live more or less on top of the situation. You couldn’t find two more different forms of expression both saying the same thing: “we don’t see it your way”.

          Maybe you could come out of your cave?

          KK

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      • #
        bobl

        I’d agree mostly except that what we have here is the “TEA party” candidate elected into the presidency the “revolution” the Tea party phenomenon has been around a while – It was Democrat and Republican Myopia that missed the libertarian truck that was barrelling toward them.

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    • #
      jorgekafkazar

      The media have sold out to Big Government proponents.

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  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Hi Oliver,

    there’s a lot of heavy duty reading attached to your post.

    There appear to be two possible themes to your comments and am curious about which you are pushing.

    In hindsight there is, to me, an amazing reluctance to get involved with liberating the potential energy stored in nuclei and that this may be the unfortunate aftereffect of Hiroshima and Nagasaki plus the uncertainty in the public mind of just how safe radioactivity really is.

    Maybe we should have made greater use of this resource.

    The second possibility relates to another untapped nuclear source waiting to be brought into a manageable form of expression?

    I suspect it’s the first and would agree that it represents an incredible untapped gift to mankind.

    ?

    KK

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    • #
      Oliver K. Manuel

      Thanks for your comment, KK.

      Nobel Laureate Francis William Aston correctly described nuclear energy as powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction in the last paragraph of his Nobel Prize Lecture on 12 DEC 1922.

      In my opinion, it is powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction that developed and now sustain all of the talents and genius of human life on a water-covered plant located 1 AU from the pulsar that made our elements and birthed the entire solar system about 5.1 Ga ago,

      Powers beyond . . . scientific fiction that have been called God, Higher Power, Spirit of the Universe, etc.

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    • #
      Popeye26

      KK

      I left this link on a previous post the other day – you may have missed it.

      “Economics 101

      There MUST be at least a SEVEN fold energy payback in order to make ANY energy source viable.

      If not, then there won’t be enough energy to produce the next (windmills, solar panel, renewable) energy source.

      The only current viable energy sources are coal, oil, gas and nuclear.

      The ABSOLUTE best is Nuclear!! 50 MILLION times more energy dense that COAL – see Sunniva Rose – Norwegean Nuclear Physicist.

      So what the heck is everybody arguing about and what are these FOOLS like Wetherdill in SA raving on about Elon Musk batteries for?”

      Well worth looking at the video.

      Cheers,

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        I did read that post Popeye but didn’t go to the link.

        Just had a quick scan, she says that pound for pound the nuclear energy system is 50 million times more productive than coal combustion.

        Easy to follow.

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          KinkyKeith March 19, 2017 at 1:42 pm

          “Just had a quick scan, she says that pound for pound the nuclear energy system is 50 million times more productive than coal combustion. Easy to follow.”

          Look again!… Nucleus U(235) has way more ‘energy’ Than nucleus C(12) but 20 times the mass! 2.5 million; still way to high to be physically possible! Nuclear power is way way different than oxidizing C(12) into CO2+sensible heat. 5,000 times possibly an upper limit; only by folk way way more skilled than we have currently! Mammoth problems! The CAGW folk promoted many things that cannot possibly happen. Time to stop such nonsense!

          Oliver K. Manuel March 19, 2017 at 2:46 pm

          “Nuclear energy is the only way to go”

          I agree wholeheartedly. Please admit that Fe(56) is but nuclear ash (waste). No more nuclear power at all, no-mater what you claim of ‘binding energy’ or ‘neutron repulsion’! The CAGW folk promoted many things that cannot possibly happen.
          Time to stop such nonsense, rather than join the BS!

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          • #
            KinkyKeith

            I didn’t really watch her whole speech but the little comment comparing energy from combustion of a given mass of coal with potential nuclear energy available from the same mass of U, made an impact.

            Are you saying it’s 5000 max?

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            • #

              KinkyKeith March 20, 2017 at 4:30 pm

              “I didn’t really watch her whole speech but the little comment comparing energy from combustion of a given mass of coal with potential nuclear energy available from the same mass of U, made an impact.”

              Keith,
              She seems to now be a feminist twit with no understanding except from some fools textbook. Nuclear energy/gm is truly immense. So far we have U 235 and Pu 239 reactors that convert almost none of such energy to useful work. The nuclear weapons of US and USSR truly indicate that approximately 1% of said energy can be used to provide some spectacular demonstration of blowing everything up, immense creation of thermal ‘entropy’, but little or no demonstration of production of useful work. The 50,000,000 times is exactly the same scam as CAGW, and much, much worse from any technological POV.

              “Are you saying it’s 5000 max?”

              Not at all. I would love to have a couple of Ohio bicycle mechanics double or triple that number. But 10,000 times is likely never to be done. You are asking a quadriplegic to win a foot race!
              All the best! -will-

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      • #
        Oliver K. Manuel

        Yes, Popeye 26, there is absolutely no doubt

        1. Nuclear energy is the only way to go,

        and

        2. World tyrants do not want you to know that.

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        • #

          Back before the Internet expanded out of this World, I was chasing up articles about Nuclear power generation, and I distinctly recall reading in not just one article, but a number of them, where it said that at one stage, they actually thought that it was so effective at generating electricity, there was thinking that electricity would eventually come to all at no cost whatsoever.

          That’s another article that has since, umm, gone missing from the Internet.

          Incidentally, Nuclear Power has the highest Capacity Factor of any power generating source.

          In the U.S. just last year alone it came in at a whole of year CF of 92%, and has been as high as 94%. In the U.S. it has a Nameplate of just over 100,000MW, while wind power has a Nameplate of 84,000MW, so Nuclear Power by Nameplate is only 16% higher than for wind power by Nameplate.

          However, when it comes to actual power delivered, Nuclear Power delivers 3.56 TIMES as much power as wind.

          There just is no comparison.

          Tony.

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          • #
            Egor the One

            Peak power or name plate power for wind and solar happens for about one hour per month.
            Most of the rest of the time its a fraction of that which is the grand idiocy.

            Where as ‘evil fossil fueled power’ is whenever they want or need it to be…..the major game changer,( not that I think I need to convince you of that Tony).

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          • #
            ROM

            “Time ” magazine I think was one such source Tony but that electricity would be so cheap to generate from the new nukes that it would not be worth charging for was a common theme in the media during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
            As the old timers amongst us can see, the media and Journalism and its gross exaggerations and abhorrence to actually getting down and dirty by checking the veracity of any claims and press releases hasn’t changed all that much over the last century and half.

            The US media with its Yellow Journalism was a whole lot worse if thats possible than today’s media way back in the days of the late 19th century circulation wars between the papers owned by Joseph Pulitzer and those of William Randolph Hearst.

            Hearst in fact is blamed for Yellow Journalism jingoism that led to the Spanish -American war of 1898 where the Spanish colonial administration in the Central and southern Americas and in the Philippines was rotten to the core in every way and was defeated and efectively driven out of Central America and the South American continent and the Phillipines by the rising jingoistic power of the new and vigorous and expansion minded USA.

            Yellow Journalism: The “Fake News” of the 19th Century

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            • #
              Graeme No.3

              ROM:
              The Spanish were kicked out of Central and South America by the locals long before Pulitzer and Hearst were active. Yes, the 1898 war led to the USA gaining The Philippines as a colony and a lot of influence in Cuba, which didn’t turn out well.

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          • #
            Gee Aye

            Hi Tony,

            Who are the world tyrants? They sound terrible

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            • #
              Annie

              ? Not Tony who said that.

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            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              It was Oliver, who said that.

              And I, for one, assumed that he was using it as a generic term, for all those politicians who have “risen” to acquiring plush jobs in the UN, and other transnational organisations, without the tedium of acquiring a popular mandate.

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              • #

                duh, I know who wrote it. Tony was the one who responded to OKM in agreement so I was asking Tony what he thought it meant. There is no way I would have been any the wiser if I’d got an explanation by asking Oliver.

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              • #

                GI

                Tony was the one who responded to OKM in agreement so I was asking Tony what he thought it meant.

                Had you read my comment in reply, I would have thought it plainly obvious that I was replying to Point 1 only.

                So, there was no real need to respond to your attempt to, umm, bait me, hence I have not replied before this.

                Tony.

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        • #
          Oliver K. Manuel

          Yes, Will J., there is available energy in every atom except nuclear waste, Fe-56; I.e., iron-56

          Yes, Rerek W., I used world tyrants” as a generic term for all those politicians who have “risen” to acquiring plush jobs in the UN, the UNAS (United National Academies of Sciences), and fellow travelers in federal research agencies like the DOE, EPA, NASA, etc. by using public support for science to deceive and enslave the public.

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          • #
          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Oliver K. Manuel:

            You reminded me of a semi-forgotten anecdote from 1968. Second and almost certainly third hand. But my then employer was involved in the proposed development of Mt. Whaleback in the Hammerley Ranges in WA.
            A busload of Americans was on their way via a dusty yellow brown gravel road to the mine site when there were shouts of Stop, Stop. The bus stopped and the Americans disembarked and started fossicking in the road gravel to the astonishment of the guide. One said “That’s Limonite”. The guide rushed to explain “Yes, but it is only 42% iron, so we only use it on roads”. There was silence for a few seconds then one of the Americans said, thoughtfully, “We are mining 28%”.
            That was then when it had been proved that Mt. Whaleback contained one billion tons of iron ore over 65% iron, but the drills hadn’t reached bottom. The speaker then showed a set of slides taken from the top of Mt. Whaleback showing N, E, S and W views of rolling hills into the distance. He argued that all of these had mineable quantities of iron ore.
            Since then the Hammersley Ranges have spawned several huge mines selling ore over 60% iron on a vast scale.
            Since that area is the site of a craton (earliest solid rock formation) and the known “red oceans” event when early biological oxygen releases oxidised iron salts in solution in sea water causing them to precipitate, where do you think the multiple billions of tons of iron fit in with your theory?

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            • #
              Oliver K. Manuel

              The most abundant atom in the Sun, in rocky planets, and in ordinary meteorites is nuclear ash – Fe-56 – made by the e-process in the supernova explosion that birthed the solar system 5.1 Ga ago.

              The very top of the atmosphere of the Sun and the Earth consists of the two lightest elements, H & He.

              Big Brother wants you to believe the interior of the Sun is H & He (like the top of the solar photosphere), so reliable information on the composition of the top of Earth’s atmosphere may be difficult to find.

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              • #

                “The most abundant atom in the Sun, in rocky planets, and in ordinary meteorites is nuclear ash – Fe-56 – made by the e-process in the supernova explosion that birthed the solar system 5.1 Ga ago.”

                So what will be the Sun’s temperature when all is converted via N-decay to Fe-56? Is that sensible heat, or only entropy?

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          • #
            Oliver K. Manuel

            Will Janoschka,

            Your question goes to the heart of Dr. Carl Fredrich von Weizsacker’s mistake:

            Neutrons in iron-56 cannot decay into hydrogen. Why not?

            The effective mass difference between neutrons and hydrogen atoms is not fixed, as Weizsacker assumed, but a reversible adjustable variable that responds to attractive and repulsive forces we call:

            Gravitational,

            Electrical &

            Nuclear

            https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Nuclear_Energy_Error7.pdf

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            • #

              Oliver K. Manuel March 23, 2017 at 5:26 am

              Will Janoschka,

              “Your question goes to the heart of Dr. Carl Fredrich von Weizsacker’s mistake: Neutrons in iron-56 cannot decay into hydrogen. Why not?

              I do not know! Your claim however is that the very same neutrons rush off to space and somehow become hydrogen atoms with an exceptional amount of nuclear energy\power. How dey do dat? 🙂

              00

              • #
                Oliver K. Manuel

                Sorry, Will, that I have been unable to communicate that electron-proton pairs can either be:

                NEUTRONS or H-ATOMS

                These interchange reversible.

                And the whole vibrant universe lives and breaths.

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              • #

                Oliver K. Manuel March 24, 2017 at 12:05 am

                “Sorry, Will, that I have been unable to communicate that electron-proton pairs can either be: NEUTRONS or H-ATOMS’

                Perhaps. Where does does the accumulated power come from? You claim neutrons converting to H atoms in space! How dey do dat?

                “These interchange reversible.”

                Have you any physical evidence of such; or just more quantum nonsense with unverified probability?

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  • #
    David Maddison

    I’m in the US now. What a delight it is to see incandescent light globes still for sale. Turnbull banned them from sale in Australia. Over a lifetime including manufacturing I expect incans are the “greener” option – and mercury free.

