Taxpayers give $300m to Saudi billionaire for solar plant that makes 2% of old dying coal plant’s power

It will only take 50 plants like this, and $15 billion spare dollars, to replace the Liddell coal station (8,000GWh), now slated for closure in 2022.

$300m handout to Saudi tycoon for solar farm

Australians are set to pay $300 million in subsidies to an outback solar farm owned by a Saudi Arabian billionaire in a new test of the federal government’s looming energy reforms, escalating a dispute over whether to cut the handouts to keep coal-fired power stations alive.

AGL’s controversial Liddell coal power station in the NSW Hunter Valley generates 50 times as much electricity as the Moree solar farm in the state’s north, which stands to gain big subsidies from households from higher electricity bills until 2030…

But we need more chinese-built glass panels that make green weather-controlling electrons.

Lucky solar power is so competitive. Look at the money roll…

The Moree solar farm generates 150,000 megawatt hours of electricity a year, about 0.08 per cent of the 200 terawatt hours produced on the national electricity market every year. The project is forecast to collect about $50m in payments over the next four years and $90m in the following decade under the existing RET.

Subsidies piled on subsidies? Does one gravy train know where the others are going?

These subsidies, funded by electricity customers, will add to taxpayer aid including a $101.7m direct grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and a $60m concessional loan from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

AGL is getting even more:

The Australian yesterday reported that AGL stood to receive $589m from the grants and subsidies for two solar projects over the period to 2030,…

Solar is the future, my foot.

REFERENCE

Crowe, David (2017) Saudi solar tycoon’s $300m handout, The Australian, Sept 19, 2017.

9.8 out of 10 based on 94 ratings

191 comments to Taxpayers give $300m to Saudi billionaire for solar plant that makes 2% of old dying coal plant’s power

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    I suggest that there will be a dark justice in all of this insanity. The actions taken by governments to reward the producers of unreliable energy will destroy the value of the reward to that of waste paper. Its ultimate value will be the heat it can generate when burned on a cold winter’s night. If its existence is only bits in a remote database, there is little there to be burned but that is OK because the computers won’t be running either.

    Without the necessary RELIABLE energy sources, things cannot be produced. If they cannot be produced, they cannot be consumed no matter how much fake money or even gold one has to spend. All the so called wealth that was transferred becomes worth less than a hand full of dust.

    The grim reality is we will all be subjected to the same dark justice. If we cannot consume, we cannot exist. If we don’t exist, we can’t produce. The world of Mad Max was much too optimistic compared to what appears to be heading toward us at lightspeed.

    392

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The message in all this is one we need to keep telling anyone who will listen:

      Closed power plants = lost jobs

      262

      • #
        Dennis

        Too many Australians believe that in this land of much sunshine solar power makes very good sense, and that wind turbines do too.

        Few understand the operational issues or the impact on electricity prices. In fact some even claim that removing the carbon tax forced electricity prices up.

        However, the cost of electricity is of major concern.

        212

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          It wont be too much longer before its normal to have solar or a back up gennie at home.

          Dont forget too this is a religious war- those who believe thier mythical “Gaia” ( the earth as a goddess) is overrun with “destructive” humans vs the rest of humanity…..

          111

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Your average Citizen tends not to understand the large numbers involved in these deals. They see the significant digits at the front, but their eyes tend to glaze over when you get a string of zeros at the end. To make the deception worse, proponents of these “good ideas” also tend to add the suffixes: kilo, mega, giga, etc on to the end of obscene numbers, to hide the fact that they really are truly obscene.

      As far as people like Turnbull are concerned, it is just another tax on people who can’t do math.

      251

      • #
        el gordo

        Talking of which, Delta has changed their minds about purchasing Liddell, maybe its time we crowd funded to save baseload.

        ‘Delta bought the Vales Point power station from the NSW government for $1 million at around the same time AGL got Liddell for free – excluding rehabilitation costs of some $450 million.’

        SMH

        81

      • #
        Dennis

        As with too many people who cannot work out the real cost of solar system after financing, writing it off and making provision for cost of replacement.

        82

      • #
        Roger

        Rereke, it’s not just the citizen that doesn’t understand these vast numbers and the long rows of noughts – neither do the politicians to whom none of this seems ‘real’ money, it’s just numbers on a piece of paper.

        80

  • #
    RobK

    Additionally, we will be forced to pay for some kind of storage which will need to have a much larger capacity than that which services baseload because it cannot guarantee recharge each night like baseload can. It must ride through a period of many days to weeks. Baseload with say pumped storage can cycle on a daily basis. Renewballs will need maybe 10 times the storage (depending on the security you want) and a several times the installed capacity of generation to supply the load whilst recharging. This will erratically cause a glut at times with very expensive infrastructure. It will never be “cheap”. There’s a world of difference in the application of infrastructure and cost.

    172

    • #
      Roger

      A study in the UK, based primarily on wind, came to the conclusion that around 55 days of backup battery power would be required.

      Not because there would be 55 days without wind but to allow for the low wind days which do often last for many days.

      Some calculations I have been running suggest that around 22% of the UK will need to be covered in wind turbines by 2048 to provide the renewable energy to power electric vehicles after the policy to ban sales of all but electric vehicles comes into force in 2040.

      90

  • #
    Graeme #4

    These sorts of stupid behaviours by companies are finally attracting the MSM attention, which means surely that our pollies are finally starting to get the message.
    We cannot stop now – we must continue in every way possible to bring these money-wasting ventures to light with solid facts.

    262

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    Imagine that. Australia funneling money to Saudi Arabian.
    Climate change weirdisms can make otherwise sane people do unbelievable things.

    172

  • #
    PeterS

    It could be worse. We could also be funneling millions to ISIS to maintain the solar plants. Those who can connect the dots will understand what I mean.

    191

  • #
    michael reed

    I never voted for increased electricity bills I never voted for subsidies to overseas crony capitalists in their wind farm ventures.I never new about the RET that has
    crippled our coal fired base load capacity (and the money generated from it to go overseas) or In I would never have voted for it.This whole sorry
    episode has ended up being all about deception by politicians over issues that I don’t get a say in.
    It is plain to see where Australia is headed -unreliable and ridiculously expensive electricity supply ,many more households in energy poverty especially those on fixed incomes.Many Industries are now either cutting back on their workforces or closing down completely or talking of taking their manufacturing offshore to countries that lower overhead costs both in labour and energy.Eventualy this leads to lack of consumer confidence and therefore consumer spending which eventually ends up in greater unemployment.So what I don’t get is while all of this is becoming obvious all those things that I never voted for are continuing and are destroying our economy and our nation.

    272

    • #
      Dennis

      I didn’t vote for the conventional diesel technology fossil fuel fleet to be forced off the road by 2025 and for the government to gift Macquarie Bank leasing $100 million to encourage promotion and sales of Tesla EV.

      And the losses the owners of these vehicles will incur as the resale/trade in value falls to zero, no doubt soon to be followed by conventional petrol powered vehicles.

      All in accordance with UN-EU instructions, European Standards.

      So what happened to Australia New Zealand Standards?

      In addition to the RET debacle and the growing electricity supply crisis and increasing cost to consumers.

      182

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        There has been no discernible changes in energy policy in New Zealand, under the current, long-running, National Government. We are, after all, a country primarily driven by hydro generation, underpinned with plentiful rainfall (especially this winter, past).

        But we have a General Election in a few days time, and it is not inconceivable that there may be a change in government. The brand new opposition leader is an airbrushed left-wing socialist, with good dental work, in the mould of Helen Clarke, whom I believe is currently in this country, offering advice, in matters of strategy.

        141

        • #
          Dennis

          So, Wellingon could be renamed again?

          What “grad” might it be?

          71

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            I might be going to Wellington in a few weeks, sounds like I might need some heavy duty wet weather gear.

            40

            • #
              sophocles

              KK:
              Wellington is where the rain falls sideways. It’s first private radio station a couple of decades ago was called Radio Windy, which is no more.

              So: take some heavy duty wet weather gear and don’t even think about trying to use an umbrella. Only newbies to Wellington do that and they’re disillusioned by the wind within seconds of trying.

              91

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Thanks. Will be there for 4 days.

                30

              • #
                Annie

                Gosh, yes, I remember that horizontal sleety wind in late November, after crossing Cook Straight from Picton and having a very good view of the reef on the way in!

                50

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Annie, I’ve done that trip too but in 1970, too many years ago to remember much detail.

                30

              • #
                Annie

                It was quite an experience! A crew member said that a couple of degrees difference in the wind and the sailing would have been cancelled. It was my first, and only, trip to the North Island and perishing cold until I was north of Wellington. My OH was travelling by rail from Wellington to Auckland on duty and I had a fascinating time driving up there by myself in a campervan via all sorts of interesting places.
                This was in late November 1985.

                30

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Jacindagrad

            Which doesn’t do much for me. Her full name is: Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern, which indicates some indecision on the part of the family.

            Her Grandfather drained most of the farmland around Morrinsville, which was previously swamplands. Which she claims gives her roots in the rural community.

            Her Grandfather was also, I understand, a Labour Politician in his day. Perhaps such things are hereditary, in the Labour Party?

            I can find no reference to her having any practical qualifications or experience, outside of the Labour Party. As I said, she is in the mould of our one-time. “Dear Leader”, Helen.

            141

      • #
        James

        So all diesel vehicles off the road, or just cars and utes?

        51

        • #
          Dennis

          According to my informant who owns an auto electrical and mechanical repairs business and franchised to a German product supplier brand from 2025 there will be no new Diesel engine vehicles allowed to be sold in Australia. I assume that also means heavy transport trucks and buses, but what about Diesel-Electric railway engines?

          And not too many years later Petrol engines in conventional vehicles will be banned, but Ok when installed in a Hybrid. I assume that is because the fuel consumption and emissions are lower than conventional technology.

          However, the longer term objective and planning is for EV only. And we will not be permitted to own one, instead we hire for periods when needed or long term lease.

          More profits for the carpet baggers.

          However, consider the costs involved in replacing even the Australian fleet and owners receiving scrap value only.

          And then rolling out the recharge stations and home power points, and even more important, how will the electricity grid cope?

          121

          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Hmmmm…as a South African ex-cop friend of mine used to say … good luck ( meaning duck and stick your fingers in your ears…. )

            I guess if you wanted to completely paralyze and ham string the australian economy and conform it to the twisted view these idiots have, it makes sense.

            Ive said a few time this is a religious war, this is driven by a twisted ideology.

            I understand these people – they are ruthless and have black hearts ( due to the Satanic occult religion they follow ).

            The problem is they have also heavily invested in putting 6′ fences around schools as holding centres, created indefinite detention laws, made police into a paramilitary force, created warrantless spying and surveillance etc etc.

            The bigger picture is turning Australia into an open air proison, “sacrificing” a whole population to the mythical “Gaia”, which is really just modern black majick witchcraft. As a Christian, you have to understand your opposition and know how they think.

            As to the grid – it wont cope. By creating a state of energy paralysis, they create a state of dependence and control. Energy independence is anathema to them as we have a choice. Humans are viewed by them as parasites, to be controlled as needed.

            111

            • #
              Dennis

              Eugenics, as proposed by their predecessors, the socialist Fabian Society established in England in the late 1800s.

              Australian Fabian Society associates and members the who’s who of Union Labor.

              50

          • #
            James Murphy

            For those who wish to rule without opposition, there’s nothing like controlling the ability of the population to move around freely, except for media censorship, laws crippling free speech, destroying the education system, and creating a universal welfare state, that is…

            80

    • #
      Robdel

      The sooner we reach electricity blackouts, the quicker will the public come to their senses and the renewable madness end.

      231

  • #
    Dennis

    MAURICE NEWMAN

    Enough is enough. The Bureau of Meteorology yet again stands charged with fabricating temperature records.

    The Australian

    305

  • #
    Dennis

    NICK CATER

    Taxpayers shouldn’t have to carry the cost of subsidising unstable energy generation.

    The Australian

    162

    • #
      Glen Michel

      A good day for reading “The Australian” with Cater and Newman talking plain sense- the sort of sense that doesn’t get a go at Grauniad and the Fauxfax mob. Jennifer Oriel and Albrechtsen continue to give hope.

      40

  • #
    jorgekafkazar

    The wustralian government has surrendered to the wreckers.

    92

  • #
    el gordo

    The Moree setup is state of the art.

