Carbon pollution rises and the world gets less windy…

Wind speeds have slowed since the sixties

God is playing a joke on wind investors:

The stilling: global wind speeds slowing since 1960

Known as ‘stilling’, it has only been discovered in the last decade. And while it may sound deceptively calm, it could be a vital, missing piece of the climate change puzzle and a serious threat to our societies.

While 0.5 kilometre per hour might barely seem enough to ruffle any feathers, he warns that prolonged stilling will have serious impacts.

‘There are serious implications of wind changes in areas like agriculture and hydrology, basically because of the influence of wind on evaporation,’ said Dr Azorin-Molina. ‘A declining trend in wind speed can impact long-term power generation, and weaker winds can also mean less dispersion of pollutants in big cities, exacerbating air quality problems and therefore impacting human health.’

Here’s a rare concept in science these days: Dr Azorin-Molina isn’t sure if this is natural or man-made. No doubt, climate modelers will coming up with the answer they didn’t predict, post hoc, any day now…

In idyll speculation, researchers wondered if perhaps humans built too many obstacles (which seems hard to believe —  for every skyscraper that blocks the flow we must have  flattened a million trees to pave the way for easier breezing). But we have built 340,000 wind towers. Wickedly, commenter barrashee jokes that we could run nukes to power the turbines in reverse and restore the wind.  😉

Take it all with a bucket of salt– in 2011 National Geographic ran a headline The World is Getting Mysterious Winder. That same year at the meeting of the UK Parliamentary science committee they wrote a report “Warmer, Wetter, Windier, Will the UK’s Infrastructure Cope.But despite “windier” being in the headline  the sole reference to wind strength was to say that the models will get better at predicting it one day, and to note the alliterative possibility that there were unknown effects of Wetter, Warmer, Windier on the World Wide Web.

Maybe it’s clouds? Maybe it isn’t. Maybe no one has any idea:

We know that one of the best forecasts in Europe, that of the ECMWF, predicts winds close to the earth’s surface which are slightly different than those observed,’ said Dr Nuijens. ‘The question is, “What causes that?” One idea is that it is related to convective mixing coming from these cumulus clouds.’

I’d be amazed if global average wind speed was identical now to what it was in 1960.

But despite no one knowing whether things will get windier or calmer, plane flights will be more turbulent, thanks to CO2, indeed, “three times bumpier“. Well, that was last week.

h/t GWPF

 

9.4 out of 10 based on 62 ratings

183 comments to Carbon pollution rises and the world gets less windy…

  • #
    yonniestone

    There’s an I’ll wind that blows anywhere this climate fiasco turns up, if true the wisdom of 100% renewables has just dropped further IQ points and gives a new meaning of energy density.

    181

    • #

      Everytime that there was an announcement that the climate wasn’t doing as predicted; hotter, colder, wetter, dryer, windier, stiller, it was all according to the models. I haven’t heard this for some time. I wonder why?

      151

  • #
    AndyG55

    Any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me.

    Actually, I don’t like very windy days that much.

    And of course, this is all down to wind turbines taking energy out of the wind. 😉

    182

    • #
      Will Janoschka

      “And of course, this is all down to wind turbines taking energy out of the wind. ”

      Take energy out of the wind? What insane propaganda! The ‘Wind farms’ can only borrow the ‘force’ of Earth’s rotational angular momentum, in order to steal\loot such Earth stored power! None of these looters has ever considered the necessary result of such inefficient looting; the increased surface temperature of this Earth! I can conceive of no more insane,convoluted, inverted thinking even from the before posted “You tube” Rhinoceros defecating (entropy)! Incensed is not close, incandescent is close! 🙂
      All the best!-will-

      21

    • #
      TedM

      It’sd a breeze.

      00

  • #
    AndyG55

    “A declining trend in wind speed can impact long-term power generation”

    How does wind decrease affect real, as in coal and gas, power generation ?

    212

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Because “real” power generation is required to keep the wind turbines turning, even if there is no wind, in order to avoid distortion occurring in the bearings.

      And besides, rotating wind turbines look much more photogenic on TV.

      280

      • #
        Another Ian

        Giving the appearance that they are actually doing something

        160

      • #
        Hasbeen

        Well, what do you know. We might finally have found a use for all those windmills.

        They can reverse the current, supply it from coal fired power houses, suck up the pollution gathering over the cities, & blow it out to us peasants in the bush.

        They had to be good for something.

        40

        • #
          Bulldust

          I always used to say the windmills to the west of Esperance aren’t for wind generation but to slow the wind before it hits town.

          10

          • #
            TedM

            They’re not working.

            10

          • #
            Andy

            Hi Bulldust,
            I wish that were true. Spent many a day being ‘sand-blasted’. On a side note when I lived in Esperance the town transitioned from diesel to gas for it’s power generation as the gas came through from Kalgoorlie. The old diesel station never missed a beat (Esperance is off the Western Australian grid and supplies the entire South-East) and the transition removed a nasty eyesore – the old station looked like it may collapse at any moment.
            P.S. Esperance is the second windiest place in WA. Spend 5 minutes in Geraldton and you will never say another word about (the wind in) Esperance again …
            Cheers,
            Andy

            00

        • #
          toorightmate

          Hasbeen,
          There is an ample supply of suckers.

          10

    • #
      tom0mason

      My power generation is down now that the price of beans went up.

      10

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    The Earth’s atmosphere.

    Driven by two main inputs; The Earth’s rotation and the Sun’s shining, then stirred up by the gravitational mischief of the moon.

    It’s a random chaotic system and so full of change.

    You could spend a lifetime analysing it on a decent salary and never get to the end.

    The research project that keeps on giving and giving.

    And taking.

    KK

    211

    • #
      Will Janoschka

      “Driven by two main inputs; The Earth’s rotation and the Sun’s shining, then stirred up by the gravitational mischief of the moon.”

      Indeed! Yet these Clim-Catastrophe-fools refuse to accept the Earth’s centrifuge. The only reason for low pressure at the equator and high pressure at the poles; in spite of the huge gravitational compression. Ask Konrad, very good at fluid dynamics.

      “It’s a random chaotic system and so full of change.”

      Appears chaotic because of unknown initial and boundary conditions. Outside of that, 60% deterministic and 20% random thermal noise. The good weather forecasters point out both!

      “You could spend a lifetime analysing it on a decent salary and never get to the end.”

      Da hurrier ya goes; da behinder yous gets! 🙂
      All the best!-will-

      91

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    If it was found on or associated with CNN you should immediately discount it 100% They have now been caught actually creating fake news. But even without that if there ever was a news outlet to distrust it was CNN. Just at face value I can find untrustworthy statements on CNN all day long. Their bias is a obvious as the nose on an elephant’s face.

    Unfortunately CNN is not the only one either. Even Fox News has blown it numerous times when it comes to getting it right.

    Renewable, reschnewable, nuts to the concept. There is still no evidence to support the assertion that climate has changed or that it will change in any way worth worrying about because of carbon dioxide. And if you want to worry about so-called greenhouse gasses, try water vapor which is much worse than CO2. But of course, they cannot hope to convince anyone to worry about that since it’s completely uncontrollable so they must pick on the lowly CO2 molecule or nothing.

    I vote for nothing but as you can see, they pay no attention to me.

    131

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      What was that, you just wrote? Sorry, I wasn’t reading.