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      How could they blot out the Mercury from the picture.

      If you were trying to invent a STUPID situation you could not ever surpass the inherent stupe involved in this.

      Tokenism and Environmental Vandalism peaked with the removal of incandescents.

      The Mad Hatters strike again.

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      jorgekafkazar

      There are very few Incans in the US. Most are found in South America, primarily Equador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile.

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        Chris in Hervey Bay

        I bought incandescent light globes at Light World in Bensalem, Pennsylvania last year. Seemed to be plenty there

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    • #

      You can get incandescent lights now (of sorts), they are halogen incandescent bulbs. Slightly more efficient than regular ones, but still working on the principle of heating a wire until it glows. Slightly more expensive than the old globes, but cheaper than fluorescent of LED.

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        Another Ian

        And very fragile.

        Try using them in a workshop drop light or a fixture where they are horizontal

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        PlainJane

        Try using any of the modern alternatives to incandescent in a very cold place at the end of a very long power line with voltage fluctuations and no electrician less than 150 km round trip away. Instead of one or two nice bright incandescents per room we have up to 6 alternatives that leave the place depressingly dim and blow up with extreme regularity. I am even suspect about the LEDs. They have a transformer on them y/n ? and the amount of power wasted as heat from a dicky transformer is ??

        Halogen incandescents mostly only last a few months with fluctuating voltage.

        Banning incandescents is environmental vandalism and forced religious pennance.

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          Griffo

          I cannot understand why you scored a red thumb for your comment,maybe someone was clumsy after a heavy night out. However LEDs are a wonderful invention in my experience,they use less power and last for ages.

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            Gee Aye

            Maybe it was one of the many people I know who disagree and spread between wnsw NSA and wwa they probably need to contact Jane to let Jane know how they cope u der such adversity.

            Or maybe there is no adversity

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          Robert Rosicka

          Plain jane , we have the same problem with globes and it’s for the same reason , about two years ago replaced all globes with LED about 20 and I think two are still going .
          Waste of money .

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            Retired Now

            I remember back in the 1970s I would buy at least 2 light bulbs a month for a 3 bedroomed house. Once we got the new versions the government required they didn’t last anywhere near as long as was promised. However over the years we have come to buy bulbs only about once a year, that is 2-3 bulbs per year. They seem to have improved or our shift to the city means that constant even power that causes less of a stress on the bulbs.

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            • #
              PlainJane

              Try constant even power being less stress on the bulbs. None of them last long here. The curly fluros die frequently. What is real bad here with curly fluro is that because it is a very cold climate (Snowy Mnts) they are so dim as to be infuriating and depressing. They take a long time to come on as well so probably have a stubbed toe by the time it is bright enough to see.

              No cheap Bunnings here out in the bush. Light bulbs cost the best part of $10 each most of the time.

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          Ann

          We have had halogen down lights installed in entire house for nearly 20 years – including bathrooms. Replaced only a handful – an absolute myth that leds last longer.

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        Annie

        We tried halogen bulbs. Not impressed.

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      Yonniestone

      Turnbull is a megalomaniac that wanted to control the globe………

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      General Electric were happy with the incandescent ban when they dominated the CFL market. I guess it’s like Big Oil joining the fight against coal. Idealists thought it was planet versus “greed”; actually it was Pepsi versus Coke.

      Despite risks, it suited me to use the cooler CFL globes in my bush home with old fittings, particularly because I don’t do much turning on and off. CFLs were fine for me till LEDs came along and they were entitled to their place in the market. I just don’t see the justification for banning a popular established product which was in many ways safer and healthier than CFLs.

      If you want to save power and stop waste why not ban…well, the whole Green Establishment? Nobody wastes and trashes like Big Green. Check out Athens-on-Torrens.

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        Annie

        I haven’t had time to check yet but I am sure it was Pointman who had a pretty scary article about CFLs. We’ve a bucketful of the wretched things that our builder’s electrician put into our new place. Dunno what to do with them!

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      toorightmate

      Are you referring to “innovative and nimble” Mal or the useless pr*ck we have as a prime minister?

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      James

      Congress removed the funding to stop incandescent light bulbs from being imported. I hate the CFLs. I do like the LED bulbs. I have some light fittings over an island in my kitchen where I could run 40 W bulbs, but I would forever be replacing them as they would burn out, or I could run 25 w bulb but not enough light. Now I run 60W equivalent LED bulbs, and they have not burnt out yet, and I get more light, for less energy cost.
      Also have a look on ebay.com.au, if you really like incandescents. There are a few listed there. Also you may want to look on aliexpress.com

      A lot of American jobs were lost as a result of these environmental laws. GE pushed for it as it us much harder to tool up to make CFL’s or LED bulbs than incandescents!

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      • #

        When we moved into our rural ‘estate’, all the light fittings were 50W halogen downlights, so I replaced them with LED 9W equivalents (unfortunately before the government came up with their free replacement program – as always) and they have been excellent. Cool white for the kitchen area and warm white for living areas. We’ve only had two fail in the last five years, so that’s not too bad.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      I remember reading an article about a fire station (fire house, for the Americans) in New York State, that had an Edison incandescent light globe that had been constantly lighting a stairwell for close to a hundred years.

      The fire station was moving to a new building next door, and the question about what to do with the antiquarian light globe, came up in the press.

      Popular opinion was that the light should not be allowed to go out, and warranted almost a full-page article in the local newspaper.

      Feelings in the community ran so high, that the local Fire Department arranged for a temporary 110 DC voltage to be supplied to power the light as it was moved from the old Fire Station to the new one, without being extinguished.

      I understand that it is now currently (no pun intended) lighting a hallway in the new Fire House

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        Griffo

        I thought the bulb was in a fire station near San Fran,there could be more than one antique bulb still glowing,the bulb throws hardly any light and is no doubt a curiosity.Some trendy cafes have these low glow bulbs as designer features,I guess they look good but don’t do much.

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        I understand that it is now currently (tautology intended) lighting a hallway in the new Fire House

        wiki has a page about the globe

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          LevelGaze

          Pynchon has a whole chapter in a lengthy novel about a never-expiring light bulb.
          All to do with the Evil Higher Powers that Oliver is obsessed with (hee hee).

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    Yonniestone

    Powerline week in pictures :IDES OF MADDOW EDITION.

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    Mark M

    “It’s a sign, it’s a sign …”

    “Either that, or it’s a sign of the apocalypse, but whales wouldn’t do that to us, right?”

    Humpback Whales Are Forming Mysterious ‘Super-Groups’, and No One Can Explain It 

    http://www.sciencealert.com/no-one-can-explain-the-mysterious-super-groups-of-humpbacks-forming-off-the-south-african-coast

    CSIRO thinks bioluminescent water is “foreboding … sign of [Doomsday Global Warming]”

    “The phenomenon, which is best seen in calm, warm seas, is foreboding.
    “The displays are a sign of [97% Doomsday Global Warming],” Anthony Richardson, from the CSIRO, told New Scientist after an occurrence in Tasmania in 2015.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/15/australian-coastline-glows-in-the-dark-in-sinister-sign-of-climate-change

    > If the 97% Doomsday Global Warming proponents are wondering why nobody listens to them, this is why.

    The Shoe Is The Sign – The Beginning
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka9mfZbTFbk

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      mikewaite

      In the 1950s the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia (of which I believe Benjamin Franklin was a member or founder) commissioned a history of luminescence
      “from earliest times to 1900” from E Newton Harvey a bioluminescence expert. It is a 600 page volume , written together with his wife , also a biolumnescence scientist and there is a long chapter on the “Phosphorescence of the Sea”.
      It is clear that it took a while before the connection was made with the more well known animal bioluminescence (referred to in Chinese writing of 2000BC ). Its appearance as a result of agitation of the sea surface however was made early on eg by Darwin during his Beagle voyage , and the comments from Dampier (possibly of historical interest to those in the Antipodes): ” The sea seemed all of a fire about us , for every wave that broke sparked like lightning”.

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      TedM

      Yes bioluminescence in the ocean is rather beautiful. It has occurred periodically for as long as I can remember along the South coast of Oz. I recall fishing in a small isolated cove not far from Walpole WA, with the water glowing along the shoreline where it was was disturbed. You could see trails of luminescence where fish were swimming, and you could see your line and tackle in the darkness as you retrieved it, or pulled in a fish. Nothing new here.

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        Bill Burrows

        I was taught to night fish for saltwater barramundi and blue and King salmon (Threadfin) in the 1950’s. We always seemed to do well when there was obvious “phosphorescence’ in the water. Since we mostly used live bait in those days the glow generated by the bait movement perhaps helped attract the predator fish to our hooks. In any event we always regarded the presence of this phosphorescence as a sign of a “healthy” water and environment.

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      Graeme No.3

      Now all they have to do is find a humpback whale wearing a luminescent shoe and we will have proof of global warming.

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      David

      I have been a sailor for 64 of my 75 years and a deep water sailor for 50 plus years and I well remember my first sight of bioluminescence on a still calm night in Bass Strait 51 years ago and the most spectacular example off the west coast of Canada in 2001. My late father, also a mariner, was familiar with the phenomena.

      If it presaged anything it was a long boring night on watch.

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    The Victoristan government closes Hazelwood, now looking to find jobs for the unemployed.

    The Victoristan government refuses timber supplies to timber mill, timber mill threatens closure. Victoristan government threatens government takeover: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/victorian-government-committed-to-keep-open-heyfield-timber-mill/8361628.

    What next?

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    Robber

    Can we crowdsource an analysis of the nearly 400 submissions to the NEM Review?
    It would be interesting to define some categories for the submissions given the three topics of the panel: reliability, affordability, sustainability. And perhaps: CAGW believers, rationalists, economy first, rent seekers, other.
    Will we find a 97% consensus?

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      David Maddison

      In my submission I stated that there was no evidence for CAGW and we should use coal, gas and nuclear power plus expand hydro into the few remaining sites (but nothing to do with CO2, just because it is another form of useful energy).

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        Robert Rosicka

        David love your work but I’m confused by ” expand hydro into the few remaining sites” I have seen comments from trolls saying there is nowhere left in oz for storage dams to be built and you seem to think that there’s not many .
        While I don’t know what the geology is underground I know of dozens of sites for storage dams in northeast Victoria alone .
        Problem is the inner city green vote prevents any future dam building , and if a miracle happens and a govt with a pair decides to build a dam , in come the protesters and greenies .

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          Annie

          The inner city greenies might think again if someone had the spark to limit their water supply in favour of our farmers and graziers.

          20

        • #
          Greebo

          Apart from the ‘fact’ that dams take water from our rivers ( Steve Bracks style logic ) it’s hard to see the problem . The Mitchell River was identified as a potential dam site, with the added benefit of flood prevention in Bairnsdale and it’s environs. Except, of course, Victoria got the whole place declared a National Park. Such vision.

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        David Maddison

        I had in mind the Snowy Mountains Scheme. I understand it wasn’t completed according to the original plan and there were still some suitable dam sites there.

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          Dave

          On the new Snowy Hydro 2

          So they use Off Peak power from the grid to pump uphill
          Then they let it go and produce power in the turbines.

          So is this Dirty Power in – then wonderful Clean Green Electricity out!

          Equivalent of money laundering me thinks!

          The owner of the snowy can then claim this new 2,000 MW as clean energy & get paid for it?

          I see a GREEN SCAM happening in the BILLIONS & BILLIONS

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            TedM

            No Dave it’s actually supposed to be fueled by surplus wind power, whenever that is. The Snowy Hydro 2 is expected to be a sort of base load. It’ll work as long as the wind blows, and as long as it doesn’t blow too hard. Sound familiar???????????

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          Dennis

          Bellinger River near Coffs Harbour in NSW would be a perfect site for a new dam. In flood at present and often flooded, running between steep valley walls in the Great Dividing Range and to the ocean.

          By the way, the Abbott led Coalition had plans and policy for many new dams around Australia including on the “wild rivers” of Northern Australia where the Ord River Irrigation Area would be extended from WA to NT & QLD. The CSIRO have identified potential irrigation farmland equivalent to the area of Western Europe.

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            Glen Michel

            Not my beautiful Bellinger!