    ‘FRV is pleased to be building the 56MW facility – one of the largest solar power plants in Australia and the first that will utilize mechanical devices (trackers) to continually orient its solar panels with the sun to increase their power output each day.’

    71

    • #
      David Maddison

      I am curious to know how much more power is produced when using solar trackers. I suppose cost effectiveness doesn’t matter because the subsidies will cover the cost.

      81

  • #
    Another Ian

    Around this area

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/09/ynokyoto-55.html#comments

    And comments like


    NEO | September 18, 2017 3:15 PM | Reply

    *
    read “super freakonomics” by professor steven d. levitt and stephen j. dubner
    for the skinny on the global warming hysteria… start at page 176.

    some gems… “the problem with solar cells is that they’re black, designed to
    absorb light from the sun. But only about 12% gets turned into electricity,
    the rest is reradiated as heat… which contributes to global warming.” ”

    And link to

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/17/delingpole-urgent-memo-to-donald-trump-the-biggest-threat-to-the-environment-are-environmentalists/

    142

  • #
    el gordo

    There are plans to build a couple of farms outside ‘Deni’ and the locals are protesting that the solar farm will be situated on the best soil in the district.

    http://regional.sheppnews.com.au/2017/06/30/97420/solar-location-protest

    91

  • #
    Rodzki

    Solar is the future … for carpetbaggers.

    121

    • #
      Dennis

      Kevin Turnbull is their best maate.

      71

    • #
      C. Paul Barreira

      Not carpetbaggers. They possessed little likeness with Saudi billionaires for: “A carpetbagger was portrayed as a lower-class schemer with little education who could carry everything he owned in a cheap carpet bag”.

      The political association was perhaps real enough although Southerners hated them. Modern, rich, well-educated Australians welcome these already-rich parasites and pay then to wreck their futures. The second-world is our destination and we’re nearly there. AGL has the law—”a ass”—on its side, every which way. And utterly methodical. That there is no turning back is unfortunate but actions, especially as they accumulate, have consequences.

      71

  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    This whole thing is a complete and utter sham.
    Useless, expensive and totally unreliable wind and solar power is being used to rip bilions and billions of dollars from us the Australian taxpayers and fill the pockets of overseas investors. All in the name of a green ideology.
    Wake up, wake up Australia for Gods sake!
    GeoffW

    181

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      You need to speak to as many people as you know to spread the word.

      Put it in terms fairly simple people will understand.

      “Closed down power stations = job losses everywhere”

      – has a tendency to cut through the MSM noise and get the message across.

      If you follow the format of the awful 6:30pm “current affairs” shows, that will work with the bulk of the population….

      101

  • #
    Robert Swan

    Obviously, to say that 0.08 percent of Australian generated electrons will be these nice new solar ones would be unscientific — maybe even anti-science. The right thing to say is that these nice new solar electrons will be about 800ppm in the Australian mix.

    Deeper thinkers among us will immediately see that this makes two electrons in this mix for every CO2 molecule in the atmosphere. Think for a moment how significant that is, and how much it will be to our benefit to subsidise this scheme.

    91

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Well done in the true tradition of CAGW.

      You have successfully mixed two completely unrelated data sets and made it sound real.

      Go pick up your climate science degree from any nearby university.

      🙂

      111

    • #
      Dennis

      I read a comment in the Daily Telegraph that the author drives a UV city car which is so much more economical than her Ford Falcon. And, wait for it, she recharges the EV overnight off peak with “green energy”.

      lol

      61

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        I don’t like green. It does nothing for my complexion. Why can’t we have pink energy, or yellow energy? They are so much kinder to the complexion.

        40

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Oh dear,

      Deeper thinkers among us will…

      As soon as you start a sentence like that, you set off every troll alarm in the blog-osphere. If you are going to play with the big boys and girls, then you better sharpen up and learn the rules.

      30

  • #
    Robert Rosicka

    Noticed yesterday two shipping container sized diesel generators being trucked somewhere , given the location and the fact no one was in a hurry makes me wonder if their destination is Somewhere in Victoriastan.

    92

  • #
    David Maddison

    Are there any figures showing how much unreliable energy subsidies are going offshore?

    72

  • #
    MacSpee

    A bleeding disgrace but par for the course.
    On another but related issue, I don’t recall comments about the transmission losses of solar and wind power. They produce little to start with but by by the time it gets into the grid the losses must surely be considerable.
    Anyone know?

    91

    • #
      David Maddison

      Here are some US figures. They calculate 17.9% loss compared to US grid average of 6.7%.

      http://www.theenergycollective.com/willem-post/169521/wind-turbine-energy-capacity-less-estimated

      44

    • #
      RickWill

      Connecting wind and solar generators into the grid has guaranteed the grid’s demise. Low cost electricity in Australia is now history. It is already cheaper in SA to generate and store your own. The rest of Australia is catching up.

      So all those large scale wind and solar plants will be stranded with no one able to afford the power they produce. Their replacement cost will not be an issue because there will be no point replacing them.

      This video makes a valid point about the transmission cost:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0
      So the failure to appreciate that wind and solar offer no benefit of scale destines grid scale plants to the scrap heap. The cost of transmission, distribution and retailing electricity put grid scale wind and solar at a huge disadvantage to what anyone with a roof can achieve.

      91

  • #
    pat

    19 Sept: Australian: Greg Brown: Coal support offer knocked back over renewables
    EnergyAustralia managing director Catherine Tanna told a Turnbull government MP that the company would not expand its Mount Piper coal station in central NSW because of Australia’s carbon reduction targets and the energy giant’s commitment to ­invest in ­renewables.

    In correspondence obtained by The Australian, Ms Tanna said the company would not consider expanding the coal-fired plant ­despite being offered a pledge of support from Nationals MP ­Andrew Gee, whose electorate is home to Mount Piper.
    Mr Gee wrote to Ms Tanna in March, warning that NSW communities were concerned about electricity supply and price. In her response, Ms Tanna said the ­company was moving away from coal because its emissions were too high.

    She noted the company was concerned about coal supply to the plant stemming from a legal challenge by green activists, but she refused to consider an expansion regardless of the outcome of the court action.
    EnergyAustralia bought the power station from the NSW government in 2013. The company says it is one of the “newest and most efficient black-coal-fired power plants in the state”.

    “While the government plans left scope for expansion at Mount Piper, it is not an option we have pursued,” Ms Tanna wrote in April. “Emissions from coal are high compared to other sources of energy and it is difficult to ­reconcile new coal developments with national and global carbon reduction commitments.
    “Investors and financiers view coal as a legacy technology, one which will be replaced — it is only a matter of when.”…READ ALL
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coal-support-offer-knocked-back-over-renewables/news-story/3cc10b9bd1d7dce751bdbca445297b1a

    and Crikey, which will receive taxpayer funds under a deal made by Nick Xenophon for his vote on something else, thinks it’s amusing!

    19 Sept: Crikey: Max Chalmers: Crikey Worm: energy bosses tell pollies coal is not the new black
    MINE YOUR OWN BUSINESS
    Energy companies are rebuffing the government’s efforts to have them extend the life of ageing coal plants. According to The Australian, Energy Australia’s managing director Catherine Tanna has written to Nationals MP Andrew Gee, responding to concerns about energy supply by rejecting the idea of extending the company’s Mount Piper station. Not only has the station struggled to acquire enough coal to keep it going, Tanna wrote: “Investors and financiers view coal as a legacy technology, one which will be replaced — it is only a matter of when.”…
    https://www.crikey.com.au/2017/09/19/crikey-worm-energy-bosses-tell-pollies-coal-is-not-the-new-black/

    70

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      That’s it neatly packaged by the industry which was once known as an essential service.

      Coal is a low profit stream of power production and is to be phased out as quickly as possible in favour of those Ultra Super Profitable renewables.

      Business is business and taxpayers are just serfs.

      KK

      111

      • #

        http://dailysignal.com/2017/08/02/socialism-destroyed-venezuela/

        From a productive
        Australia to a
        Socialist Venuzuela
        Crony-krepto-ecconomy
        Is surely
        Sheer
        Madness.

        81

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          As I have said many times, riots are coming in this country…..

          At least the Americans had the brains to create a 2nd Ammendment.

          Australia however seems to prefer the Stalin approach of starving the masses into submission ( less messy…..)

          Now ponder why they would create a massive non-GM seed vault in the artic……

          Bad days are coming I think.

          91

          • #
            sophocles

            We’re still about three years away from Solar Minimum. ENSO has now been declared to be in a La Nina phase. NOAA has predicted the coming Northern Hemisphere winter of 2017/2018 will be worse than the 2016/2017 one. I haven’t heard/read about the UK MO’s ideas.

            May you live in Interesting Times … 🙂

            20

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          Actually, while I’m thinking about it, I now ponder why our skill base in manufacturing and our level of education has been deliberately run down, and why people are fixated on days of our lives drivel in social media vs knowing actually how to make and fix things.

          I’m not sure what other peoples experience is, but it seems to me that people in their late 40s/50s are probably some of the last generation that knows how to actually fix something or make something out of nothing, vs the millenials etc who havent had the “garage time” to tinker and pull stuff apart and didn’t have to be “on” 24 x 7.

          It seems we have a current 20 something generation that talks all about its feelings, posts its whole life on facebook, but may be that good for practial stuff, beyond tradies?

          91

  • #
    Robert Rosicka

    Just listening to abc radio and the “warmest winter evahhh” claim , people rang in saying it’s the coldest winter they have experienced for a very long time and one farmer said it’s been the coldest he could remember.
    Cue the interview with the climate council and according to them this farmer was imagining it and long term statistics prove it was the warmest evahhh .
    Quite a few callers were commenting on how cold the winter had been and even the radio announcer seemed to have trouble with the climate council claim .
    Of course the climate council pointed out worse and more frequent hurricanes and flooding in Bangladesh as proof of CAGW .
    Meanwhile we have snow clouds on the hills behind us and it’s absolutely freezing here in northeast vic , so it has to be snowing up higher but I’m glad it’s warm snow that makes all the difference.

    151

    • #
      el gordo

      Best snow season in years, a regional cooling signal and BoM fails to see the scientific significance.

      122

      • #
        Robert Rosicka

        If we do end up in a mini iceage it will be hard for the scientists and politicians to explain their way out of the mess they will be in and keep ahead of the tar and feather brigade chasing them .
        After all it will be a great way to keep warm .

        61

      • #
        Glen Michel

        Cooler SST’s in the Southern Ocean. Look at what WA and Perth are due to get over the next week. Interestingly,if you transposed the weather systems that have affected the West this winter and put them over East we would be buried in snow up to the QLD border.

        30

    • #
      Manfred

      The disconnect between reality and the climatism ideology will continue until the ideology is unseated and erased from rational, scientific investigation and common and political discourse, other than in dismissive, derisory tones or outright sardonic humour. Until then, empirical observations will be deemed to be meaningless at best, or heresy at worst, the latter now bordering on being deemed a form of “hate speech.”

      Phlogiston, in early chemical theory, hypothetical principle of fire, of which every combustible substance was in part composed. In this view, the phenomena of burning, now called oxidation, was caused by the liberation of phlogiston, with the dephlogisticated substance left as an ash or residue.

      The major objection to the theory, that the ash of organic substances weighed less than the original while the calx was heavier than the metal, was of little significance to Stahl, who thought of phlogiston as an immaterial “principle” rather than as an actual substance.

      40

  • #
    Ruairi

    Now heading for much darker days,
    A return to harsh earlier ways,
    Due to Green climate rants,
    Shutting coal powered plants,
    In Australia’s renewable craze.

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  • #
    pat

    cool in SE Qld too.

    heard Climate Council spokeswoman on Fairfax Macquarie Network news bulletin this morning bring up solar or “renewables” in relation to their ridiculous report this morning. wasn’t listening carefully, & can’t find a document online as yet:

    19 Sept: Hobart Mercury: Weird winter breaks records, according to Climate Council’s Hot and Dry report
    by HELEN KEMPTON
    PARTS of Tasmania received rainfall totals way below average during what the Climate Council has called a “weird winter”, which smashed more than 260 records…
    “This was Australia’s hottest winter on record and also one of the driest we’ve ever seen, with the result directly linked to worsening climate change,” the council said in its Hot and Dry: Australia’s Weird Winter report…

    “The exceptionally warm and dry winter was made 60 times more likely by climate change,” the report said.
    “Australia’s average winter temperatures have increased by around 1ºC since 1910, driven by climate change, as a direct result of burning fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas.
    The Climate Council predicts the nation is on track for a warmer than average spring, with temperatures between September and November expected to be higher than normal in Hobart…
    http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/weird-winter-breaks-records-according-to-climate-councils-hot-and-dry-report/news-story/6521015a42df0471167ab834383020e0

    even sillier, given all the people I saw rugged up at every sporting event I watched around the world during August:

    19 Sept: SouthChinaMorningPost: AP: Earth sweats to third hottest August and summer on record
    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Monday the globe last month averaged 61.5 degrees (16.43 Celsius), which was a degree-and-a-half higher than the 20th century average, but behind temperatures in 2016 and 2015.
    The average temperature for June through August was 61.47 degrees (16.41 Celsius).
    So far the year to date has edged out 2015 and is the second hottest January through August, averaging 58.88 degrees (14.88 Celsius), behind 2016.

