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Weekend Unthreaded
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7.5 out of 10 based on 37 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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News – from the media but not
Electric aeroplanes
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/28/technology/electric-plane-siemens-airbus-rolls-royce/index.html
your cities are about to be flooded
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/11/world/greenland-global-warning/
Meanwhile the rest of the world is BBQ’ing and opening a beer (full of CO2) and carrying on as if the Paris accord was a distant cosmolotigical event.
and as those at NASA-GISS tell us that Volcanoes have no impact in affecting climate the Bali volocano continues to throw particulates into the upper atmospehere and reduce sunlight and impact the surface temperature .
Meanwhile BOM record .. and go on recording without context or scientific due preocess
131
So… what am I missing here? They still use fuel to power an additional 2MW genset, add in a bunch of weighty control mechanisms and relays, push it out to an electric motor on the wing to drive the fan.. Does anyone understand overall efficiency any more? Can’t wait till they power all the fans with big electic motors, and the 6MW genst coughs mid-atlantic. Enjoy the silence. Enjoy the ride. Is everyone in the MSM a space cadet? STEM silence enforced.
Are the manufacturers finally on to the tax them till the scream gravy train grant system? Dunno.
130
You miss nothing.
The difference in hybrid cars is keeping the engine in its most efficient energy range and that it’s possible to use short term storage to recover energy more easily. The equivalent does work in aviation. But to be able for example to recover energy on descent, such aircraft need to be aerodynamically stable, that is they need to be gliders with engines. Jets, are not aerodynamically stable they need power to stay in the air. Therefore energy can’t ever go negative and you can’t recover it.
Aero turbine engines are much more efficient than the same engine used to generate electricity and I predict there is nothing to be gained by a hybrid arrangement in jets.
Propeller driven aircraft are a different matter, much more variable loads and more aerodynamic airframe means that it’s possible to design an airframe that can have the wind or aircraft motion drive the propeller, and therefore recover energy in some conditions making them slower, but far more fuel efficient. If you use a micro turbine generator you can probably use the exhaust thrust to advantage.
As an Engineer I’m only against these technologies where they make no sense. I’m for such tech if the aim is to make things more energy efficient, at the very least it makes our oil supplies go further. A very smart engineer I know always says that he thought burning oil was sacriledge because oil is much more useful for making materials (plastic) than it is as a fuel. If/When we run out of oil, we will miss plastic more than cars. Notwithstanding that you can make plastic from plant derived oils.
Hybrid tech does make sense for a certain class of aircraft under certain flight conditions and therefore I say this is worth a try (for that class of aircraft).
30
.. But how does one use a velocity /diffuser arrangement to supply this (assumed internal turbine) big power genset in an aerodynamically efficient way that would supersede the conventional RR fan turbine straight in pressure increasing efficiency with such a deal?. These RR Engines with the corresponding programming available are run at the optimum cruise efficiencies now. Not sure how a genset would be any different, except less efficient crossing two conversions. Plus, if you are going to harvest power in some downhill mode, how much weight does the storage arrangement subtract from the useable load? So many questions. But, I do agree, fill their boots. You never know where the path will lead. In all of these ideas, the missing print media links seems to never try to understand the real world scale and energy density requirements to necessary to succeed in specific circumstances.
30
It has the sound of a PR department. I remember a very short-lived but similar enthusiasm for diesel aircraft engines many years ago but the new-fangled jet engine was just too efficient to want to stay with pr return to piston engines.
10
Find yourself a cut-away of the Napier Nomad and marvel
10
… and coal will suddenly be very popular again.
20
Be interested to know the energy equivalents of the other three engines – surely it would greater than 2MW? While I realise that this technique is used in ships and submarines where it makes more sense, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all in aircraft where weight is always a major design factor.
30
The only calculations I could find for the Honewell HTR7000 engine, with 6500-7600 ft lbs thrust and 0.74 ft lbs = 1 Watt, were an equivalent 8800-10680 Watts. Not even close to 2MW, so there’s something wrong with my calcs…
10
They are talkning about a hybrid plane. Why would you burn fuel to turn a generator to then power an electric motor instead of burning fuel directly to turn the engine?
Also, others are talking about all electric aircraft. These concepts also fail to recognise that a battery operated aircraft foes not lose weight during the flight but something like a 747 with optional horizontal stabiliser tanks might start with 175 tonnes of fuel and finish with a 15 tonne reserve so it becomes more fuel efficient during the flight due to the loss of mass.
90
One of the things we weren’t told about Concorde
At flat chat they had a thermal efficiency of 43%
From Stanley Hooker “Not much of an engineer”
Might have to do a fair bit of hybridizing to equal that
10
Germany see that it requires some sort of help in keeping their electricity grid stable —
http://notrickszone.com/2017/12/01/germanys-national-power-grid-mess-country-seeing-whopping-172000-power-outages-annually/
Maybe Musk can offer them a SA type deal…
110
Elon can make you a whole new Germany (HyperDeutschland?) where everything just works and each new tech triumph is cheered by hundreds of high-fiving youths who remind you of drama students or your favourite barista.
Delivery of new CGI Germany within a hundred days or its free.
81
We had to laugh at the dire 150 years weather warnings given Victoria this week, which turned out to be nothing more than what we experience on a regular basis. And even if it had turned out close what was predicted, still nothing unusual.
The BOM has taken to make every weather event a potential catastrophe, perhaps so that they can’t get blamed if they underestimate. Every time we have a thunderstorm, the asthma alerts are everywhere.
This climate catastrophe stuff has become irrational on so many fronts.
222
That’s right, it all feeds into the ‘unprecedented’ narrative.
“Records smashed as hundreds flee”.
That’s the headline in The Australian and sure a few 24 hour records were broken around the Eildon (149 mm)– Mount Buller (139 mm) area but not far away at the Mount Buffalo Chalet the highest daily record of 216 mm was in 1917.
There will always be records broken somewhere and since daily records are for a set period 9 AM – 9 AM it’s an artificial measure.
In other words the BOM are ‘cherry-picking’ in order to justify their truly apocalyptic warnings.
Wiki has a page on Victorian extreme weather.
152
We were supposed to have 50-100mm in the Adelaide Hills with flooding and storm damage. Reality was a heavy downpour for 2 hours, then light rain on & off for the rest of the night and into Friday. So far 28mm.
101
We’d had over 100mm before the late Saturday lot started. Guess what, we are all still here! The dam has refilled (great!) and the water race is running. I won’t have to water the garden too much, although when I planted out some tomatoes and courgettes I found the soil underneath still a bit dry! It’s a new lot of imported soil though.
81
‘There will always be records broken somewhere…’
This is the key to the ludicrous narrative.
90
Not to mention that in the tropics, a downpour of 100mm in a day happens every other year and downpours of a meter in a day is not unheard of, especially in the aftermath of a cyclone. It’s a bit like carrying on about some odd sequence of 6 days above 25 degrees in Tasmania when marble bar spends half the year above 40.
Not that the flooding isn’t important for the people experiencing it. Also we should remember that drainage engineering ( moving dirt around) is not a particularly young science, These areas could be made resistant to this level of rainfall if we wanted to do that, but no, we pour money into windmills and solar panels that don’t stop CO2 emission anyway and do absolutely nothing to address the actual problem (which isn’t the rainfall, rain is good, it’s gravity, ala pooling/flooding that is the root cause of this problem.
50
It’s unprecedented!
Every day in every way
at the Bureau of Meteorology.
Colder! Hotter! Drier! Wetter!
Or maybe exotic in some other way,
oft times requiring adjusting of
the historic or present weather data.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/bom-faces-storm-over-weather-data-inaccuracies/news-story/375538d5c05310727b6a4154f841cfe2
But not to worry,
a BOM panel will
look into it.
61
Sorry, link not working,can only show this:
BoM faces storm over weather data inaccuracies –
The Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/…/bom-faces
-storm-over-weather…inaccuracies/…/375538d5…
Aug 3, 2017 – A complete review is being undertaken of
the network equipment and BoM’s temperature data handling.
It is the biggest public scandal for BoM since furious
debate was sparked three years ago over its treatment of
historic and contemporary temperature records to compile
its new homogenised national …
40
… yet another `Internal review’ aka another rearrangement of the orchestra’s chairs
20
I was watching the BOM rain radars off and on to see just how “Catastrophic” this rain event would be for us in sunny Ballarat, initially you could see decent falls west of us (Warrnambool) that got about 1 inch (25mm) of rain Friday then 1.6mm total to taday, we got a similar start then 25mm up to today, Warragul got 29.2mm Friday then 32.2mm since, N/E of the state had 100mm total as a common average with a few exceptions.
Point being is the rain was very predictable regarding intensity coming in and there was no need for the pants wetting disaster warnings that continued throughout from MSM, Government, emergency services, this behaviour serves no purpose but to socially condition the younger people into accepting information given without questioning the source, very much how the science of “climate change” is presented except that “science” is exempt from the scientific method where impartial testing is concerned.