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              Glen Michel

              Copeton Dam on the Gwydir is a case of poor siting. Sure, it fitted well into a gorge, but it has caused no end of grief downstream where cold water release prevents native fish from breeding and stopping the natural scouring floods of the past- resulting in waterholes silted up.A proposal to dam the Horton river ( a tributary) and a further site at the confluence met with anger from landowners. There will be no new dams built in NSW.Ever.

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                Curious George

                Or maybe a poor technology. The release of cold water from the bottom of the lake is only the cheapest way to generate power. Many years ago my dad made an engineering proposal for a structure to take water from the top. It was deemed too expensive.

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          Robert Rosicka

          Buffalo dam , lake William hovell are two dams that were not built as planned , much smaller. For lake buffalo money was taken to prop up Dartmouth dam cost blow out .
          All the engineering has been done .
          The fifteen mile creek system could accomodate at least two dams and the upper King above William Hovell there is a lot of prime spots .
          Buckland and Catherine rivers could also have dams and in the case of Catherine the public really only have free access to the last 20 feet or so .

          30

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            Dennis

            There were at least four new dams proposed for New South Wales by the Coalition Government 1965/1976 and lands set aside. A Labor Government (Bob Carr Premier) in the early 1990s abandoned those plans and handed over at least one dam site to National Parks.

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      Timo Soren

      Just read several entries in the NEM Review.

      AusGrid shows how looney OZ has become.

      I read 4, or so, individual ones as well and the general themes:
      We being Australia
      We are going 0 emission (really?!)
      We are going to have predominately EV vehicles by 2030 (not a prayer)
      We are going to have to get more wind up and running (stupid)
      We have to get more PV installed at the homeowner level (adds to base load problems)

      You guys are truly putting your economy into the S*$%ter and have a huge number of
      total brainwashed eco-greenie-wackos.

      I was beyond shocked to read how little reality goes with these so called documents.

      I am going to send a sympathy card to my friend in Adelaide.

      I really feel sorry for you guys now.

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        Ross Stacey

        Yes and we are the lucky country having vast coal and uranium resources. We sure so dumb that we believe humans cause CAGW because we think this means we need to clean up the rubbish that everyone leaves around. I am an environmentalist but I can find no proof that burning of fossil fuels is affecting the climate.

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      Mickey Reno

      Thanks for the link to the NEM submissions. I read a couple of them and the range of delusion from “just a little bit” deluded to “bat-shit CRAZY” deluded is included in them.

      Even the most conservative groups, like the Aluminum smelters industry group, still have to pay lip service to renewables, though they are clearly against them and lobbying for reliable, cheap, non-intermittent sources. They document how recent black and brown-outs are punishing their industry and forcing the plants to close.

      In the middle of a scale between the aluminum smelters and the bat-shit-craziest of the greens, like 350.org, lies the collectivist unions, who understand where their political bread is buttered, but who also understand that their jobs are going away. Their response includes demands that if Australia is going to insist in driving away manufacturing industry jobs with crazy green policies, then THEY need their slice of the pie in the form of new jobs (ie. government jobs, value-free, unneeded government jobs).

      Then of course you have your Green Party, 350.org activist responses. I won’t summarize these, because it’s about as bad as you can assume, if you assume that they follow the same old, bat-shit crazy magical-thinking that low efficiency, low energy density, very high cost, production destroying intermittent generation is actually good for Australia’s economy.

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    David Maddison

    My predictions for recommendations of Fink inquiry:

    More batteries, perhaps with compulsory installation in homes.
    More windmills.
    More solar.
    More molten salts thermal storage for solar towers.
    More interconnectors, but for what? To distribute reliable baseload coal power from a diminishing number of coal power stations?
    Turnbull’s expansion of Snowy Hydro pumped storage, because Fink as a political appointee of Turnbull will have to comply with his wishes.
    No nuclear because the masses are too stupid to accept it.
    A statement claiming CAGW is real and cannot be questioned.

    The proposals will cost billions and will undoubtedly destroy the Australian economy. But that’s the plan of the Leftist Elites.

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      Dave

      Scary stuff

      Why have an inquiry when they know the outcome is predetermined!
      Nuclear
      Coal
      All out the window

      The RET has to go, along with 18C!

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        David Maddison

        It gives them an excuse to waste more money and also pretend they have done due diligence as they plan to destroy the economy.

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        Dennis

        However, news yesterday that the G20 has decided to drop references to climate change. Could this and other political decisions including Prrseident Trump’s defunding of UN and UN IPCC force the Commonwealth of Australia Government to change direction too?

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      Dennis

      And completely ignore the trends in Europe and other places.

      20

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      Robber

      There is some sanity in some of the submissions. For example, see BHPB and Business SA warnings of the impact of escalating electricity prices on their operations.
      And more:
      CSR: This review must examine ways and means to lower electricity prices, not contain or minimise increases.
      Energy Users Association: Progressively over the last 10 years Australia has given up its comparative advantage in competitively priced, highly reliable energy which has underpinned significant industrial development and employment for many decades. If allowed to continue on this trajectory this comparative advantage will be permanently lost and along with it, a majority of energy intensive industry including many industrial, food processing and manufacturing industries.
      Jemena: nationally consistent, technology neutral energy and climate policy design to harness the most diverse range of market solutions and innovations at an efficient cost and provide greater certainty for investors and market participants, including consumers.
      Minerals Council: The draft report does not address the security and affordability of Australia’s energy mix or the critical importance of technology neutral policy settings…
      National Farmers: The National Electricity Market is broken and needs to be fixed. Both reliability and affordability are key for agricultural producers – wholesale price spikes and outages can destroy annual returns for some farmers in the space of a few hours.
      Origin: Gas fired generation is often the marginal source of supply in the NEM, particularly at periods of high demand, and as such, gas market efficiency is crucial. State governments should reconsider the current restrictions on gas market development particularly where there is no sound environmental rationale for these to be in place.
      Rio Tinto: It is imperative that near term changes do not increase the cost of electricity. It should not be looking to trade-exposed industries to pay subsidies to renewable generators.
      SACOSS: As you aware, SA consumers are at their wits end with paying very high electricity charges.
      Tomago Aluminium: If the trend of rising electricity prices continues, electricity will no longer be affordable for TAC.

      And of course there are hundreds of green submissions from the usual suspects.
      For example: Australian Conservation Foundation. ACF recommends that NEM reform and grid design be framed by the long-term goal, and government commitment established through ratification of the Paris Agreement, of achieving net zero emissions well before 2050.
      One doozy: NSW Nurses. Reduce the well documented effects of coal-fired power stations.

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    TdeF

    The behavior of Malcolm Turnbull is interesting. A backroom numbers boy, the way he stole Abbott’s job, he tried to get total control last Federal election without any policies or even campaigning, simply with a secret preference swap with the Greens. Di Natalie outsmarted him. Malcolm would be out of a job and Shorten and Di Natalie in power except for Daniel Andrews in Victoria. Malcolm should have known the Green voters would not accept a preference swap with their enemy. So Malcolm just tried it on with One Nation in WA, rather than actually do any work or have any policies. One nation came third but the Liberals and Nationals flunked. At no time did Turnbull have any policies or do any work.

    However while trying to talk others out of preferences, he actually came up with a plan to save the country. Wow! It stores electricity, recovers lost water, creates jobs and he is seen to be a saviour and he does not have to build a dam, so he has offended no one. It is typical of a man a desperate to please everyone while doing nothing. Malcolm the builder.

    The question is whether he has any idea how the RET is destroying jobs, destroying manufacturing and sending coal and gas overseas as it cannot be sold here. So he will pass laws stopping the consequences of what he is allowing to happen. The man against everything, like his Greens.

    The only real policies are coming from Abbott. Repeal the massive carbon tax which is the Renewable Energy Tax ($50 a tonne for coal, $100 a tonne for gas) and the problem is solved overnight. Even Labor voters would be pleased, especially the workers in the Yallourn Valley and Portland and Adelaide. The Liberals would be thrilled. However the man scared of actually having policies, the man who shirt fronted not Putin but Trump, the man who has no ideas, will dig holes in the ground.

    We do not need to spend more Federal and State billions and laws to fix a crisis created entirely by politicians. Remember this is to fix a problem which even the CSIRO in a decade with 350 scientists and hundreds of millions of dollars could not prove existed.

    We have had enough of this scared clown. Please bring back Abbott. He stopped the boats overnight. He can stop this energy crisis in a day and amazingly, he might get the support of the cross benchers from South Australia before the place is unliveable and Weatherill spends another fortune on batteries and a gas power station they already have.

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      TdeF

      He must repeal 18C! Even the UN just announced that to insult and offend is a human right, not a crime. It matters even to this blog.

      “The human right to impart information and ideas is not limited to ‘correct’ statements, the right also protects information and ideas that may shock, offend and disturb, prohibitions on disinformation may violate international human rights standards,” the statement said.

      Bill Leak was in hiding from death threats when he died thanks to his Je Suis Moh*ammed cartoon, bravely published again this week. He was persecuted by Gillian Triggs as a high profile target as they trawled at our expense for people to complain. However there are great pictures of Malcolm at Bill’s Memorial service. Surely Maclom should be embarrassed but he is all smiles.

      We read today that Malcolm’s Liberals want to quickly legislate Gay Marriage, to ‘clear the air’ before the budget while Turnbull is already claiming Morrison is incompetent. What? Is there no loyalty in this man, to his promises or his people?

      Significantly were promised a plebiscite as perhaps Malcolm’s only clear policy at the last election, even if it was Abbott’s promise. Why did he ditch Abbott’s successful Direct Action and adopt Green party policy? Does Malcolm stand for nothing at all, or are we being told one story while our PM pushes his not so secret Green agenda?

      Repeal the Renewable Energy Tax. Repeal 18C. Get fracking and gas going again. Get Adani through the Green tape. Australia is at the crossroads with a ditherer at the helm, a Green cuckoo in the nest. Repeal Malcolm Turnbull. We deserve better.

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      Graeme No.3

      I was reading Not a lot of people know that and there was an ad “Jay Weatherill’s plan for South Australia’s energy future”. Looks like part of it is spending lots of money on advertising.

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      Dennis

      He “stole” Prime Minister Abbott’s job, before that he “stole” Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson’s job and to get into Parliament he stacked the Wentworth Electorate Liberal Branches with his own supporters and “stole” the sitting Liberal MP’s job, Peter King.

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    life here based on water–overview of basic world dynamic: https://im42na.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/global-water-picture/

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    • #
      Dennis

      Many manufacturers have already left Australia. From my own business experience it became obvious that the operational cost savings made by moving to various other countries were significant. Not only electricity costs but compliance with government regulations, taxes, wages, land acquisition or leasing, etc.

      Australia is now uncompetitive in many areas of business, manufacturing in the US today is cheaper, it costs one-third more in Australia.

      Average cost per skilled worker here based on all operating costs (rounded off) amounts to A$600/day and in the US A$400/day.

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      Robber

      Wow. Is this the first time the ABC has admitted that electricity renewables policy could be creating problems?
      Abolish the RET and problem solved.

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    Rollo

    I despair when reading that overseas customers purchase Australian gas at half the price that local suppliers pay. How can this be rationalized? As a sovereign nation don’t we have first dibs on our countries resources? Shouldn’t underground resources be ours for the cost of extraction? Have our political and business leaders given away control by signing badly negotiated contracts or has globalization progressed to the stage where cartels are in control of our resources? If Malcolm grew a pair could he reverse this situation and insist that domestic reservations eclipse overseas contracts or would penalties have to be paid for broken commitments?

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      el gordo

      ‘How can this be rationalised?’

      Its a laissez faire free market which benefits shareholders at the expense of people.

      The Commonwealth Bank was once a people’s bank and now its a shareholders bank. This is clearly illustrated by the long queues of ordinary people waiting patiently to be served by only one teller, I want a revolution and I want it now.

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        Griffo

        Shareholders are people,I know this because I am a shareholder and a person,also lots of people are shareholders through their super funds,but we might regret being long on the banks if the property market goes south.

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          el gordo

          The multinationals must legally put shareholders first, but being at the bottom of the heap I’m naturally livid. Surely they could throw a few crumbs our way, it would be politically correct.

          11

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            Griffo

            Sorry,shareholders rank below depositors and bond holders if a bank goes bust.

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              el gordo

              Yeah but before they go bust aren’t they obliged to do everything in their power to make shareholders happy at the expense of customers?

              This property bubble is unique because of the foreign money involved and it won’t burst. Barnaby will be the Transport and Infrastructure minister in a few months and decentralisation is on top of his agenda.

