Happy New Year for 2018

New Years Eve 2017

Wishing everyone here the best of health and happiness for the coming year.

Thanks for your help in making this possible!

Cheers to every independent soul who stands on their own two feet.

And cheers to those who can’t tonight, but would like to.

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Giant double whirlpools in the ocean and the DIY ones you can make in your pool

How much don’t we know?

Giant pairs of whirlpools travel across the ocean for months in a bizarre pair.

These large paired whirlpools, hundreds of kilometers across, travel eastward at something like 10-20cm per second. This is one pair crossing from Tasmania to NewZealand. This was there in our satellite data but “invisible” til recently. As David Evans says “I wonder what else we are observing but not seeing?”

The pair of whirlpools called Modon E travelling eastward from Tasmania to NZ.

The ocean becomes connected at two distant points as the Modon-E whirlpool pair travels from Tasmania to NZ in 2010-2011

In the mini-pool version, these rolling whirlpools are connected in a U shape under water.

Wow. PhysicsGirl shows how to make these by pushing a plate through the water, and adding food coloring. Switch on your science nerd, show the kids! (send me your photos :- ))

The two vortexes spin in opposite directions but are connected as a pair underwater. This was created by PhysicsGirl using a plate in a pool and two different food colorings.

Twin giant ocean whirlpools travel for months winding their way across oceans

Peter Dockrill reports on an interview […]

Hello from Renewable World where companies go broke, sack people and customers have no money to spend

Businesses are closing, customers are cutting back spending, company bosses are all suddenly spot trading experts in the energy market, or planning to become their own electricity supplier. Meanwhile scouts from the US have arrived to poach companies who want cheaper energy (and tax cuts).

Happy New Year Australia. These are all headlines and stories in The Australian from yesterday and today.

Cut power bills or lose more jobs: ACCC chief’s warning on energy costs

Glenda Korporaal writes:

Australia’s competition regulator, Rod Sims, who has been tasked with finding ways to cut power bills, has warned that high energy costs will force more plant ­closures and job losses as prices continue to increase.

“Energy affordability is Australia’s largest economic challenge,” the chief executive of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission told The Weekend Australian.

“We have already seen jobs lost, investment reduced, plant closures (because of high energy prices). Unfortunately, we are going to see quite a bit more.”

Some businesses will be OK – like those that are not involved with fertilizer, paper, glass, steel, bricks, telecommunications or refrigeration:

He said the biggest pressure would be on manufacturing companies […]

Last record-breaking winter with snow hits Canada, US, before “nobody knows what snow is”

UPDATE: Record breaking snow falling in upstate New York. Pennsylvania.

The airport in Erie, Pennsylvania, has had a whopping 65.1 inches of snow from this lake effect event — the highest snowfall total from any event on record in Erie. (Heavy lake effect snow is produced by cold Arctic air moving over relatively mild water temperatures in the Great Lakes.) — World News, ABC (US) News

40,000 people in Cleveland lost power overnight.

New York City may have coldest New Year’s Eve since 1960s… — ABC News

Great Lakes, via NOAA

In freak conditions, Canadians (and many people in the US too) are getting a chance to enjoy record cold for the last time before climate change makes winters unbearably mild.

Extreme cold in Toronto smashes 57-year-old temperature record

Temperatures observed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport bottomed out at -22 C [-7.7F] this morning. The previous record for this date was set in 1960, when it hit -18.9 C. [-2F]

Tristan Hopper does some first class bragging about the cold: Mars and the North Pole are warmer than Winnipeg: A guide to how damned cold it is

Vancouver […]

All it takes is a few kids with frostbite to foil a great government plan (and coal saves the day)

To cut smog and PM 2.5 pollution the Chinese government banned coal fired heating in 28 cities in Northern China and ordered them to convert to gas. But things aren’t going too well:

Public anger boiled over after China Youth Daily published video images of children at a primary school in Hebei province’s Quyang county who were forced to sit outside in the winter sun because their classrooms were too cold.

The Ministry of Education demanded “immediate” action to provide heating after students at another primary school showed signs of frostbite, the official English-language China Daily said.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time:

A joint government and municipal action plan for the 28 cities was released as far back as last March, calling for Beijing, Tianjin, Langfang and Baoding to ban small coal- fired furnaces by the end of October, among a host of other measures for the region.

“Areas in these cities will be declared completely ‘coal free,’” the official Xinhua news agency reported on March 31.

Communism fails for the 300th time:

Despite efforts to shift the blame, responsibility for the poor policy coordination […]

Midweek Unthreaded

Holiday chatter..

9 out of 10 based on 13 ratings

Double your Hype: Climate meets Cryptocurrency to kill the world and save it

Cypto currencies are killing the world and saving it at the same time

It’s the battle of the cryptos. Bitcoin is set to destroy the global climate due to exponential electricity consumption. Mining for bitcoins consumes the same electricity as 159 countries (probably more now), and by 2020, the world. I suspect we’ll be saved by reality — transactions now take hours and cost $20, $40, $50 (depends on the day) — making bitcoin not useful for buying a beer. But Michael Kile has found a competing cypto which will save the world — bound to relieve climate believers of their normal cash while offering them gold-hopey-hyper-cubits which may evaporate at a moments notice. Don’t mock it, in people with the right brain, these may briefly increase oxytocin and reduce cortisol.