    Records go back to 1880.
    NOAA climate scientist Jake Crouch says even though records weren’t broken, it’s been warmer than 99 per cent of the other months and a sign of long-term climate change.
    http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2111757/earth-sweats-3rd-hottest-august-and-summer-record

    52

  • #
    pat

    19 Sept: Australian: Maurice Newman: Smoking gun demands grilling for Bureau of Meteorology
    This time, thanks to the diligence of scientist Jennifer Marohasy, the bureau has been caught red-handed regulating temperatures to keep them above a predetermined minimum — at least for two NSW automatic weather stations, one located in Goulburn, the other at Thredbo.

    The BOM initially admitted it had set an arbitrary limit of minus 10C for the Goulburn station, but then changed the story to the equipment being “not fit for purpose” — because it got too cold — even though the same instruments are used in the Antarctic. The actual temperature measured was a record July low for Goulburn, at minus 10.4C, so why, if the equipment was faulty, didn’t the bureau leave a blank instead of rounding up to minus 10C?…

    British author and journalist Christopher Booker says: “When future generations look back on the global warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records — on which the entire (global warming) panic ultimately rested — were systematically ‘adjusted’ to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.” He says this practice has been observed by experts around the world and “raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface temperature record”…

    He is joined by John Theon, retired chief of NASA’s Climate Processes Research Program and responsible for all weather and climate research, who testified before congress that “some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.”…

    We remember the Climategate emails from despairing programmer Ian Harris: “Getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data, so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references”.

    Science writer and blogger Joanne Nova has raised scandal after scandal concerning the BOM’s record-keeping.
    She refers to historic data being destroyed, and the influence of adjustments on Australia’s warming trend. She reports private auditors advising the bureau of almost a “thousand days where minimum temperatures were higher than the maxes”…READ ALL
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/smoking-gun-demands-grilling-for-bureau-of-meteorology/news-story/ee3d67fca999ec7e176765eea18f100a

    QUESTION: GIVEN JO’S VAST KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THINGS CAGW – SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL – HOW COME NO MSM HAS SIGNED HER UP FOR A WEEKLY COLUMN?

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      Dennis

      Only like minded fanatics needed

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      Geoffrey Williams

      Red thumb error sorry delete if possible. .
      GeoffW

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      Bulldust

      Quoting the paragraphs about Jo:

      Science writer and blogger Joanne Nova has raised scandal after scandal concerning the BOM’s record-keeping.

      She refers to historic data being destroyed, and the influence of adjustments on Australia’s warming trend. She reports private auditors advising the bureau of almost a “thousand days where minimum temperatures were higher than the maxes”.

      It is paywalled (Google search to bypass).

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    pat

    18 Sept: Weather Channel: More Snow Expected in Parts of Northern Rockies This Week
    By Brian Donegan·
    ▪ Another early-season snowfall is forecast in the northern Rockies this week.
    ▪ The higher elevations of Idaho, southwest Montana and northwest Wyoming may receive a foot or more of snow.
    Snow is expected to pile up in parts of the northern Rockies again this week following on the heels of the first snowfall of the season late last week in much of the same region.

    At the base of Great Divide Ski Area near Marysville, Montana, 24 inches of snow were reported. Frohner Meadow, Montana, part of the SNOTEL network, measured 11 inches of snow. Up to 8 inches were reported near Clancy, Montana, where numerous tree limbs came down.
    Heavy, wet snow also led to tree damage and power outages near Newcomb, Montana. In addition, heavy snow resulted in the closing of Beartooth Pass at Vista Point in Montana on Route 212…
    In the West, the same weather pattern as last week remains in place with a southward dip in the jet stream over the region, allowing colder conditions to infiltrate farther south…
    As colder air flows in behind an area of low pressure embedded in the jet stream dip early this week, rain will change to snow in the mountains of Idaho, western Montana, western Wyoming and northeast Utah…
    Then, that will be followed by another low-pressure system later in the week, which will bring more snow…

    Temperatures are expected to be 10 to 25 degrees below average in much of the northern Rockies through this week.
    This translates to highs in the 40s and 50s and lows in the 20s and 30s in the coldest locations.
    https://weather.com/forecast/regional/news/northern-rockies-mid-september-snow-forecast

    (note: Weather Channel has the obligatory it’s not unusual claim at the end)

    18 Sept: KIRO7 Seattle: Snow falls over mountain passes, and it’s still summer
    With a few days left in the summer, snow started falling around 5,000 feet in the mountains.
    Twitter accounts for Stevens and Snoqualmie passes shared photos of snow and ski lifts.

    18 Sept: BarrierStarJournal Canada: Snow warnings for B.C. highways
    The Okanagan Connector may get some snow.
    by Kathy Michaels
    The balmy days of summer have barely passed and already snow warnings are being issued.
    Environment Canada released a special weather statement early this morning for highways throughout central and southern B.C. Of note locally, the Okanagan Connector, from Merritt to Kelowna may be getting “its first taste of winter at higher elevations this morning” says the national meteorological agency…

    18 Sept: TheLocalSwitzerland: Swiss ski resorts wake up to September snow
    A cold front saw temperatures fall last week and over the weekend, with many places in the lowlands experiencing ground frost.
    With the snow level dropping to 1,500m and heavy precipitation in many parts, on Monday many alpine resorts woke up to fresh snow on the ground.
    “Winter is coming, how to resist?” tweeted Verbier, its webcam pictures looking distinctly wintry…

    So does this mean the definitive end of summer? Unfortunately MeteoSuisse thinks so.
    Writing on Sunday, the federal meteorologists compared the month of September this year with 2016, and found it was unlikely we would see a return to warm weather.
    As in 2016, average temperatures dropped below 16 degrees in the middle of the month. But whereas in 2016 that was preceded by 11 hot days above 25 degrees, this year temperatures in the first half of the month were lower, with only seven days exceeding 20 degrees…

    Prediction models show the maximum temperature is likely to remain below 20 degrees for the rest of the month.
    Based on Geneva’s weather, temperatures for this September are likely to be between 0.7 and 1.9 degrees below the norm for this time of year…
    https://www.thelocal.ch/20170918/in-pics-snow-swiss-ski-resorts-wake-up-to-fresh-flakes

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    RickWill

    Here you go.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0
    Who can succinctly describe the flaws in his projections:
    A. There will be no IC cars on the roads by 2030.
    B. There will be no electricity grid by 2030.

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    pat

    ***this is probably the Climate Council spokeswoman I heard on Fairfax Macquarie Network news bulletin this morning:

    19 Sept: SMH: ‘Weird winter’: Climate change behind Australia’s record hot and dry weather
    by Marika Dobbin Thomas
    Australia had its hottest winter on record with temperatures up by two degrees celsius on average and it is related to worsening climate change, according to a leading scientific group.
    Winter warm spells are lasting longer, occurring more often and becoming more intense, a report by not-for-profit group the Climate Council found…

    Ecologist Professor Lesley Hughes said there were more than 260 heat and low rainfall records set throughout the season.
    “Without any meaningful action to tackle climate change, we will continue to see many more hot winters, just like this, as global temperatures rise,” Ms Hughes said.
    “We must take meaningful action to strongly reduce Australia’s emissions from fossil fuels.
    “The current situation in which the government continues to not only delay real action to reduce emissions, but is actively supporting further development of coal-fired power is simply nonsensical.”…

    ***Professor Hughes urged the federal government to get on with tackling climate change.
    ***”The solution remains the same – clean, efficient and affordable renewable energy and storage technology.”…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/weird-winter-climate-change-behind-australias-record-hot-and-dry-weather-20170918-gyjwjx.html

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      RickWill

      I would like to know which Australia they are measuring temperatures in. It is not the one I am living in. Maybe it is just my little bit of it that has been bitterly cold this year.

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        el gordo

        The days were supposedly warmer than average, but the wind chill doesn’t register.

        Here is an example, it feels cooler even with UHI.

        ‘Unsurprisingly, when the thermometer at Sydney’s observatory hill was registering an air temperature of 23 degrees at 2pm today, it felt more like 15 degrees outside due to a combination of the dry air and wind chill.

        ‘Sydney’s dry afternoon is the latest in a string of rainless days, with the city currently experiencing its driest start to spring on record.’

        Weatherzone

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    I don’t expect politicians to know about electrical power generation, because it’s not an easy thing to wrap your head around.

    However, in every Government, both State and Federal, one of them IS the Minister For Energy. I don’t really expect him to know about it either, for the same reason.

    However, what I do expect is that he gets advice on the truth behind those forms of power generation, of all types, so at least he has a working understanding of what he’s actually doing, or, importantly, what he’s talking about.

    That actually IS his job, to learn about his portfolio so he can explain it to his other Ministers, politicians etcetera.

    It’s his JOB then to further explain to the populace the generalities of that power generation, not an in depth explanation, but the realities of how much (or how little) power is actually being generated by those types of power plants.

    He needs to explain it to journalists whose job it is then is to go away, and find out the truth for themselves, and then to report it in a manner that the public can understand.

    NONE of the above is happening, right back to the start of what I said ….. the getting of advice.

    The Minister is not asking for it, and no one is giving it to him.

    UNTIL that actually begins to happen, then the populace will just remain utterly clueless, and believing that wind power and solar power can replace coal fired power, something that it patently cannot do.

    It’s no good my rabbitting on about it, or others doing that as well, because no one takes any notice of me or us, because the guy at the top, the Minister, who should know this stuff, (or so the public believe) gives the impression that they can do the job, and he isn’t getting any advice himself.

    When all of the above begins to happen, there is going to be an awful lot of really embarrassed politicians looking for somewhere to hide, and then finding out that they have been on the wrong side of the truth.

    Tony.

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      Dennis

      Recently on TV News was a a disgraceful “confrontation” with head shaking and finger wagging between Freidenberg and Labor’s Fitzgibbons regarding electricity price.

      They acted like fools and looked like idiots.

      Clearly, they were pretending to be in disagreement while clearly being on the same page.

      All for the camera and laughing in our faces.

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      Chris In Hervey Bay

      Tony,, you know I respect all your writings here and I have agreed with all you have said over the years.

      BUT,, you miss the point.

      The politicians have almost achieved 100% of what they had set out to do. They are NOT concerned about the people that voted them into power. We are the “Useful Idiots”.

      This mess we have now in our supply and demand of electricity has been planned for years.
      Everyone who reads Jo’s site should go back and read the history of how this all came about, and maybe a good starting point would be to read Maurice Strong, proponent of United Nations involvement in world affairs.

      Here are a few of his quotes. See if you can join up the dots.

      Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, the use of fossil fuels, electrical appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. Maurice Strong, opening speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit[specific citation needed] But this quotation is not in the version posted on Mr. Strong’s site.

      If we don’t change, our species will not survive… Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse. Maurice Strong, September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine

      What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no’. The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about? Maurice Strong, Interview 1992, concerning the plot of a book he would like to write.

      It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation. Maurice Strong, 1992 essay entitled Stockholm to Rio: A Journey Down a Generation.

      “Our concepts of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified to produce strong governments capable of making difficult decisions.”

      Our governments have not been a failure, maybe to us they have, they have almost got their ideology into place and they won’t back off now, no matter what we say or do, good, impeccable engineering will not turn this around.

      I don’t believe for a moment that those politicians that are pushing this are stupid or ignorant, they are evil and this evil that is hidden amongst us has to be rooted out.

      Then, I believe in little green men and space ships and flying saucers. /s

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        Manfred

        Beautifully expressed Chris, and implemented by the UN:

        “We are pleased to report that the draft outcome document ofthe United Nations Summit for the adoption ofthe post-2015 development agenda was agreed by consensus by the member States on Sunday 2 August 2015.” … the following month in September, the Pope opened the new UN General Session.