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      gnome

      It sounds like fake news to me. Why would any company sell a product for less after transporting it in purpose-built shipping etc, than it could by just letting it out of a pipeline.
      There needs to be a bit more analysis of the stories of how much our gas costs in different markets.

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      Dennis

      Multi-national business arrangements including price setting aside, Australian citizens and businesses here should have first call on minerals and energy reserves and at fair and reasonable prices. What is exported should be a separate matter.

      There should be cheap energy (including power stations but no socialism toys) to secure our national prosperity first and foremost.

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        el gordo

        So you want the market to be free but fair, putting people above multinational corporations?

        Neo laissez faire capitalism is a stinking beast which continues to exploit people everywhere and the solution is complex. Robotics will take our jobs eventually, so perhaps its time to revisit Luddism.

        I live down the road from one of the world’s largest gold mines, which once employed many thousands of workers in construction. They have mostly all gone now and the machines have taken over.

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    el gordo

    CO2 sinks and vegetable matter soaks up excess carbon dioxide, we are saved.

    http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/mar/a11.php

    30

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    Robert Rosicka

    Yes Tdef , I agree with most of what you’ve said , pollys need to grow a pair and build new dams .
    The liberal party does have a problem with Turnbull but has a bigger problem with its own base , its drifted to the left to appease the media .
    And that in a nutshell is what’s wrong with Australian if not world politics , the media decides which policy’s and parties are favourite .

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      James

      Australia needs a Breitbart.com news source. Breitbart is very influential, 46 million readers. There are many other conservative news sources as well. Traditional newspapers are dying. CNN and MSNBC are both a joke. Fox news and Fox business are more balanced.
      The traditional media hate that internet news sources now receive white house press credentials. Then every Friday, they have Skype questions from reporters around the questions, in the White house press room. This is definitely a good change.

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    Robert Rosicka

    No 1 problem on the insiders program this morning , Same sex marriage.
    Then electricity generation then the gas shortage .

    00

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    Ross

    It is interesting that President Trump hasn’t really done anything concrete yet on the AGW saga except make his view quite plain and clear. Yet other countries are reacting already

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-18/trump-wins-g-20-drops-anti-protectionist-free-trade-climate-change-funding-commitmen

    I know these talkfests are just that and the communiques don’t often mean much but they do give an indication of direction of thinking.
    It is almost as if they were all waiting for someone to blink and then they would breath a sigh of relief so they could get on with what they wanted to do or say. If it goes wrong they have someone else to blame.
    It will be really interesting when Trump’s team actually do something thing —-like actually make the cuts to the EPA budget work.

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      el gordo

      Appeasement by the G20 won’t work, Trump has decided and now the others have to play catch up.

      They don’t want to talk about it and are hopeful that if they ignore reality it will simply go away.

      Have no fear Ross, the Administration intends putting a boot into the EPA and this is a clear message to brainwashed people all around the world, the scam is over.

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      James

      His budget has just come out, big cuts for the EPA. EPA his a big PR problem with the disasters it has been involved with in recent years.

      20

  • #

    Hazelwood.

    I suspect there’s some defiance going on there, from the people who work there, wanting to thumb their noses at the people who clamor for its closure.

    One of the Units (Unit 8) was taken off line eight days back now. As I have explained, there are a lot of processes in the chain of power generation, and any one of them could be at fault. However, if the plant is scheduled to close at the end of the Month, then there’s no real need to fix the problem. Just concentrate on the other Units.

    However, yesterday at around 8AM, Unit 8 started to come back on line. It took 4 hours to reach full power delivery, but now it’s just humming along, just like the other seven units.

    I suspect that those people working there want to show people that this ancient old plant (now four levels of technology lower than new tech coal fired power, and soon to be five) can still actually deliver power.

    It’s actually astonishing to see all those 8 Units running, now constantly, 24 hours a day for almost three weeks, and when was the last time you saw 8 EH Holdens when you went out onto the roads. It’s not delivering its original rated 200MW per unit, but it is still at 86% of that.

    Even after four really good days for wind power delivery, Hazelwood has still supplied almost 6% more power than every wind plant in Australia combined over the last 18 days.

    I wonder if the people of Victoria and the wider Australia are actually aware of that. 43 wind plants, and around 2400 turbines on poles, and for 14 years they’ve been building them, and still not delivering enough power to replace a 53 year old tired worn out coal fired plant that can still manage to get all its generators working.

    Hazelwood Power Plant Closing 31st March – Currently Delivering More Power Than Every Wind Plant In Australia

    Tony.

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      David Maddison

      Tony, what is your prediction of what will happen when Hazelwood is taken off line?

      Also do you agree with me that they will likely deliberately destroy it in a spectacular fashion like the one in SA rather than properly mothball it?

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        David,

        I have a hunch that it will be a staged closure, even though they say the last furnace will go cold on April 2nd.

        I think it will place a lot of pressure on Loy Yang and Yallourn with total Nameplate of 4600MW. Victoria will be hard pressed if either of those plants has one or two units down at the same time. (as it does right now today 10.30AM)

        Victoria consumes between 3600MW and 4100MW at 3.30AM, minimum power consumption and climbs each day to a maximum of between 5600MW and 6000MW, and when you add in the Maximum draw from South Australia, most days at around 800MW at peak time, then that maximum needed is up around 7000MW, without what is interchanged into Southern NSW and also Basslink.

        So you can see the pressure on Loy Yang and Yallourn.

        Wholesale power costs will rise, and that’s a given.

        Gas fired power is problematic, and OCGT will get a lot of work, if they can get the gas, expensive as that now is, as OCGT is the only technology that is fast to on.

        Victorian wind is currently running at only 17.3% Capacity Factor, and is only supplying a little more than what is being generated by just two of Hazelwood’s eight ancient Units.

        The first to suffer will be those three interconnectors if Victoria gets into trouble.

        The only prediction I will make is that now, people might begin to realise just how important coal fired power really is, and start asking questions, and when they don’t get answered, they’ll demand answers.

        It’s too late for Hazelwood, perhaps ten or twelve years too late. They can struggle on if they back down and keep some units running, but it’s old now, really old, and it’s probably all they can do to keep it going now.

        None of the renewables can replace what Hazelwood does.

        They want instant power and there’s nothing they can do to get it. Any new power plant, be it coal fired, be it gas fired, be it any of the renewables, has at least a four to seven year lead time, and Hazelwood closes now in days.

        It will be politically damaging in a huge way to have the State go black, so that will just not be allowed to happen, no matter what. They’ll just have to pay whatever they have to to have the power stay on, and no, that is not gaming the system. It’s the reality of wanting to have electrical power always on tap, coming out of the hole in the wall.

        All this should have been talked about ten years ago. Now is just too late.

        And, importantly, this is not the fault of those money grubbing (sarc) operators. It’s the fault of politicians who say no to new power plants, unless they are renewable, because of the perceived political fallout, the need for Green preferences, and the pandering to environmentalists who have zero knowledge of what electrical power really is.

        Tony.

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          By the way, Queensland had a thought bubble to go 50% renewables by 2030, and had an all singing all dancing special inquiry, obviously set up to give them the answers the politicians desired to hear.

          The main finding to come out of this inquiry is that Queensland will not be closing down any of its coal fired power plants by that date 2030, as quote, Queensland has the youngest coal fired fleet in Australia end quote.

          Even Gladstone which in 2030 will be 54 years old, older than Hazelwood is now.

          You’d think this inquiry would consider closing down at least Gladstone eh, but, hmm, I wonder where that aluminium smelter is.

          When I brought this matter up of no coal fired plant closures at the most controlled public meeting I have ever attended, they, umm, changed the subject.

          Queensland will NEVER have 50% renewables, let alone by 2030, as they would need to be in planning even now, and none are planned, as to actually achieve that 50% renewables they would need to close more than half those coal fired power plants, which is not going to happen.

          Power plants, at commissioning have a guaranteed contract to supply for anything up to 40 to 50 years, to get their investment back, and to arbitrarily close them would mean compensation of huge proportions, which is politically untenable, so shh! don’t mention that.

          Tony.

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        • #
          mal

          Are union Superannuation funds putting big money into renewable energy companies? Is this why Labor state Governments have such a vested interest in RET and closure of Coal fired power stations?

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          • #
            David Maddison

            I believe that is the case. It is a massive transfer if wealth from the lower and middle classes to the rich Leftist elites.

            00

    • #
      TdeF

      I suspect Engie are playing Daniel Andrews on a break. They know the devastation which will occur, but why continue to run a power plant at a loss, even when flat out? So they will close it and close Pelican Point, despite Weatherill begging them to come on line when needed by Weatherill. So Weatherill is to spend $350million building his own gas plant, which is an absurd waste of money when Pelican Point only lost $15million?

      Engie have modeled what will happen. They are demonstrating the Halcyon days when Hazelwood is flat out, more power than all the windmills working together and at no investment by the public. Now a sudden stop. At bit like falling out of a plane. It is not the falling which hurts but the sudden stop at the end.

      Andrews will be forced to pay for Hazelwood to stay open and Weatherill will have to pay for Pelican point, just like he pays for the smelter at Port Pirie. They will not demolish Hazelwood. Yet. Just watch all the closures from Alcoa to heavy manufacturing, all forms of smelting and even the government is buying up big in imported diesel engines by the hundreds. Honestly, what is the value of replacing brown coal with diesel?

      As for 53 years old, the Snowy Mountain is much older but it is Hydro, so no one mentions the age. Also Turnbull’s $2Billion does not save power. It is just another battery, uncosted, untested, non approved and with no studies done on feasibility. Another instant Turnbull Thought Bubble of which Rudd and Gillard would be proud.

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      • #
        TdeF

        Really, Turnbull and Weatherill are going to pay $3 Billion of your money plus another $3Billion in RET just to close Hazelwood and be no better off. Why?

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          TdeF

          It all begs the question, why are coal and gas generators closing? As Hazelwood demonstrates, they still work fine. They are machines and age is not a problem. Nor the Sydney harbour bridge, Melbourne’s Westgate Bridge or many other structures far past their design life, if maintained. Hazelwood is clearly neither worn out nor lacking power. The only criticism is ‘dirty’ which is only CO2 and Weatherill and the Submarine corporation and Tasmania are replacing it with diesel engines?

          The reason they are closing is that they cannot make a profit, they cannot increase prices. So the cheapest, the biggest power stations are shutting and while we are all paying more and more, perhaps 20% more when Hazelwood closes, why? Why can’t they make a profit? Why can’t they charge 6c instead of 4c and stay open? The RET and now Daniel Andrew’s massive hike in coal royalties, which will also suddenly stop leaving a big hole in the Victoria State budget.

          We can only hope the French owners are used to dealing with nutty politicians. Otherwise they are throwing away a $2.5Bn power station (1996 price) for nothing.

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          • #
            toorightmate

            The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.
            Now where have I heard that before?

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          • #
            Greebo

            Why can’t they make a profit? Well, perhaps Red Dan tripling the cost to the generators of Victoria’s brown coal may have something to do with it. Political bastardry on a scale seldom seen.

            51

        • #
          Dennis

          Socialism masquerading as environmentalism.

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      • #
        Gee Aye

        so no one mentions the age.

        You really don’t check before you write do You? Actually the real answer is you write a narrative that sounds nice and just hope for the best.

        FYI… the news services and the pms releases are full of the history and timing of the project and they even make a point of this being important.

        Try writing after you check the facts.

        One thing you have going for you is an ability to say a lot in a few paragraphs… who knows whether ROMhas anything useful to add to the zeitgeist as his text is impenetrable

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “and when was the last time you saw 8 EH Holdens when you went out onto the roads.”

      I see them most weekends.

      You just have to know which park they are in. 🙂

      34

      • #
        TdeF

        Actually the EH was the best of them and was treasured. Many are still on the roads. Plus Valiant Chargers. They are both favorites of clubs because they had style and performance. So perhaps a better choice would have been the EJ, which was an orphan. Maintained, like power stations, these old cars can all last forever because the older engineering was simply not computer controlled high tech. You could fix most of the cars with one spanner and no computer. The new view of engineering is that everything is disposable. I do not think that should apply to power stations but it certainly applies to windmills and solar farms and clearly to transmission lines.

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        • #
          TdeF

          No one ever detailed how 20 transmission lines collapsed in a gust of 120km/hr, which would barely count as a storm in Queensland and certainly not in the US. We were not even told if these were old or brand new, part of the many new lines built to connect the many windfarms. So was it age, lack of maintenance, faulty bolts, faulty materials, faulty welding, poor design, cost cutting? How many thousands more towers are at risk? What is being done.

