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
I’ve been going over again some of Jordan B Peterson’s videos and it struck me that he explains how the left is in a state of tribal and cultural war with the world because the left actually prefer chaos to order. In that context it’s so much easier to see why the left behave the way they do. It all boils down to one thing – it’s a war between order (good) and chaos (evil).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvSetcM-f3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIuX1pO70UA
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(disclaimer – I have not had time to look at the youtubes yet…)
While nothing is ever black and white simple, I slightly disagree.
Left v Right can also be expressed as ‘Fair’ vs ‘Free’.
Lefties like to push Social Justice where everything is ‘Fair’. Of course to be ‘Fair’ you need to define some rules, and for rules to work you need to enforce them.
If you are not prepared to have rules enforced then a group will break down via various methods into what people are willing to accept. Fair? Maybe not. Socially sustainable? For the moment at least…
To force an example let us talk pizza. In a ‘fair’ environment everyone would get an equal share. There would need to be a pizza police to prevent cheating and then some sort of regulation to allow fair compensation for those who don’t want mushroom. In many ways we have controlled order.
Or, first in best dressed, does anyone want the last slice? No? Fine. Burp.
You have a ‘system’ that works within your social group. If it fails to work then the system either changes (‘No you CAN’T have the last slice!’) or the group changes (‘Don’t invite him, he eats too much and never puts any cash in.’). In many ways you have a chaotic system in constant evolution and flux that evolves to suit the needs of the people involved. Fair? Maybe not, but you are always ‘free’ to change it.
The Left mindset is that everything should be ‘Fair’ and believe if only they have enough rules in place will the system be complete. The problem is that THEY believe that things should be ‘fair’ under their own guidelines. Their ‘fair’ is different from their Leftie Friend’s ‘fair’ and suddenly they can’t be friends anymore.
(they also expect to be in charge so that they can personally oversee the fairness. This doesn’t help either.)
A Right mindset is more if it ain’t broke don’t fix. By extension, if it is broke then they want the freedom to change it until it works.
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I actually agree with you but you make the mistake of leaving it all out of the context of time. I was referring to today, not say decades ago when things were different and much of the idealism of the left in the West was actually good (JFK for example). Today though it has changed. The reasons for the change are complex and detailed so I won’t go into them here. Jordan Peterson explains most of it in some of his other videos. In a nutshell though the left today have a hatred of the West and if necessary will bring it down with force for the simple reason that they feel they are the victims of unfairness and they deserve to be treated better. Some of this is true but the problem is the approach they are using is bad and if it continues will cause chaos and devastation, which is probably inevitable since the “haves” at the top are getting richer and more powerful so the left are becoming poorer and angrier. Out of desperation they will eventually revolt but that’s not a good thing in any society, at least for the short term. There are better ways but unfortunately they are not patient enough to apply those better ways. One better way is simply to be responsible for ones actions, learn, stop relying completely on handouts, get a good job and grow.
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My husband just commented that it is strange that the UK government is planning to ban most new wood stoves and yet there is the burning of incredible masses of wood pellets at Drax power station. The world is quite mad.
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Leftist politics and zero common sense.
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https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-wind-gods-new-clothes-part-4/
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An excellent article logically explaining why sunshine and breezes cannot provide 24/7 power without either gas /hydro backup or multi billion storage, battery or pumped hydro, in place. Maybe the RT could explain to us why they think the article is wrong.
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In light of the recent hullabaloo around JCU I came across a paper dated 2015 that demonstrated from fossil oyster evidence around the Hinchinbrook and Magnetic Is that the sea level along the geological and isostatic stable Queensland coast fell ~1m between 800 AD and 1200 AD or 400 years, that is 2.5 mm/yr (although they say the fall may not have been monotonic), compared with the past century observed 1 – 1.5 mm/yr rise on tidal gauges.
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That was the mass migration period and polyps left their homes in droves for deeper water.