        28. We commit to making fundamental changes in the way that our societies produce and consume goods and services. Governments, international organizations, the business sector and other non-state actors and individuals must contribute to changing unsustainable consumption and production patterns, ….”

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      That whole comment was great Tony.

      Somebody is the Minister.

      It IS his job to BE CORRECTLY INFORMED of ALL material relevant to his portfolio.

      It would seem, however, that he is either:

      1. Not very smart

      or

      2. Deliberately avoiding the necessary truth.

      I go for number 2 because it enables the implementation of a lesser truth, renewables, that has cream on it that can be readily skimmed off.

      At least until the lights go out in homes and industry and we are all permanently unemployed.

      This is not democracy.

      KK

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  • #
    pat

    behind paywall. is this a separate article?

    RET, CET subsidise wind, solar at the cost of coal and oil
    The Australian-10 hours ago
    AGL and EnergyAustralia will pocket the subsidies, pass on the costs to … has received a $102m taxpayer grant and a $60m taxpayer-funded concessional loan, …

    the AGL Grants/subsidies story is not being picked up by ABC/Fairfax/Guardian, etc. however:

    AUDIO: 8mins34secs: 19 Sept: ABC Breakfast: ‘Hot and Dry: Australia’s Weird Winter’
    A new report out this morning tells us what we have probably already suspected — we’ve just experienced the hottest winter on record…
    Guest:
    Professor Lesley Hughes, Ecologist at Macquarie University; Co-author of the Council latest report, “Hot and Dry: Australia’s Weird Winter”.
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/hot-and-dry-australias-weird-winter/8958936

    hey, Fran/ABC – where are your stories about BoM manipulations?

    19 Sept: Guardian: Ben Doherty: Q&A: panellists spar over coal as energy debate dominates
    Doctor says respiratory and cardiovascular implications of coal should be top of Australia’s energy debate and warns Adani mine threatens health of millions
    Speaking on the ABC’s Q&A program, the chair of Doctors for the Environment New South Wales, Dr John Van Der Kallen, asked panellists why health was not a primary consideration in the discussion over the closure of coal-fired power stations such as the Liddell plant in the Hunter Valley “when we know that the pollution from these coal-fired power stations contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular illness, as well as premature death?”
    Doctors for the Environment also oppose the proposed Adani coalmine in Queensland, which if built, will be the largest in Australia, and one of the largest in the world…

    Emma Herd, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, said health concerns over coal-fired power were driving movement to renewables in other parts of the world.
    “You only have to look at China which is grappling with some really substantial and quite dangerous health impacts on the community in terms of not having heavily regulated the coal-fired power industry and not managing the health implications of coal-fired generation.”…
    “Interestingly enough, it is this very driver of managing environmental pollution which is actually now the basis of so much of China’s actions in terms of being a world leader in investing in renewable energy, taking it to more than 50% of global investment in renewable energy in the last few years.”…

    The assistant minister to the treasurer, Michael Sukkar, said Australia’s energy’s policy needed to be a balance between reliability, affordability and environmental concerns.
    “The government has a focus, we want to ensure reliability, we want to assure affordability, and, of course, we want to meet our emissions reduction targets – 26 to 28% under the Paris accord. We are focused on those three objectives.”…
    “Of course, the environmental objective … is one very important one. But we do have to manage this transition and … at the end of the day, when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining … everyone around the country still expects to be able to switch their lights on and know that it’s going to be there.
    “That’s what we need. Now, coal for the foreseeable future, will play a role in that. Of course, it’s playing a diminishing role over time, but in our lifetime, it will stay a big role.”…
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/19/qa-panellists-spar-over-coal-as-energy-debate-dominates

    hey, Guardian, where are your stories about BoM manipulations?

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    pat

    19 Sept: Australian: Reuters: US still quitting Paris climate deal
    US President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser has told a United Nations meeting that the US is standing by its plan to abandon the Paris climate pact without a renegotiation more favourable to Washington, a step for which the international community has little appetite…

    “We made the president’s position unambiguous, to where the president stands, where the administration stands on Paris,” Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters after an informal breakfast meeting on Monday that also included ministers from a dozen countries and the European Union on the sidelines of the annual UN gathering of world leaders.

    Cohn, who is overseeing the issue for Trump, declined to elaborate on terms that the US would consider suitable to remain in the accord. A White House official said the meeting included representatives from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico and South Africa, as well as the EU.
    Cohn said the breakfast meeting was “very constructive” and the “mood was good,” adding, “Everyone wants to work together.”

    A European official at the breakfast told Reuters Cohn made the same points on the US position that he made publicly but with a more positive, open tone. The official said Cohn indicated that the conditions that would keep the US in the accord did not exist yet…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/us-will-still-pull-out-of-paris-accord/news-story/3386ff7e053078604689fbfce4f48dc8

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    Chad

    Sky PVO Newshour Monday Sept 18th.
    PVO Interview with (missed the name/organisation) suited spoksman for a strategy advisory organisation ?
    He stated that the concerns over base load were unfounded as it could be replaced by Demand Management (yawn !) , and distributed generation from subsidised domestic solar and batteries !
    He believed (seriously ?) that enough grid tied rooftop solar with battery back up, could keep the country running through the night (and presumeably cloudy winter days) with a relatively viable government subsidy scheme to encourage the private investment in solar.
    He stated the typical cost would be $5k per household (wow ?? Bargain) which of course would pay for itself in 3-5 years !!
    These comments floated out across the nation on prime time TV with no serious questioning of the realities , facts, or viability of such a rediculous claim.
    And Im more annoyed because i cannot find the channels to feedback a few facts to maybe cause PVO to review the comments !

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    pat

    what a cheek – Morrison (whose Govt has no comprehensive plan about anything), insists on a comprehensive plan from AGL!

    btw I heard Morrison on radio yesterday justifying the $500+ million in subsidies & grants for AGL, basically saying they were entitled to it, yet I cannot find anything online:

    18 Sept: Australian: Paul Osborne: AGL power plan must be detailed: Morrison
    Treasurer Scott Morrison has warned energy giant AGL its plan to replace the coal-fired Liddell plant must include a commitment on power prices and reliability.
    AGL has promised the government it will come up with a plan by early December which would either involve keeping Liddell open for five years beyond its 2022 closure date, selling the plant or finding alternatives to the estimated 1000MW shortfall in power.

    However, Mr Morrison said the government was expecting a comprehensive plan from the company.
    “I tell you what it’s got to do – it can’t just fill the gap in terms of the amount of energy that needs to be supplied,” Mr Morrison told Sky News on Monday.
    “It’s got to do it in a way that is both affordable and reliable, together with the other capacity commitments. That’s a pretty big question for them to come back to us on.”…

    Senior figures within the Turnbull government believe keeping the 50-year-old Hunter Valley plant going is the best option, even if it means taxpayer subsidies being provided.
    Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh said keeping Liddell open did not amount to a long-term solution to Australia’s energy challenge.
    “The government’s own chief scientist says we should have a clean energy target,” he said.

    Meanwhile, a key climate and energy adviser to the former Labor government says the Turnbull government should legislate both strong and weak carbon reduction targets to break the impasse in climate policy.

    Professor Ross Garnaut says long-term energy policy needs a political consensus across Labor and the coalition.
    The solution lies in legislating for a strong CO2 target in line with Australia’s Paris climate agreement commitments and a second “hopefully not too weak” target.
    If wholesale electricity prices stayed the same, the government would pursue the weak target, but if prices fell by one per cent (after inflation), the more ambitious target would apply.
    Mr Morrison said the idea was another for the policy “merry-go-round”.
    “What we are focused on is what is going to deliver a durable investment framework to encourage investment in baseload, reliable, affordable energy.”

    Australian Greens climate and energy spokesman Adam Bandt said his party was open to considering Professor Garnaut’s plan, if it was linked with the re-regulation of power prices…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/agl-power-plan-must-be-detailed-morrison/news-story/77ce382c6178204e1d91c7db45143987

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    • #

      Perhaps we should give Garnaut and Turnbull some cred as realists. After all, when Ross was engaged in mining and Malcolm was engaged in logging in the Asia Pacific, each showed himself to be very much the realist. You could say their realism was boundless. And they had targets which were in no way “hopefully not too weak”.

      Nothing worse than weak targets, whether you are mining, logging or reducing those naughty emissions.

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      Manfred

      If wholesale electricity prices stayed the same, the government would pursue the weak target, but if prices fell by one per cent (after inflation), the more ambitious target would apply.

      And when the Australian economy utterly tanks and the currency becomes worthlesss, there may be a state of hyperinflation, in which case power prices will be an entirely moot point as many (not the gov.elite) will be scrabbling for bread and water, somewhat reminiscent of the old days.

      So, consider buying yourself some real currency.

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  • #

    One morning you wake up and your Prime Minister or Premier has been replaced by a former banker with GS or DB. Because Grange Hermitage, or whatever. You open the news and find you are eagerly awaiting a new green world of renewables and funny new light bulbs and people being free at last to marry light bulbs. That new Pope who appeared one morning unexpectedly tells you how right all this is. You have been wanting this all along…

    Those renewables are obviously cheaper and better. The soaring bills and blackouts and business closures are because of someone gold-plating stuff, or something. Obviously. Everything is going to be so stable and affordable as the gold-plating stops and the clean, green, stable, affordable things take over from the dirty black stuff which will continue to be mined and sold to Asians in huge quantities. Because Asia is one thing and we are another. Because exported coal is very, very good and domestic is very, very bad. For reasons which are complex and which you don’t need to know.

    Try and grasp this, dummy. You new energy is stable and affordable. It is just your electricity which is unstable and you power bill which is too high. But your new energy just gets more and more stable, more and more affordable…no matter how many blackouts you experience and high bills you receive…

    Every day in every way…everything is more stable and more affordable…

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    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    How contrary! Avoid anything that’s just, honourable and in Australia’s interests. As a viable proposition the Australian Government is ‘sold out’.

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    pat

    18 Sept: WUWT: Kip Hansen: Justin Gillis Strikes One Last Time
    In a paroxysm of over-the-top alarmism, Justin Gillis, at the New York Times, fires off another advocacy editorial — disguised as a climate news story.
    This salvo’s title is “The Real Unknown of Climate Change: Our Behavior” — but that’s not what he is writing about. The article’s URL reveals his real agenda:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/climate/climate-change-denial.html

    Here’s the short list from this piece — all direct quotes…READ ON
    There is only one part of one point in all the above that is even close to being true — that is in #1 …

    There is one piece of good news that should cheer your hearts though — it certainly cheered mine:
    “A personal note: I am leaving The New York Times to write a book about the energy transition. I will reappear in these pages occasionally, and I will continue to engage in the public conversation about climate and energy. I invite you to follow me on Twitter @JustinHGillis.”

    Gillis is [finally] quitting the New York Times. Good thing, it is long overdue — he has always performed the task of an Opinion Columnist, a radical climate alarm advocate, somehow (and unfortunately) mis-assigned to the climate news beat. We are fortunate that he has not followed his predecessor’s example of simply shifting to the Opinion Section (where he should have been writing all along).
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/18/justin-gillis-strikes-one-last-time/

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    pat

    EIA: International Energy Outlook 2017
    Release Date: September 14, 2017
    DOWNLOAD PDF 152 PAGES
    Executive summary
    In the International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017) Reference case, total world energy consumption rises from 575 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2015 to 736 quadrillion Btu in 2040, an increase of 28%. Most of the world’s energy growth will occur in countries outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where strong, long-term economic growth drives increasing demand for energy. Non-OECD Asia (including China and India) alone accounts for more than half of the world’s total increase in energy consumption over the 2015 to 2040 projection period. By 2040, energy use in non-OECD Asia exceeds that of the entire OECD by 41 quadrillion Btu in the IEO2017 Reference case (Figure 1)…

    Economic growth—as measured by gross domestic product (GDP)—is a key determinant in the growth of energy demand. The world’s GDP (expressed in purchasing power parity terms) rises by 3.0%/year from 2015 to 2040. The fastest rates of growth are projected for the emerging, non-OECD regions, where combined GDP increases by 3.8%/year, driving the fast-paced growth in future energy consumption among those nations. In the OECD regions, GDP grows at a much slower rate of 1.7%/year between 2015 and 2040, at least in part, because of slow or declining population growth in those regions…

    With coal consumption in India and other nations in non-OECD Asia growing over the projection period, worldwide coal consumption is not as low as it would otherwise be in 2040.
    ***The coal share of total world energy consumption declines significantly over the projection period, from 27% in 2015 to 22% in 2040.
    See full Executive Summary (LINK)…ETC
    https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/

    ***EVEN IF COAL ONLY REPRESENTS 22% OF 128% OF TODAY’S ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN 2040, THAT’S A HUUUUGE NUMBER OF COAL FIRED PLANTS!