          This is the great thing about being mushroomed by Weatherill. The only thing which never makes it through to the public is the truth. We are all just asked to pay more billions for this Green fantasy of cheap, plentiful endless power, which is clearly rubbish.

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            TdeF

            Not lines, towers. Were they adjacent, in a specific area, connected? Why did they collapse?

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          • #

            It’s not like they are strung with the power lines you see in the streets.

            These are high tension lines, and way way thicker and stronger than the ones in the street, and more of those wires as well.

            One tower goes down, collapses, and these high tension lines pull the rest down. Note that in images, you only saw one tower in isolation, and never the row of them, so I wonder really if all of this was used as spin also.

            Tony.

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            • #
              Tdef

              My point Tony is that we can speculate from one photograph. Guess. Conjecture. By now we should know. Why did they fail? Will this be a common event? As far as anyone can work out, they folded after the blackout. Now we have an information blackout, which is my point.

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              • #
                Robert Rosicka

                We can speculate a bit , the tower photo that shows the concrete footing still attached ( ripped out of the ground) shows inadequate anchoring for a structure of that size .
                Long skinny tube of concrete , seen how the ones in the vic high country are fixed down and to my knowledge none have blow over but are subjected to some fairly hostile wind gusts .

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              • #
                toorightmate

                The installation contractor for the towers in South Aus was only experienced with the installation of stobie poles.

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              • #
                Greebo

                Trying to reply to RR. I worked on the towers leading away from Wivenhoe. The supports for them were massive, and test cylinders were cast from EVERY truck of concrete to check the slump was up to spec. Ok, a couple of the spans were verrrry loooong ( I still get the heebie jeebies when I think of the bloke who put the cable separators in place ), but those towers aren’t going anywhere.

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              • #
                Robert Rosicka

                Greebo , you’ve seen the pics of the footings ripped out , what’s your take .

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              • #
                Graeme No.3

                Lots of rain saturating the ground so concrete plug pulled out. Same with a very large number of trees which fell with roots and bound earth showing. About 12km from my place there were about 100 down in a patch. Hundreds of older trees flattened power lines all over the Adelaide Hills.

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        • #
          Greebo

          I’ve never understood the fascination people have with old Holdens. Truly, they were terrible cars when new, so they must be worse now. They had lousy engines, worse gearboxes. the suspension and steering were both pathetic and the brakes were non existent. They had NO equipment and the seats were dreadful. In 1964/5 you could have a European car with 4 wheel disc brakes, a five speed gearbox, heated rear window and a radio, plus miles better performance. Then came Toyota with the Toyopet, Corona and Corolla, and the rest is history.

          This comes from a bloke who had an FJ, an FC, an EH, HD and HT. Plus a CS Commodore. All gone,, none missed. EH Holdens belong in museums and wrecking yards.

          I miss my FIAT 124 AC Sports though.

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          • #
            TdeF

            What made all the difference were the steel belted radials, patented by Michelin. I bought my first Olympic steel belted tyres on the day the patent expired. A lot of the European performance was in the tyres and nothing else. Now you do not see a car without radial tyres.

            20

            • #
              Rod Stuart

              Coincidence, TdeF
              The subject of my undergraduate thesis in 1968 was the design and manufacture of radial ply tires. I worked for Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. of Canada Ltd.

              20

          • #
            Annie

            Back in 1970 we drove a Fiat 124 from England, via a cross channel ferry, across Europe including old Yugoslvia, down through Greece to Athens. We took ship from Piraeus to Limassol in Cyprus and spent a while there and then made the return trip. Great car, that Fiat!
            When we first came to Aus we bought an old Kingswood with the ‘pox’….damage from gravel on rough tracks which my OH red-leaded. It was finally touched up with the proper colour when we came to sell it! That car took our family of six all the way from Melbourne to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock and back on a three week camping trip. There were 450 kms of rough road in SA at that time, in 1984.

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      • #
        Raven

        and when was the last time you saw 8 EH Holdens when you went out onto the roads.

        It’ll be interesting to see how many Toyota Prius are on the road after fifty odd years too.

        (Of course, the old joke says 97% will still be on the road . . . and the other 3% made it home. ) 😉

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    pat

    have heard numerous BBC news headlines on the G20 final communique, and not once was the dropping of “climate change” mentioned.

    online, BBC gives CAGW a vague “vow” reference half way down this article, & only Trump is referenced – ignore that Govts representing nearly half the world’s population also objected to “climate change” being included:

    19 Mar: BBC: G20 finance ministers drop anti-protectionist pledge
    The communique, which was published at the end of the meeting in Baden-Baden with the agreement of all attending delegates, also failed to include a vow on climate change…
    The exclusion of the two issues in the communique was disappointing, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said.
    “I regret that our discussions today were unable to reach a satisfying conclusion on two absolutely essential priorities that our world and which France would have liked to see the G20 continue to take firm and concerted action on.”…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39315098

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    I have always been puzzled by the logical problem of AGW. We know from the ice cores that CO2 was supposedly 280ppm. in the last interglacial (Eemian) and the temperature was much higher as proven by the fossils of lions, elephants, giraffes and hippos found in the Thames Valley. The ocean level was 6 metres above current levels due to lots of ice melting. Then it cooled markedly before the CO2 level dropped.
    In the Holocene Optimum the temperature was about 2℃ above the present yet we are told that the ice cores show that CO2 was 280-285 ppm. In the past 8,000 years the temperature has gone done, up, down (Minoan), up (Roman), down (dark ages), up again (medieval warm period), down (Little Ice Age), and up again in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries without the level of CO2 varying.
    If anything this is proof that CO2 has no effect on the temperature, and more importantly that the temperature has NO effect on the CO2 level, contrary to what Henry’s Law says. It makes me wonder whether the ice core figures mean anything at all, and that the whole scare has been manufactured by illogical fools.

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    • #
      John Smith

      One logic problem in my view is the ‘anthro’ part.
      There is no non-human earth.
      There is no non-human reality.
      We do not inhabit the landscape, we are the landscape.
      From what I can figure, this carbon hysteria coincides with the decline of religion in the western world.
      The priests need a new thing to scare us into submission with.
      ‘Climate Change” is an Hieronymus Bosch painting.

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    Comment by Dr Norman Page 17/03/17, at WUWT post,
    ‘Can Reproducibility of the IPCC Climate Sensibility.’

    ‘The IPCC has now admitted that it doesn’t know what
    the climate sensitivity is.The IPCC AR4 SPM report
    section 8.6 deals with forcing, feedbacks and climate
    sensitivity. It recognizes the shortcomings of the
    models. Section 8.6.4 concludes in paragraph 4 (4):
    “Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical
    for constraining the future projections, consequently
    a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the
    range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate
    sensitivity has yet to be developed.”What could be
    clearer? The IPCC itself said in 2007 that it doesn’t
    even know what metrics to put into the models to test
    their reliability. That is, it doesn’t know what future
    temperatures will be and therefore can’t calculate the
    climate sensitivity to CO2. This also begs a further
    question of what erroneous assumptions (e.g., that CO2
    is the main climate driver)went into the “plausible”
    models to be tested any way. The IPCC itself has now
    recognized this uncertainty in estimating CS – the AR5
    SPM says in Footnote 16 page 16 (5): “No best estimate
    for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given
    because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed
    lines of evidence and studies.” Paradoxically the claim
    is still made that the UNFCCC Agenda 21 actions can dial
    up a desired temperature by controlling CO2 levels. This
    is cognitive dissonance so extreme as to be irrational.
    There is no empirical evidence which requires that
    anthropogenic CO2 has any significant effect on global
    temperatures. For a complete discussion see my recent
    paper from E&E at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot
    .com/2017/02/the-coming-cooling-usefully-accurate_17.html ‘

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    pat

    so far this is all I can find on NYT, and it was on Page 10!

    18 Mar: NYT: Jack Ewing: U.S. Breaks With Allies Over Trade Issues Amid Trump’s ‘America First’ Vows
    (Melissa Eddy contributed reporting from Berlin…A version of this article appears in print on March 19, 2017, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Team’s ‘America First’ Attitude Shakes Up a G-20 Meeting)

    (ONLY MENTION) ***At the insistence of the United States, the communiqué also dropped a pledge to observe the Paris accords on climate change. Mr. Mnuchin deflected questions on the issue, saying it was outside his purview…

    Some viewed the meetings as a chance to socialize with the new American representatives and to try to absorb them into the international order…
    “Naturally we have different points of view,” Mr. Schäuble said at a news conference on Saturday in Baden-Baden. But he added, “We worked very hard for two days in a pleasant atmosphere.”
    He also denied that the American delegation was at odds with other participants. “The Americans ***were not isolated,” Mr. Schäuble said…
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/business/group-of-20-summit-us-trade.html?_r=0

    ***indeed, “NOT ISOLATED” at all. NYT is a FakeNews joke.

    19 Mar: Bloomberg: G-20 Drops Anti-Protectionist Pledge as Price of U.S. Assent
    by Rainer Buergin, Jeff Black, and Josh Wingrove
    It dropped a reference to climate change, in the face of resistance from countries including the ***U.S., China, India and Saudi Arabia…
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-18/g-20-drops-anti-protectionist-pledge-as-trump-stance-goes-global

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    pat

    even CAGW-infested Reuters doesn’t mention CC in the headline of their main piece, and ignores Saudi, India, China also insisting CC be dropped:

    18 Mar: Reuters: G20 financial leaders acquiesce to U.S., drop free trade pledge
    By Balazs Koranyi and Gernot Heller
    In the new U.S. administration’s biggest clash yet with the international community, G20 finance chiefs also removed from their statement a pledge to finance the fight against climate change, an anticipated outcome after U.S. President Donald Trump called global warming a “hoax”.
    In a meeting that some said was at times 19 against one, the U.S. did not yield on key issues, essentially torpedoing earlier agreements as the G20 requires a consensus…
    The communique also dropped a reference, used by the G20 last year, on the readiness to finance measures against climate change as agreed in Paris in 2015, because of opposition from the United States and Saudi Arabia.

    Trump has suggested global warming was a “hoax” concocted by China to hurt U.S. industry and vowed to scrap the Paris climate accord aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
    Trump’s administration on Thursday proposed a 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget…
    Asked about climate change funding, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, said on Thursday: “We consider that to be a waste of money.”…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-trade-idUSKBN16P0FN

    CC included in headline of this very brief piece:

    18 Mar: Reuters: France regrets G20 meeting outcome on trade, climate change
    French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said he regretted that a meeting of world financial leaders on Saturday had failed to reach satisfactory conclusions on climate change and trade…
    “I regret nevertheless that our discussions today were not able to reach a satisfactory conclusion on two priorities that are absolutely essential in today’s world,” he said in a statement…

    —-

    Full of inclusiveness, resilience, sustainable…& variations thereof:

    Full text of G20 statement: G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors
    March 18 Baden Baden
    http://news.forexlive.com/!/full-text-of-the-g20-statement-from-baden-baden-20170318

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    • #
      clipe

      Asked about climate change funding, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, said on Thursday: “We consider that to be a waste of money.”

      Nice try Rooters. What Mick Mulveny actually said is;

      “We consider that to be a waste of your money.”

      10

  • #
    pat

    NYT doubles down on CAGW – find fertile ground in Australia?

    16 Mar: NYT: A Sea Change for Climate Coverage
    By STEPHEN HILTNER
    When considered individually, the main journalistic components of today’s article on the troubling state of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are nothing new — a focus on the climate, an international dateline (“SYDNEY, Australia”), arresting visuals. Each is a mainstay of New York Times reporting.

    In this case, though, their combination in a single article quietly hints at a series of changes.
    The article resulted from a collaboration involving two recent projects at The Times: a newly established bureau in Sydney, and a newly formed team of journalists devoted entirely to climate issues — both of which played crucial roles in the article’s conception and execution…
    The team, which has been around for a little longer than a month, exists as its own desk in the newsroom (just like, say, the national desk or the sports desk) and consists of editors and reporters in New York and Washington…

    The team is also coming together at a time of uncertainty regarding the Trump administration’s environmental policies…
    But Ms. (Hannah) Fairfield, who took on the role of climate editor after working for nearly 15 years on The Times’s graphics desk, aims to direct the coverage with an emphasis on visual journalism; she was the visual editor for several other projects that predate the formation of the climate team, including “Greenland Is Melting Away” and “Living in China’s Expanding Deserts.”…

    In addition, a brigade of climate journalists, she said, will help to bring a greater degree of consistency and a centralized expertise to a subject area that is affecting more and more of the world’s population…
    The new bureau in Sydney, led by Damien Cave, an author of today’s article who also serves as the Australia bureau chief, was introduced as part of The Times’s $50 million plan to expand its international audience. (Other global initiatives include a Spanish-language version of The Times’s website and the expansion of its news operations in Canada.)