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The Oceans have dropped 1.2 metres in the last 2,000 years and are essentially stable now.
In fact the oceans have fallen a minimum of 4 metres over the last 7,000 years, some say even more, depending on where you measure.
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When there is a sharp sea level fall, where does the water go?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2007.tb00277.x
Antartica is one possibility, locked up as sea ice, which might alter the length of day.
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I think you mean grounded ice.
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400 feet (122 meters) lower sea level than present at the height of the glaciation during Pleistocene Epoch. All that water locked in glaciers. People lived in what is now the English channel. One could walk from Japan to Korea across what is now The Sea of Japan. Hard to imagine. Those kind of cold times are also very dry times. What is now forest were mostly savannas and much of what are now savannas were deserts.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=CybHRmfy&id=1223A1269B2395720632A431C1D277A5D6DB8FAD&thid=OIP.CybHRmfy0yY0-U_8uc2kAgHaDt&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2foriginals%2f0b%2f26%2fc7%2f0b26c74667f2d32634f94ffcb9cda402.jpg&exph=2160&expw=4320&q=sea+levels+during+the+pleistocene&simid=608054521141921670&selectedIndex=60&ajaxhist=0
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And Neanderthal man was pushed down to sunny Gibraltar by the ice. In that location their build was out of place and they disappeared as a separate group.
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It falls over the edge?
It’s slop. The planet wobbles as it spins or spins as it wobbles. See Chandler Wobble
Remember: we’re not on earth, we’re on Ocean. There’s a lot of mass in that thar water so any slight variation in motion gives a little interial slop.
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… read: a little inertial slop.
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I have seen archeology TV shows where they dig the remains of Roman coastal towns in England which are now several miles inland.
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And if you go to Italy/Greece, around the Adriatic coasts there are Roman coastal towns and ports which are well underwater from Subduction and Subsidence.
Anyone wanna buy an ancient Roman town?
Wet? or Dry? You have choice and none of it is climate sensitive! 🙂
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That is why a handful of villages in England and France that were once on the coast are now inland.
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No Safe Spaces: The film hollywood would never make.
https://capitalresearch.org/article/official-teaser-trailer-no-safe-spaces/
No Safe Spaces, a film starring Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager from CRC’s own Dangerous Documentaries, will expose the safe space culture that is undermining American universities.
This film will expose the sad state of free speech, the unwillingness of students to be challenged by new ideas, and “the grievance culture” of ‘safe spaces’” that are undermining the intellectual foundations of American universities. The film will look at those who have been silenced for expressing opinions that violate the new sacred writ of postmodern views on race and gender, which means acceptance of all except for those who think differently.
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As I learned from Jordan B Peterson’s videos, the left are at war with all who stand for free speech and the rights of individuals to have free thought, among many other good values. It’s a tribal revolt against those who stand for the freedoms the West fought for and won at the last world war. Make no mistake about it the left are here to destroy our Western way of life. Penny Wong revealed her true colours just recently and she got extremely angry. She is typical of the left and where we are headed. One way to try and stall this attack is to vote for a party that treasures our freedoms, and they are not the LNP nor the ALP+Greens. The ACP and ON are the obvious ones to support if one truly wants to reverse the current trend in so many areas, not the least of which is the indoctrination of our children at schools to follow the Marxist/leftists evil path instead of the traditional Judaeo-Christian one we used to follow more closely as the fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values.
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I think voting, yes, but we also need to be prepared to stand up to these people.
Silence is agreement with them.
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Yes silence is the easy and lazy way. It’s the same as the large numbers of scientists who remain silent on the CAGW issue knowing full well it’s a hoax. Even though they know it’s a hoax by remaining silent they are effectively still supporting it, whether the realise it or not given the importance of the whole affair as it applies to the well-being of a nation. Of course there is no way of knowing the proportion of scientists who fit in that category but I’m pretty sure it’s significant, if their belief in the scientific method as applied in research is still strong in their minds. I do know that approach to research has been misapplied today more than ever but that’s another story in itself.