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    pat

    17 Sept: UK Sunday Times: Ed Miliband smart meter energy scheme blows a fuse
    A new study warns of ‘risk of descending into chaos’
    by Jonathan Leake
    Ed Miliband’s greatest — and perhaps only — legacy is going horribly wrong, say researchers investigating Britain’s £12.5bn smart meter programme…
    “The costs are high at £200-£300 per home and the energy savings are tiny,” said Benjamin Sovacool, professor of energy policy at Sussex University…
    (EXCERPTS FOUND AT NO2NUCLEARPOWER.ORG.UK) Sovacool found, however, that the programme risks descending into chaos. “This is the largest government information technology project in history. It means installing 104m pieces of new equipment when counting separate electricity and gas meters, display monitors and wireless networks. It is so behind schedule that to hit the target of national coverage by 2020, suppliers would need to install 40,000 smart meters per day.”

    Sovacool and his colleagues also found that the £100m now set aside to promote the programme has made it into one of the world’s biggest advertising campaigns – but many people still have no idea what the meters are for. “The technology has generated ‘confusion and resistance’ in many households. There is little awareness of the benefits or of how the technology works,” he said…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/ed-miliband-smart-meter-energy-scheme-blows-a-fuse-knjfsf3jb

    18 Sept: UK Times: Emily Gosden: Wind farm protest by RSPB may backfire
    Efforts by the RSPB to block a wind farm could hand its developer a huge unintended bonus.
    Mainstream Renewable Power’s proposed Neart na Gaoithe project off Scotland won a subsidy contract from the government in February 2015, guaranteeing a record price of £114.39 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for the electricity it will generate. However, legal challenges by the RSPB, which fears that the turbines will kill seabirds, have prevented it from going ahead. Offshore wind farm costs have since plunged with contracts last week being awarded to projects at £57.50 per MWh.

    Mainstream’s contract, known as a CfD, still stands, meaning that if the RSPB’s challenge fails, the project would be able to reap far higher returns.

    (EXCERPT FOUND AT NO2NUCLEARPOWER.ORG.UK) Andy Kinsella, chief executive of Mainstream, said that it intended to sell the project on to other companies and had received interest from at least two dozen prospective buyers. The government agency that manages the contracts tried to strip Mainstream of the contract after a year of delays but was overruled by an arbitration panel…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/wind-farm-protest-by-rspb-may-backfire-z9f8btd7h

    21

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    Projects like this always overstate their generated power at the proposal stage, and in nearly every case they hide that total generated power behind that homes supplied meme, considering that the plant will only be connected to the grid.

    This Moree plant extrapolates to around 150,000MWH, and that’s enough to supply 24,000 homes they say, because at no place on the site do they actually quote that figure of 150,000MWH total generated power.

    At that figure of 150,000MWH (24,000 homes at around 17.12KWH per day) that gives this solar PV plant a Capacity Factor of a tick over 30%.

    There is not one commercial scale solar PV plant on Planet Earth which makes that figure of 30%, and 20% might be closer to the actual truth.

    The next time someone quotes that hackneyed old meme of homes supplied, just compare it with Bayswater, and, using that same false meme, then Bayswater supplies 2.8 MILLION homes.

    Tony.

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      Dennis

      Tony, just asking, the Moree solar plant will have panels that track the Sun, could that improve “capacity factor”?

      42

      • #

        I think they have included this ‘panels tracking the Sun’ statement to give the impression that, hey, aren’t we up with the technology, eh! because Heliostats are virtually part and parcel of any commercial scale solar plant, be it CSP of any type or Solar PV, and have been part of these plants right from the start, the payoff being gain from insolation versus loss from the motor drive.

        A typical type of installation like this solar PV plant is that they have a number of panels mounted on a ‘table’, and that table is then heliostat controlled, through two axes, up and down, and across, so it can track the Sun all year round, although this Moree plant will only have horizontal tracking.

        Each table is motor driven, so there goes some of the power actually being generated by the plant, so less power to the grid, because it has 650,000 panels.

        Tracking of this nature may increase the insolation, but only by marginal amounts really, and what they gain in tracking they lose in the motor drive.

        Tony.

        131

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    I have an opinion about the closure of the Liddell plant, which incidentally, the owners AGL opened up to the media today and gave them a tour of the plant, speaking of it in the worst case scenario that they possibly could.

    I have a theory that AGL is floating all this, safe in the knowledge that it will cause a ruckus everywhere.

    When the plant actually does close, AGL is committed to (as per the original contract when they got hold of the plant) rehabilitating the whole area back to pristine.

    The cost of that is (probably North of) $450 Million.

    If they can get the Government to take it over, or to sell it to someone else, then they get out of that liability completely.

    I reckon that they are trying to get out of that responsibility.

    I say, well go on then, just shut it down. When they do, the backlash at removing that much power from the grid will reflect ….. not on the Government, but on AGL themselves, another reason to be shot of it, hence this release that they are going to close it in 2022, giving them plenty of time to let the matter just play itself out.

    Tony.

    191

    • #
      Robert Rosicka

      There is another explanation Tony , sheer incompetence and full belief in the CAGW ideology.

      72

      • #
        el gordo

        And then there is the Third Way, with the land in pristine condition a Beijing consortium could build the very latest coal fired power station insitu.

        Remember AGL got Liddell for a peppercorn, so there should be a handsome profit.

        30

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      I think you’re right on the money Tony. Spot on.

      And that great financial whiz, the merchant banker extraordinaire, the man that many trust with their future, backstabber Mal, is about to slip his shiv between the collective ribs of the Australian voter and taxpayer.

      20

    • #
      Chad

      AGL even managed to have a Lift full of jurno’s break down during their “press day”…as well as one of the main turbines. ??!!
      Staff were pointig out how everything is “just too old”.
      Where i come from in industry, you operate a “Preventitive Maintenance” program that is designed to keep all equipment running efficiently and reliably !…..and that will require periodic replacement of components and facilities, before they get “too old”.

      80

      • #
        Konrad

        A lift full of Journos and a main turbine?
        I’d say they were laying it on a little thick, but then Journos are somewhat slow on the uptake.

        60

    • #
      Konrad

      Yes, AGL are certainly playing some sort of game.

      My thoughts were they were trying to ditch coal before the Finkel tax came in on every generator producing more CO2 than open cycle gas. They would then “invest” in more wind before the Finkel plan for 4 hour generation reliability guarantee could take effect while also building more open cycle gas. That way they could lock in huge subsidies from wind when it chose to blow and huge spot prices for open cycle gas when the wind died.

      But off-loading Liddell to a crazed warmulonian PM desperate to avoid the consequences of his AGW driven policies and thereby avoiding the site remediation costs is also a real possibility. It’s a good plan. If Turnbull takes it now, they avoid $160 million in maintenance costs, the $450 million site remediation costs and the Finkel tax. They know Turnbull is desperate and they know he has form. After all, Turnbull bought a junk copper network at grossly inflated prices just to avoid total collapse of the NBN. Turnbull is just the man to sell an old sub-critical coal-fired clunker to.

      50

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    pat

    read all:

    16 Sept: Reuters: French nuclear regulator investigations fuel winter supply doubts
    Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Richard Lough and Susan Thomas
    France could face a second winter of tight power supply as nuclear reactors undergo a review of hundreds of components and increased scrutiny demanded by the country’s watchdog.
    France, a net power exporter in Europe, which relies on its 58 nuclear reactors for 75 percent of its electricity needs, had to import heavily from neighbors last winter after nuclear regulator ASN ordered safety checks on a dozen reactors operated by utility EDF.

    Last month, ASN ordered EDF to examine all its reactor components made by a unit of Areva by the end of 2018 as part of an investigation into irregularities and falsification of manufacturing documents.
    EDF, which operates nuclear-dependent France’s fleet of 58 reactors, promises the current review will not lead to unplanned outages. On Thursday it stuck to its 2017 nuclear production target and said there should be no impact on output next year either.
    But European forward electricity prices have rallied in recent weeks to multi-years highs, partly on sharp gains in fuels and carbon permit prices, but also due to uncertainty over French nuclear supply…

    Germany has already made contingency plans for a possible spike in demand for its power from France, arranging extra power capacity back-up for the winter months…

    Weather will be a key driver of peak French power demand because France depends heavily on electricity for heating homes, whereas Germany, for example, relies more on gas and oil.
    French electricity grid operator RTE estimates that a 1 degree Celsius fall below the seasonal norm in France increases consumption by 2,400 megawatts (MW) – equivalent to the capacity of 2.5 nuclear power reactors…

    Storengy, which operates gas storage facilities, and gas network operator GRTgaz – both French energy group Engie subsidiaries – have warned France could be at risk of gas shortages if there are cold snaps this winter.
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower-winter/french-nuclear-regulator-investigations-fuel-winter-supply-doubts-idUSKCN1BQ257

    don’t miss the ***kicker at the end:

    18 Sept: Reuters: France plans new incentives to phase out polluting vehicles
    Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Mark Potter
    (Environment and Energy Minister Nicolas Hulot) said he would propose that a 500 to 1,000 euro incentive to switch to a less polluting vehicle, so far only available to low-income families, should be available from 2018 to all citizens who own cars with petrol engines registered before 1997 and cars with diesel engines registered before 2001.
    The sum will not only be for buying new cars but also relatively new second-hand vehicles with low carbon dioxide emissions.

    Hulot also said that for low-income households the incentive would be doubled to 2,000 euros. He added that for a low-income family buying a small second-hand car, the incentive could add up to more than half of the vehicle’s value.
    Some three million old cars are eligible for the conversion incentive and the ministry hopes around 100,000 of these will be replaced next year.
    All car owners who switch to an electric vehicle will receive a 2,500 euro switching incentive on top of a 6,000 euro subsidy if the measure is approved.

    Hulot also said he would propose that from 2019 credits for housing insulation should be turned into a premium to be paid immediately after the works are finished, because low-income families do not have the means to finance these works and then wait to receive the tax credits months later.
    The government also plans subsidies of up to 3,000 euros for low-income families who switch from old, polluting diesel fuel heating systems to renewable energy heating systems, such as wood-fired heaters or heat pumps…

    ***Hulot also said the government would push France’s carbon tax to 44.60 euros per tonne in 2018 from the current 30.50 euros per tonne and would continue to increase it to 100 euros per tonne by 2030 as laid out in the 2015 energy transition law…
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-autos-tax/france-plans-new-incentives-to-phase-out-polluting-vehicles-idUSKCN1BT0PZ

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  • #
    pat

    TonyfromOz – someone phoned a call-in program recently, with some knowledge of Liddell, it seemed.
    said yes it needed two new boilers, but stressed there was “no boiler creep”.
    none of this means anything to me, but thought i’d post ***this:

    16 Sept: Brisbane Times: Peter Hannam: Revealing the dark side of Liddell, from power failures to distorted debate
    When AGL gives journalists a tour of its ailing Liddell power station next week, they can expect the reverse of your typical corporate junket…
    Tuesday’s visitors may get to see the tricky welding jobs needed to repair the hundreds of kilometres of boiler pipes, or to inspect one of the transmission units that has blown up.
    ***Or see a demonstration of “creep time” measurements that show the many valves or pumps edging ever closer to costly replacement…

    One report was AEMO’s latest “statement of opportunities”, which as usual identified potential shortfalls that it hopes will jolt extra supply. There was also a special report on risks from the exit of Australia’s ageing thermal power plants.
    The latter was seized on by those mistaking “dispatchable” to always mean “fossil-fuelled baseload power”.
    Dylan McConnell, an energy researcher at Melbourne University, notes how fast-response batteries are far more instantly dispatchable than a coal-fired power plant…

    Notably, the prediction that NSW might suffer shortages in 2024-25 was used by many to call for Liddell’s extension. But that AEMO alert was based on the “loss of an additional major power plant in NSW after Liddell withdraws” – not just Liddell itself.
    And how big a risk of outages? A 29-46 per cent risk that “could last for two to six hours, depending on demand and supply conditions”.
    “It’s so far out and so small,” McConnell said, adding: “AEMO was not telling you anything you didn’t know.”…
    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/revealing-the-dark-side-of-liddell-from-power-failures-to-braineating-viruses-20170914-gygzz6.html

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    • #

      See my above comment Number 39.