    Mr. Cave shipped off to his new post in early January, but not before brainstorming story ideas with members of the new climate team.
    “Before Damien went to Australia, we got together and looked at some opportunities to work together,” Ms. Fairfield said. “And we identified the demise of the Great Barrier Reef as a good potential story.”
    The plan was to produce a longer-term piece of enterprise journalism — until Mr. Cave and Justin Gillis, who reported on the story from New York, caught wind of a study (to be published today as the cover article in the journal Nature) that detailed the extent of the reef’s destruction.
    “They quickly put their heads together,” Ms. Fairfield said, “and wrote a big story off the news.”

    Many similar collaborations — enterprise and otherwise — are likely to follow, and that jibes with Ms. Fairfield’s vision for The Times’s climate coverage…
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/insider/a-sea-change-for-climate-coverage.html

    easy to find Nature article referenced above:

    15 Mar: Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals

    got a better laugh from this one:

    PDF: 15 Mar: Nature: No time to chop funding for a pivotal climate programme
    As the Great Barrier Reef suffers yet more potentially fatal damage, understanding Earth’s response to global warming is more crucial than ever.
    The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) likes to think ahead…

    There is a reason why melting glaciers became an overused motif during the years of peak political and media interest in climate science a decade or so ago. Most of the other predicted severe impacts — on species, sea level and human welfare — were locked away for the future. Now, picture editors looking for contemporary signs of a warming world have a new subject: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef…

    But seed and glue money provided by the WCRP, funded mostly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and national sponsors, have leveraged collaborative research to thoroughly transform scientific understanding of Earth’s climate system…
    The WCRP’s small budget has been falling, and is set to fall further, from an allocation from the WMO of 1.7 million Swiss francs (US$1.7 million) in 2016 to 1.4 million Swiss francs in 2017. For some projects, that will translate into swingeing cuts…

    In the United States, the admini­stration of President Donald Trump is currently considering what might be devastating cuts to the budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini­stration. Lack of support for the WCRP would send a troubling signal that other international efforts — the IPCC included — are not valued either and could face a similar crunch…
    http://www.nature.com/news/no-time-to-chop-funding-for-a-pivotal-climate-programme-1.21625

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    pat

    massive WaPo article, not even a hint that “climate change” was dropped from the final communique:

    18 Mar: WaPo: Damien Paletta: New rifts emerge as Trump administration rejects free trade statement at G-20 meeting
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/new-rifts-emerge-as-trump-rejects-free-trade-statement-at-g20-meeting/2017/03/18/aa69b1a2-0bf3-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.19259ce3a8a2

    WaPo also carries AP’s “Top economies yield to US, drop no-protectionism pledge”, which hasn’t a single mention that “climate change” was dropped.

    18 Mar: Toronto Sun: Lorrie Goldstein: Paris climate treaty dead
    While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will never admit it, the 2015 Paris climate treaty Canada signed with great fanfare died last week.
    It died because of the release of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget plan.
    While Trump has to get it through the U.S. Congress, which means parts of it are unlikely to survive, his clear intention to gut U.S. climate change policy by dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency spells the death knell for the Paris treaty…READ ON
    http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/18/paris-climate-treaty-dead

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    Bill Whittle nails it. The problem is fundamentally one of INGRATITUDE.

    40

  • #
    TdeF

    You have to love the way journalists say we are investing say $9billion in renewables over the next few yars. Rubbish! We are paying triple, far too much for gas and coal electricity while making them too expensive to supply at any price and the usual suspects talk about this as ‘investment’. The RET is like all Carbon taxes, far worse than taxation. This $9Billion, $3Billion a year flees the country. So it is not even taxation. This is more expense than even the absurd landline based NBN when a satellite is only $0.5Bn.

    THen all we get are thousands of stationary windmills, which so obviously do not work. Still they talk of investment, going forward, renewables. It makes Rudd and Gillard look sensible with their $23 Carbon tax.

    Now what part of no Carbon tax does Turnbull not understand? Abbott removed the official carbon tax. Even he could not see 9c kwhr for gas and coal coming until now. That is not for actual power. It is a certificate which confers the right to sell our coal and gas electricity to ourselves. In the Australian this is a ‘bipartisan’ direction.

    It is about time people saw the RET for what it is. The world’s biggest carbon tax. It is about time Turnbull stopped playing games with the public. If the expense was not bad enough, the new technology doesn’t work, as even Turnbull admits with his batteries and new Snowy Mountain, neither of which actually produce electricity.

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    • #
      Annie

      ‘Investments’ should give a decent return. Labour/Labor types use it to mean scandalous frittering of huge sums of OUR money on totally loony, useless greenie schemes; thought up by soy latte sipping urbanites without a clue about real life. Remember Gordon Brown and his ‘investing’?

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    David Maddison

    Serious question:

    At what point does the deliberate destruction of our reliable fossil fuel powered electricity grid go from being mere incompetence to treason?

    With the amount of information available to show that CAGW is not real, and with many billions of dollars at stake, it is simply inexcusable to not know the truth, therefore actions to replace cheap reliables with expensive unreliables which will are GUARANTEED to destroy the economy must be deliberate and therefore treasonous.

    151

    • #
      Dennis

      Noting that this is just one part of the socialist agenda, socialism masquerading as environmentalism, socialism attacking capitalism as admitted by UN IPCC executive Christiana Figureres in October 2015 just before the Paris Conference.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      In Victoria CRIMES ACT 1958 – SECT 9A Treason.

      Of interest is S. 9A(2)
      (b) knowing that a person intends to commit treason, does not give information thereof with all reasonable despatch to a constable or use other reasonable endeavours to prevent the commission of the offence—shall be guilty of an indictable offence.

      The Australian Constitution Chapter 4: Treason. pdf.

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      Greebo

      I think that point has been passed. How many of our pollies are in debt to the big unions? How much “investment” do the big unions have in ‘renewables’ via industry super funds? What would be the industry funds interest in promoting renewables, and various idiotic treaties that see RETs enshrined in law? You could go on and on. Follow the money.

      10

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      Annie

      I agree with you David. Unless they are totally lacking in brains and commonsense they are guilty of wilfully ignoring the facts and to my mind that approaches treason.

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    In rating CAGW madness in various countries which countries would you rate from worst to best? You don’t have to rate them all, just some good examples.

    I think Australia must be close to worst, partly due to the fact that two other bad examples, the UK and Germany are still bad, but are saved with nuclear from France and hydro from Scandanavia.

    The US is among the best because even though they have excessive windmills and solar, they still have among the world’s cheapest electricity (which Australia used to also have).

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    pat

    18 Mar: SBS: AAP: Shorten to talk climate with Terminator
    Bill Shorten hopes Arnold Schwarzenegger can add some muscle to Labor’s push for action on climate change.
    The former California governor and Hollywood star is in Melbourne this weekend for the Arnold Classic, an annual mutli-sport festival which features body builders.
    Schwarzenegger and the opposition leader will meet on the sidelines of the kids expo on Saturday…

    “Anyone who’s seen his work knows he’s a straight-shooter determined to save the planet,” Mr Shorten said.
    “He sticks to his principles, even when the going gets tough.”
    California’s economy is the sixth largest in the world – a feat achieved in part because it is an attractive and stable environment for renewable energy investment, Mr Shorten said.
    The Turnbull government has repeatedly attacked Labor over its policy to establish a target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/03/18/shorten-talk-climate-terminator-

    18 Mar: Press-Enterprise: David Danelski: Here’s how California ended up with too much solar power
    Increasing amounts of wind and solar energy are being wasted or “curtailed,” because no one can use it.
    California’s power-grid operators are dealing with a glut of daytime electricity produced by household, government, business and industrial solar installations.
    This forces the electricity prices on state’s real-time marketplace to plummet, leading some power-plant operators to shut down until demand catches up with supply later in the day.
    And increasing amounts of wind and solar energy are being wasted or “curtailed,” as they call it, because no one can use it, according to data obtained from the California Independent System Operator ( Cal ISO)…

    This energy loss coincided with a 28 percent yearly increase in electricity produced from large-scale solar plants on the state’s control grid, according to the data. The grid system, which excludes Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Imperial Valley area utilities, last year got 11.9 percent of its electricity from solar plants, up from 9 percent in 2015 and 6.3 percent in 2014.
    The waste could increase unless changes are made. State power officials are pushing to get 50 percent of power from renewable sources by 2030 as required by state law…

    Cal ISO officials say the proportion of lost renewable energy is relatively small now.
    But they also describe the situation as unsustainable as more big solar plants and rooftop systems come online and create a surge of power late mornings and early afternoons.
    The problem is at its worst in springs months, when the sun shines longer reach day, but fewer people are running their air conditioners, the state data shows…
    Meanwhile, utilities are moving toward time-of-use pricing for home electricity costumers.
    http://www.pe.com/articles/government-827703-california-produced.html

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      Dennis

      The Terminator appeared somewhat embarrassed as a beaming Bill Shorten showed him images of his very young daughter.

      In fact the news segment made both of them look ridiculous.

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    PeterPetrum

    Just had a quick look at the SA wind farms. None are producing above 10%, most in the 1-2% range. Most notably two are producing MINUS 0.1% – that is they are drawing power off the grid. That is why I refuse to call it “renewable energy” and insist on referring to it as “intermittent energy”. If we all did that all the time the name might stick. The use of language is so important. That is why “climate change” was adopted, rather than “global warming”.

    Intermittent is much more descriptive, and honest, than renewable. How a piece of equipment that might last no longer than 10 years can be called “renewable”, I do not know.

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      TdeF

      Renewable is really the equipment, unserviceable windtowers and solar panels. Disposable, unmaintainable, replaceables would be more accurate. Nothing is free, certainly not replaceables. When we have finished paying $3Billion a year for them, we will have to start replacing them.

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      PeterS

      It’s simple to understand why. We now live in an “Orwellian” society where the meaning of words when used in politics actually translate to the opposite. On top of this we have the leftist push to destroy our economy to put in place a tyrannical socialist form of government. This double whammy will if left unchecked turn this nation and others that follow the same both up-side-down. One of the early causalities will be our freedoms that we fought for in two world wars. That loss of course has already started.

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      Robert Rosicka

      That’s parasitic , it’s feeding off the grid !

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    TdeF

    The LGC. Prices tripled in just two years, from $20 (2c kwhr) July 2014 to $89 (9c kwhr) in July 2016.

    As the act says, this is paid for the right to sell fossil fuel electricity. It is paid in cash to people who generate electricity and explicity is in addition to any money they receive for the electricity itself, which is a quite separate issue. This means windmills get 9c kw/hr to just generate electricity no one wants. Then if they get paid, that is extra. You could not run a business like this. You cannot undercut 0c. vs 9c.

    To be fair, they came down from $50 (5c) in 2009.

    Generally the skyrocketing LGC/STC (Used to be called LREC,SREC) prices are buried. There is nothing much about them on the web. Now they are most of your costs, as everyone marks this up by factors, even though it is straight carbon tax.

    Until the politicians and the journalists start talking about this, we have no explanation for the closure of essential power stations, except from Weatherill who blames privatization, the energy market, the interconnector, the greedy companies and has even blamed BHP for not building their own power stations, as they do in third world countries.

    The RET appeal is now urgent. It is not an investment. It is the world’s greatest carbon tax and it is not even a tax, just a river of money going overseas, largely to China as Trump has said.

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      TdeF

      Sorry, paid in cash to people who generate “eligible” electricity. The word Carbon is not even mentioned in the Act.

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      Dennis

      Privatisation is the new blame word, it used to be federal and states pointing at each other.

      Otherwise known as smokescreens and mirrors.

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        TdeF

        It is also a key word for the Unions who used to control our electricity. They would always go on strike when they could bring down our power, when we most needed it. 3/4 of Hazelwood lost their jobs when Jeff Kennett sold Hazelwood in 1996. The Unions want to close it for vengeance. Pelican Point too. In fact Weatherill wants to build another State Owned gas fired power plant when Pelican Point can be running in an hour. Now that’s vengeance, not acting in the best interests of the people of South Australia.