      🙂

      90

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        That’s Ok RW. I can’t read writing either. I only know how to read reading. And since I was writing it’s perfectly understandable. 😉

        10

    • #
      Bulldust

      Going to hitch a ride here… the ABC is trotting out the usual suspects to promote renewables and diss “baseload” as even being a thing:

      http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336

      Yeah they even trawled the bottom of the barrel to get Mark Diesendorf to comment”

      “All this talk about ‘you’ve got to have baseload power stations’ is complete nonsense,” says Dr Mark Diesendorf.

      “It’s a dinosaur.”

      Where’s the ABC’s balance in reporting? Will they allow Jo to put up a rebuttal piece perhaps? BWAHAHAHAHA… almost managed to keep it in.

      30

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Bulldust,

        Even without reading every last word of the link you put up I can tell where these people’s heads are and they’re in the dark while the light is all around them. I keep wondering how it is that a guy like me, not an engineer much less a power systems engineer, can grasp the simple truth about base load while the “experts” cannot.

        If they want to offer batteries as a solution they should ask themselves how often the best battery technology yet invented for high storage and high discharge capacity, the lead-acid battery in their car, fails. I don’t know about anyone else but they’re good for about 2 to 2.5 years on average and then I’m calling the Auto Club to come bail me out. But even if it’s 3 years they’re biting off a huge maintenance problem. Who do they call when that huge bank of batteries supplying the base load suddenly quits on them because some cell shorts out internally and everything suddenly goes dark?

        The systems we all have had in use for years grew up from small systems in Edison’s time to what they are today and many lessons had to be learned along the way about how to keep them running, including that Edison was mistaken abut using DC instead of AC. And then suddenly we should believe that off the top of their hats they can reinvent the whole thing and it will be reliable?

        Give me the dinosaur any day.

        And thanks go to TonyfromOz for his ability to explain it so well — and maybe for his patience in being willing to explain it over and over.

        And thanks to Tesla for his insight into so many things about electricity. It’s a shame that he’s remembered for all the fireworks that never worked instead of the numerous things he left for us that are the backbone of modern electricity’s usefulness.

        00

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Rules for prophets:

    1. If enough people guess enough things often enough, someone will be right sometime.

    2. All you have to do to have a perfect record is to have everyone forget the times your guesses were wrong.

    3. Always be ready to move rapidly from wherever you are when your target audience gets restless and starts mentioning the times you were wrong and asks for evidence to back up your claims.

    201

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Those are the 3 best rules a dishonest man ever saw. And the dishonest women also run according to those same rules. So how do we get ahead of the curve here? The more I think about it, Lionell, the more I realize that too many people are never going to pay attention and will always be fooled.

      The gravestone of the human race will say,

      Here rests the inattentive species called human.
      They believed too easily and doubted too late.
      They do not rest in peace.

      And I hope I’m not prophetic. Biblical prowess in foretelling the future is too big a job for me.

      30

      • #
        Lionell Griffith

        You get ahead of the curve by listening to them very carefully and remembering what they say.

        Their thinking is seriously flawed and so will their flood of words. You simply have to be able to identify the flaws.
        To that end, it is important to be well versed in objective metaphysics and epistemology as well as rhetorical tactics and logical fallacies.

        They will invariably expose themselves by their choice of words and turns of phrase. Usually in enough time to avoid feeding them and becoming part of their feast.

        Don’t try to change them. Let them find their own path into the abyss and pay the full fare for their trip.

        60

    • #
      Phoenix44

      If enough people make enough guesses enough times, then a few will be “right” a number of times in a row. They will be headhunter by another bank and proceed to show that randomness can fool even the best paid.

      30

  • #
    JJB MKI

    How in the name of *##!!?!* do you measure global average wind speeds? This is getting more ridiculous by the day.

    192

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The same peopke reckon they can predict temperature 100 years into the future, so in the warm glow if climate science’s self induced self importance and messianic complex, anything is possible…if peopke just have faith in this fairy dust stuff….its a bit like if you shut your eyes really tight and wish out loud, you can go back to Kansas again, Toto…

      Ah to be 4 again…..

      81

    • #
      Glen Michel

      Aeolus might be getting a little older.

      60

    • #
      Robert Swan

      You underestimate the science that invented teleconnections and inverted sediments. Talk about robust — at least some sort of bust.

      The other question is WHAT does global mean wind speed mean. Again, the science is settled: whether dropping, climbing or staying the same, the global mean wind speed is telling us that we who are not worthy must repent our decadent ways and make sacrifices so that climatologists and the lesser clergy may intercede on our behalf no matter how many conference banquets they have to force down.

      41

    • #
      Manfred

      The rank odour of intellectual flatulence is all that is going on here.
      Perhaps an ‘outlier’ attempt to ratchet up a sense of urgency that unless we act now, not only will there be insufficient wind to drive the windmills, but likely it will be cloudier too, so no solar as well?
      We are soooooo screwed.

      31

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I think the concept of “global average wind speeds” is the mark of an amateur.

      It should be “global mean wind speeds”.

      30

  • #
    Bitter&twisted

    I blame the windmills. Not only do they kill birds and bats, they also slow the wind.
    What effect this will have on the climate is anybodies guess- but I’m sure it will be “worse than we thought”!

    91

    • #
      AndyG55

      If they want more wind, they should just feed power to the wind turbine and use them as big fans.

      I’m not a fan of win turbines, btw !!

      82

      • #
        GrahamP

        Good idea, use cheap coal fired power to make one wind turbine blow wind onto the next one and sell the expensive subsidised wind power to the grid.

        91

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      B & T:

      “worse than we thought” is the explanation reserved for things that work, by people who don’t have thoughts (just green dogma).

      On the other hand BAN the TURBINES has a nice ring as a slogan.

      101

    • #
      Another Ian

      B & T

      You could apply for a research grant

      10

  • #
    ivan

    There is a vast data resource that they could look at to see if the subsidy farmers are causing it.

    Normally before they decide if they will build a wind farm they have to have at least a years worth of wind readings (at least where I live they do) to present to the planning inquiry – base point one.

    Then each of the monsters have their own wind speed/direction recording data loggers for the period they have been in operation – base point two.

    For me as an engineer, the first thing to do is compare the early base point two data with the latest base point two data. In theory they should be almost the same – if not why not. Then they should compare the base point one data with the early and late base point two data.

    This comparison should give them some idea what and where to look but I very much doubt they will because the results are unlikely to support the required agenda.

    91

  • #

    Dear Jo

    If “stilling” wind is the same as ambient wind, then its been around forever.

    As a structural engineer, we design structures to cope with all levels of wind load actions. Including ambient wind conditions.

    Methinks that climate scientists are trying to discover the world around us by applying new expressions to existing physical conditions; which could mean that they are, intellectually millions of years behind the rest of the world.

    221

    • #
      AndyG55

      Amazing how many engineers seem to frequent this site ! 🙂

      102

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I think you are missing the point, Gerard.

      The climate worriers aren’t interested in the ambient wind speed. There are no headlines in things being “normal”. What they want are dramatic headlines, that can then be used to frighten the populace, so that the politicians can come to the rescue with increased taxation, which provides the funding to create even more dramatic situations with their attendant headlines.