      It’ll close all right, and it should too, just too old now. It should have actually had plans for a replacement in for approval five or so years ago, really, too late now.

      Note that they only want to get rid of close Liddell, and are not mentioning the Bayswater plant, so close it’s usually in the same image. I would say that Liddell came with Bayswater. you know, buy one, get one free.

      Tony.

      101

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        peter

        Tony,
        It has been announced that AGL wants to replace Liddell, when it closes in 2022, on that site with solar and open-cycle-gas plant. That won’t go anywhere near the capacity of current Liddell coal plant but does that eliminate their liability to rehabilitate the site?

        20

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    Robert Rosicka

    I see South Australia is generating bugger all wind at the moment , too much or too little wind I wonder .

    52

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    pat

    multiple links:

    18 Sept: Daily Caller: Michael Bastasch: Another Major Study Confirms The IPCC’s Climate Models Were Wrong
    Another group of prominent climate scientists have published research claiming humanity may have a couple extra decades before pushing the world past what the U.N. calls “dangerous” levels of global warming.
    However, the importance of the study isn’t in future projections — which always have high amounts of uncertainty — but rather in its endorsement of the new “consensus” on global warming.

    The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience (LINK), provides more confirmation the climate models are running too hot and could not predict the 15-year “hiatus” in global warming.
    “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations,” Myles Allen, a geosystem scientist at the University of Oxford, told The Times on Monday.
    “The models end up with a warming which is larger than the observed warming for the current emissions. … So, therefore, they derive a budget which is much lower,” study co-author Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter said, according to The Washington Post (LINK)…

    Co-author Joeri Rogelj of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis told WaPo the sophisticated climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “tend to slightly overestimate historical warming, and at the same time underestimate compatible historical CO2 emissions.”
    “These two small discrepancies accumulate over time and lead to an slight underestimation of the remaining carbon budget,” Rogelj told WaPo. “What we did in this study is to reset the uncertainties, starting from where we are today.”…

    Still, some scientists have criticized the new study.
    Potsdam Institute scientist Stefan Rahmstorf told WaPo the new study “adjusted the budget upward based on the idea that there has been less observed warming than suggested by the climate models, but that is not actually true if you do the comparison properly.”
    http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/18/another-major-study-confirms-the-ipccs-climate-models-were-wrong/

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  • #
    TdeF

    I am in moderation, of course. Not sure which word but I definitely did not use fairy.

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    TdeF

    When 12 of the 27 ministers of this country’s conservative Liberal/National Party government
    sign a full page letter in the Autralian telling Liberal and National voters to vote for same sex marriage, you know that you are not being represented on this or any other ‘progressive’ issue. This is not party policy. These are people who need to tell you how you to vote, concerned that members of their own party will not agree with them and without the support of either Liberal or National Party stated policy.

    It is exactly the same on Climate Change, whatever that is. The Black Hand controls our ministry and the Liberal party. The last signatory is the openly gay Trent Zimmerman who signs himself simply as Member for North Sydney, Joe Hockey’s old seat and head of the NSW Liberal Party. What happened to the ability of party members to select candidates? All controlled by Zimmerman and Photios and friends. Who cares what the people think?

    So we have the blatant takeover of Menzies Liberal party by ‘progressives’ who believe we should not output CO2. Credlin’s bedwetters. What hope do we have of sensible policy on baseload coal power or even correct temperature reporting by their BOM or CSIRO? Their not so secret fifth column group has stolen Abbott’s hard won conservative victory and will retire after handing all policy making to their Socialist and communist friends, Labor and the Greens. People who hate manufacturing. Keating’s banana republic prediction is coming true, despite Keating’s best efforts. A full raid on our superannuation savings cannot be far off. Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money.

    50

    • #
      Dennis

      I read that at the recent Liberal Party Conference Tony Abbott put forward a motion for discussion to return preselection of candidates to Liberal Party electorate branch members, candidates make their presentation and then a secret ballot is conducted. As it used to be.

      The motion was passed by a substantial majority of nearly two votes to every one vote.

      However, I later read that it was being resisted by the Headquarters “Black Hand” controllers and I have not heard or read anything more since.

      20

    • #
      Dennis

      Regarding Peta Credlin, who was Cabinet Secretary (sometimes referred to as Chief of Staff) for the Abbott Cabinet, manager of business for all members/cabinet ministers, she regularly writes for The Daily Telegraph and her stand is very much on side with Abbott, opposes socialism masquerading as environmentalism, RET and subsidies, etc.

      30

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    Bulldust

    A tad unrelated: Due to activist pressure, BHP is ditching the Minerals Council of Australia sponsorship, because they advocate against renewables targets and the like:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-19/bhp-considering-quitting-minerals-council/8960298

    This is the same company which concerns itself with only a handful of mineral products since spinning off South32. Two product areas of concern are coal and petroleum.

    Does BHP leadership really think the activism will stop because they dump MCA sponsorship? Really?? It won’t stop until they divest all their fossil fuel investments.

    60

    • #
      toorightmate

      It is now a few decades since we last saw responsible leadership at BHP.
      Try really hard to remember when they make their last good decision. It was not this century.
      The Rio reject is proving to be just that – a reject.

      50

  • #
    RoHa

    Am I allowed to put solar panels on my house?

    10

    • #
      Konrad

      Sure. Just make sure they are only connected to batteries, not the grid.

      If you connect them to the grid and take the feed in tariff, you are just robbing your neighbors and causing power fluctuations with drifting cloud that destabilise and damage the grid.

      Notice that in times of water restrictions, people often put “rain water tank on property” signs in their well watered gardens. You may need an “solar off grid” sign so the toxic cadmium laced E-Waste bolted to your roof is not mistaken for “subsidy tiles”.

      90

    • #
      RickWill

      If you use the standard extrusions and fittings for panels feeding a 48V DC system there should be no regulatory limit. The standard requires some panel inclination There is certainly no planning permission required in Victoria for small roof mounted systems (or was not in 2011). 48V DC is regarded as extra low voltage and does not require a licence – up to 120V DC is regarded as ELV. There will be an issue once you include a 240V inverter. If above 500W it should be installed by a licensed contractor even if not permanently wired.

      This covers what is termed prescribed electrical work in Victoria – other states and internationally are similar:
      http://www.esv.vic.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/A3-B1-C1-D17-Solar_Installations_Requirements_Sept2015.pdf

      If you use standard components then you have a good chance of meeting engineerings standards such as wind loading. This provides a list of what standards could apply:
      https://www.lgenergy.com.au/faq/did-you-know/what-australian-standards-are-applicable-to-the-installation-of-solar-power-systems

      Lightning protection is a difficult issue. The standard requires solid bonding and earthing but that will encourage lightning strike unless you have a nearby lightning rod or air terminal. I doubt there is any reliable testing behind what the standard proposes and whether it has any value compared with just a floating system,

      I was not happy with the standard brackets used to mount panel rails to roof trusses under tiles so I made u-bolts rather than using coach screws usually used.

      The firm that installed my original on-grid system were OK from an OH&S perspective. Something you need to think about when handling panels on a roof.

      You need to be licensed if you are connecting a grid connected system and it has to be inspected before energising.

      For off-grid system some inverters have built-in earth leakage protection. Some do not.

      50

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    toorightmate

    You can trace the lineage of all this stupidity back to the CO2 horsesh*t.
    The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.
    The Sheik from Scrubby Creek is just as deserving (or undeserving) of ridiculous handouts as AGL.
    There should be NO handouts

    70

  • #
    pat

    can you believe the spin? forget that CO2 emissions have increased, hey?

    18 Sept: UK Telegraph: Henry Bodkin: Climate change not as threatening to planet as previously thought, new research suggests
    ???An unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy has also contributed to the more positive outlook…

    According to the models used to draw up the agreement, the world ought now to be 1.3 degrees above the mid-19th-Century average, whereas the most recent observations suggest it is actually between 0.9 to 1 degree above…

    Professor Michael Grubb, from University College London, had previously described the goals agreed at Paris in 2015 as “incompatible with democracy”.
    But yesterday he said: “We’re in the midst of an energy revolution and it’s happening faster than we thought, which makes it much more credible for governments to tighten the offer they put on the table at Paris.”…

    The new research was published as the Met Office announced that a “slowdown” in the rate of global temperature rises reported over roughly the first decade of this century was now over…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/18/immediacy-threat-climate-change-exaggerated-faulty-models/

    10

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    Experts admit global warming predictions wrong
    In-Depth-The Australian-4 hours ago
    Global warming may be occurring more slowly than previously …

    The Independent-5 hours ago
    Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford and one of the study’s authors told The Times: “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration…

    the alarmists are freaking out!!! massive, coming in NYC Climate Week/UN meeting. go Trump:

    18 Sept: WaPo: Chris Mooney: New climate change calculations could buy the Earth some time — if they’re right
    The upward revision to the planet’s influential “carbon budget” was published by a number of researchers who have been deeply involved in studying the concept, making it all the more unexpected. But other outside researchers raised questions about the work, leaving it unclear whether the new analysis — which, if correct, would have very large implications — will stick…

    But the new calculation diverged so much from what had gone before that other experts were still trying to figure out what to make of it.
    “When it’s such a substantial difference, you really need to sit back and ponder what that actually means,” Glen Peters, an expert on climate and emissions trajectories at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, said of the paper. He was not involved in the research.
    “The implications are pretty profound,” Peters continued. “But because of that, you’re going to have some extra eyes really scrutinizing that this is a robust result.”…

    That may have already begun, with at least one prominent climate scientist confessing he had a hard time believing the result.
    “It is very hard to see how we could still have a substantial CO2 emissions budget left for 1.5 °C, given we’re already at 1 °C, thermal inertia means we’ll catch up with some more warming even without increased radiative forcing, and any CO2 emissions reductions inevitably comes with reduced aerosol load as well, the latter reduction causing some further warming,” Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany said by email.

    Any substantial revision to the carbon budget would have major implications, changing our ideas of how rapidly countries will need to ratchet down their greenhouse gas emissions in coming years and, thus, the very workings of global climate policymaking…

    That’s what makes the new result so surprising: It finds that we have more than 700 billion tons left to emit to keep warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius, with a two-thirds probability of success. “That’s about 20 years at present-day emissions,” Millar said at the news briefing.
    “These remaining budgets are substantially greater than the budgets that might have been inferred from the” IPCC, he added.

    The recalculation emerges, said study co-author Joeri Rogelj of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, because warming has been somewhat less than forecast by climate models — and because emissions have been somewhat more than expected…

    ***The new research, thus, seems to potentially empower a critique of climate science that has often been leveled by skeptics, doubters and “lukewarmers” who argue that warming is shaping up to be less than climate models have predicted…

    In the meantime, the result could be a lot of confusion, says Oliver Geden, who leads the EU Divisoin for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

    “First, it is quite unusual that scientists say that the state of the climate is better than expected, that a recalculation of the remaining carbon budget gives us more breathing room, not less,”
    Geden said. “Second, it is far from clear that the authors’ method/results will form a new scientific consensus, given that some researchers are already voicing objections. A significant carbon budget recalculation should not come as a surprise, but for many policymakers it will.”…

    “It goes to show, this carbon-budget approach is still much more, let’s say, immature scientifically than what we often assume,” Peters said.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/18/new-climate-calculations-could-buy-the-earth-some-time-if-theyre-right/

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    pat

    theirABC/Fairfax obviously waiting til they get the meme from their favourite FakeNews outlets before committing to anything on the bombshell news. nothing from either so far.