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How do we do that? Only uni students have the time and the angst to take to the streets.
Oh! I forgot unionists, they can always make time and are certainly angry.
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Why are people trying to kill off the Crown of Thorns Starfish? It is not an invasive species and is a natural part of the ecosystem. They are even developing robots that swim around hunting and kiling them. Controlling it is as stupid as trying to control the climate.
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Here is the hunter-killer robot at work.
https://youtu.be/Gij5i66UujU
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A good point David.
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They have been trying to drum up alarm about the crown of thorns since the 1970s (maybe earlier that is just the start of my awareness). Just a new generation of people wanting to justify their existence and play on the reef.
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So tigers should roam the streets in India and crocks walk down Flinders St?
The COT are destroying the reef, only a religious fanatic could say “God will prevail”.
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yes very sensible analogies
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Over the last two million years, local time, the GBR has been killed off by low sea levels about 66 or 67 times—as each interstadial slides back into a stadial. But don’t panic: sea levels rise about 100,000 years later as the next interstadial arrives, and it all starts again: a new GBR is created.
Why waste money? What’s the worry?
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It a common folly to imagine that one can control the environment. See e.g. the late Michael Crichton’s commentary on Yellowstone National Park
A parks/wildlife management authority that imagines it could manage the environment is destined to wreak only havoc.
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Avangrid wind turbine fire
https://www.google.com/amp/www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-pol-windmill-fire-locust-ridge-schuylkill-20180521-story,amp.html
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Good. One less of this obscenities.
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these, not this…
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Little wind across most of Australia due to a big high pressure system. So AEMO might intervene again.
Market Notice 62914
AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
The synchronous generating units expected to be synchronised in SA from 0030 hrs 24/05/18 in Pre-dispatch published at 0400 hrs 23/05/18 are inadequate to maintain sufficient system strength in SA and hence a secure operating state.
AEMO currently estimates that, in the absence of sufficient market response by 2230 hrs 23/05/18, AEMO may need to intervene by issuing a direction requiring one or more SA synchronous generating unit(s) to operate or remain synchronised from 0030 hrs 24/05/18, to maintain power system security in SA.
Gas units in SA delivered 600 MW during yesterday, then ran up to 1100 MW during the evening peak before dropping back to 500 MW over night. It appears that the large 478 MW Pelican Point station is out of action, presumably due to scheduled maintenance. So Vic is sending them 500 MW to keep the lights on this morning.
It is also interesting to note that the Tas-Vic interconnector is still out of action. It failed late March, and latest estimate is it will be returned to service May 31.
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Unintended consequences.
I’m doing this new Series on daily power generation from all sources here in Oz, and each day, even I’m seeing things that make me take notice. It’s an easy thing to quote numbers, but when you look at the isolated images for each day’s power generation by source, it shows things that mere quoting of the numbers does not show.
Monday was a big day for wind power, with an average power generation across the day of 2410W, and that’s at a Capacity Factor of 48%, well up on the 30% yearly average. So, you think that when it’s that good, then the percentage of power supplied from all renewables would rise by a pretty big amount, eh.
Well, no!
I wanted to compare that high day with a low day for wind. That was last Friday. a work day, so a fair comparison, and also a day of similar power generation from every source. That Friday only had wind power at 950MW. (CF – 19%, so really not all that low, but enough to do the exercise)
What is actually happening is that when the wind is high (and also low) they are using Natural Gas fired power and hydro power to tweak the system. In other words, if wind is high, then they lower both of those, and if wind is low, then NG and Hydro are bumped up.
So, with high wind, then you get low Hydro, so the percentage rise in power generated from renewables is less than if they left them both the same.
You see, coal fired power delivers virtually the same every day, and on these two days (Friday with wind low, and then Monday with wind high) coal fired power delivered exactly the same amount of power.