181
I think it has the potential to do worse. This is Chicken Little or The boy who cried wolf stuff, the more strident they get about impending catastrophes that never eventuate, the more people will be inclined to ignore them.
This is akin to the 40 kmh roadwork signs that are everywhere, often many kilometres before you get to any works, often no works happening at all, often left after road works have finished and other times an end of road works sign never appearing. People start to ignore these signs because there is no consistency in their use. They thus become ineffective.
181
IIRC a few years ago in Victoria the temporary roadworks speed limits were lifted when no work was being done, but of course somewhere on the way of government acting to protect us from ourselves it appears to be scrapped.
Just searching and see it was possibly a law amendment pushed by RACV that took effect as a responsibility placed on the roadworks contractor to change the signage………guess that worked out well….
60
You have had a taste of what we in the cyclone belt cop every time one gets close – Gross exaggeration the norm.
91
All this stuff sounds a bit strange for those of us up ‘ere intha north, where 200mm in 8 hours is normal, and 800mm in 18 hours can be a problem.
50
‘this behaviour serves no purpose but to socially condition the younger people into accepting information given without questioning the source’
I wonder if, in fact, it is socially conditioning the young to view government as comical.
50
I found the young screaming unfounded abuse at us in the middle of Melbourne for displaying the national flag not to be so comical, remember the minorities don’t matter its how many follow their lead that do.
40
It looks like this is catching on: https://youtu.be/DGFJO3nohgo (how UC Berkeley students react to US flag and ISIS flag)
30
Unbelievable reactions, I wonder which flag they’d go to if the S@it hit the fan?
40
The 2011 Toowoomba flood is one of the factors that has hyped the BoM warning system. It appears they err on the side of caution. The risk there is that people get used to dire predictions and tune out.
There are certainly some areas of Victoria that got rainfall in the predicted range.
80
BoM has been criticised in the past for not predicting heavy hailstones, like in Sydney some years ago which cost the insurance companies a pretty penny.
If you have never witnessed climate change in your lifetime, this is your chance, the low pressure trough from Perth to somewhere east of NZ is a regional cooling signal.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
If anyone disagrees, please don’t be shy in voicing your opinion.
41
Yep, disagree . Mainly because, if the next cooling period is only going to drop 0.4 degrees over the next 100 years, and even if it’s started now, I can’t see how, at this early stage, any temp changes would be noticeable. Lots of assumptions in my response though. However, my own belief is that this cooling period HAS started, even though I don’t have any real solid proof to backup my belief.
20
There was a grin in my response. Obviously I shouldn’t use angle brackets…
30
What if temperatures dropped 0.4 over the next few years, do you think it might have an impact?
10
Lost my response, darn global warning again… If the little ice age is any indication, then yes, I believe the world will notice this temp drop. But if currently we are only experiencing less than 0.1 degree drop, I can’t see any way to prove that cooling has commenced.
20
Roy Spencer should have the November UAH figure up tomorrow.
It seems cool here in Melbourne but UAH seems to tell a different story.
10
If we observe a distinct change in the weather, different to what we could expect under AGW, then that will be the start.
Temperatures fall slowly, but when there are a number of oscillations in tandem the situation can change quite rapidly. So I suggest we go cherry picking to illustrate global cooling as it happens.
I’m losing faith in Spencer.
10
The Low pressure areas from just north of Perth west to east around the northern area of Australia indicate hot rising air—from sun-warmed sand, rock, shallow rivers etc.
Coriolous force will make them spin slowly. They’re there every Southern Hemisphere summer.
10
Maybe, I’ll give it some thought.
10
Blocking Highs are a global cooling signal, true or false?
10
el gordo asked:
I don’t know.
High pressure areas tend to dawdle along because they are made of cold dense dry air. Air which has been tossed up high by low pressure areas and has dried, chilled and descended to form high pressure areas is all I have observed.
When you have a low pressure area, the air is warm and rises. Coriolus force makes it start rotating, clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. It depends on the moisture content for what happens next. I’ve watched a mighty thunderstorm grow over Gosford Beach during a still but humid day. That’s the sort of thing which happens when there is plenty of moisture in the air. We get those quite often in Auckland, too.
The air in the centre of the Low pressure area can’t go anywhere except up. Straight up. It forms the `curtain wall’ in the centre of the depression.
Cloud requires condensation nucleii to form. It doesn’t matter how saturated the air is with water vapour, there has to be fine particles of `dirt’ for cloud droplets to form. The particles have to be charged which is where the collision debris from the very high energy cosmics, the muons, comes in. Fine dust particles which carry a charge will also do. A cloud droplet also needs sulphuric acid and tiny traces of ammonia (see the CLOUD experiment and its papers from cern.org.) which cluster around a charged speck. They grab and hang on to water vapour being a polarised molecule. There is lot’s of sulphuric acid thrown into the air along sea coasts with shallow water rich in kelp, which is why these afternoon thunder showers form along the Auckland Beaches and beaches like Gosford in Oz. It’s also why rain is always acidic.
But these desert lows are miserably dry so the air just rises. I would expect them to reform fresh every day but I’m not at all sure of that.
What happens as the air rises? It cools. By the time it’s high in the troposphere it’s pretty cold. Frigid. Cold air is dense air. It’s pushed off to the south to where there is also colder air and it descends because it’s cold and dense, forming a high pressure zone. A temperature gradient literally forms a pressure gradient. Cold dense air doesn’t move fast which is possibly why high pressure areas tend to creep along and are described as `blocking.’ It takes a lot of sunshine to warm that air again and get it moving. I don’t know how much `dissolving’ of an anti-cyclone takes place but they do get a move on when the central pressure drops.
The High Pressure Area rotates anti clockwise. I haven’t fully worked that bit out yet, but my hypothesis is because the coldest air is the most southerly and is `on the deck,’ being dragged east by the surface, and possibly also driven by atmospheric friction from surrounding low pressure areas—any mixture of the two. As it warms, it rises and loses contact.
Across the very north of Australia, the main influence would be the tropical monsoon. I’ve not thought or read very much about that at all.
That’s all I have worked out so far. I keep meaning to get some of the meteorological texts but I can’t afford them. (They ain’t cheap!) yet.
It could be that the intensity of the high pressure area (it’s central pressure in hecto-pascals) has something to do with cooling because the air in high pressure areas is dry and where there are big, high-pressure anti-cyclones, there can be drought. Whether or not these big anti-cyclones are a cooling sign, I’m not prepared to commit to, yet. I will point out that droughts require persistent anti-cyclones (`highs’) and are more prevalent and longer lasting in cooler times. Other than that, I have no idea. I want to look back at the patterns since 1950 to see what has happened but I don’t have access to those sort of records at the moment.
This is all from a little reading, a lot of observing, and much thinking. I guess I know enough to be `dangerous.’ Where I’m wrong, I’m keen to be corrected. But I need to know mechanisms, the hows and whys. That’s where the IPCC fails. It’s mechanisms are no better than CCS (Cargo Cult Science).
20
Thanks for that Sophocles.
My argument is simple, for a couple of decades the high pressure belt in the Southern Hemisphere has been ‘intense’ (a global warming signal), but in July it lost its intensity so I’m calling it a global cooling signal.
Blocking Highs, like the one over NZ at the moment, allows low pressure troughs to produce unstable weather, and cool damp onshore winds to Queensland.
The 1950s are a good place to start, to see whats coming, big floods in the south east. You can also check out the late 1880s and 1890s to glimpse the same phenomenon.
The 60 year cycle appears to be involved, but from my reading that is a PDO/AMO influence and not the Southern Annular Mode.
00
november out look for Victoriastan.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/vic/summary.shtml
20
Very interesting reading that outlook , the records broken for temp include those that equalled the old temps and quite a few are .1 or .2 warmer than the previous recorded hottest day .
30
‘quite a few are .1 or .2 warmer’
And, based on other JoNova posts, measured more or less instantaneously rather than smoothed by glass thermometer (relative) lack of responsiveness.
60
Exactly what baselines do BOM use for their “averages”? Are these moving or fixed?
10
These hyped up warnings from BoM were not without consequence and caused a lot of people to change their travel and other arrangements, some businesses closed early and some people installed sandbags in critical areas to prevent flooding. I told people I know not to take it too seriously because the BoM is no longer trustworthy and alters historic temperature data and uses invalid computer models and temperature measuring techniques.
120
People I know had booked and payed for a weekend up at Mt Buffalo and cancelled on the Thursday given the warning that was put out and told no refund unless the park was closed .
Ended up being closed .
40
It’s a joke. Mt buffalo weather:
http://www.bom.gov.au/places/vic/M5QW/
Rainfall from 9:00am: 0.0 mm.
Forecast issued at 2:57 pm AEDT on Sunday 3 December 2017.
It got 55.2 mm on Friday and 4.6 mm on Saturady (Up to 9:00am.
http://www.bom.gov.au/places/vic/M5QW/observations/wangaratta/
55 mm and they shut the place down? Just as well it doesn’t snow up there.