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          TdeF

          Pelican Point lost $15Million last year. So pay them the $15Million plus another $15Million for the use of their facility. Now you have a bill of $30million against building a new gas power plant over a couple of years at an asking price of $350Million, Weatherill’s proposed action? That is near criminal waste. You would think governments had infinte money and Weatherill and South Australians were wallowing in cash, when in fact they have all of WA’s GST, a disproportionate share of all Federal work and will need huge handouts with the closure of all car manufacture and to pay for the $30Million diesel for the Submarine coroporation, if they ever build more totally useless submarines at 3x the going price. It is all funny money, sitting down money on a State wide basis. Only the wine and tuna keeps them going.

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            Robert Rosicka

            Whatever it costs to buy pelican point would be cheaper than building a new plant , but alas it’s not buisness and shareholders it’s government and a labor one at that .
            So yes they do have a bottomless pit of money , they can blame the next govt for the fact the states broke from opposition and by and large the sheeple will agree with the help of the media .

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    pat

    18 Mar: Toronto Sun: Anthony Furey: Carbon taxes will fuel Canadian populism
    If and when Canadians give the establishment the boot, it will be over energy prices, carbon taxes and green schemes, more than any other issues.
    A recent Edelman poll revealed a whopping 80% of Canadians have had it with the elites. No wonder. There are so many topics where the establishment consensus and its media enablers are disconnected from the concerns of regular people…
    The headlines keep coming about the dire straits people are in, partly due to an ideologically driven green agenda foisted upon them without their say…

    High energy prices have led to small businesses closing down, manufacturers heading south, credit card debt piling up, dumpster diving for food, borrowing money from churches to pay the bills, kids wearing snowsuits indoors to keep warm and so on.
    Last year, these troubles were most acutely felt by people in rural Ontario, many of whom heat their homes with electricity. Then, on Jan. 1, Ontario and Alberta introduced carbon pricing schemes – cap and trade in Ontario, a carbon tax in Alberta. The rates will go up again next year…

    You’d think the political class would read the tea leaves and smarten up. Australia introduced a carbon tax in 2012 and it was so unpopular and harmful that an election was fought over it. That brought a new government to power that promptly axed the tax in 2014.

    But instead of learning from Ontario and Australia, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau still plans to mandate this harm cross-country – imposing a national carbon price on any province that doesn’t impose its own…
    Carbon tax advocates are now doubling down on this insanity…READ ALL
    http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/18/carbon-taxes-will-fuel-canadian-populism

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    pat

    18 Mar: Townhall: Paul Driessen: The Social Cost of Carbon Regulations
    “If you could pick just one thing to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy,” Bill Gates has said. “Access to energy is absolutely fundamental in the struggle against poverty,” World Bank VP Rachel Kyte and Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen agree.
    The UN Development Program calls energy “central to poverty reduction.” And International Energy Agency Executive Director Dr. Fatih Birol notes that “coal is raising living standards and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.” In fact, all fossil fuels are doing so…

    But the Obama Administration and radical environmentalists despise fossil fuels and used every tactic they could devise to eliminate them. One of their most important schemes was the “social cost of carbon.” …

    Fossil fuels created the modern world and lifted billions out of destitution and disease. They supply over 80% of the energy that powers United States and other modern civilizations; they will continue doing so for decades to come. They generate up to $70 trillion in annual global GDP…

    Using readily available data on global living standards, economies, disease, nutrition, life spans and other benefits – and the government’s own SCC cost figures and methodologies – we estimate that carbon benefits exceed costs by orders of magnitude: at least 50 to 1 and as much as 500 to 1!
    The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that fossil fuels will provide 75-80% of worldwide energy through 2040 – when the total amount of energy consumed will be at least 25% greater than today. That means these notable benefit-cost ratios will continue…READ ALL
    https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2017/03/18/the-social-cost-of-carbon-regulations-n2300683

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    pat

    17 Mar: Orange County Register: Patrick J. Michaels: California’s cap-and-trade train wreck
    (Patrick J. Michaels is the director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute)
    Californians like to brag they are the nation’s pioneers, pointing to freeways, Disneyland and In-N-Out Burger. They’ve started construction on a 118-mile high-speed rail segment, the first in the nation, from Madera (population: 61,416) to Shafter (population: 16,998). They’re paying for it with revenues from a statewide cap-and-trade system, which sells “permits” allowing industry to emit carbon dioxide.
    That first segment, which is over land as flat as a table, requiring very little bulldozing and very few superelevated curves, was supposed to cost $6.4 billion, but that’s already ballooned to $10 billion. As Steven Greenhut at Reason.com wrote earlier this year, “it’s costing the train to nowhere a lot to get there.”
    Twenty-five percent of the cap-and-trade permit revenue is earmarked for the train, which is generated by four sales a year. The last tranche of sales, which was supposed to produce $600 million in revenue, only sold $8.2 million…

    What’s going on? The spin from environmentalists is cap-and-trade permits are not selling because industry has been so successful at reducing its emissions that it doesn’t need those stinking permits.
    If only that were true! That would mean that reducing emissions 40 percent by 2030, as mandated by California law, is a piece of cake, and that the whole world will soon follow.
    But that’s not the case. The problem is the cap-and-trade program is probably illegal…READ ALL
    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/nation-746756-burger-pioneers.html

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    toorightmate

    Hillary Clinton has announced to the world that she is “ready to come out of the woods”.
    Please, please, please, please Hillary – stay in the woods.

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      Dennis

      Witch woods is she in?

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    • #

      Does she mean ‘crawl out of the woodwork?

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      PeterS

      Was she ever out?

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        ROM

        Stop white anting Hillary!

        And give her some time as she is still trying to recall where she and Bill buried those hundreds of 200 litre drums in the woods that are full of the Clinton Foundation’s folding stuff!

        Although given that they are Clinton’s, Bill has probably relocated most of those cash filled drums to somewhere safe from his point of view, so as to tide him through the latest round of bimbos.

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      lewispbuckingham

      She appeared to go into shock. It was a couple of hours before she faced her supporters after she lost the Presidential election and admitted that her campaign was failed.
      She may have some health issues also.
      She would have been working behind the scenes to prop up her preferred candidates for the Democratic primaries.
      Its a long game.

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    Nigel Woods

    You too can help the U.N. fight it’s biggest challenge ……(/sarc off or on? Hard to be sure)

    You have three weeks to enter, winner chosen by a panel of climate science and data science experts and announced (presumably with great fanfare if they can get the right answer) in November…

    Go to http://www.dataforclimateaction.org

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      TdeF

      So the challenge is to prove Climate Change exists? We should submit the excellent work of our 350 man science team from the CSIRO. After all, it cost us a billion dollars. It must be worth something. They wouldn’t just waste our money.

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        Mary E

        It is easy to prove “climate change” exists. 1. There used to be ice sheets, glaciers, as far south as the USA’s Great Lakes. 2. The ice sheets aren’t there any more. 3. This is because it got warm and they melted.

        There. Done.

        Oh, wait, you mean now? Well that won’t be easily done for another thousand years or so – maybe longer, maybe not so long if the ice sheets return, or we burst into flames. But the odds are it will be awhile before really know. And besides, it is more likely that we could just be having weather.

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        tom0mason

        TdeF

        “So the challenge is to prove Climate Change exists?”

        I presume that you mean whether Man-made Climate Change exists…

        Humans can and do change weather in localities and across some parts of geographical regions. But in terms of perspective, this is like mice running over the surface of a slowly rolling 2000 ton bolder. The rock will run where the laws of the land determine it will go, the mice just decorate it with sh*t, p*ss, and dead bodies.

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    David Maddison

    When politicians talk about a “50%” renewables target, do they mean the nameplate power of a windmill or solar plant or the actual average output which for a windmill is only around 30%? Or, do they simply not know what they’re talking about?

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      Dennis

      Answer: They simply do not know what they’re talking about.

      And following the political agenda they don’t want to know.

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      PeterS

      Translation from their Orwellian talk: their target is to reduce the value of our wealth by 50%. That way they can introduce draconian powers to be even more powerful masters.

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        Dennis

        There is already a proposal to replace stamp duty on property purchases with land tax on all property claimed to make housing more affordable for new home buyers. Well what about old home owners who paid stamp duty on those properties the governments claim need to be more affordable? What about supply not meeting demand because governments failed to release government land for new housing development?

        In NSW Labor slowed government land releases to a trickle in the early 1990s. In more recent years the Coalition Government has fast tracked government land release of hundreds of thousands of blocks of land. So gradually supply is catching up with demand, but with around 200,000 migrants arriving every year (not including refugees sent via the UNHCR) stabilising demand and prices is difficult.

        After all most foreign buyers seek high price property in sought after locations, areas that most new home buyers could not afford stamp duty or no stamp duty.

        Noting too that inner city dwellings are unaffordable for most people in cities around the world, and most countries have more people renting than buying. But politicians here apparently want to get rid of negative gearing: investment properties where the tenant effectively pays the mortgage and other costs such as rates. The incentive being capital gain long term for the investor. The Keating Labor Government tried to abolish negative gearing and quickly reinstated it as the rental market property availability became a new problem.

        Who else is fed up with politicians stuffing things up and other politicians applying more ridiculous measures trying to repair the damage at our expense?

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          PeterS

          Indeed. Wait till Labor+Greens come to power. Our taxes will skyrocket just like our electricity bills. Socialist always love to tax people to death. Apart from trying to collect more venue so they can spend more they don’t know how to do anything else. Asking a socialist government to reduce spending is like asking a wild dingo to stop eating meat.

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    PeterS

    No need to be a “rocket scientist” see this coming here when ALP+Greens form government federally:
    ‘New tax’ on INHERITANCE: Outrage as Government proposes ‘death tax’ to fund social care

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    pat

    FakeAcademia:

    16 Mar: HarvardBusinessReview: The More Climate Skeptics There Are, the Fewer Climate Entrepreneurs
    by Matthew E. Kahn and Daxuan Zhao
    The U.S. remains home to a considerable number of “climate skeptics,” who clearly impact the politics around the issue, as they are unlikely to support costly actions such as carbon taxes intended to mitigate the challenge of climate change. Higher carbon taxes would have a direct effect on encouraging households and firms to consume less fossil fuels and would accelerate directed research in green technologies such as electric vehicles, solar panels, and other forms of renewable power.
    In the absence of such carbon taxes, global carbon dioxide concentration levels are likely to continue to rise…

    In our new NBER paper (LINK), we argue that the presence of climate skeptics reduces the aggregate demand for products that help with climate adaptation, and that this reduces the likelihood that innovative companies devote their efforts to solving these challenges. Our research is purely theoretical: We outline a model but don’t test it on real-world data. Nonetheless, in applying economic principles from previous research to the question of climate skepticism and innovation, we offer, at the very least, an important thought exercise in the negative impact of climate denial…

    Globalization helps to offset the climate change adaptation challenge posed by the existence of climate skeptics in any one country…
    Climate skeptics can, of course, ***update their beliefs over their lifetime as new information arrives. In this case, the climate adaptation demand by the nonskeptics benefits the skeptics, because entrepreneurs are more likely to invest in climate resilient products, due to the aggregate demand by the nonskeptics…
    https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-more-climate-skeptics-there-are-the-fewer-climate-entrepreneurs

    ***presumably, CAGW believers CAN’T/WON’T update their beliefs as new information arrives!

    Authors:
    Matthew E. Kahn is a Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California. He is the author, most recently, of Climatopolis.

    Daxuan Zhao is an assistant professor of real estate and finance at the Renmin University of China’s School of Business.