So, in effect, wind power is having zero effect on coal fired power, as it just delivers what it always does deliver, huge amounts of power, no matter if the wind is high or low.
I’ll bet the renewables supporters would not be expecting that to happen.
Link to My Post
Tony.
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Yes but renewables supporters on the left in both major parties plan to remove many more of our coal fired power stations and replace them with renewables. So they don’t care that current coal fired power is almost always “on tap”. They just hate coal despite what they say in public. Strange though their communist comrades in China have the opposite view and like coal so much they are building hundreds of new coal fired power stations for themselves and other nations. Then again perhaps they have a common goal – the destruction of Western civilisation.
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Western civilization will self destruct from within. Agenda 21, 2030, Cultural Marxism (Frankfurt School).
“So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, laboured with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over–a weary, battered old brontosaurus–and became extinct.”
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Yes the West is certainly doing it’s fair share to destroy itself from within. That’s a common attribute with the rise and fall of empires in the past. However, first must come the financial crisis – the mother of all crashes. Then Agenda 21 or something like it will take over for there.
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I think world war will be the kicker. We will be affluent right up to the imposition of martial law, then you will see the true face of what we have let grow in our midst without dealing with it when we had the chance….
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Yes that’s one scenario. I actually think as the booming economy in the US continues for a little while longer (mostly thanks to Trump) perhaps a few more years, people will become very relaxed and exuberant once again, with perhaps one or two smallish scares along the way similar to the GFC and dot com bust. Then one more final scare that will be the big one. People will by then be happy to have order restored even if it means a dictatorship. Then the new dictatorship will start a world war with one nation who is not part of the NWO, and it’s pretty obvious to most who that nation is in the middle east. Could be wrong of course.
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The IMF are salivating over a world currency, together with their mates at the world bank. A Royal Commission won’t deter this mob!
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A world currency is inevitable. Cash and normal credit/debit cards will be gone, and I suspect many people will be pleased because it will stop or at least reduce greatly a lot of fraud. Too bad they will also lose their freedoms along the way.
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PeterS:
Civilizations are brought down by barbarians and it matters not whether they come from without or within.
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Trust me on this.
They KNOW that they cannot do without coal fired power.
All they are waiting for is for all this kerfuffle to die down, and then you will hear of new ones planned to replace existing old plants.
Take Liddell f’rinstance.
AGL rejected the offer for $250 Million for the plant.
If they sold it, then (logically) it’s not theirs any more.
Just from the sale of the generated electricity alone, Liddell is earning AGL around $2.88 Million a day, so every 90 days, they make that $250 Million. How many lots of 90 days between now and when the plant closes. Around 16 times that bid price all up.
All for their shareholders.
They’re not rejecting the offer out of sheer bloody mindedness, or even with the environment in mind. They’ll hold out for as long as they can and then cave in and sell, close to their planned closure, after running it into the ground, and that way, they can hopefully get out of the cost of remediation of the land back to pristine, because that is a big cost.
Just sayin’
Tony.
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Bloody thumb…that is NOT a red vote!
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Western aid agencies won’t fund fossil fuel power plants in Africa but windmills are being imposed on them.
How can they even work because there is no baseload as backup?
I suppose they will just get electricity when the wind blows which is better than nothing at all.
This is a propaganda video about Africa’s largest wind farm:
https://youtu.be/PYG9TqA3mSM
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No problem, China is to build a coal fired power station there (and elsewhere).
Kenya plans to build cleanest coal fired power plant in Africa: officials
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Kenya just needs an “industry standard” thermal station, let China build “the cleanest”, they have the dirtiest air.
Hard to imagine industrial smog in Kenya. 🙂
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Watching this wind farm video, I was reminded of the Kaalokol fish factory project on Lake Turkana in the 1980’s. Here is one link about the project – https://www.redorbit.com/news/science/456246/kenyas_turkana_learns_from_failed_fish_project/
Here is just one quote from the article: “Twenty years on, the Kaalokol fish factory is another page in Africa’s catalog of reminders that successful aid requires more than just money and good intentions.”