20
Headline: Thousands narrowly escape death as plane flies over.
60
They’ve an “extreme weather desk” –the analogy to that line about a person with a hammer treating everything as a nail comes to mind.
10
It’s true all cars on Earth could only spew,
A fraction of volcanic CO2.
The voters should think, how best, to be rid,
Of those who would destroy a working grid.
A new alarmist climate warming dread,
Is that of causing more child brides to wed.
Beware of zealot plans and unsafe schemes,
Which governments enact to please the Greens.
A battery helps S.A. folk relax,
As with more power cuts they burn less wax.
120
“Burn less wax”—for four minutes anyway.
90
This epitomises the attitudes held by the climate worriers: http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/obama-says-he-cant-have-discussion-people-who-dont-believe-climate-change .
Guess who have the closed minds?
100
I’d argue its impossible to have a scientific discussion with those that don’t believe in science.
Intellect comes in many forms and people of his ilk are very clever in deception and lies to further their position.
90
Obama was a lawyer. ‘Nuff said.
10
Wikipedia users beware…
As some of you know I’m attempting to write a science fiction novel. I’ve relied on the internet a lot to refresh my memory about certain things and among the useful things, Wikipedia is very helpful for general information. I was looking at details of the Mount Palomar Telescopes on Wiki a little while ago when I tried to bring up a page and there was a message on top of it framed in bright red saying that I appear to use Wiki a lot — sometimes true — followed by a plea for a donation. There were 3 or 4 different ways to donate, each with a button along the bottom of the message window. All well and good so far but then I looked for a way to dismiss that window or move it out of my way and I could find no way to do either. Thankfully I have the best ad blocking ability in the world so I blocked that window as an ad and read what I was looking for.
Now, the plea for support is something I don’t mind. But doing it the way they did looks like extortion to me — pay or else.
I thought everyone would like to know.
What I was looking up was just for background and I probably won’t actually use a bit of it except indirectly. But there I was, under coercion to ante up lest I not get for free what is announced to all the world as a free online encyclopedia.
Everyone have a great weekend.
Roy
101
So far the active word is “attempting”.
This quote is what keeps me going.
I should live so long… But it’s nice to hear from an acknowledged master that it ain’t easy.
70
I know difficult writing can be. Putting out a blog post once a week keeps you on your toes all the time.
50
And it’s getting harder to write a sentence without some silly grammatical error (missing words etc).
40
A career counsellor at my school, told me that being a writer, was a very prosaic occupation.
20
Come now, Rereke. Surely you can do better than to say prose is prosaic. 😉
Your career counsellor was not serving you very well. You should get a refund. 🙂
10
Hi Roy, I am just reading Cixin Liu’s ‘The Dark Forest’.
This is 2nd book in the trilogy of ‘The Three Body Problem’
Recommend to everyone. Fascinating and mind stimulating, great science fiction. Good luck with yours.
Regards GeoffW
10
I had never heard of The Dark Forest so I just looked it up. Interesting how so much science fiction — and science as well — revolves around aliens from another world. I have no idea how much money the human race has spent in the search for extraterrestrial life but it must be a huge sum by now.
I once worked with a guy who was using the company’s PC to analyze segments of captured radio astronomy data for patterns that might indicate an actual message from somewhere. Any time he wasn’t at his desk he had this thing running, I suppose without company approval. Apparently there is a considerable network of people wiling to turn their computers over to SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Aside from the world of fiction where you can invent any universe you want to, the chance of actually finding a recognizable message no matter how you analyze the spectrum, is essentially zero.
The chance of making the trip to even our nearest star, about 4.5 light-years, is also essentially zero. Ditto for any trip in the other direction.
But it fascinates and stimulates the imagination doesn’t it. From HG Wells to Roy Hogue I’m wondering just how large the inventory of such stories would be if we could count them all.
10
“As some of you know I’m attempting to write a science fiction novel.”
It looks like there’s a huge market for short stories in the media for climate change science fiction. If you add graphs and stuff there’s even more demand in peer-reviewed journals – but you don’t get paid for those, at least not directly.
Seems to sell best if you keep it really, really scary, simple and stupid.
30
… keep it really, really scary, simple and stupid.
I don’t think Roy is writing about Australian Prime Ministers, but I do take your point.
50
Actually it’s about aliens who are fleeing the destruction of their home planet and after a log trip they arrive at Earth having left home with the intent of simply killing off any intelligent species and taking over whatever habitable planet they find. But on arrival they’re not so sure they want to kill off the species they find on Earth.
After a long time in space their discipline starts to break down and there’s a division of opinion when they finally get here. After they’re here and studying us and our planet fighting breaks out aboard with 3 different factions at each other’s throat and only one of those factions remaining loyal to the captain. The story is all about what happens when the aliens try making contact with humans. It ends up with the captain depending on a human scientist (the hero of course) being drafted to help him resolve his problems.
Thee’s everything from fantastic technology, political corruption and cold blooded murder to a love story. The back stories are always better than the main plot and I hope mine are too. It should be recommended reading for everyone… Well, I should be so lucky. 😉 But you never know until you try.
Just imagine the possibilities.
10
It happens every time there is an economic tightening or a crash. There was a small one this year. Pat pointed to GEM (GE Money) either cutting or cancelling their payouts to shareholders and there are other companies especially in the financial sector, who are feeling a pinch too.
Whomever it was sponsoring Wikipedia must have had to tighten their belts. It may go away in the New Year, or a bit later but it will re-appear in 2026.
10
They asked for no more than $10, even $5 or just $1 but I’m worried — and with good justification — that if I send them the $5 or $10 they asked for it won’t stop. And worse, I supported one candidate I thought worthy of my support, just one, in 2008. And before long my email address belonged to everyone and his brother who could even remotely be called Republican or conservative.
If so many friends and family didn’t have my email address I’d cancel it and go with another provider with a new address. But the job of notifying everyone is not easy. I’ve been on the internet with this same email address for about 20 years.
20
That’s why I don’t give in to those sorts of requests. I like Wikipedia and I would like to see it survive, but I’m not prepared to expose myself through a non-anonymous donation. The requests would never end.
Hmm. I think I’ll create a second email address just for that sort of thing.
I could make it a Hot Mail one and leave the spam handling to Microsoft. 🙂
You could create yourself a second private email address and slowly push it out to family and then friends, Roy, and leave your present one as your `spam address’ to be cleaned out annually.
10
Roy, use a gmail account. It is independent of your ISP. You only have to send the new address to your trusted family and friends, then close your original email account. When you get unsolicited email you can mark it as spam and you will never again see it in your inbox.
10
I already have a gmail account. I had to create it when something about my original address would not let me get the confirmation required to get a license to convert a file over 100 MB to .mp4. The gmail account worked and I got the file converted.
That’s the only thing I’ve used it for. They started getting picky about security when I went back so see if I had any of the usual spam you might expect from such a site. They wanted a phone number they could send a text message to in case I lost my password. Nuts to that. I just write down the passwords in a file on the computer and keep them hidden unless I need to get a password.
It was all because there’s a site that will do a good job of converting just about any video to .mp4 but if the file is over 100 MB they want to be paid. They’ll sell you a 24 hour license for $5 allowing you to convert as much as you want during that 24 hours — a really good deal.
They’ll convert 100 MB or less for nothing.
The URL is https://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-mp4 if anyone is interested. It also converts to almost anything else you might want. It’s fast too.
00
If I have mp4 files I can stream then directly to the TV in the living room using the Blu-ray player. When I bought it I had no idea how many things it could do. It cost me $500 and I bought it to replace my Sony X33ES CD player that cost me $550 in 1990. All the Sony did was play CDs and the OPPO BDP-103 will handle any disk they knew about when it was designed plus too many other things to list.
Technology does indeed grow exponentially.
00
I suppose I should teach my son to convert the video of my grandson before sending it to me. But I think he has his hands full with a kid approaching 2 years old.
00
Is it just me or has the ABC reduced the amount of CAGW stories it produces ? Also noticed was the lack of blaming CAGW for the great Tasmanian heatwave of 2017 and the big flood of Victoriastan also same year where the whole of the state was drenched by up to 300mm of rain .
Truly unprecedented!
51
The language is changing, as usual.
Global warming, climate change – out.
Extreme weather – in.
40
The UN defines Climate Variability which is climate changing through all natural means and Climate Change which is purely anthropogenic.
Well, we know Climate Change is so small there’s no real evidence for it; no identifiable footprint and most certainly no mechanism!
So now someone is going for Extreme Weather?
Good. This is the perfect counter foil. Hand it out to every one who even so much as mentions extreme weather. It’s well worth watching the whole thing—especially from 2:00 minutes in to the end.
20
We need a lot of research into the effects of Space Weather. The coincidences are too frequent to remain just coincidence. There was the well-known Carrington Event in the nineteenth century, after all.
20
It is possible that at the federal level (and I’ll include the ABC in that) there is a withdrawal from climate rhetoric. Lack of interest by the US, and skepticism in the Libs may help. It might be that politically it is better just to quietly drop the subject rather than loudly proclaim skepticism and invite push back.