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    pat

    19 Mar: AFR: Misa Han: Snowy Hydro will not replace coal: Senator Matthew Canavan
    Renewable energy will not replace coal and the federal government should continue to invest in clean coal technologies, federal resources minister Matthew Canavan said…
    “We got to get over this obsession there’s one solution that will solve all our energy needs. We’re a big diverse country with big diverse needs in terms of our energy supply. The Snowy Mountains Hydro scheme is going to be an important addition [but] not going to make a huge difference up in north Queensland,” Senator Canavan told ABC on Sunday…

    He said the government should consider bringing in “clean coal technologies” to keep the energy price affordable.
    “We got coal up here, the new clean coal technologies can do so at a reliable price, affordable power, and lower emissions. We should look at bringing those technologies in,” he said…
    “We have to continue to provide reliable and affordable power if we want jobs in industry and manufacturing,” he said.
    “And the coal technologies rolled out in our region, more than 700 plants in operation, another 80 being built at the moment, using our coal. We should look at that technology as well.” he said.​
    http://www.afr.com/business/energy/snowy-hydro-will-not-replace-coal-senator-matthew-canavan-20170319-gv1ago

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      TdeF

      Possibly our second ultra rich Prime Minister is in a race with our first. Malcolm’s thought bubbles are starting to match Kevin Rudd’s in frequency and uselessness and lack of research. It is like having a teenager in charge of the country. If the idea is panned by critics for lack of sense, investigation, thought, feasibility, timing and funding, Malcolm will just blame someone else. That has been the pattern so far for someone who cannot handle criticism.

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    pat

    18 Mar: KSNT: AP: Top Kansas court clears way for new coal-fired power plant
    Kansas’ highest court has cleared a major obstacle to the long-delayed construction of a big, new coal-fired power plant.
    The state Supreme Court on Friday rejected an effort by an environment group to force the state to regulate emissions linked to climate change.
    The justices upheld a 2014 decision by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to give Sunflower Electric Power Corp. the go-ahead for its
    The utility wants to build an 895-megawatt plant adjacent to an existing one outside Holcomb, in southwestern Kansas and estimates the cost at $2.2 billion.
    The company and the state’s attorney general said they were pleased by the decision…
    http://ksnt.com/2017/03/18/top-kansas-court-clears-way-for-new-coal-fired-power-plant/

    19 Mar: AFP: Jan Marchal: Czech energy group bucks green trend with bet on coal
    Bucking a trend set by its European peers to divest from coal, the Czech energy group EPH is buying coal-fired power plants across the continent to the dismay of environmentalists lobbying for a phase-out of fossil fuels.
    Its annual production of more than 100 million megawatt-hours in its plants in Britain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia — enough to power around 30 million homes — makes EPH the seventh largest power producer in Europe…

    It’s owner, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, is undeterred by global efforts under the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb global warming by switching from carbon-intensive fossil fuels like coal and oil to clean energy, especially solar and wind.
    “From the practical and moral point of view, we believe it’s wrong to reject using resources that are necessary to meet the fundamental needs of European citizens,” EPH spokesman Daniel Castvaj told AFP of the company’s lack of qualms about coal…
    The EPH controls about fifty companies with 25,000 employees…

    Kretinsky, the sixth wealthiest Czech according to the Forbes magazine, controls 94 percent of EPH. It earned 1.64 billion euros ($1.73 billion) in gross profit in 2015 after taking in 4.57 billion euros in consolidated revenue…

    EPH has been on a shopping spree, snapping up coal-fired electricity plants from European energy giants like E.ON, Enel or RWE, which they are happy to sell…
    Last year the Czech holding acquired German lignite assets from Sweden’s Vattenfall…

    It also bought three coal-fired plants and five mines in eastern Germany and a 50-percent stake in the Lippendorf power station near the German city of Leipzig, accounting for 8,000 megawatts of power in all.
    https://sg.news.yahoo.com/czech-energy-group-bucks-green-trend-bet-coal-040210855.html

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    Peter C

    New Test of the Greenhouse Theory

    I have been asking myself for some time; Does the Greenhouse Gas Effect Theory make any testable predictions? I think that the answer is Yes. According to the Theory;Increased Greenhouse Gas causes increased surface temperatures here on our Earth! This is what the alarmists have been saying all along..

    How can that be tested? Well, even the IPCC (UN International Panel on Climate Change) agrees that water vapour is the most powerful greenhouse gas by far, accounting for about 90% of all greenhouse activity.

    My test site is an Australian meteorological station called Giles, in Western Australia.
    Our Bureau of Meteorology has a lot of form in promoting the Greenhouse Theory, possibly going as far as altering the data when it does not fit with the Theory. They do however publish a lot of data on line, which is very useful.

    Giles is located in a semi desert, with very low rainfall. It is far from the coast and hence influence from the sea. Cloud cover is variable, but generally low.. Most important the Bureau of Meteorology launches a weather balloon from there every day at about 9am local time (2300Z) every day. From that I can obtain the precipitable water (PW) which is a measure of the total water in the troposphere.

    Preferred times for data collection from Giles would be December and June (solar solstice) since the solar irradiance is fairly constant at those time. Unfortunately, this year, December was very wet at Giles with lots of cloud. So I have taken my observations at the equinox (March). That is not ideal since the solar irradiance deceases every day.

    The period from Late February into early March has been dry (no rain) and mostly cloud free.

    The preliminary results taken over a period of just over 2 weeks show:
    1, Precipitable water has a strong correlation with the dew point. That is good because I can collect the dew point more easily.in retrospect The balloon flight data is only available for 24 hours,then erased. . Dew point represents atmospheric water vapour near the ground,

    2, Both Minimum and maximum temperatures show a weak negative correlation with the dew point (ie cooling with increased water vapour). Early days yet, but on this test the Greenhouse Theory did not make a valid prediction.

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      lewispbuckingham

      Be careful not to advise of your testing till you have all the data.
      Make sure it is date stamped and independently verifiable.
      Its a pity some is erased on the same day. It would be useful to retain such data.

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      Peter C March 19, 2017 at 6:38 pm

      “New Test of the Greenhouse Theory”

      Can you tell us which Greenhouse Theory you write of? Specifically ‘the one that claims EMR flux from the atmosphere increases surface sensible heat’ (temperature), or some other that claims some unknown magical effect?
      All the best! -will-

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        Peter C

        That is the one Will.

        I am not aware of any experiment or objective empirical test which shows that radiative (green house) gases trap heat, nor increase surface temperature.

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          Peter C March 20, 2017 at 11:01 am

          “I am not aware of any experiment or objective empirical test which shows that radiative (green house) gases trap heat, nor increase surface temperature.”

          Well atmospheric CO2 can do nothing above 180ppmv. OTOH atmospheric H2O in all six phases defiantly store insolation ‘power’ as “latent heat of evaporation” from 6 to 22 hours on a continual basis 24\7. In the local AM insolation evaporates much airborne water condensate, airborne water coloid (haze cloud),at the rate of 2,400 watt-seconds per gram, of the average of airborne column water at 28 g/cm², 280 kg/m² ; Earths equatorial angular rotation rate is (Pi x Diameter)/(60 x 60 x 24) I will let someone with better numeracy than I calculate how many of those 28 g/cm² need be converted to WV to absorb ALL incident insolation with just that airborne continuous water thingy.
          Why need any insolation ever reach Earth’s surface? The airborne H2O does this with no necessary change in temperature! This Latent heat is slowly converted to sensible heat (temperature), all during nighttime! This sensible heat, with 1/2 the negative temperature lapse with altitude as DALR, powers most all EMR exitance to space that has very low opposing ‘radiance’. No atmospheric EMR flux is ever generated in the direction of the surface as that surface has a higher ‘radiance’ that the atmosphere at every frequency! Whatever all changes in atmospheric CO2, CH4, or anything else may do; a wee change in atmospheric H2O must correct that Mach schnell!
          All the best! -will-

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    pat

    18 Mar: EconomicTimesIndia: AFP: World Bank indirectly backs harmful South-East Asian projects: report
    World Bank investments in commercial financial institutions is indirectly allowing land-grabs, evictions and pollution in Southeast Asia, a watchdog group charged in a report.
    By investing in banks and other so-called financial intermediaries, World Bank funds can increase poverty, social strife and promote projects which hasten climate change, according to a report by Inclusive Development International.
    These investments by the World Bank’s private financing arm, the International Finance Corporation, violate its own guidelines on environmental and social conditions, the report alleges…

    Pred’s US-based non-governmental organization, which researches the activities of development agencies like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, issued another report in October saying the IFC’s investments helped finance a “coal boom” across Asia even though the World Bank had pledged to phase out most support coal-fired power…
    An IFC spokesman defended the practice of working with private financial firms, saying they were “essential” to poverty reduction and job creation…

    Friday’s report singled out IFC support for Raiffeisen Bank International of Austria, which the report said had financed the Thai mining firm Earth Energy, the main underwriter of a coal project in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region that allegedly involved land-grabbing and mining on ancestral lands that could affect as many as 16,000 people.
    The report also said IFC bought a stake in Vietnam’s state-owned VietinBank, which financed coal power, bauxite mining, rubber plantations and hydropower in Vietnam and Cambodia…
    http://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/coal/world-bank-indirectly-backs-harmful-south-east-asian-projects-report/57700542

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    pat

    ***CAGW activists at Mongabay simply hate coal, no matter what:

    15 Mar: Mongabay: Tara MacIsaac: Indonesia’s clean coal dreams
    The Indonesian government is relying on so-called “clean coal” technology to help reconcile its climate goals with plans to rapidly expand coal-fired energy…
    ***Even if Indonesia sequesters some carbon this way, many environmental advocates remain opposed to Indonesia’s coal expansion, as numerous other concerns about the health and environmental impacts of the coal industry remain…

    Indonesia’s first supercritical coal-fired power plant, Cirebon, began operation in 2012. It is being expanded with two ultra-supercritical units still in the testing phase.
    Indonesia currently has about 50 coal-fired power plants. It plans to build 117 new plants by 2019. Of the plants under construction or planned, 21 percent will still be subcritical; 43 percent will be supercritical; 16 percent will be ultra-supercritical; and 20 percent are undefined…
    https://news.mongabay.com/2017/03/indonesias-clean-coal-dreams/

    1 Mar: Global Trade Review: Indonesia coal-fired plant nets jumbo financing
    A coal-fired plant in Indonesia has attracted debt finance of US$3.355bn, from a group of predominantly Japanese lenders…
    The Indonesian government has committed to constructing power plants with a combined capacity of 35,000MW in the five years from 2015. The country is plagued by power issues, which are a huge impediment to trade and manufacturing.
    Being a large producer of coal, it is perhaps natural that the company has such a high dependency on thermal energy: 51% of Indonesia’s power is generated by coal-fired plants…
    http://www.gtreview.com/news/asia/indonesia-coal-fired-plant-nets-jumbo-financing/

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      PeterPetrum

      And we are going to put in a few more pipes in the Snowy! Oh! PLEASE!

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      Egor the One

      Yeah , and the big master plan here is to push s**t uphill by our Global Warmer in Chief….the esteemed one.

      The energy we get out of it we have to use to pump back up plus interest….40% .

      Why have we got F..wits and criminals in charge ?

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      David Maddison

      And will these Indon coal plants be burning Aussie coal we are not allowed to burn ourselves?

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    David Maddison

    This is a proposal from a private engineer to expand the Snowy Scheme with pumped storage giving 9GW for 3 hrs after 6 hrs pumping. It involves 3 x 53 km tunnels.And $6.7 billion. I wonder if what Turnbull is proposing is some variation on that? No doubt his quote of $2 billion for what he is proposing, whatever that may be, will turn out to be too low.

    https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/04/05/pumped-hydro-system-cost/amp/

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      Dennis

      Estimates by politicians are most often low as they do not want to upset voters when attempting to sell them the idea. Consider NBN for example, first offer $4 billion and second a few years later $40 billion and actual cost now pushing well over $50 billion and heading close to $100 billion if the original Labor election drawcard plan was completed without the cost cutting modifications the Coalition has been pushing.

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    David Maddison

    A concern I have is that Turnbull or his stupid and incompetent advisors will try to emulate the Espejo de Tarapacá project in Chile with his Snow Hydro proposal. It is a 300MW capacity pumped hydroelectric storage project that uses seawater pumped 630 metres up to a natural depression in the Atacama Desert. It utilises three 100MW reversible Francis turbines which pump water uphill at 45,000 litres per second during the day and discharge it at night at 28,000 litres per second. The capacity of the pondage is 52 gigalites. The cost is US$400 million and construction is set to commence this year. It will be combined with a 600MW solar PV array by 2020 and the two plants working in combination will deliver solar energy 24 hours per day, stated to be without subsidies. This will be the type of scheme that will give them an excuse to build all the windmills and solar arrays their Green fantasies will allow for.
    Video: https://vimeo.com/152150996

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    Robert Rosicka

    That other alarmist show four corners has a show tonight dedicated to CAGW and how the pentagon flagged how dangerous it was going to be to public safety .
    The watermelons won’t give up without a fight .

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