      141

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        I can never fathom people who make descisions on mostly emotion….its not descion making..its reacting…

        30

        • #
          sophocles

          Now you know where the Can Can comes from.

          All those knees jerking and the chant “Can can can can …”
          Although, the Victorian version from Folies Bergere has way more catchy music and the legs are all moving in time … 😉

          10

  • #
    Stephen Richards

    0.5Km/hr reduction is measurement noise. Totally meaningless. More important is that wind power cannot be sync to demand.

    102

    • #
      sophocles

      That’s soluble: sync the demand to the wind power. Simple.

      00

    • #
      RobK

      Richard,
      Yes, it certainly is. The energy in wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. If you say wind speed has reduced by 0.5km/h, presumably they’d mean wind speed in the useful range used by wind turbines ( say 5 – 50 km/h). If the change is above or below this range, it’s completely meaning less. If it’s within the rang, the next and more important factor is the time component of the power produced. A steady breeze over a long time is wind turbine nirvana. Where the o.5km/h is arbitrary and meaningless.

      00

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    And considering the strong wind we had here on Monday and Tuesday, perhaps a less windy world might be a good thing. But I wonder just how much these complainers know about how winds are influenced by the path ocean currents take and whether they even know that those same currents don’t always flow in the same place.

    Whether warmer or colder water is closer or farther from land has a big effect on weather. And I remember being taught these things back in college but apparently it’s not taught everywhere. How many of our experts on climate change know what it takes to get a hurricane or cyclone going or why these storms form over water? Not saying they don’t know but I wonder if they really do.

    71

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      You got a Hurricane going, by using a crank. It was the same with the Spitfire. I can’t speak for the Cyclone, though. Perhaps they were US aircraft?

      40

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        RW,

        I know what Hurricane you’re refering to. I never had to hand “prop” an engine to get it started. I watched my instructor do it once and it looked like a suicide mission. And at the rate pilots continue to make mistakes that end up being a statistic the battery powered starter probably saved a few pilot’s lives — more than a few most likely.

        As I understand cranking an engine to start it, it wound up a spring with the crank, then when the pilot was ready to start the engine he just released the spring to do the job from the safety of the cockpit. That avoided needing a large heavy battery and a big motor to start the engine.

        00

  • #
    Mark M

    The Butterfly Tax. Long overdue.

    … when they could so easily have taxed butterflies flapping their wings.
    Less flapping = better climate:

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/422809/when-the-butterfly-effect-took-flight/

    Update: BBC News – Butterfly swarm shows up on Denver radar system

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41528521

    61

    • #
      Ian Hill

      Of course a butterfly can’t cause a tornado! The air in its immediate vicinity would dampen any wing flapping effect. It would probably only require a cubic metre of air, perhaps a cubic foot would do.

      00

  • #
    Zigmaster

    I don’t know what the problem is. ” The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.”

    50

  • #
    Ted O'Brien.

    That is very interesting.

    While I do live on the globe, I only live on a very small part of it. And in that very small part of it we experienced a long, drawn out series of droughts from about the turn of the century.

    During that drought it seemed to me that we had far less wind than I had been accustomed to in earlier times. There were times when the wind blew from the west for weeks on end, but none of that in the noughties.

    In about 2005 the BOM built an excellently sited weather station about 200 m from the house I grew up in, but unfortunately there are no data from earlier times to confirm my observation.

    50

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Now that’s interesting Ted, regarding BoM’s new weather station.

      Was there one in the general area previously?

      What is the location of the new one? Where is it? Can you give us the reference please?

      And (rhetorical question) why did BoM decide to put it there?

      20

      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        The site is on a relatively level , very open grassy landscape. It replaces a BOM rain gauge which had been located about 300 metres away for about 20 years, after being moved about 3 km when the farmer maintaining it for many years before became too old to carry on. The rain gauge had for a long time depended on the availability of someone to do the daily maintenance. In later years it was connected by Telstra landline

        00

  • #
    Another Ian

    O/T sort of – at least it does mention wind

    Chiefio on the Californian fires in the reply to David A

    “FWIW, despite what the news is saying, this is substantially just a run of the mill “max fire month in fire season” in California. There have been worse years before. There will be worse in the future some day.”

    And then the why of it, which sounds very like things written about Oz and lack of common seense

    90

  • #
  • #
    Robber

    Hepburn Springs wind farm annual report – average wind speed both turbines 7m/s for 2015 and 2016.
    Utility-scale wind power plants require minimum average wind speeds of 6 m/s.
    The survival speed of commercial wind turbines is in the range of 40 m/s to 72 m/s (or 90-160 mph).

    40

  • #
    Another Ian

    Observations

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/10/where-did-the-m.html

    The first comment seems particularly apt for the current Australian scene

    30

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Any point in drawing a link to this story from the comment made the other day about renewable energy providers having to bid a day in advance !

    40

  • #
    Reasonable Skeptic

    I’m no climate scientist… obviously, but AGW is supposed to do a few things.

    1) It warms the poles more
    2) it makes the nights warmer

    Both of those things would seem to means that it would be less windy globally. I have no idea if this is driving it of course.

    30

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Well given that AGW is no more than a myth, it is fair to say that one or both or neither of those things might occur, purely by chance, within a given time-frame, at any given location.

      The only thing that AGW is supposed to do, is to put a political spin on the narrative, through an assumption that mankind must, in some way, be responsible for everything that happens in nature.

      My pet Weta died last week. It is obvious that was caused by anthropogenic climate change resulting from a distinct lack of aircraft flights over my house.

      There, see how it works?

      30

  • #
    el gordo

    Its the misplaced high pressure belts in both hemispheres, which is causing less wind in the mid latitudes, this is a natural variable and linked to global cooling.

    ‘The slowest wind conditions on record in some places of South Australia have slashed east coast wind generation in the June quarter, pushing up electricity prices, cutting wind farm profits and spurring concerns about future energy market planning.

    ‘The trend, spurred by unusually high pressure systems in the Great Australian Bight that are becoming more prevalent as the globe warms, is forecast to continue in July and August, the weather bureau says.

    ‘The so-called wind drought has meant National Electricity Market wind generation in the June quarter, the first quarter after this year’s closure of the ­Hazelwood brown coal-fired power station, was its lowest in five years, despite rapid growth in the number of wind turbines.’

    Oz

    60

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      And the reason and the answer is in the last paragraph.

      South Australia’s problem is not renewables but lack of wind.

      60

      • #
        el gordo

        And the lack of wind was caused by the high pressure belt being in the wrong place for that time of year.

        ‘….is forecast to continue in July and August, the weather bureau says.’

        Wrong, the high pressure belt suddenly lost its intensity and collapsed, allowing low pressure to break through. BoM is aware of the situation, but because of its warm bias they would rather not talk about.

        So I’ll tell them to their face, your seasonal forecasts are rubbish, Tasmania is not going to be warmer than average this summer.

        40

      • #
        OldGreyGuy

        I would have thought there was too much hot air from their elected officials that has caused their problems.

        20

  • #
    Antoine D'Arche

    O/T
    hi all, trying to enlighten a colleague who regards the new lithium battery in SA as the answer to all energy problems.
    Can someone tell me or direct me to the data on true capacity, duration of power supplied, equivalent no. of homes supplied etc?
    TIA

    41

    • #
      TdeF

      Two economists on the front of the Australian yesterday said that the new battery would power Adelaide for three days. The entire Snowy Mountain scheme would power Melbourne for about three days. It’s hard to get exact figures but you would have to think this is not a long time before both batteries are flat and take months to a year to recharge.