I can only imagine we’d have a flood of AGW if the ALP get back in.
CO2 makes the government grow…
60
So, how is the weather forecast for a new ‘hottest summer ever’ going in Australia?
After all 2017 will be declared the hottest year ever, or maybe the 2nd hottest (despite all the snow affecting lots of the Northern Hemisphere both at the start and end of the year.)
71
It’s bloody freezing here in the northeast today .
70
Its also cool on the central tablelands of NSW, I forecast that global warming in the Australian media has probably reached its ‘used by’ date.
81
Some of the inland North Coast towns in NSW have had a ‘cooling’ Spring (i.e. Nov’s max mean temp was cooler than Oct which was cooler than Sep). I believe that this is the first time this has happened in the temp records.
I doubt if that will make the news.
100
I doubt that cooling will remain very long in the records, they will soon be “adjusted”.
51
The fall will be too large to ignore.
https://digitaldiatribes.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/amo200906.jpg
20
Robert r,
If it’s freezing, it is due to global warming.
The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.
70
After two weeks of warmth (at last,) we fired up the woodstove again last night as things chilled off again. This is Victoria…what else do you expect?
80
This morning in Tasmania
50
Explain that BOM! To me that is just part of the variable weather we have seen before, like the snow we saw at Pretty Valley, Falls Creek a week before Christmas. I also remember the photo in The Age a few years back; fires in the High Country but snow on Christmas Day and a 4WD windscreen message saying ‘Merry Xmas’.
41
WOW! That is not summer!
BOM!, Oh BOM we’ve found an anomaly…
31
Bernd Felsche, I hope you don’t mind but I’ve posted this comment on Ice Age Now at https://www.iceagenow.info/headed-major-glaciation/#comment-388245 ; it’s in moderation at the moment (that’s usual here so may appear tomorrow Sunday US Eastern Time afternoon).
50
Fear not, SA is being saved by the “big battery”, AEMO station HPRG1.
On Nov 30, it pumped up to 70 MW into the grid from 1540 to 1640, with up to 30 MW on Dec 1&2 for less than 30 minutes.
Meanwhile those diesel generators at SATGS1 (at the desal plant south of Adelaide) delivered 30 MW into the grid for 3 hours on Dec 1, while SATGN1 (at the former Holden factory at Elizabeth) has yet to deliver.
Is there anyone living close by who can check what diesel storage there is at each site? Presumably there is existing storage at both sites.
70
“Up to 70MW ” for an hour. Integrated over the time, what was the actual MWh Energy total? I’ll bet it wasn’t 70MWh. Plus, each cycle you run at near capacity either on the charge or discharge cycle degrades their deliverable output. Then they start to get hotter in the delivery, and down the rabbit hole they slowly wind, getting more difficult to balance the series to the weakest link in the chain. Stay tuned. Make sure they tell the truth one year from now.. (sarc)
50
Reading another Jo Nova blog, it seems that the battery output will be split into two outputs: One output to supply 70MW for 10mins and the other output to supply 30MW for other (undefined?) uses. So a total of around 100MW, which seems about right if you assume 80% efficiency. However, pulling 70MW in 10 mins, if done on a regular basis, will almost certainly shorten the battery lifetime.
20
@Graeme#4: I’ve done a lot of design for custom specialized high energy density batteries for tough environments, have destroyed more than I can count along that process, and can say that they are difficult to manage in large series clumps within their rather narrow fragile top and bottom window. Limiting the charge at the individual cell level both on the low and high side is a big deal. Consistent cooling at high loadings is mandatory across all series elements and groups of elements, since the amps they can shunt individually and by subgroups is no different than any other (Square of the current)*(Internal resistance). They can run off in an instant. Otherwise, they can be greatly handicapped individually, in their sub grouping, etc and have to be electronically culled from the circuit. Inevitably, they will internally start to show cracks in their performance, and that is cycle dependent on both the charge and discharge and the rate. And guess what? This application by it’s nature of being intermittent wind won’t give the pack any time to rest for a mint julip, and the swings are on the limit for both charge and discharge if they are to fulfil their destiny. This is a very different role than charging your tesla 5 times a week, and gently recovering a few amps down hill on the run or on the brakes. It will be interesting to see how they hold up.
70
I’ve designed only one battery and charger system for a high-temperature environment, which included also designing the transformer – Schrade curves came in handy IIRC. But I have had to choose rechargeable batteries for products that were produced in their 1000s, and you certainly don’t want a battery leaking all over a PCB. What you have dealt however far exceeds anything I’ve worked with, and I do have some understanding of running batteries in series and parallel combinations. I do however think that the Tesla engineers have put a lot of design effort into this, and it seems to be working for their cars, hence by extension it probably will also work for the stationary battery systems. If they are using the car battery modules, I believe these have an integrated liquid cooling system threaded through the cells, so I think cooling should be ok. Perhaps the battery cabinets also have additional cabinet cooling. As you say, if they are planning to have sudden peaks of high- current discharges, then the batteries won’t last long. Haven’t seen any mention of additional super capacitors in the system to assist.
10
Even Tesla admit they are pushing the boundaries of proven system experience with the BFB, especially with regard to the discharge power at 70MW max from its 129 MWh capacity. (0.6 “C” )
But in reality, that is well within the ability of the cell chemistry they use, which has been tested and shown to have the ability to perform many thousands of 100% DoD cycles with less than 10% capacity loss, even at discharge rates many times greater than suggested in this pack.
Their pack management systems can easily control and limit the charge rate to a level that minimises pack degridation.
There are some details of the Powerpack here..
https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/powerpack?redirect=no
10
The more I look into the possible battery cell that is used, the more confused I become. Apparently Samsung battery cells are used, and if these are 2170 format, then the only specs I can find for Samsung 2170 batteries are for the INR21700/30T. These indicate a max. discharge of 35A, with a cycle life of only 250 cycles at this discharge rate. However, I suspect that this is NOT the actual battery used (It’s used for electronic vaping.) Then I read where Tesla says it uses NMC (Nickel, Maganese, Cobalt) batteries for grid use, which I presume a different battery, but I’ve not seen any info on suitable NMC batteries that could be used, and all info for Powerwall batteries, etc., points to them using 2170 or 1650 batteries.
10
Powerpack 2 ( the current version) definitely uses 21700 cells) and if they are Samsung in SA as Musk suggests , then they are likely a “customerised” version of the Samsung 21700 48G…a 4.8 AH cell with a max continuous discharge rating of 9.6 A. (35 A pulse rate)
https://www.imrbatteries.com/samsung-48g-21700-4800mah-flat-top-battery/
Tesla would have had these cells manufactured to their own specification..as they have before for car packs, with cells from Samsung, LG, and others……and no doubt optimesed for maximum cycle life, which is still one of Teslas untold “secret sauce” tricks.
20
Just to add, …
Several sources have published data showing the BFG charging at a 30MWh rate and discharging at 70 MWh when needed.
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2017/11/hornsdale-power-reserve-a-k-a-the-worlds-biggest-battery-begins-to-charge/
That charge rate is inline with the accepted 0.2 C charge rate most Lithium cell manufacturers recommend for maximising cycle life and capacity retention.
It will be interesting to see if they ever exceed this charge rate over the coming months.
20
Thanks for the additional info Chad. Looks very interesting. The Renew website has an excellent table showing the power being generated in all states, including WA.
10
One conclusion I came to this morning is that perhaps Tesla has made an engineering Bo-bo with this backup battery design, as its purpose could be totally different to a home Powerwall which only has to provide backup a small amount of times, whereas this large battery may have to provide lots of high-output backup intervals, something that a lithium battery is not designed to do. It will be very interesting in the coming months to see how they actually use this battery.
00
I’m guessing that the service factor application is net new to them. That’s the crux of the story and the elephant in the cabinets, IMO. If they charge the system at 0.2C, that’s 5 hours to get there, not counting inefficiencies. If they discharge at 0.6C, that’s 1 hr 36 minutes. Assuming it does that, it would naturally mean the wind farm is in need of wind and can’t help. Now what? A pause until the wind rises again? Then another 5 hours to get recharged… after the wind starts blowing again. So at best, the minimum blackout without other intervention and the wind comes back the same day is 5 – 1.7 = 3.3 hrs + wind pause time. Is there a point to all this that I’m missing?.
00
The BFB cannot, and is not intended to supply back up for extended periods.
Its intended as “quick response” to problems or peaks, to back up for a few minutes only until the bank of rented diesel burning gensets can fire up some of their 276 MW to prop up the lack of wind..
As to costs…
One local paper has reported the cost at $33m but omitted to say if that is Au or US$ ?
Musk has said he doged having to carry the us$50m cost of the project by meeting the “100 day or its free” bet he made.
I have said repeatedly that the last recorded commercial price for Tesla PowerPack installations was US$350,000/MWh, which would put the cost at us$45m , fully installed.