So say hello to the saviour ClimateCoin. It wants to be an “exponential environmental organisation…” (because linear ones are achieving so much, and the square of zero could do so much more right?) They are not even pretending to produce anything real. Their mission is to “create a symbol for the common man to be able to participate in the struggle against climate change…” No uncommon people need apply. […]

Renewable Australia update: Fear of blackouts means diesel generator sales up 400%

Welcome to a clean green Australia where we gave up coal to move to diesel.

Back to the future. Diesel’s prototype engine circa 1892.

Channel Ten news tonight discusses the sudden surge in demand for diesel generators

Homes and businesses are so afraid of blackouts in Australia that some retailers are selling four times as many generators as normal. Mygenerator.com.au reports a 425% increase year on year. The strongest growth has been in South Australia, Victoria and western Sydney.

According to Channel Ten, Energy companies across Australia have sent letters to their customers to warn customers to be prepared in case there is a blackout. But one company says it’s just a precaution they are required to do every year. (Does anyone ever remember getting a letter like that?)

Once, the renewables industry just wanted “certainty” for business (as in certainty of taxpayer funded subsidies). Now “certainty” means a diesel generator.

h/t Dave B

 

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Weekend Unthreaded

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EPA exodus of staff and scientists

This is what winning looks like.

The NY Times reports on Droves of Scientists Leaving EPA

WASHINGTON — More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.

This is 700 of 15,000 employees. The cuts started under Obama (“blame” Republicans) and is just the start:

The cuts deepen a downward trend at the agency that began under the Obama administration in response to Republican-led budget constraints that left the agency with about 15,000 employees at the end of his term.

…the administration is well on its way to achieving its goal of cutting 3,200 positions from the E.P.A., about 20 percent of the agency’s work force.

After skeptical scientists have been sacked, exiled and subject to RICO threats, NOW they worry about “silencing” scientists?

Many also said they saw the departures as part of a more worrisome trend of muting government scientists, cutting research budgets and making it more difficult for academic scientists […]

Help. Science blogger needs support…

NEW POSTS ARE APPEARING BELOW

Oops, please. The bank balance is trending to zero, and I must pay attention. Can you can spare the equivalent of a beer, a steak, or a month of bandwidth ($100) for 2018? I, we, will be ever so grateful.

We can do this thanks to philanthropists like you. It’s a testament to the fantastic readers here that nine years, 2,863 posts and 450,000 comments later, this blog is still going and somehow a family of five just gets by. Long live the internet! Details on how to help below:

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Welcome to renewables world: Australia plans for blackouts, throws billions of dollars, but ABC says it will get “cheaper”

The fear is palpable

How much fun can you have living in a global experiment? In Australia, peak summer is about to hit in a post-Hazelwood-electricity-grid. There’s a suite of committee reports as summer ramps up. Everyday there’s another Grid story in the press, and a major effort going on to avoid a meltdown. Minister Josh Frydenberg announced today that “we’ve done everything possible to prevent mass blackouts”. Or as he calls it, a repeat of the South Australian Horror Show. Politicians are so afraid of another SA-style-system-black that they are throwing money: The “Snowy Hydro Battery” will be another $2 billion. Whatever. It’s other people’s money.

This is what they are afraid of:

The red bars mean “Reserve Shortfall”. The dark blue matter is “Generation”. The graph covers two years (sorry about the quality) so the two red bursts are summer 2018 and summer 2019.

SA Medium Term Forecast, Outlook, AEMO, Nov 16th 2017, South Australia.

Oddly we are headed for a critical time, but this’s the most recent graph I can find — thanks to Wattclarity — from November 16th, 2017. (Here’s an earlier version from March 2017. and from Dec 2016). Perhaps there is a newer […]

Green vision protects coal deposits, razes forests instead: Europe goes back to wood power

Green Utopia

We’re trying to control the weather by limiting a universal molecule intrinsic to life on Earth. What could possibly go wrong? Loopholes, for starters. Only this isn’t a loophole — it’s an obvious outcome of “carbon neutrality”. The only thing that could have stopped wood from replacing coal is if the tidal-windy-solar idea had been competitive, reliable and batteries were really cheap. Or, if we all went nuclear.

So carbon neutral means conserving black coal deposits underground and mowing down thousands of square kilometers of forests. Don’t think Greenpeace saw that coming. Carbon Loophole: Why is wood burning counted as green energy?

Fred Pearce, Yale, e360

The forests of North Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi — as well as those in Europe — are being destroyed to sustain a European fantasy about renewable energy…

Wood burning is booming from Britain to Romania. Much of the timber is sourced locally…

But Drax’s giant wood-burning boilers are fueled almost entirely by 6.5 million tons of wood pellets shipped annually across the Atlantic.