      71

      • #
        Annie

        Batteries running that long? Producing the wherewithal to power Adelaide and Melbourne?

        Come in, Tony from Oz!

        81

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          I think he’s having a kip.

          30

        • #
          TdeF

          Ok, looked it up. South Australia in 2015 used 37GwHr, which is 37,000MWHr

          Thats roughly 100MWHr per day

          From publicity “The battery pack’s 100MW/129MWh capacity will top the world in terms of its size”
          So that’s 1.29 hours at normal consumption. I have no idea how that will connect to an AC grid and how long it will take to connect.

          I was wrong with the quote, Professor Hilmer actually said “these huge batteries –half an hour’s power for Adelaide, or not even”. It is certainly less than 1.3 hours if it can deliver that power.

          The Snowy power maximum power is 3,772MWatts but for how long is the question? A figure given by Turnbull is 3000MwHr filling the same dam, which is say 24x as big as Musk’s battery. A day for Victoria.
          Of course that would empty the Snowy dams into the Murray, devastating three states for a year.

          61

          • #
            TdeF

            If I understand the public description “100MW/129MWh capacity” means a maximum instantaneous power of 100Mwatts but a total energy storage of 129 megawatt hours. Which is close South Australia’s needs for 1 day. This is not the half hour commonly quoted.

            The Snowy Scheme at 3000mwhr means 30 days at 100Mwhr a day for either South Australia or Victoria, the Snowy Scheme. They have comparable energy needs presumably from all the smelting in SA.

            Maybe Tony can help. These are huge numbers and nothing fits what is being said.

            51

          • #

            TdeF, I have no idea where you got this figure from:

            Ok, looked it up. South Australia in 2015 used 37GwHr, which is 37,000MWHr

            Actual consumption for 2016 was just a tick under 13,000GWH. (at this link pdf, Heading 2.3 on page 14)

            So that’s an average of (around) 35.6GWH a a day, so 35,600MWH per day or 1480MWH per hour, some days more some days less, and again also more or less depending on the hour of the day.

            Keep in mind here that the total of 100MW is the equivalent of the Nameplate, and it holds the equivalent of 100MW in total charge, that it can deliver at the rate of 129MWH so 129MW across one hour, so with 100MW of maximum charge, then it will expire that 100MW in 47 Minutes.

            The whole State is consuming (an average across the full 24 hours) around 1480MWH per hour, so this battery (at its maximum discharge rate) will cover 6.7% of the State’s requirement for 47 Minutes. I might also suggest that 129MWH is the maximum discharge rate and anything higher than that would umm, ‘cook’ the battery, like if it tried to supply the whole State, then it could still only supply a total of 100MW, so it would (attempt only) to try and do that, and that State consumes 24MWH per minute, so (feasibly) the battery could (try to) supply the whole State for 4 minutes, but at that rate of discharge would cook in a couple of milliseconds.

            Tony.

            30

        • #
          John F. Hultquist

          I think he covered this months ago, when it was first announced.
          Maybe someone can search.

          Anyway, batteries do not produce power.
          A power source (any) is needed to provide that which gets stored.

          Somewhat in the same manner that a brewery produces beer, young people store a lot of it for a short time, and then …

          Okay, going to check the fridge.

          61

          • #
            GD

            in the same manner that a brewery produces beer

            In other words, we need more breweries, not more beer fridges 🙂

            10

      • #
        gnome

        What they actually wrote was “an hour’s power for Adelaide, or not even.”

        There’s no realistic way to relate the Snowy Mountains power output to any temporal requirement in Melbourne. It couldn’t power Melbourne by itself at all, but with appropriate maintenance and reinvestment it will go on contributing for centuries.

        50

    • #
      RickWill

      The South Australian network has a typical demand of 1200MW. Gas is required to supply around 400MW of that for stability reasons. The rest is variously fed from Victoria (up to 600MW) wind and solar.

      The battery has a maximum rated output of 100MW and capacity of 129MWh. In the event of all other sources of generation being unavailable, the battery can supply 100MW for 77 minutes. That corresponds to just 8% of the typical demand. Maybe keep the lights and air conditioners running in just the CBD for a little over 1 hour.

      Obviously to achieve rated output for the 77 minutes it needs to be fully charged. That may not be the situation much of the time as it is not easy to forecast all outage events. It would make sense to have an operating protocol that ensures the battery is fully charged when AEMO predict high demand and low wind. The 100MW capacity increases the prospect of riding through a high demand, low generation period.

      If it is fully available by early 2018 it could get its first test.

      20

      • #
        StephenP

        Having given up its initial charge, how long does it take to recharge?
        Is there the spare electricity to do the recharge?

        10

        • #
          Graeme#4

          I believe that the battery modules are similar to the earlier Tesla cars, so I presume that the battery charge specs for the earlier ex-laptop Panasonic cells would also apply here.

          00

        • #
          Chad

          Depends on many things decided by the electronic controls.
          But generally, Lithium cells are charged at about 0.2 – 0.5 of their max discharge rate to ensure long service life.
          So for this example of a 129 MWh (nameplate) battery, a charge rate of 30-50MW would be about what to expect, or 4-5 hours to recharge..

          00

    • #
      Antoine D'Arche

      thanks guys

      10

    • #
      Graeme#4

      I keep seeing 30,000 homes being mentioned that are supposed to be supplied by the SA battery. This would only give those homes about one hour of backup. However, my own belief, based on no info source, is that the battery will be limited to supplying only the homes in the Jamestown area, which should give those homes about 23 hours of backup. This seems to make more sense.
      And I agree with Tony – you can’t pull 129 MW out of the battery. About 80% or 103 MW would be OK. Anything greater and the battery lifetime would be severely degraded.

      00

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Meant to also add that the inverters would also limit that amount of energy that can be drawn. Haven’t as yet seen any specs for these inverters.

        00

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Meant to also add that the inverters would also limit that amount of energy that can be drawn. Haven’t as yet seen any specs for these inverters.

        10

  • #
    TdeF

    It’s simple. Find something chaotic. Average it over a planet. Determine a change either up or down. Blame the invention of the coal driven steam engine. This is environmentalism gone mad.

    This is all driven by the absurd notion that everything must stay the same or it’s someone’s fault, pollution, the evil of men, the modern world. It is also a fundamental fear everyone has of change itself but for some people change itself is to be feared. This drives the people against everything.

    There is the primitive idea that if you add up a lot of things, say windspeed from every corner of the world or temperature for that matter, that you have something which never changes, that all variations cancel out. I have no idea why people think that is a reasonable proposition or even ‘science’. Like counting the number of daisies in a field.

    Exactly like Global Warming, the idea that what goes on in the huge continent which is Antarctica, two Australias at 4,000 metres and at -50C is somehow connected on a short time scale with the weather in Singapore. Then look for variations of 0.01C in this number as a harbinger of terrible doom to come. You would think they were joking, but this is the entire reason for $1.5Trillion dollars a year being spent on hundreds of thousands of votive windmills.