00
They’ve been very quiet about diesel supply, there’d have to be decent access for tankers to enter and exit for the scenario of the generators having to be used for long periods of time, the average tanker carries around 30k litres.
50
Port Stanvac used to be an oil refinery, the remnants are still visible via google maps, as is the “port stanvac power station”, which, I guess, may be home to these new gen-sets. 2 obvious storage tanks are visible… but maybe someone else knows more. I haven’t had cause to visit this area for quite a few years, since a former employer had an office in Lonsdale.
https://goo.gl/maps/36CxSUBxbwJ2
10
Thanks James. I estimate those two horizontal cylindrical tanks are each about 3 metres diameter by 10 metres long, so that would give a total storage capacity of 150,000 litres. However, the Google image of Pt Stanvac diesel power station is an older peaking station that is listed with a capacity of 65 MW from 36 engines. Adjacent to it is Lonsdale diesel power station with 18 engines, total peak production of 20 MW. Both are listed as generators on the Anero.id site. The new generators at SATGS1 capacity 123 MW are reportedly at the nearby Lonsdale Desalination Plant and don’t show up on Google maps.
As an aside, the Desal plant uses about 50 MW of electricity at capacity, and uses 3.47 to 3.70 kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilolitre of water produced, all from “renewables” under a contract with AGL wind generators. Since 2012 the plant has been operating at 10% of its capacity, to keep it functioning. Electricity for Adelaide’s desalination plant cost $13.5 million last financial year despite it producing only 2 per cent of the state’s water supply.
10
Robber
Not sure if this will help.
Some fuel figures from another site for a RR 25000 hp turbine on a pump using 30000 US gallons per day. Point 6 of the start-up procedure was “Order 100000 gallons”.
10
At the very least, the local taxpayers should demand that they put the realtime outputs of the battery pack (both I/O) online so the citizenry can watch the show raw and unfiltered. I’m sure the political class will jump at the suggestion to demonstrate the effectiveness of the strategy. I’d put the link in my favorites, for sure. 🙂
50
You can see the big battery output for the last four days here
30
It’s described as a “power station” LoL.
30
There is a journalist at news.com.au who seems to make it a mission in life to ramp up weather events shamelessly.
For instance under “Above average temperatures to sweep through Australia’s south” on Nov 27 he wrote: “A projected high of 34C in Melbourne on Thursday [30th] would be hotter than any day during last week’s heatwave — or indeed any day during November”.
The maximum was indeed 34C but according to BOM records the all-time November maximum recorded in Melbourne was 40.9C on the 27th Nov. 1894.
90
Ah, Benedict Brook.
Another left-wing Pommy backpacker type who is welded onto the green-left scare. Fancy? He edited a student newspaper.
It shows.
He’s still writing like an emotional immature undergraduate, all hysterical. That’s the sort of writing the boys and girls just love. He’s been infected with the emotional virus.
No doubt he has a following. They will eventually grow up. When they do, he’ll be wondering what happened. Just like crooked Hillary.
20
You can see the sort of rubbish he writes here:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/the-reason-why-a-procession-of-unmarked-trucks-contents-unseen-heads-from-nsw-to-queensland-every-night/news-story/0a746c1dc7cd46aed4a75dc48b6f5018
It’s so bad he has an hysterical fit about it being sent to Queensland. Can you spot his first four drafts? No? It’s in that pile on the left; full of typos and corrections, tear stained to boot. And the editor hasn’t even got to it yet.
10
Snowing in Tasmania. Nust be globull warming.
https://www.facebook.com/SNOWSEARCH.australia/videos/951853994988801/
61
Does the snow cancel the few days of extreme heat they got ?
61
That makes the weather system responsible for that a good candidate for repeating it in the Otago hills (NZ) in about five to seven days time … snow in summer. Again. Great.
40
David Maddison, I hope you don’t mind but I’ve posted this comment on Ice Age Now at https://www.iceagenow.info/headed-major-glaciation/#comment-388245 ; it’s in moderation at the moment (that’s usual here so may appear tomorrow Sunday US Eastern Time afternoon).
40
Found an interesting thread on Reddit for the TM2500, from a person that has installed and ran them,
Also the fuel storage details may be kept quiet for security reasons te&&orist attacks etc….
60
‘te&&orist attacks’
Is that what the ALP calls voting these days? 😉
50
On average, diesel gensets burn 270 to 280 Liters/Hr/Mw .
Useful reference page, in US Gallons http://www.dieselserviceandsupply.com/Diesel_Fuel_Consumption.aspx
Multiply by 3.78 to get consumption in Liters/Hr.
I was part of an installation of 2 each CAT 2 MW units. CAT 3516 engines.
Burned About 470 L/Hr each fuel. And about .25 L/hr of lube oil.
If SA runs the lot of their recently contracted 276 Mw of diesel gensets, they’d need about 75000 Liters/hr or some 1.85 million liters/24 hrs. If the tanker trucks are 30 K Liters each, that’s 2.5 tankers/hr. Fuel cost is approx 1000 USD/minute at full load on the lot of them.
70
Thanks Lance I saw your references in the last thread, very valuable to have people with first hand experience offering information.
What is the usual fuel storage method at these sites or does it vary depending on the operator?
Also I couldn’t see if a TM2500 unit had its own fuel tank or does it feed in directly into the inlet?
50
Fuel storage can be aboveground bermed single wall tank or double wall below ground tanks with leak detection. In either case, there has to be an automated fuel transfer system from the main storage to the genset day tanks. As well, centrifugal water separators, micron scale filters, high/low/alarm float sensors, etc. The environmental protection agencies will get involved, too.
In Sri Lanka, we used double wall below ground storage tanks with leak detection because of insurgent Tamil tiger threats. In Sao Tome, we used 2 each 1.5 Million Liter storage tanks with bermed containment dikes at 150% contained volume.
That said, the cost of the gensets was perhaps 30% of the total cost of installation. The rest was for tanks, switchgear, paralleling gear, protective relaying, leak detection, fuel filtration and water separation, etc.
Even so, diesel gensets that aren’t Utility Rated have limited duty cycles. Standby and Commercial ratings are much lower than nameplate output and the run time is limited by the alternator winding temperature. Not uncommon to have a 2 to 4 hour cooldown period at zero load just to protect the alternator rotor and stator windings.
I’m somewhat gobsmacked that SA would shut down their coal plants and turn to diesel. Financially and practically a truly ignorant decision. The fuel cost / Kw at coal is 4 cents. Fuel cost for diesel is 25 cents. Overhead costs for the existing coal plant is likely 6 to 10 cents. Amortization and overhead for the diesels is likely 25 to 30 cents/kwh.
Unless the diesels run jacket heaters 24/7 at 5 to 10 KW / genset, you will not be starting them up and engaging them in 8 minutes as claimed. From a signal to start, it takes 15 minutes to get the genset up and running stably at full oil pressure and temperature, synchronized, and engaged. The starting batteries are a maintenance headache. I prefer air starters. More robust and reliable. Unless you get the Hospital grade silencers for the gensets, they are LOUD.
David Maddison is correct. Using diesel when you have coal or gas is not very wise at all.
140
It’s a wicked waste burning a valuable transport fuel like diesel to generate electricity. That’s what coal is for.
These gensets are meant for remote mining settlements or outback towns.or island settlements.
Where else in the civilised world does diesel get burned to make grid electricity? (Serious question, does anyone know?)
According to the link (below) diesel costs 45 times more per unit of energy than coal.
http://www.science-ebooks.com/ematrix7/cost_ratio_diesal_to_coal.htm
90
From searching info on the TM2500 they seem to be used as grid power in developing countries/areas until they get a coal or gas station up and running.
I guess Australia is doing a great job in reverse engineering our technological advancements for everyone else’s sake…..except everyone else doesn’t care…….unless you can con public money out of the imbeciles in charge of said money……then its all good…….unless you’re the poor bastards getting less for more cost………and doing nothing to save anything that didn’t need saving in the first place………then its all a bit silly really……..unless your mentally impaired by green ideology………then everything is unicorns and rainbows at the basket weaving collective…….but you remember that Trump won……and doesn’t care what you believe……then being a supporter of equality and love being love you pray he dies…….except praying is a sign of belief in something bigger than Marxism……..so you stick pins into a Trump doll……..except your’e now appropriating a culture risking your online diversity officer qualifications……….so you join Antifa to show your individuality……except everyone is wearing the same black clothes…….
Sorry off on a tangent there…..
120
A minor correction re fuel tanker capacity – a standard tri-axle semi carries around 42000l of diesel and a B-double about 60000l.
50
Surely that cannot be correct?
If it is where is the EPA? Where the WWF? Greenpeace? The Australian Conservation Foundation?
Where’s the Liberal opposition?
20
Huge oil discovery in China.
https://www.rt.com/document/5a2107f4fc7e936b528b4567/amp/411524-china-trillion-oil-deposit-discovered
40
Damn, have you ever had one of those ‘I wish I had done that’ moments, and here, for me, that was taking a screen print, because I thought that the data would be saved somewhere, so I didn’t bother, and it now looks like it’s lost to me.