    NYT has multiple ALARMIST pieces for yesterday & today, but not a word can be found (by me) on the BIG news. presumably, theirABC is waiting for the NYT version.

    so sign, as yet, of the US TV networks picking it up either.

    worst headline so far is from The Sun:

    Global warming ‘can still be avoided’ as top scientists admit they were too negative about chances of saving the planet
    The Sun· 6h ago

    worst headline so far is from The Sun:

    Global warming ‘can still be avoided’ as top scientists admit they were too negative about chances of saving the planet
    The Sun· 6h ago

    19 Sept: The Conversation: Keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees: really hard, but not impossible
    by Dave Frame, Professor of Climate Change, Victoria University of Wellington & H. Damon Matthews, Professor and Concordia University Research Chair in Climate Science and Sustainability, Concordia University
    In a study published in Nature Geoscience, we and our international colleagues present a new estimate of how much carbon budget is left if we want to remain below 1.5℃ of global warming relative to pre-industrial temperatures (bearing in mind that we are already at around 0.9℃ for the present decade)…

    ***This does not mean that the IPCC got it wrong. Having predated the Paris Agreement, the IPCC report included very little analysis of the y1.5℃ target, which only became a political option during the Paris negotiations themselves. The IPCC did not develop a thorough estimate of carbon budgets consistent with 1.5℃, for the simple reason that nobody had asked them to.

    The new study contains a far more comprehensive analysis of the factors that help to determine carbon budgets, such as model-data comparisons, the treatment of non-CO₂ gases, and the issue of the maximum rates at which emissions can feasibly be reduced…READ ALL
    http://theconversation.com/keeping-global-warming-to-1-5-degrees-really-hard-but-not-impossible-84203

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      Graeme No.3

      I wonder when anyone will get around to putting it in writing that X amount of CO2 WILL cause Y amount of warming? There is simply no correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures, so anyone who does go out on that limb will son find it being sawn off behind him.

      21

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    pat

    18 Sept: CarbonBrief: Guest post: Why the 1.5C warming limit is not yet a geophysical impossibility
    by Dr. Richard Millar
    (Dr Richard Millar is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oxford Martin Net Zero Carbon Investment Initiative at the University of Oxford)
    Even if it is still geophysically possible to limit warming to 1.5C, a more important question is whether it is economically, socially and politically feasible?…READ ALL
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-the-one-point-five-warming-limit-is-not-yet-a-geophysical-impossibility

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    pat

    from CarbonBrief “Daily Briefing”. both pieces behind paywall:

    17 Sept: Financial Times: Nick Butler: Beyond peak oil
    The Financial Times’ columnist Nick Butler explains how the “concept of peak oil has therefore shifted from peak supply to peak demand”, as technology has enabled the industry to keep finding more oil.
    “The expectation is that demand will begin to fall before supply starts to run out”, he says, although “there is no consensus on the date”.
    Butler predicts that: “a peak in demand — say in the mid to late 2020s — will be followed by a long plateau keeping global oil demand at around 100m b/d for many years”.
    https://www.ft.com/content/4b7f788f-87af-3295-afb3-a2e6ad1eddf5

    15 Sept: Financial Times, John Dizard: Catastrophe models are good for the insurance business
    While insurers “believe that climate change is a real phenomenon”, they “they do not use climate models as their principal method of pricing storm risk”, explains John Dizard, in feature analysing how insurance businesses price risk in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and Irma.

    Instead they use catastrophe models, “which incorporate modest but steady increases in assumed losses due to climate change”.
    “Climate models do not generate results that can be used directly to price risks, because they have problems modelling extreme weather events and are too expensive to run on the required scales of time and space”, Dizard writes.
    “Whatever the covered losses turn out to be, the world can expect significantly higher premiums, and more attention to catastrophe modelling, as well as climate change headlines”, he concludes…
    https://www.ft.com/content/01577540-99f1-11e7-a652-cde3f882dd7b

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    Say, umm, just a thought on subsidies.

    For so long now, we’ve heard that never ending meme of how coal fired power has been receiving massive subsidies over the years.

    Up until (relatively) recently, all those coal fired power plants in NSW, Victoria, and in SouthAus were owned in toto by the State Governments, and here in Queensland, they all still are owned by The State Government, barring one, and part of one other. They also own the coal mines for the plant’s fuel, and the rail network and trains to transport the coal to the plants.

    If those coal fired plants were receiving subsidies all these years, doesn’t it sort of defeat the purpose. The Government paying a subsidy to itself. Why would they bother?

    Tony.

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    pat

    “may have compromised BBC’s impartiality”? hahahahahahaha…

    18 Sept: Guardian: Graham Ruddick: MP welcomes ‘swift’ BBC rebuke of presenter over climate sceptic tweet
    Adam Rutherford may have compromised BBC’s impartiality by criticising Labour MP Graham Stringer, a climate change sceptic, standards team says
    The BBC has reprimanded the presenter of Radio 4’s Inside Science after he called on his Twitter followers to write to their local MPs about the reappointment of Graham Stringer, a climate change sceptic, to a parliamentary committee.

    Adam Rutherford “potentially compromised the BBC’s impartiality” by publicly criticising the Labour MP’s return as a member of the Commons science and technology committee, the broadcaster’s editorial standards team said.

    The BBC will stand by Rutherford but said that he had been advised of his responsibilities when using social media. In a response to a complaint by Stringer, it said Rutherford regretted the tweets and “accepts that he needs to consider carefully how his other published views might impact on his BBC work, and if necessary take advice from his editor at the BBC”.

    Stringer welcomed the BBC’s “swift and appropriate response” to his complaint. He added: “I have been a member of the science and technology committee for 10 years. I have a degree in chemistry and have worked as a scientist in industry for a decade. I will continue to use my scientific training to look at all the issues that come before the committee, including global warming.”…

    This is not the first time Stringer and the BBC have been involved in a row over climate change. In 2015 the BBC apologised for a Radio 4 programme, What’s the Point of the Met Office?, after it was found to have committed a “serious” breach of impartiality and accuracy rules by not establishing that climate change sceptics were a “minority voice, out of step with scientific consensus”.

    In the programme, Stringer said there was no scientific evidence linking winter floods in Britain to climate change.
    Stringer is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a thinktank chaired by the former chancellor Nigel Lawson that opposes policies aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions…

    ***Rutherford, who has written for the Guardian, has presented Inside Science since 2013 and has worked on other programmes for the BBC, including Horizon…
    His tweet about Stringer last week said: “We need you [sic] righteous indignation on this. Please write to your MPs. It is not OK to have science so misrepresented in a democracy.”

    In the BBC’s response to Stringer’s complaint, Paul Smith, head of editorial standards and commissioning policy for BBC radio, said: “As a scientist Dr Rutherford might be expected to discuss any number of science issues, and the composition of the STC [science and technology committee] and its deliberations, are a legitimate area for Dr Rutherford to report and comment on.

    “However, any BBC presenter, freelance or otherwise, needs to consider how their outside comments might impact on the work they do for the BBC. On this occasion, in my view, Dr Rutherford’s comments on Twitter potentially compromised the BBC’s impartiality on this issue.
    “Furthermore, I acknowledge that as part of the Twitter stream Dr Rutherford invited the chair of the committee on to the programme, and this might have given the impression that Dr Rutherford was speaking on behalf of the BBC.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/18/bbc-rebukes-radio-4-presenter-over-climate-sceptic-tweet

    behind paywall:

    19 Sept: UK Times: Matthew Moore: BBC presenter Adam Rutherford rebuked over tweet criticising climate change sceptic
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/adam-rutherford-rebuked-over-tweet-criticising-climate-change-sceptic-gvnbz73kp

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      Geoffrey Williams

      In my humble opinion a simple ‘rebuke’ for Adam Rutherford is not satisfactory. He knows the rules, he broke the rules, he should be sacked!
      Regards GeoffW

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      TdeF

      Once again, you have a PhD science graduate criticising a BSc science graduate.

      However the critic is a geneticist and his victim is a chemist. Why any degree in science allows you to attack people who disagree is a puzzle. Why is it always touted as a failure of democracy to allow differing opinions? This is the BBC against free speech.

      My understanding of the weather is that it is about physics primarily, some chemistry, computer modelling and a life experience in weather prediction. A geologist like Prof Ian Plimer who is expert in historical climates, origins an d consequences is far more likely to speak authoritatively on future climates than any geneticist.

      Most egregious is the Science Man in America Bill Nye who is a mechanical engineer. This gaggle of opinionated experts utterly discounts any expertise in the considerable science of meteorology. Even our politicians in Canberra threw hundreds of millions to the CSIRO to research Climate Change instead of asking the BOM.

      Almost no one in the Climate debate is actually at all qualified in climate and none of our former Climate Commissioners had a clue, except perhaps one chemist Prof Will Steffen whose sole contribution is that Victoria get twice the solar energy power each year than the state needs. His calculations are right. We would have to cover half the state in Solar panels just to equal what we have. In effect he stated that solar is useless and unaffordable and we paid for this sage advice. We should listen.

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    pat

    BBC has space for this rubbish, but not the SENSATIONAL new admission the “climate” predictions are wrong!

    19 Sept: BBC: Australia’s warmest winter ‘driven by climate change’
    Climate change has driven Australia to its warmest winter on record, a ???leading climate group has said.
    ◾Australia’s deadly heatwaves
    “It is expected that the chance of warm winters like 2017 occurring will continue to increase as global temperatures rise,” the report added.
    The council has called for greater action to reduce Australia’s fossil fuel emissions…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41316014

    nothing on this page:

    BBC Science & Environment
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science_and_environment

    can’t find any BBC coverage of the following:

    18 Sept: MetOffice UK: A Pacific flip triggers the end of the recent slowdown
    The slowdown in the rise of average global temperature had been observed in the recent temperature record, but with the last three record years, this slowdown has ceased…

    Although there has been scientific debate about the exact framing of the so-called ‘slowdown’, by looking at rolling 15-year trends, the Met Office confirmed that while the globe remained at near record warmth, the rate of global warming did slow between 1999 and 2014, but now this rate has picked up once more…
    A greater understanding of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation’s cycles would be needed before any predictions are made about how long the PDO will remain in the warm phase.
    https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2017/a-pacific-flip-triggers-the-end-of-the-recent-slowdown

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    pat

    spin from start to finish:

    18 Sept: Guardian: Damian Carrington: Ambitious 1.5C Paris climate target is still possible, new analysis shows
    Goal to limit warming to 1.5C to avoid the worst impacts of climate change was seen as unreachable, but updated research suggests it could be met if strong action is taken
    The slowdown in rising air temperature between 1999 and 2014 resulted from a natural decadal cycle in Pacific, the Met Office scientists said.
    The temporary slowdown does not mean the challenge to tackling climate change will be any easier, said Allen: “The slowdown has not helped us in any way.” This is because it merely reflects a natural variation superimposed on the strong warming trend driven by the carbon emissions from human activities.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/18/ambitious-15c-paris-climate-target-is-still-possible-new-analysis-shows

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    manalive

    But we need more chinese-built glass panels that make green weather-controlling electrons …

    It is absurd in this enlightened technological age that the panels and windmills have taken on some apotropaic magical power to avert bad weather events, have they all lost their reason?

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        Lionell Griffith

        You can’t lose what you never had. Having the capacity to use reason is not the same as using it.

        I suspect they were taught from birth that their mind was not capable of learning about the real world. The content of their mind came from others who’s mind contained the content of still others in infinite regression.

        Similar to a mad hall of mirrors reflecting only the reflection of mirrors. The reflections are not real, they are only virtual images without substance. There is no sense of self, no being, no confidence of being worthy of living, only the terror provided by failure to become. It is not that they want to live, they want you to die in hopes that will banish the awareness of their terror. This too will be a failure even as they destroy everything of value about them.

        I have no compassion for them. Their flaw is not ignorance, it is the willful refusal to think and be responsible for the contents of their mind. Their end is certain. Do not feel sorry for them. Wish them God Speed on their path to extinction. They have earned their end. Try not to be collateral damage as they travel to their just destiny.

        Live and let live. Associate with the willing. Trade value for value. Neither demand nor give the unearned. Live YOUR life to the fullest. Above all, seek to know the truth and act accordingly.

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    Robert Rosicka

    According to the widget south Australia and Victoriastan are still generating bugger all wind power at 8.16pm .

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    Dennis

    Grandma said everything in moderation.