    It is also the basis for Australia’s massive and hidden Renewable Energy Tax, the most appalling impost on ordinary Australians in the history of the country. No exemptions. Cripple the poor. 10% of household income. Pointless and punishing and real evil, put in place cunningly by Green activists in Canberra. Politicians do not understand it and the greedy energy companies get the blame. Perfect.

    111

  • #
    helen brady

    Can anybody tell me they think as I do that any increase in fires is influenced by the spread of eucalypts around California and Italy, Spain and Greece

    71

    • #
      PeterS

      Such trees certainly would help to increase the severity as well as the start of bushfires. It’s also due to a growing number of bushfire arsonists, partly because the population itself is increasing. If hundreds of thousands of petrol tanks all made out of wood were planted in place of any type of tree how long do you think California would remain on the face of the map?

      41

    • #
      TdeF

      All these countries know this as fact. There are civic groups in California campaigning for the elimination of the Australian gum tree. We shipped hundreds of thousands of them in the 1880s. The problem is that, like here, people love to live among the gum trees. Fast growing, short lived gum trees and pine trees reproduce by fire. The pine cone opens in extreme heat to distribute the seeds. The gum in gum trees is highly flammable and turns hollow gum trees into cannons, spreading fire.

      Here in Melbourne, the State spends $100Million a year to ruin the suburban English trees like Elms and Oaks, mainlyh in the suburbs, to prevent bushfires.

      It shows that no matter what the scare, people will find a way to make a lot of money. I had to fight the forced removal of my 100 year old palm, Phoenix Canariensis because the people against bushfires, the tree contractors wanted it removed, to prevent a suburban firestorm from possible contact with power lines. As in the terrible Egypt bushfires. All profiteering, like Global Warming itself. A fantasy fed on greed, not environmentalism. An industry based on fear while real ecological problems are ignored, like the Government introduced cane toad or the total lack of action to prevent the invasion of the European Wasp.

      There was also the now forgotten $800 million pipeline forced by Government order through people’s properties to bring water in the drought which would never end. The pipe was used only once in the middle of a flood at the end of the drought, to make the flood in the Goulburn much worse. The water had been booked six months before, apparently.

      This is where fear and good intentions produces massive waste, pointless solutions and makes some people rich. In the 1880s in Melbourne, parliament was always building new train lines, while parliamentarians bought up the land along the route. Has anything changed?

      81

      • #
        TdeF

        You can add Israel and Jordan to the list. On the other hand, gum trees grow where no other trees grow and they are evergreen, if you can call brown green. They can hold the soil together in desert like conditions and are very tolerant of low water.

        Personally I like them but you should not have one near your house. Huge branches fall without warning. Fires are a fact of nature and lightning and then you get arsonists, which looks to be the case in California. The Napa valley is very dry, much like South Australia.

        50

      • #
        Another Ian

        A South African and I wonce thought up the vegetative deal of the century.

        They would take back the weed species we got from them like Acacia nilotica if we’d take back the eucs running riot there.

        In my slide collection I have a fine example of an African sunset taken through thorn trees in nw Qld and a fine Australian one taken through the gums in S Af.

        41

        • #
          Another Ian

          Hmm. Not my day for spelling

          30

          • #
            Annie

            I wish South Africa would take back their ruddy capeweed! It’s run amok in this area of North Central Victoria.
            Even in the mid 80s I remember thinking what a nuisance it is in Melbourne local reserves.

            30

        • #
          toorightmate

          I am waiting for mad man Brown in California to blame the bush fires on Australian eucalypts.

          21

          • #
            Another Ian

            IIRC in the 70’s they had quite a hand in the hydrocarbon contribution to smog in LA

            Cartoon of the time – male deep breathing with the caption

            “I breathe for taste. I live in LA, USA”

            00

      • #
        Dennis

        “This is where fear and good intentions produces massive waste, pointless solutions and makes some people rich. In the 1880s in Melbourne, parliament was always building new train lines, while parliamentarians bought up the land along the route. Has anything changed?”

        If we were handed a list of political wealth creation activities in Australia, mostly at state and local government levels, but not confined to those levels, including union participation, even starting from 1970, there would be disbelief.

        30

      • #
        sophocles

        And it’s all the oil eucalypts release into the air.

        It’s a bit scary when doing 140k/hr to get out of a fire zone and the fire overtakes the car without touching the ground …

        Oops.

        20

        • #
          Dennis

          Sadly, a mate of mine died in his car in the Cessnock District NSW, Hunter Valley, when a wild fire out of control swath both side of a main road. His Alfa was last in a small convoy, the driver of the vehicle in front reported that his vehicle “disappeared” as the convoy raced through the flames.

          Many hours later police and others found his incinerated car, glass melted, allow wheels melted, interior melted and his ashes.

          A couple of teenagers lit that fire that destroyed properties and farm creatures, and Bill.

          RIP Bill.

          30

    • #
      Another Ian

      Helen

      By the Fort McMurray fire in Canada and those this year in BC and Alberta the native species don’t need much help

      50

    • #
      el gordo

      Eucalypts are highly inflammable and should be kept away from residential areas.

      30

    • #
      el gordo

      Personally I blame humanity for upsetting the natural balance.

      ‘The current superdominance of Eucalyptus in Australia may be an artefact of human influence on its ecology. In more recent sediments, numerous findings of a dramatic increase in the abundance of Eucalyptus pollen are associated with increased charcoal levels. Though this occurs at different rates throughout Australia, it is compelling evidence for a relationship between the artificial increase of fire frequency with the arrival of Aboriginals and increased prevalence of this exceptionally fire-tolerant genus.’

      wiki

      30

    • #
      Griffo

      Australian Blue Gums planted in California burn well,but I am guessing that most of forests now burning on the West Coast are local conifer species which burn pretty well in dry conditions.

      30

    • #
      dadgervais

      Considering a decades-long sabotage strategy used against Israel, it is possibly caused by recent increases of imported arsonists.

      00

  • #

    Never mind the knowing, feel the publishing.

    50

  • #
    Earl

    The ABC must know the end is nigh, it is ramping up the scary stories no end.
    A true believer, who has a career dependant on CAGW, stated on RN, that CO2 is the only driver of climate.
    There was no questions presented by the program presenter, just gullible acceptance.
    How fortunate that the ABC ratings are low. Personally I listen for comedy relief.

    70

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Earl it is comedy you’re right but with a dark side to it and a not too subtle subliminal message that keeps being repeated , renewables ,Co2 , ocean acidity and sea level rise are among but a few words they try and include every hour of every day .

      40

  • #
    Annie

    Jo, did you mean to leave the inverted commas off ‘pollution’ in the heading?
    🙂

    30

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I read the word, “pollution”, as being linked as a non-sequitur to, “the world gets less windy”

      31

  • #
    Allen Ford

    I think the good doc has just rediscovered the doldrums!

    31

  • #

    Dr Azorin-Molina dunno. Mr Moso-Moso dunno. You dunno, especially you peasants with single surnames. Hyphenless serfs definitely dunno. We all dunno. Everybody dunno.

    But in the age of Publish-then-Perish Dr Azorin-Molina publishes. That the diff. It’s the only diff.

    51

  • #
    tom0mason

    Joanne,
    Your headline “Carbon pollution rises and the world gets less windy…”
    There is no ‘Carbon pollution’, it does not exist.

    81

  • #
    NB

    Real science:
    Mathematician Cliff Stoll discusses real science on YouTube channel Numberphile:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUZTTLpDtk

    This is a great starting point for a discussion of climate ‘science’.