Like most of you I suppose, I have a couple of weather sites I check when it comes to local weather, one being the BOM radar, and the second being the WeatherZone site, and for my local area here in Rockhampton, this is the link for that site. I visit that site on a daily basis, just to check all that info there.
Now, once at that site, (open in a new tab) scroll to the bottom. (of the weather information, just above the usual advertising cr@p there.) On the right side, note the heading Rockhampton AP Almanac. (AP for airport) where it lists the data for just the current Month, December.
Now, at that one area which shows the current Month, see the second section down, maximum temp data and that is revised on a daily basis. Note the entry for … average this Month.
The average for the whole Month of November was 2.9 Degrees LOWER than the long term average. That long term average for November is 31.3, so the Monthly average for that (just last Month) November was 28.4C, and you might imagine fractions of one degree change, but not a full 2.9 degrees across a whole Month
So much for the supposed hottest ever.
Screen print fail ….. bah humbug!
Tony.
101
We are getting more and more global cooling signals but they will be missed as BoM and others relentlessly and fr@udulently adjust measured temperatures upwards.
81
Were you trying to save an image Tony? If you wanted the info about a graph or chart, you often don’t need to save a whole page: right click on the graphic and select View Image Info. The URI of the graphic can then be copied from the info window (CTRL+C) and pasted into the tab you want …
This assumes Firefox is your browser, should work on most others …
Example:
A weather satellite photo showing the weather system bringing snow to TAS today.
20
Saving URIs is more economical on disc space than whole images or print files 🙂
But URIs can disappear …
30
No, I think you needed/wanted the whole page. Sorry.
30
Tony,
If it was the hottest ever, that would be due to global warming.
If it was not the hottest ever, that would also be due to global warming.
The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.
51
Not only that Tony – Rockhampton Aero has had a ‘cooling’ Spring for max mean temps.
Sep – 30.8C
Oct – 29.9C
Nov – 29.2C
Also happened to places on the NC of NSW. Brisbane almost did it too with both Oct and Nov max means being equal at 27.0C after a warmish Sep (27.3).
A quick check of Rockhampton’s Aero and PO data shows that this has never happened before (as the three sites I checked on the NSW north coast).
30
Tony,
It pays to be a bit cautious when looking at weatherzone. If you hover the mouse over the underlined word “Record” a pop up appears that gives more info.
At the site you referred to, Rockhampton AP, the Almanac includes “78 Decembers between 1939 and 2016”.
I would think that there would be other records for a town like Rockhampton going back many years that may tell a different story.
However I agree it has been a cool November, also in Gympie as well. Brisbane even rated a mention on their ABC weather for not reaching a max of 30 deg for the month.
As an aside, I always find weatherzone to be on the alarmist side in their news items, but it is mostly owned by Fairfax so that is to be expected!
50
You’ve had a ‘cooling’ Spring in Gympie as well, GP. Seems a wider phenomena than I first thought.
And I doubt if it’s ever happened before.
30
Tony,
If you’re running Windows 10 it has a built in “snipping tool” that will save your images, by default in a sub-folder called screenshots under your Pictures folder. They are saved as .png files & there doesn’t appear to be any limit to the number of files you can save this way.
20
No, don’t get me wrong here. I take screen shots often, especially to put up at my home site.
I now have a new Computer with Windows 10, and I have also updated to the NBN as well.
I save the screenshots to the new Windows 10 ‘Paint’ program, which can now convert that image to jpg, something that Paint with XP could not do, saving it as a bmp which had to be converted in a semi convoluted process to a jpg image.
From there, I load that image into my new image program, Adobe Photoshop Elements, (and man, what a great program that is) and that program is all singing all dancing with images, for absolutely everything you want, and more I am yet to find. I have it all down pat now.
Thank heavens the NBN node is at the corner of my property line. I have been with Bigpond ADSL2+ since 2004, and I had three loyalty bonuses, so I was worried I would lose those bonuses when I swapped across to the NBN. The guy on the phone helping me through the initial process said they could do the NBN for the same cost. I asked for that confirmation in an email as well, and also in hard copy which he mailed out to me. So, I’m getting a speed of 22.6Mbits/sec, and have 50Gig of storage, not that I even reach that total, but that’s for the equivalent of %69.99 a Month, with those three $10 bonuses, so $39.9 a month, so sometimes loyalty pays off.
This time, I just clean forgot to take that screenshot.
Tony.
Incidentally, Windows 10, so easy to use, and the NBN with Bigpond, not one single problem so far with either.
30
Recommend using a screen grab program such as Ashampoo Snap Tony. A lot quicker, as you can go straight from the screen grab to an image file, or print, or as input to Photoshop Elements. Cuts out a lot of the intermediate steps. You can also erase, annotate or mark areas of the grab before using.
20
Nov 2016 33.4C
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=39083
10
Have noticed a substantial increase in the number of energy and climate articles in The Australian recently, and it seems that most of the journalists, with one notable exception, seem to be now reporting more accurately. It appears that they do read the hundreds of comments that follow their articles and adjust their reporting based on the information contained in the comments.
However, the alarmists, apart from repeating their usual mantras of renewable energy being cheaper than coal, are now introducing a more “scientific” approach in their comments by introducing more areas of contention.
40
You just gotta love it when a plan comes together so damned perfectly, eh!
We had our State election in Queensland here last weekend.
Our local electorate was held by Bill Byrne, a strong Labor factional member, and he resigned earlier this year, for umm, ‘health reasons’. Labor was expected to hold the seat very easily, as this is strong Labor territory at the State level.
Premier Palaszczuk made a ‘captains pick’ for a new Labor member to represent this local Electorate, the local and popular Mayor, Margaret Strelow, ostensibly an Independent locally, but in fact a long term member of the ALP. Strelow however, is not aligned with any of the main Union backed Factions. That Union backed faction grumbled that they might lose a factional seat in Parliament, so they put up their own candidate. There was the usual preselection, and, surprise surprise, that factional candidate won that preselection, well, was always expected to win.
A couple of days later, and much to the Premier’s
fauxshock, Strelow announced she would be running for the seat, umm, as an Independent. (but coming from her heartland, you can guess where her preferences would flow, as in fact they stated on the how to vote card, and how they did eventually flow)In the interim, between the preselection and the announcement, One Nation announced that they would be (as they did in nearly every seat) preferencing against the sitting member.
So, there was now going to be a four cornered contest.
On voting day evening as results came in, Primaries saw Labor just ahead of Strelow. The One Nation candidate was close behind Strelow, and the LNP was close behind the One nation guy.
All the talk (locally, and on the wider scale) for that night was that Rockhampton was close, and that Strelow might just get up and win. Being (ostensibly anyway) Independent, she got the flow of the other eliminated Independents, two of them, and the tiny Greens (who ended up in sixth place of seven Candidates) flowed to Labor.
Labor in front Strelow second, but not quite close enough. One Nation third, but just one percentage point behind Strelow.
LNP (fourth, and now eliminated) all added to One Nation, who now leapfrogged over Strelow into second. Strelow, now third, and eliminated, well all her preferences flowed straight to her heartland, ALP, and the Labor guy was elected with a quite comfortable two party preferred.
Status Quo!
And the Union backed factional member returns to Parliament.
Margaret Strelow, well, surprise surprise, she just goes back to being the Mayor.
Satisfied in a job well done.
Also, Annastacia was NEVER going to be Premier, never. Just an independent factional member from perhaps the strongest Labor electorate in the State, her father’s old seat of Inala, onof the poorest per capita electorates in the State, typical struggle street. Even in the Newman landslide, she maintained her majority. Everyone expected Bill Byrne or one of the other two factional leaders to take that job, to become Opposition Leader in a Party now reduced to (almost) non Party status. Annastacia was still not mooted to become Opposition leader, but the factions did not want to lead such a tiny group, so Annastacia fitted the bill on that front, and as that Newman landslide was a possible three election result, she could lead them to the next election, lose gracefully, but having recovered from virtually nothing, ….. and lost, she would then resign, and the factions would resume their control. (Whose turn is it next)
She won the election, just, in a Minority Government, and the factions were now snookered. They couldn’t sack her, as Premier. (just imagine how that would look)
So, unaligned, she stumbled on, and now she’s back again. Factions still scratching their heads, not game to call for a Party room vote. (just imagine how that would look)
However, watch how, around half way through this term, now having had her turn, a good one at that, she will, umm, resign, ever so gracefully, health or family reasons, the usual, and the factions will be back in charge, but hey, they’re pulling the strings now anyway, always have, always will.
Tony.
90
Tony,
The state remains in safe hands – those of the CFMEU.
AAAAAHHHHHGGGGG!!!!
70
Well Tony, that was interesting.
A lesson in Political Manipulation in Queensland.
But you’ve got to give it to those running the show, they did follow the rules of Political Correctness in using a female.
Meanwhile down in S.A. we are watching an experiment in Political Electricity and when blackout season gets here I look forward to your comments on that front.