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    pat

    a mere 20 hours after the BBC’s soul-mates posted the story online –

    Ambitious 1.5C Paris climate target is still possible, new analysis …
    The Guardian-22 hours ago

    BBC has a story ready – note all the opening paras. then “uncertainties” are brought up only in regard to this particular study.
    19 Sept: BBC (2 hrs ago): Paris climate aim ‘still achievable’
    By Paul Rincon, Science Editor, BBC News website
    The 2015 Paris agreement’s ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C remains within reach, a study suggests.
    The study is one of several to address the “carbon budget”, which – among other things – determines how much CO2 the planet can emit and still reach a given limit for global warming.
    It indicates the 2015 target, perceived by some as tough, could be met with very stringent emissions cuts.
    It used computer models that project climate behaviour into the future…

    ***The results of the work with computer models have been published in Nature Geoscience. This type of work, which involves projecting the behaviour of the climate into the future, necessarily contains uncertainties…

    ***Analysis by David Shukman, BBC Science Editor:
    The climate models are exaggerating. The predictions are too alarmist. The Tuvaluans and other islanders are safer than we thought. These are among the conclusions that some might reach from this latest work. In reality, nothing is quite that straightforward. The models are simulated approximations of possible futures. Inevitably they are going to be at least slightly adrift of reality, either in the amount of warming or its timing.

    They come with caveats and margins of error. In many ways, it’s remarkable that these computer constructs are even roughly on track. And models designed to come up with very broad potential outcomes for the end of the century may not be fine-tuned enough to give more detailed forecasts year-by-year.

    The authors themselves are anxious that their research is not misunderstood. The need for urgent action to reduce emissions is unchanged, they say. It’s just that the most ambitious of the Paris Agreement targets is not as unachievable as many once thought, that there is time to act, though the task remains a monumental one…

    And a study earlier this year suggested the allowable carbon budget had probably been overestimated.
    It said the “pre-industrial baseline” used to benchmark present day warming was probably older than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had assumed.
    Therefore, the degree of warming since that baseline was probably greater than had been believed…

    Method challenged

    On Twitter, one of the authors of that report, Prof Michael Mann, said the latest research in Nature Geoscience, “doesn’t account for [the] pre-industrial baseline issue we examined”.

    He added: “There is some debate about precise amount of committed warming if we cease emitting carbon immediately. We’re probably very close to 1.5C.”

    But Prof Pierre Friedlingstein, from the University of Exeter, one of the authors of the Nature Geoscience study, said: “Previous estimates of the remaining 1.5C carbon budget based on the IPCC Fifth Assessment [Report] were around four times lower, so this is very good news for the achievability of the Paris targets.

    “The Fifth Assessment did not specifically address the implications of the very ambitious 1.5C goal using multiple lines of evidence as we do here.
    “The ambition of Paris caught much of the science community by surprise.”

    Meanwhile, another study in Nature Geoscience, by Gunnar Myhre, from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, in Oslo, and colleagues, suggests the greenhouse effect caused by human-induced CO2 emissions is now half-way to doubling compared with pre-industrial conditions.

    Although the concentrations themselves have not yet reached the halfway mark, this is being described as an iconic watermark…READ ON
    (67 COMMENTS AT TIME OF POSTING)
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41319885

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    pat

    18 Sept: GWPF: UK Times: Ben Webster: We were wrong – worst effects of climate change can be avoided, say experts
    Michael Grubb, professor of international energy and climate change at University College London and one of the study’s authors, admitted that his previous prediction had been wrong.
    He stated during the climate summit in Paris in December 2015: “All the evidence from the past 15 years leads me to conclude that actually delivering 1.5C is simply incompatible with democracy.”…

    Speaking to The Times, he said: “When the facts change, I change my mind, as Keynes said.
    The study found that a group of computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted a more rapid temperature increase than had actually occurred.

    The global average temperature has risen by about 0.9C since pre-industrial times but there was a slowdown in the rate of warming for 15 years before 2014.

    Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford and another author of the paper, said: “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.”…READ ON AS LINK TO TIMES IS PAYWALLED
    https://www.thegwpf.com/we-we-wrong-climate-scientists-concede/

    19 Sept: UK Times: Ben Webster: We were wrong — worst effects of climate change can be avoided, say experts
    Scientists admit that world is warming more slowly than predicted
    The world has warmed more slowly than had been forecast by computer models, which were “on the hot side” and overstated the impact of emissions, a new study has found. ..

    19 Sept: UK Sun: ‘WE WERE WRONG’Global warming ‘can still be avoided’ as top scientists admit they were too negative about chances of saving the planet
    A study published in Nature Geoscience claims computer-generated forecasts were ‘on the hot side’ and overstated the impact of emissions
    by Tom Michael
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4493982/global-warming-can-still-be-avoided-as-top-scientists-admit-they-were-too-negative-about-chances-of-saving-the-planet/

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      Curious George

      At the Paris climate summit in 2015, Professor Grubb said: “All the evidence from the past 15 years leads me to conclude that actually delivering 1.5C is simply incompatible with democracy.”

      He considers models “evidence” – actually, “all the evidence”. It is time to formulate rules of evidence for climatology. Science already had rules of evidence, but climatology is not a science.

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      RickWill

      This statement gives a new meaning to fact:

      “When the facts change, I change my mind, as Keynes said.

      It presumes that climate models produce facts! Professor Grubb needs to get an education. This is the definition of fact:
      Fact definition, something that actually exists; reality; truth:

      Climate models can never produce facts. More accurate would be that the extrapolations are wrong.

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      RickWill

      These political scientists are just moving with the political wind. Similar to Duane Thresher. They see the writing on the wall and are trying to distance themselves from the waste. Michael Mann may yet be the naked emperor. He will battle to the end.

      Problem is the economic damage has been done. I cannot see Jay Weatherill changing policies on wind, solar and batteries – SA is a dead duck economically. The other states have room to move. Will still take a lot of effort to shift as the momentum is now so high. AGL and Energy Australia are eying a pot of gold the size of Everest and their current investments (and executive bonuses) rely on the continuous stream of subsidies.

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    pat

    ***if the pic showing in the video is indicative of the numbers, doubt there were even 50 protesters, but a nice big article from theirABC, including theirABC “regular” Elvyn Smith, saying all the “right” things!

    19 Sept: ABC: Anti-Adani protesters arrested outside Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen
    ABC North Qld
    Police say they have arrested 10 protesters who were blockading the road to the Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen in central Queensland.

    ***About 50 people, including members of anti-Adani group Front Line Action on Coal, held banners and voiced their concerns at plans to develop the Carmichael coal mine facility in the north of the Galilee Basin in central Queensland.
    Police said they charged 10 people with trespassing on business land, and those arrested had been taken to the Bowen watch house…

    VIDEO PLUS TWEET: (ABC’s) Rhea Abraham: Protesters chant, “Coal don’t dig it,keep it in the ground, it’s time to get with it.” @ABCNewsBrisbane @ABCnorthqld

    Bowen resident of 50 years, Elvyn Smith, attended the protest because she had concerns about the environmental impact of the proposed mine.
    “At this time with climate change and the knowledge we have on that, that it is not a good time to be opening a large coal mine,” Ms Smith said.
    “With the extreme weather events that have been happening, coal is the thing that is fuelling this.
    “I am here for future generations to protect this great place that we have.”…

    Local councillor Mike Brunker said the protesters did not represent the views of local residents who opposed the protest.
    “Finally now we see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and now we come and see this sort of rubbish. People are sick of it,” Cr Brunker said.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-19/anti-adani-protestors-arrested-bowen/8959752

    Jan 2016: ABC Breakfast: Barbecue in Bowen
    PHOTO CAPTION: Opponents of the Galilee projects, including Elvyn Smith (second right) and Eric Oliver (second left). (ABC/Cathy Van Extel)

    June 2017: ABC 7.30 Report: Indian conglomerate, Adani, announces it will proceed with its Carmichael coal mine
    CRAIG WITTS: You are dead right. It is all about, I believe in Bowen, is selling the beaches, beautiful beaches and bays to get us recognised.
    PETER MCCUTCHEON: And that is the message from one of Bowen’s rare anti-mining voices – gemstone enthusiast Elvyn Smith.
    ELVYN SMITH: We’ve got the Great Barrier Reef and we have got a billion dollar industry there with that. So why would you want to do anything to harm it?
    PETER MCCUTCHEON: Do many people in town share your views?
    ELVYN SMITH: Some of the older ones, but in town a lot of the younger ones have more or less come to Bowen with the hope of getting work so of course, you know, they don’t and then a lot of the older ones, they get a little bit frightened to speak out about these things.
    PETER MCCUTCHEON: So your views are not popular in Bowen?
    ELVYN SMITH: No, they are not…

    19 Sept: Guido Fawkes: Green NGOs Spend Taxpayers’ Millions Lobbying Government
    Green NGOs are spending millions lobbying against the interests of British taxpayers, analysis by the Taxpayers’ Alliance has found. Taxpayers’ cash received by charities including Friends of the Earth and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is being splurged on partisan political activities such as supporting parliamentary candidates and lobbying ministers. The cash has been used to block projects which experts say would bring down energy costs for consumers…

    In conjunction with Greenpeace (which does not receive EC funding), these charities have acted more like pressure groups by:
    •Orchestrating a massive media campaign to fight a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point;
    •Launching law suits to obstruct the construction of new power stations;
    •Lobbying the UK government to prevent expansion of infrastructure;
    •Lobbying successfully to prevent exploration for shale gas taking place in Wiltshire;
    •Publishing misleading advertising to influence consumer and public opinion, and spread falsehoods about shale gas exploration…READ ON
    https://order-order.com/2017/09/19/green-ngos-spend-taxpayers-millions-lobbying-government/

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    pat

    18 Sept: GWPF Press release: BBC reprimands science presenter for campaign against Labour MP Graham Stringer
    The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has welcomed the BBC’s reprimand for one of its science presenters who started a political campaign against Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton and a member of the GWPF’s board of trustees…
    Today, Paul Smith, Head of Editorial Standards and Commissioning Policy, BBC Radio issued the following statement…READ ALL
    http://mailchi.mp/thegwpf.org/press-release-bbc-reprimands-science-presenter-for-campaign-against-labour-mp-graham-stringer-170273?e=96bb006873

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    TdeF

    “That’s why France, Britain and China are moving towards a ban — air pollution from exhausts, especially diesel.”

    Isn’t that nice. After thirty years of diesel is Green, petrol is bad, diesel is now not Green. Of course science has not changed, but now there is a diesel tax in London.

    Meanwhile in backward Australia, Tasmania is paying $11million a month for diesel to replace low CO2 clean natural gas. Adelaide is putting diesel everywhere to replace coal and gas and giant. Gas, being a ‘fossil fuel’ is taxed under the RET out of existence with a carbon tax reaching $400 a tonne but is the go to energy for replacing coal, a double irony. This is because diesel has the highest energy of combustion per tonne and gas the lowest. So people equated high mileage with low CO2 pollution. No scientist involved in this process, just the usual science ignorant people, the Greens.

    With pundits like Alan Kohler, being completely wrong is a life skill. Then if you could really see the future, you would not be writing advice for wages.

    Consider in 2010 Audi Green diesel.. Green diesel technology.

    but just a few years later, Audi (a Volkswagen company) are accused of using deceit

    So Alan just goes with the flow. Yes, China has moved to cars from bicycles, causing a massive increase in inner city output of noxious gases (not CO2) and particulate matter. The solution is coal far away from where people live. The solution is not wind or solar. That would be ridiculous, but not to Alan. Solar is near useless. Do the calculation. The only part of his renewables which is true is the windmill itself. Our RET billions are going to build short term profits and no long term power.

    The one thing Alan was right about was his statement that factories and power stations do not have a use by date, if maintained. Windmills and solar panels are disposable. Or if you like, renewable.

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      TdeF

      giant .. Lithium batteries. No, they are not dangerous, short life time, limited cycles and utterly replaceable. No Premier would be so silly.

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    TdeF

    Consider the full page open letter from the Black Hand in the Australian. There are 76 Liberal/NP members of the lower house and 30 Senate members. 106 LNP parliamentarians, but half of the Cabinet, 12 ministers signed the letter. They represent only 10% of the LNP parliament but they presume to tell us they and they alone represent the Liberal Party and the National Party. We want our democracy back. Where are the other 90 people who did not sign this outrageous attempt to mislead.

    In this science blog, I have tried to contribute my science knowledge and skills to the debate. To inform and to question, as a scientist. However this is no longer about science, this is now a travesty of a debate. The Global Warming scare is over. Climate Change is a meaningless phrase. Public service scientists are fiddling the numbers to keep it going, but it is over.

    We now need to look to our politicians to fix what they and they alone have broken. As I prepare for a summer of blackouts brought to us by the Greens, Labor and Malcolm and the Black Hand, Tony Abbott is the only shining light. That has not changed. We want our prime minister back.

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