    20

  • #
    Dennis

    Hottest ever days are being predicted by ABC.

    Must be summer soon.

    61

  • #
    Popeye26

    Jo

    I would ask you to amend the title simply by putting parenthesis around the word “pollution”

    CO2 was not, is not & will NEVER be pollution! EVER

    🙂

    Cheers,

    31

    • #
      Dennis

      I would like an explanation from the “carbon pollution” mob about why, if they are being truthful, the Environmental Protection Agencies established during the 1970s have not been dealing with the big polluters responsible.

      50

  • #
    robert rosicka

    OT if anyone doubted that the greens via the ABC were trying to dictate policy have a look at this piece of fiction disguised as a story on the states not complying with the national firearms agreement.
    This is a quote from the story and the “machine gun pistol ” meme has only ever come from the greens .

    “In Victoria, licenses for some powerful handguns (for example, a machine gun that is a handgun) are available.”

    This statement is of course absolute nonesense and follows Bob Browns comment years ago about “the number of people driving around with machine gun pistols in their glovebox” .

    Last time ABC ran this they were made to apologise so why run it again if you got your wrists smacked last time .

    Legally owned machine gun pistols in Victoria is a furphy and they know it .

    31

  • #
    pat

    heard a Sydney caller on the radio yesterday complaining about this, given all the new high-rise buildings that have gone up, or are planned for that City:

    17 Jun: Australian: Rob Taylor: Excuse me, you’re blocking my sun: towers block solar panels
    In the shadows of a solar-energy boom in Australia, temperatures are on the rise (?)
    The nation’s rapid embrace of rooftop panels — now installed on one in four homes in some areas — has collided with another hot spot of investment — construction of apartments and homes.

    With many new high-rise buildings casting shade for much of the day, more households want the courts to intervene to prevent potential blockages.
    “There needs to be rules; some process in place over how to deal with this,” said Jenny Port, a gallery owner who has waged a seven-month battle to block construction of a 16-storey apartment tower beside her inner-city art space and home in Melbourne.
    “Right now there’s just nothing in the planning scheme, to protect our investment; no rights at all to the sun.”

    It is a problem reflected globally as adoption of solar technology outpaces regulators’ ability to keep up…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/excuse-me-youre-blocking-my-sun-towers-block-solar-panels/news-story/d10109ef527e6d0d8fac113e3b1da1ed

    40

  • #
    J Pollock

    Australian scientists have been onto stilling for quite some time. But not simple.

    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011JCLI4198.1 increase at height but slower at 2m !?

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169411007487 Global stilling

    [Thanks for those links – Jo]

    20

    • #

      Can I add Michael Roderick’s work…

      http://sciencewise.anu.edu.au/articles/warmernotdrier

      As part of this unfolding scenario, popular literature would have us believe that the world will be drier as well because even if it rains more, water will evaporate faster. Paradoxically, evaporation records from pans in many parts of the world show a downward trend over the past 50 years. How can this be? Is this phenomenon an artefact of data gathering, or a reality that begs an explanation?

      20

      • #
        Mark D.

        How can this be? Is this phenomenon an artefact of data gathering, or a reality that begs an explanation?

        Always brilliant to ask as a question! This question is fundamental to a thinking skeptic.

        Gee, is that your point?

        40

        • #
          Will Janoschka

          “Always brilliant to ask as a question!”

          I agree! The big question: “Is this scam for mere ‘profit’ or instead a gamble by the few for absolute control over all Earth’s poor peons\serfs\plain folk? The Banksters need repelling at the ‘profit’ level! The absolute control folk, like Christiana Figueres need repelling up close and personal. [SNIP! No No No ]
          All the best!-will-

          20

      • #
        Peter C

        Michael Roderick and his colleagues can accommodate this variance – because they have devised and are improving a generic model for pan-evaporation (PenPan) that is based on proven physics and meteorological principles.

        Oh Yes! That sounds just like everything else that “Climate Scientists” do.

        10

        • #
          Will Janoschka

          “Oh Yes! That sounds just like everything else that “Climate Scientists” do.”

          Long ago many were dispatched from the fine Astrologers Guild, for being incompetent assholes. These outcasts formed the psudo-science meterology field to continue the scam. They never even learned or cared about a Meteor, nor any other well defined scientific term\concept! Now they claim ‘adiabatic air parcels’ and ‘geostrophic wind’ never having learned about “wiping after defecating” !! Go figure!

          10

  • #
    Bulldust

    Completely off topic (but somewhat related to yesterday’s I guess), if anyone wants a political correctness vaccine for the next few years, Milo is coming to town:

    https://www.milolive.com.au/

    He’s dangerous, and outrageous, but in equal doses funny and incisive. Not everyone’s cup of tea I’m sure, but I am sure some might enjoy his wit.

    21

  • #

    O/T but short. The BoM who awarded our region a phantom flood (six inches which never fell) on one day last June has now decided that much overnight rain last night amounted to a mere .8 mm (after letting it run up to 13 mm in updates). Aw.

    Isn’t it great we no longer have to rely on forgetful postmasters and tipsy lighthouse keepers for our climate records?

    62

    • #

      …just shape-shifter B-O-M-sters.
      Whitch is worse?

      30

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Makes a mockery of their claims of inconsistency in reporting before 1910 .

      31

    • #

      This is just one weather station I happened to check because it’s local and my bamboo is shooting. Because the airport is some kilometres away I can only be sure of really obvious discrepancies and often I’m away or have no need to check.

      God knows what’s happening to rainfall records across the country as these auto systems constantly malfunction or are interfered with.

      20

  • #
    John

    Jo,
    Please do not use the term ‘carbon pollution’.

    We all know it’s a concoction of the green blob to confuse the public as much as possible. Carbon is not a pollutant and neither is carbon dioxide.

    We shouldn’t be helping them!

    51

    • #
      robert rosicka

      John I think we need to use the same words the watermelons use ,just show how ridiculous the use of certain words are .
      Currently I’m enjoying a beer that’s fizzed with carbon pollution (Co2) and chilled with carbon pollution (dry ice) all while breathing out carbon pollution (Co2) , now all this carbon pollution is not going to waste in warming the planet oh no its helping to green the planet and grow more crops for an ever increasing population to eat .

      50

  • #
    Dennis

    The National Party has been corrupted.

    I wrote to Dr David Gillespie MP Federeal Member for Lyne NSW regarding The Australian newspaper article on climate change con.

    His reply was that the government is taking action on reducing carbon emissions …..

    Absolute BS followed.

    “We continue to make a significant investment in climate science”.

    * a new CSIRO Climate Science Centre in Hobart with 40 staff
    * a $37 million investment on long-term climate science monitoring capability
    * a $23.9 million investment in a climate change hub in the National Environmental Science program; and
    *a $255 million commitment as part of the Australian Antarctic Strategy which places significant emphasis on climate change related research.

    “I support our government’s plans in the action to reduce carbon emissions and our results speak for themselves.

    51

    • #
      Dennis

      I have replied, in short that I fully support the comments Tony Abbott made.

      60

      • #
        Dennis

        …and, as a Liberal voter when I lived in Sydney, National Party voter in Queensland and then country NSW, I will no longer vote for them.