We live in interesting times.
🙂 KK
60
As to that power situation in South Australia, the battery thing is a nothing cure, except for political gain in manipulating the masses.
Note that even while 109MWH (and that’s effectively the whole battery exhausted in less than one hour) they are using it in stages and one of them is a 70MWH ‘hit’. That’s supplying 70MW for one hour, and they ‘say’ that this is supposedly to be used in Peak Times. Those peaks in that State are usually around (Summer) over 2000MW, so that 70MW is around 3.5% of power …..but for barely an hour if that.
3.5%.
That’s nothing really if one of the usually operating Units fails at short notice. (is there any other?) Even if a Wind Plant drops off, and all other sources get exhausted, that 3.5% will not help, as a ‘cascading failure’ happens in seconds.
I see it as a short term thing, an instantaneous ‘big fast hit’ to give them the required 8 minutes to get those diesels up and delivering, and that’s 276MW. The second they are up and running, the battery is taken out of the system, and is immediately put back on charge, which takes longer than any quick discharge.
Tony.
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The info from the other Jo Nova blog (South Australia heads back… ! comment 18.1, that the battery would deliver 70MW for 10 minutes. And the NEM SATGS1 spikes, if they are indeed from this battery, seem to show this occurring. Surely this high discharge HAS to impact the battery lifetime.
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Whilst 70MW is the highest discharge rate of any Tesla system to date,…it is designed for that level of power which only represents approx 2.6 amps per cell or 0.54 C discharge. Thats well within the ability of a cell designed for a 9.6 Amp continuous discharge (2.0 C) ….
( assuming they are using those Samsung 48G cells ?)
I would have more concern over the durability and reliability of the high power inverters, which are the weakest component in these assemblies.
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‘Manipulating the masses’ is what it is all about.
You are so right Tony.
GeoffW
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Union Labor Inc have been using the independent candidate approach for some time in New South Wales, Windsor and Oakeshott often supported Labor when they were state members but as they represented safe National Party electorates they always campaigned as being former National conservatives. When they signed on with Rudd Labor in 2008 after Oakeshott won the Lyne by election and joined Windsor in Canberra (New England electorate) it was to provide support if the 2010 election result forced Labor out of government and needed to form a minority alliance to remain in power. The 2007 comfortable win produced too many marginal seats which would be at risk in 2010.
The “negotiation” with the Abbott Coalition was one sided and just political theatre and an opportunity to smear Tony Abbott in the process.
The NSW Labor independents were created and funded by cabinet minister and now prisoner Eddie Obeid and his mate Joe Tripodi and others. Their bagman was state independent MP Richard Torbay, another Lebanese migrant. Torbay resigned from Parliament in a hurray when the NSW ICAC was after him. There were at least two other Labor independents in NSW. Very handy to gain seats that Labor and Green could not win working together with preferences.
I heard sometime ago that Union Labor Inc plan to expand the use of independent candidates, if not as seat winners then as preference providers.
In my opinion the Australian Electoral Commission and state branches need a vacuum cleaning.
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By the way, writing in The Bulletin Magazine during 2006 around the time that the “faceless men” chose Kevin Rudd to be the parliamentary leader federally, journalist Max Walsh revealed that the traditional close relationship between the union movement and the ALP had become management and control. He said there had been a “corporate-style” takeover with union trained executives being parachuted into safe Labor electorate seats, e.g. Bill Shorten. That the rank and file party membership were no longer taken seriously and were little more than membership fee paying volunteers useful for election campaigning and other duties.
The objectives included working to gain control of governments federal, state and territories and political power.
I wonder what else this means. Just before standing for election to Federal Parliament AWU senior executive Bill Shorten established activist group GetUp. They are funded by the unions and foreign donations including George Soros US citizen. The activist group we now know assisted the Liberal Black Hand Faction to character assassinate from 2009 Tony Abbott back bench MP. The Australian reported that Christopher Pyne was the Black Hand’s go between. So Union Labor Inc’s Get Up commissioned to smear a Liberal MP by Liberal MPs. To try and stop him from being drafted to replace failing Opposition Leader Turnbull. And then ongoing until the Turnbull return to the leadership in 2015.
Given the Monckton warning that PM Abbott was under attack, for voters to watch his back, I assume that all of the above is connected.
And Australia is being manipulated via many politicians working hand in hand with UN based socialists.
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The UK press is blaming La Nina for the freezing conditions and blizzards in Britain, but in fact its a negative NAO doing the damage.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html
The odds must be firming for snow on Xmas day in London.
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This guy in UK does a pretty good job of decoding the weather models — http://www.gavsweathervids.com/
Currently the models have settled to indicating more freezing weather coming for the UK, after a couple of weeks of them not being able to decode the signals to give anything like a consistent forecast. As Gavin in the video kept saying during that time “1-2 days likely to happen, 3-5 days has some confidence, anything after that should be taken with a pinch of salt”.
So much for weather models, and all their sophisticated math and statistics backed with some physics, and lots of encoded estimations (all guesses and assumptions like teleconnections).
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Check out @gabeignetti1’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/gabeignetti1/status/936901621400743936?s=09
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Oops. Meant for #18.
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Nice result for Barnaby.. http://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-21364-135.htm
I wish loudmouth Windsor had stood, so we could have seen him ground into the dirt. !
Now maybe Barnaby will have the b***s to do something about Allbull.
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BarnyBoy is Mal’s creature. Nothing but a Turnbull thrall willing to rubber-stamp anything Turnbull says or does.
Expect nothing more of him and you won’t be disappointed.
I once expected some level of independence from Barnaby and the Nats. How naive I was. The QLD result has woken up some of his back-benchers and he already has the hatchet out for them for daring to state the obvious about the unelectable Waffler.
The latest Fairfax poll says 80% of Lib voters don’t want another leadership change. That change may be upon them soon wether they like it or not. Fingers crossed.
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Faux Facts local newspaper in Tamworth had a poll last Saturday with the Greens candidate well in front of Joyce Nationals.
20
the epitome of FakeCAGWNews:
8 Sept: CNBC: A wind farm of epic proportions is taking shape in Africa
by Anmar Frangoul
In Kenya, efforts to produce wind power on a grand scale are underway. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project is a 12-hour drive from Nairobi and, once operational, is set to provide 310 megawatts (MW) of renewable power to the Kenyan national grid.
“It is the largest wind farm in Africa (and) it has 365 turbines,” Carlo Van Wageningen, director and board member at Lake Turkana Wind Power, told CNBC’s Sustainable Energy on Thursday. “We are hoping to soon see the transmission line completed so that Kenya will be able to benefit from this cheap source of power,” he added…
project’s location, between the slopes of Mount Kulal and the south eastern end of Lake Turkana, is of great importance when it comes to producing wind power. According to the project, the area’s “unique geographical conditions” result in daily temperature fluctuations which in turn produce strong and predictable wind streams.
“We get a constant wind that allows us to have a yield on our installed capacity, which is called load factor, of about 62 percent,” Van Wageningen explained.
The potential of wind power in terms of reducing carbon emissions is significant. According to the Global Wind Energy Council, in 2016 wind power helped the planet avoid more than 637 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
For Van Wageningen, the Lake Turkana scheme has helped to put Kenya on the renewable energy map from a wind perspective.
“There are many wind farms that are in preparation and in development right now, so I think Lake Turkana Wind Power has opened a new source of investment for Kenya – foreign investment as well as local investment – and it’s a great opportunity.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/a-wind-farm-of-epic-proportions-is-taking-shape-in-africa.html
reality:
29 Aug: DailyNationKenya: Neville Otuki: Kenya Power billed for idle wind farm
The developers of Lake Turkana Wind Power project have started billing Kenya Power every month for its failure to distribute their production due to lack of a transmission line…
“They have been billing Kenya Power,” said an energy sector source who sought anonymity, adding that the government could be absorbing a Sh700 million monthly burden, piling the pressure on taxpayers.
Energy principal secretary Joseph Njoroge declined to respond to the Business Daily’s phone calls and text messages.
The wind park general manager Phylip Leferink also did not answer our calls.
The wind farm, the largest in Africa with a capacity of 310 megawatts — enough to power up to one million homes — was supposed to inject the first 50 megawatts to the grid last October and the whole capacity by July this year…
But delays in construction of a Sh20 billion 428km high-voltage line has hampered electricity evacuation from the northern town of Marsabit to Suswa substation, the country’s main interchange for power coming from different sources.
This has left the wind farm developers with stranded power amid pressing cash needs such as loans repayment, an obligation that taxpayers look set to shoulder…
UK-based Aldwych is the single largest investor in the €623 million (Sh68 billion) wind project with a 30.7 per cent stake.
Other investors in the consortium include Google, KP&P Africa B.V., Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, Industrial Fund for Developing Countries, Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries and Vestas Eastern Africa…
http://www.nation.co.ke/business/Kenya-Power-billed-for-idle-wind-farm/996-4075132-ikk598z/index.html
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I noticed an interesting old entry on the LOL My Thesis blog.