Drax Power, UK emits 23 million tons of “good” neutral carbon which used to be trees:

About 23 million tons […]

Please sign this petition to get Australia out of the Paris Climate Accord and back to affordable energy

It only takes a moment and it does help. It’s easy to be cynical. But in the world of psychology and politics, petitions prove there really are a lot of people who feel the same way. Sometimes these are the only numbers a politician will pay attention to (though we may wish it were otherwise). — Jo

___________________

Sign the Petition Demand Affordable Energy Now

Government renewable mandates and future targets are driving up cost astronomically on Australian families and businesses. Australia energy cost are the highest in the world. Now the government wants more restrictions due to the Paris Climate Accord. It’s time to cut energy prices and get Australia out of the Paris Climate Accord! We need more free market solutions to our energy and remove government mandates to energy!

Sign the petition below to demand affordable energy solutions now!

About the ATA

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Midweek Unthreaded

Tips and ideas…

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Seven reasons why BHP — a giant coal miner — wants to stop lobbying FOR coal

BHP is throwing its weight around to stop the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) saying what most miners want on climate change.

What coal company wants lobbyists not to lobby for coal?

The gauntlet is down — Which heavyweight will blink first?

In one corner — The MCA — the main lobby group for miners. It’s very effective, and wants to dump the renewables target (“yay” say most miners!). In the other corner — BHP –which has just threatened to quit unless the MCA stops being skeptical of climate change.

Thing is, BHP is the largest member of the MCA, providing 17% of the funding. The colossal miner is so big, it can do its own deals. Essentially, the Minerals Council needs BHP more than BHP needs the Minerals Council. BHP is testing it’s power.

A tough test for the MCA

In Australia, the MCA is influential enough that their fierce anti-mining tax campaign helped to bring down a Prime Minister and when industries want to threaten governments they talk of running a campaign “like it”.

If they fold and serve their largest client, effectively burning off almost all their smaller clients, then the smaller clients should quit and […]

Everyone cutting coal use except for most of the world and most of the banks

The situation with our most hated energy asset

Australia’s big four banks are fighting over themselves to turn down the chance to profit from coal loans and tell the world. Months ago, Westpac went on a low-coal diet, declaring like a kind of vegan-keto-banker that they won’t consider a loan unless the coal mined has at least 6,300 kilocalories per kilogram. Presumably they will lose weight, or at least lighten up by a few shareholders. Last week our National Australia Bank announced they are waiting for the carbon capture fairy to conquer some laws of chemistry and economics before they finance coal mines again. (Though they limit themselves to spurning only new customers and “thermal coal” in a kind of have-cake-eat-half-the-cake policy.)

But while the small-fish Australian banks advertise their doogooder star status, financial institutions in Canada are putting $2.9 billion towards building new coal plants overseas. And in the last three years, Chinese banks have casually smashed $630 billion dollars into coal. (Notably, even the Chinese don’t want to put money into Adani coal in Australia, the political environment here is that bad.)

The rest of the world is definitely not watching the Australian Banks. Global coal consumption has […]

Weekend Unthreaded

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Forget Megawatts, ABC invents new unit of power — “size of Tasmania”

Outback couple build solar farm to prove fringe-of-grid power generation needs

Building a $14 million solar farm is an expensive way to send a message about electricity prices, but Doug and Lyn Scouller said they were left with few options.

In Normanton, 500 kilometres north of Mount Isa in north-west Queensland, the Scoullers built a solar farm big enough to power an area almost twice the size of Tasmania, in a move to prove to stakeholders the benefit of positioning power generation sites at the end of the grid.

In old fashioned terms, the “farm” produces five-megawatts. But yesterday, Tasmania didn’t use 5MW it used 1,072 MegaWatts. So this solar farm would have supplied 0.2% of the houses and businesses on an area “twice the size of Tasmania”. The only Tasmania-sized-areas that would be functioning on 5MW are in the empty desert or the Great Southern Ocean.

And we wonder why some Australians think solar power is a no brainer. If this little farm can supply 120,000 km2, we just need another 60 like it, and we could do the whole continent!

ABC journalists are not good with numbers. If only they had a billion dollars […]

Laser Boron Fusion — What if it works? (Forget “climate change”)

Here’s another “breakthrough” fusion claim. Thing is, one day, one of these will work.

Something like this: Boron Hydrogen, Fusion, click to read about aneutronic fusion.

In the meantime, knowing that the future is nuclear, and the only question is when, we should burn all the coal we have while it is still worth something.

UPDATE: Everyone knows that fusion is the perennial baby of Hype-n-Hope. It’s easy to criticize, but why miss the chance to crush a few mantras instead? The renewables industry talks about how inevitable renewables are, so lets talk about the inevitable Fusion-Future that makes the “renewables” surge a temporary blip that will be superseded. The Fusion-Future adds urgency to coal use now — a real use-by date (albeit with blurry print).

PS: Yes, The Greens are going to hate it. A private energy generator, outside government control, not needing hand-outs, and one that solves “climate change” but without subsidies and strings. These companies might say what they think! They’re a power threat to global parasites. Remember: a dependent company is an obedient company — one that cheers for big-government.

Australia spends $5 billion a year installing inefficient, non-competitive renewables. […]