        51

    • #
      Another Ian

      Dennis

      At least you got a reply rather than just an auto-acknowledgement.

      So far the ones I emailed are working on the principle of

      “No answer was the stern reply”

      50

      • #
        Dennis

        I was shocked when the Gillespie reply was received Another Ian

        60

      • #
        Dennis

        I will now add that I messaged Nationals Leader Joyce with information regarding New Zealand right to citizenship offering to support him with a Statutory Declaration.

        No reply.

        30

    • #
      Dave

      I actually fronted my local member for Fairfax!

      Asked him about the RET
      His reply was that they are committed to keeping to their promise of the Paris Accord!
      I said – “CRAPE” – just break Turnbull’s promise as it’s ruining Australia!
      He said he has to toe the party line!
      After about 15 minutes, I realised he had no idea about Energy, Electricity, RET, Renewables, Science, anything – just a dumb fruit loop – etc

      Just a parasite on our community!

      I finished by saying I will never vote for him until the RET is GONE!

      70

    • #
      Len

      Checking on the search engine he has a MBBS. He has a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. So no doctoral degree. Many of the medical practitioners are drinkers of the global warming cool aid. He would not have a clue about any science involving meteorology. He believes the cultural Marxists who push this drivel.

      10

  • #
    pat

    maybe they’ll geoengineer the wind:

    11 Oct: CarbonBrief: Daisy Dunne: Geoengineering: Scientists in Berlin debate radical ways to reverse global warming
    Research scientists, policymakers and ethicists gathered in Berlin this week to discuss the emerging field of “climate engineering” and what it could mean for the planet…
    The four-day conference has been organised by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany, and includes speakers and participants from across the world, including Japan, Jamaica, the US and India…

    Tuesday’s proceedings kicked off with talks aimed at bringing the audience up to speed with the latest research into the two main categories of geoengineering technologies: carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM).
    First up was Dr Naomi Vaughan, a researcher from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. Her talk touched on recent research into a variety of CDR technologies, including biomass energy carbon capture and storage (BECCS), soil carbon sequestration and reforestation projects, and how important these techniques could be to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. She told the conference…

    Following the morning plenary, delegates were invited to join a range of sessions, which were held under the Chatham House rule…
    Midway through the sessions, journalists were invited to attended a press conference…
    A full write-up of the press conference is available here (LINK)…READ ON
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/geoengineering-scientists-berlin-debate-radicaly-ways-reverse-global-warming

    12 Oct: Yahoo7: AFP: Marlowe Hood: As Paris climate goals recede, geoengineering looms larger
    Berlin (AFP) – Even if you are terrified of heights, jumping out of a plane with a makeshift parachute may begin to look like a good idea once you know the aircraft is running out of fuel…
    “It has become very clear that getting to 2 C, and especially 1.5 C, is very dependent on our ability to remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere,” Naomi Vaughan, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, told the opening plenary of the Climate Engineering Conference 2017…
    “It is a matter of considerable concern that we are not sure how to do this” on the scale needed, Myles Allen, head of the University of Oxford’s Climate Research Programme, told AFP…

    Michael Taylor, atmospheric scientist from the University of West Indies: “The region’s climate will be so significantly altered that it will not just be unfamiliar,” he told colleagues. “It will be unprecedented.”…
    Other experts who have reluctantly embraced the necessity of geoengineering to help fix the climate are more nervous about fiddling with the sun’s radiative force…

    Because such technologies could be deployed unilaterally by a single country, or even a company, they also raise questions about who should set the rules.
    Chief executive of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in New Delhi Arunabha Ghosh: “We have to imagine governance arrangements that have never been imagined before,” said Ghosh, who says research should continue in the meantime.
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/37431585/as-paris-climate-goals-recede-geoengineering-looms-larger/

    00

  • #
    pat

    10 Oct: Nature Editorial: Climate meetings pose serious test in the Trump era
    Annual jamborees fail to ignite public passion but are crucial to progress on global-warming.
    Climate change is a popular topic in Germany right now. Leading researchers are converging in Potsdam this week to take stock of the economic and societal impacts of global warming across sectors from health to agriculture. In Berlin, experts are meeting to discuss the potential and risks of various geoengineering technologies intended to counteract the effects of climate change. And next month, at the climax of the climate-meeting season, thousands of delegates will flock to the United Nation’s annual climate summit, this year in Bonn…

    The first conference of the parties to the agreement in the Trump era must now work out how to proceed without the world’s largest economy. In theory, the annual climate roller coaster is idling through one of the low-key phases in which success is measured by nothing going wrong. In practice, the Bonn meeting will serve as a litmus test of how the rest of the world plans to stand united and to keep the spirit of Paris alive…

    Results of a survey of the German public, published this week in Nature Climate Change, suggest that extensive media coverage of the Paris climate summit had a soothing rather than a mobilizing effect (LINK)…
    Respondents who had taken notice of media reports (and many said they had not) had slightly more trust in the efficacy of global climate policy after the unusually successful meeting. However, fewer were in favour of their own country taking a leading role, and most said that they did not intend to change their behaviour. In essence, respondents were relieved that a political deal had finally materialized, but were disinclined to engage further with the issue.

    The researchers who conducted the survey say that this is a missed opportunity. The annual UN meetings bring guaranteed media attention to a topic that many news editors are bored with, and so they are an opportunity to mobilize action. As such, the study authors go so far as to suggest that the lack of public engagement is a failure of journalism…
    http://www.nature.com/news/climate-meetings-pose-serious-test-in-the-trump-era-1.22795

    00

  • #
    Gary

    I started sailboarding about 24 years ago and after a break of about 12 years or so have taken it up again. Obviously one becomes very attuned to the wind conditions and I can say quite knowledgeably that often now the winds are lighter. But often they are not.
    I think they may be on to something.

    20

  • #
    Mark M

    Less windy?

    Feb, 2007 IPCC report.

    Tropical cyclones

    Professor Neville Nicholls, a climate scientist from Monash University and lead author of one section of the IPCC report, says we still don’t know for certain about any link between climate change and tropical cyclones.

    “We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link,” he says.

    http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/02/05/1840731.htm

    March, 2017, BoM, Dr Andrew Watkins the manager of climate prediction services at the bureau:

    “Being perfectly honest, climate change is a factor in most of our climate science these days but in terms of tropical cyclones you couldn’t put this season down to climate change,” he said.

    http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/cyclone-blanche-is-latest-to-cross-land-in-second-consecutive-quiet-season-in-australian-history/news-story/220bd07cbd24d1db32cfd2175d3ec2ac
    . . .
    10 years later … perhaps if you stop factoring in climate change?

    20

  • #
    turnedoutnice

    Oh my Gawd, we gotta [snip. I’m sure that was a joke but some people might not think so. Sorry – Jo]

    10

  • #
    John PAK

    O/T but can anyone help me with a Sydney doppler radar image from the morning of Tuesday 11th. There was no wind and it was raining lightly or misting over the Sydney basin at 9:30 a.m. the radar image from the B of Met showed clear circular rings of light rain (white patches) centred upon the Terry Hills radar. The inner ones were quite narrow with narrow non rain rings inbetween. At about Castle Hill (20km out) the rings were wider (perhaps 5km). I counted 9 concentric rings of rainfall.
    Could this be an artefact of the radar imaging process? I find it hard to believe that the radar was causing rainfall to fall preferentially in any place.
    My son commented that maybe the energy of the radar does affect lightly charged rain-drops in a windless air. He commented that some of my trade tools that have plastic boxes with wide flat lids often display odd rain-drop patterns. The droplets are steered by something about the box (static charge?) and they form rings on the box rather than a random rain-drop pattern.