There is no link to the actual PhD/honours thesis or journal paper, so it will take some sleuthing to figure out where the work is that shows this conclusion. Based on the Lancaster association I wondered if it had been Dr Erika de Berenguer in the paper “Toward an integrated monitoring framework to assess the effects of tropical forest degradation and recovery on carbon stocks and biodiversity“. But it is difficult to tell where the anonymous comment came from. A bit like CO2 emissions, allegedly.
On a tangential note, the whole carbon footprint is just one toe on the whole ecological footprint. Estimating how much more we extract from Earth than can be regenerated leads to an estimate of how soon in the year we overshoot the Earth’s carrying capacity.
https://www.overshootday.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/country-overshoot-days/
No mention of technology improving carrying capacity, they just want everyone to live the same lifestyle as Honduras, Cuba, and South Sudan. It just sells itself, doesn’t it?
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more Turkana:
21 Oct: StandardMediaKenya: How power line meant to bring down cost of electricity will push up bills
By Macharia Kamau
Kenya has been forced to pay Sh5.7 billion in penalty over the delay to connect power generated from Turkana Wind Power project to the national grid…
The line, which is now scheduled for completion mid next year, is set to become a major burden for electricity consumers as some additional costs will be factored in power bills beginning next year.
Also, it has become clear that the cost of constructing the 428 kilometre line from Marsabit to Suswa could double owing to delays, with electricity consumers set to pick the tab for additional costs.
There are two major pain points that will result from the escalation of costs. This is the hiring of a new contractor for the power line to take over where the now bankrupt Spanish firm Isolux left as well as paying penalties to Lake Turkana Wind Power that built a wind power plant in Marsabit but cannot sell the electricity due to lack of transmission infrastructure…
Isolux was awarded a Sh21 billion ($208 million) contract in 2011 to build the 428 kilometre line, which is 60 per cent complete…
Barasa said Ketraco is concluding the process of hiring a firm that will replace Isolux and conclude the project by end of April next year.
“We are bringing on board another Spanish company since the financier is from Spain. We expect them to come on board as early as next week,” he said but declined to name the new contractor…
Isolux was awarded the contract for the line in June 2011. It was expected to start construction early 2012 and have it ready by end of 2013…
Construction works started November 2015 and was expected to be completed in August 2016. This has, however, been pushed forward severally, initially to December 2016 and then March and later to June this year.
It is expected to be commissioned in May next year…
Barasa defended Ketraco from having knowledge that Isolux may have been in financial difficulties at the time of awarding it the multi-billion shilling contract. He said Ketraco had done due diligence and that Isolux started experiencing problems after the award of the contract, which he said was due to rapid expansion in other countries…
The wind power project was put up at a cost of Sh70 billion. The money was provided by a consortium of financiers led by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and it is a mix of both debt and equity.
https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001258005/kenya-pays-sh5-7-billion-penalty-for-turkana-wind-power-line-delay
adding insult to injury!
13 Oct: ESI Africa: Kenya loses offshore wind farm to Tanzania
In East Africa, Kenyan authorities’ failure to approve the development of a 600MW offshore wind farm in the Indian Ocean waters bordering Ras Ngomeni in Malindi, has resulted in the developers considering moving the project to Tanzania.
According to Kenya’s Business Daily, the Swedish firm VR Holding AB, which is the developer of the wind power project, expressed frustration at the authorities lack of action.
In their defence, the Ministry of Energy officials turned down the request, citing lack of a framework for renewable energy projects of that scale…
An executive from the company, Victoria Rikede, said: “We have opted to look at offshore solutions for Tanzania. Kenya is proving to be a very difficult place and besides the grid is too weak to absorb all the power produced and therefore mini-grids is the solution for now.”…
However, Tanzania’s acting commissioner for Energy and Petroleum Affairs, Innocent Luoga, told The Citizen that the investors had yet to officially communicate with his office.
Luoga said: “When it happens, I am sure they will most definitely approach Tanesco [Tanzania Electric Supply Company], who will in turn inform us [the government] to plan a meeting.”…
Media further reported that the Kenyan Ministry of Energy had stated that the magnitude of power plant would leave the country paying billions of shillings annually for electricity not used…
The Malindi offshore location was identified by the World Bank, according to the Swedish firm’s executives…
Kiva added: “Wind is an intermittent power source and, therefore, we cannot approve such a big plant in one location since it will come with huge costs tied to power supply reliability and transmission.”
The only project outside this limited framework is the 310MW Lake Turkana Wind Power in northern Kenya. But despite having being completed, electricity is not used due to lack of a transmission line.
https://www.esi-africa.com/news/kenya-loses-offshore-wind-farm-tanzania/
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Thanks for that Africa info. Incredible how the Green Blob Inc. is trying to ‘help’ those people! That Kenya situation is unreal. You can see why they are so keen to send lots of Green Fund cash to countries that they think they can roll over, but looks like things won’t be as simple and corruptible as they would wish… like this:
Kiva added: “Wind is an intermittent power source and, therefore, we cannot approve such a big plant in one location since it will come with huge costs tied to power supply reliability and transmission.”
Indeed. So now they ‘threaten’ to take their money-sucking project somewhere else and deprive the poor people there of their expertise: “the 310MW Lake Turkana Wind Power in northern Kenya. But despite having being completed, electricity is not used due to lack of a transmission line.”
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Was any money from the UK foreign aid fund used to set up this very expensive , nonfunctional , wind farm.
If so , who benefited, because clearly few African farmers did.
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I had a giggle reading this post on Not A Lot Of People Know That:
Who Writes The Mail’s Green Crap?
“But who is she, and what qualifications does she have?
It turns out to be very few.”
I notice she lists her “skills” as Microsoft Office. Who does that?
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I skilfully avoid Microsoft Office.
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‘The NZ Prime Minister says combating climate change will be the defining characteristic of her term of office. Ms Ardern sees this question as being more urgent than all other economic, environmental and social issues – even the alleviation of child poverty, to which she is headily committed. How did this topic gain this ascendancy?’
Climate Conversation
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Staff member in the office of NZ PM Helen Clarke and then went to the UK to join the staff of PM Tony Blair.
The NZ PM today is a socialist climate change fanatic.
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Climate Misinformers by Skeptical Science
Skeptical Science has a page labelled Climate Misinformers which includes some very well known Skeptics
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptics.php
It seems to me that the page could be deemed libellous since it implies an intention to spread mis-information.
Surprisingly after viewing an entry the return button to the misinformers list is labelled Back to Climate Skeptics. Hello! I thought that was what Skeptical Science was supposed to be.
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I notice that the Jo is not listed . If she is not a “climate misinformer” then given her pivotal role in hosting so much information and references
surely she must in their eyes be a “climate informer”. Reassuring to know that they approve of her.
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Yes Mike the list seems some what haphazard.
John Cook does devote a whole web page to a pathetic attempt to debunk Jo’s Skeptics Handbook. Jo debunks his debunking here.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/the-unskeptical-guide-to-the-skeptics-handbook/
It is perhaps a pity that John Cook does not promote his “Scientific Guide to the Skeptics Handbook” a little more vigorously. Putting up the two versions and comparing them shows just how seriously unscientific John Cook’s thinking actually is. But I suppose that was clearly apparent when he labels the most clear thinking and rational people as Science Misinformers.
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Going against the grain, the introduction of climate change into the science curriculum should be considered.
The teacher should form a red and blue team to battle it out and reach a ‘consensus’.
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Up Fred there was some mention of sceen/shots/grabs/captures.
Firefox. Right-click screen select ‘Take a sceenshot’.
https://screenshots.firefoxusercontent.com/images/27d55448-6e42-4793-8d6a-cef4f7a26839.png
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I see that Cape Wind has finally croaked.
The project was first mooted as a thought bubble back in 1998, and then proposed initially in 2001/2. It was originally supposed to coat around $950 Million, but over the years that blew out to around $2.5 Billion, and now it’s finally finished.
I first Posted about it at my home site back in May of 2008 in my original Kyoto Series, at this link, if any of you wish to go have a look. This is a classic case of how something perceived as being such a good thing can encounter difficulties that cannot be overcome, no matter how green it seems, and don’t ever take on powerful people.
Also, this week’s data and analysis on the Base Load is also Posted, at this link. The Base Load is edging back towards 18000MW, as Summer comes on. Four days last week it was up beyond that 18000MW mark, and one day up beyond 19000MW, and coal fired power is still delivering 80% of all that Base Load. The lowest that long term average Base Load got to was 17,600MW, over those 22 weeks, and that’s only a 2% fall.
The Peak Load is now also edging back closer to mid afternoon as well, with the Wednesday and Thursday Peaks both up over 29000MW.
So with that Peak rising, and the Base Load what it is, more than 60% of every watt of power that can be generated for consumption is required absolutely for every hour of every day, year round.
Try this out. The next time electrical power generation comes up in conversation, just mention the above fact and watch the looks on the other person’s face. No one has the slightest inkling of an idea that is the case.
Tony.
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