    Does anyone know how these doppler radars work ?

    30

    • #
      Chad

      Looking at those Radar images, is like looking at a cartoon ..
      They miss lots of detail, and manage to show a “artists impression” of what is happening. !

      00

  • #
    pat

    12 Oct: Tim Blair blog: LET’S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT WITHOUT ANY WEATHER
    This threatens to be the most turbulent industrial conflict since the great seafood cocktail dispute of ’72…
    TWEET: Vic Trades Hal: Workers at Bureau of Meteorology are about the walk off the job. Their wages have been frozen for 4 yrs. @CPSUnion @BOM_au #changetherules …

    Perhaps their wages are indexed to global warming. Here’s an easy way to solve this: don’t give BoM staff any extra money, but simply homogenise their income in any official documentation. Just keep adding bigger numbers until everyone’s happy.
    That approach has always worked for the BoM before.
    UPDATE. Solidarity!
    TWEET: Friends of the Earth: FoE campaigners stand in solidarity w/ BOM workers. With climate change requiring urgent attention, it’s no time to cut BOM’s capacity…
    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/lets-see-how-you-like-it-without-any-weather/news-story/dbc7a7b84790f1b700e63985924e07d2

    12 Oct: SMH: Peter Hannam: Sydney weather: Odds favour an end to Sydney’s long dry spell
    Those hoping for a long hot mostly sunny summer on the beaches and playing fields of Sydney may be in for some disappointment.
    The latest outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology for November to January points to the odds beginning to shift to average or wetter than average conditions for most of south-eastern Australia.

    Along with the higher chances of rainfall for the region, including for Sydney, the extra cloud cover will probably moderate daytime temperatures while making nights warmer and stickier than usual…READ ON
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/sydney-weather-odds-favour-an-end-to-sydneys-long-dry-spell-20171011-gyz9y6.html

    11

  • #
    pat

    11 Oct: Energy Digital: The planet could run on a single wind farm the size of India
    By Sophie Chapman
    According to Anna Possner and Ken Caldeira, a 3mn sqkm wind power plant, located in the North Atlantic Sea, could supply roughly enough energy to equivalate what the planet uses.
    The two from the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University, California reported that the deep-sea wind farm would be placed in the ocean due to wind speeds being on average 70% faster.

    Being placed in the ocean also poses a problem, as written in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science…
    The India-sized wind farm would also probably have issues with willing international cooperation and investment.
    The amount of energy that the wind farm could produce would be seasonally-dependant, with output dropping to a fifth of the annual average during summer.
    Even so, the farm would still produce enough energy during this time to supply electricity to all the countries in the EU.
    http://www.energydigital.com/renewable-energy/planet-could-run-single-wind-farm-size-india

    following includes link to PNAS:

    12 Oct: InsideClimateNews: How Deep Ocean Wind Turbines Could Power the World
    North Atlantic winds are so strong, floating wind farms placed there could generate 3 times more renewable energy than those on land, a new study says.
    By Bob Berwyn
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/1112017/clean-energy-offshore-ocean-wind-turbines-floating-technology-north-atlantic-statoil-caldeira

    10

    • #
      PeterS

      Reminds me of the idea not long ago about using sun sails to propel spacecraft. I really do wonder if people who dream up these ideas have a brain.

      20

  • #
    robert rosicka

    OT but I hope it’s windy and sunny in South Australia this Friday and Saturday .

    Market Notice 59476
    AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE

    This market notice is FOR INFORMATION ONLY.

    Refer to MN 59364

    The Heywood No.1 500 kV busbar in Victoria Region is planned out of service for the following periods:
    13/10/2017 0700 hrs – 13/10/2017 1700 hrs.
    14/10/2017 0600 hrs – 14/10/2017 1600 hrs.

    A credible contingency event during this planned outage could cause synchronous separation of the South Australia (SA) region from the rest of the NEM. If separation occurs, load may be interrupted due to the operation of the Automatic Under Frequency Load Shedding (AUFLS) scheme in SA.

    The credible separation contingency is managed as follows:

    35 MW of raise and lower regulation FCAS will be sourced from SA.
    When power transfer is from SA to Victoria (Vic), contingency lower FCAS will be sourced from SA.
    When power transfer is from Vic to SA, due to the 47-52Hz island separation frequency band advised by the SA jurisdiction, contingency raise FCAS is not sourced in SA and the AUFLS scheme may respond to low frequency events.
    Power transfer will be restricted on Victoria – South Australia interconnector (Heywood interconnector).

    Forecast capacity reserves in the SA region are currently sufficient to meet electricity demand during the planned outage.

    The following constraint sets have been invoked for these outages:

    F-I_HYSE (includes F-S_LREG_0035 and F-S_RREG_0035)
    S-X_BC_CP
    V-HYTX_M12
    V-HY_500BUS
    I-VS_050

    Refer AEMO Network Outage Schedule (NOS) for further details.

    Manager NEM Real Time Operations

    00

  • #
    PeterS

    Imagine if coal fired and nuclear power stations suffered the same gyrations of energy output as wind and solar. Even with massive battery storage systems, modern civilisation as we know today would cease to exist as virtually all manufacturing would halt. So one begs the question, how come Australia is not building new generation coal fired power stations (pretty much everyone else is building them) to replace the aging ones that are being gradually closed down?

    21

    • #
      John PAK

      At Mt Piper, NSW they have set aside a plot for a 2nd power station but no-one would invest money in a unit that might be forced to shut down periodically or be obliged to comply with absurd carbon dioxide legislation. Privatisation was something of a mistake because the owners of the units want profit and that cannot be guaranteed when we have non-technical day-dreamers at the helm in Canberra.

      20

      • #
        el gordo

        The owners of Piper are waiting to see whether to invest in a new coal or gas plant.

        Springvale Mine is just up the road, while gas has to be pumped in at exorbitant cost, so they are sitting on their hands for the time being.

        It would be political madness to dump coal, Lithgow is dependent and will judge their elected representatives harshly if they don’t speak up.

        10

  • #
    Ian Wilson

    This blog post may go part the way towards what is happening to the trade wind
    strengths in the tropical and equatorial regions. An Important player at these
    latitudes is the strength of the Walker Circulation vs. the strength of the
    Hadley Circulation.

    http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2017/10/world-wind-speeds-have-slowed-down-over.html

    30

  • #
    Chad

    Has anyone realised that Australia is following in a well trodden path to energy failure….as led by California in 2001 where the CO2 restrictions almost led to a electricity grid blackout.
    They were ” saved”. by their ability to draw power interstate…at a high cost…..
    Incidentally, CAlifornia is much like our SA , inthat it still has to “import” 30% of all the electricity it uses.as they have a banon Nuclear plant builds, and cannot build coal generation due to the CO2 limitations….50% of all their electricity is from Gas generators.
    They and us , should have learned by now that the curent situation is unsustainable and either new Nuclear must be built or we accept more CO2 output from gas plants.
    http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/others/californias-electricity.aspx

    10