Maybe Danish windmills will work in the East African heat and dust. I, for one, hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
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The higher the IQ the more likely the individual is to understand the benefits of change.
Sadly black Africans, on average, would not qualify to be an infantryman in the US army.
Think I’m racist? Read up on the topic. There are quite significant differences between races with European based whites around 100. We devised the test afterall. A subset of Jews has the highest IQ which goes a long way to explaining their military success.
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These differences are well documented and modern IQ tests such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices are completely culturally independent.
The IQ difference of Ashkenazi (European origin) Jews is discussed at:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
Jews are 0.2% of world population but have won 22% of Nobel Prizes.
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There goes the ‘plague of locusts’ night …
“Every night, through the TV news, is a major hike through the Book of Revelation,” he said.
Al Gore talks climate change at Southern Festival of Books
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/10/14/al-gore-talks-climate-change-southern-festival-books/754619001/
Wait. What?
Climate Change On Track To Cause Major Insect Wipeout, Scientists Warn
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-change-on-track-to-cause-major-insect-wipeout-scientists-warn_us_5b02da6ee4b0463cdba49824?squv
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth … turns out CO2 is a truly lousy way of wiping out insects …
Mosquito season is getting longer among other buzz kills:
“With the rising temperatures brought about by global warming, the risks posed by these pernicious pests could also be increasing.
A warmer climate can mean expanded habitats for many pest species, as well as increases in their numbers.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-global-warming-means-for-4-of-summer-s-worst-pests/
Lord Howe tree lobster officially back from dead
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-06/extinct-lord-howe-stick-insect-back-from-dead/8984902
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Interesting article about Essential Services law
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-to-do-about-agl-closing-liddell.html
“Under the legislation, NSW can stop AGL from closing Liddell or even commandeer Liddell to ensure there is electricity supply. A much more preferable result then rotating blackouts or forced reduction of demand as we saw with petrol rationing during the Middle East crisis.”
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Apparently, an Essential Services Emergency can be declared for a period of 14 days and renewed after a wait period of 14 days as long as desired. Interesting leverage over idle thermal power plants.
https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/ESSENTIAL%20SERVICES%20ACT%201981/2001.10.06_(1981.11.19)/1981.75.PDF
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As long as they don’t blow them up during the “wait period”!
Seriously. Regarding the SA legislation (1981), you’ll note there is nothing in the legislation to prevent the owner from making the facility unusable.
The maximum fine is $1,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a body corporate. Yeah, right!
This legislation is mere window dressing – or worse.
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That’s woefully inadequate in the current context of an essential service that is critical to life and work here. The penalty should include imprisonment of all the directors of the company. In China I bet they would be shot but they can’t have that problem because they are doing the opposite and building more and more coal fired and nuclear power stations. This country is such a joke and if it continues after the next election we can blame the voters for all of it.
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Technically, one might declare an emergency every day for 13 days and then stop. Under the law, the 14 day “wait period” would not engage. Then repeat. Certainly it is a ruse, but a legal ruse. As to the paucity of fines and such, “so what”.
Declare the emergency every day, and fine them every day. That makes it 13 times as much.
Let’s just cut to the chase, eh?
Crash the grid and let things sort out. That’s what’s coming anyway. Why stave it off? Let it happen. Make it happen.
Fantasy runs smack into reality when there are no more excuses.
Just a thought.
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As Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller had the temerity to say in another context:
“It is the Marxist scheme, according to which it is not reality that forms thought, but thought that forms reality.”
Post-modernist thinking. Reality is whatever you want it to be. Especially if you’re an enviro-fascist.
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22 May: American Spectator: Special Report: The Papadopoulos Affair: Such a Downer
So many questions, too many coincidences
by George Parry
(George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor who practices law in Philadelphia)
https://spectator.org/the-papadopoulos-affair-such-a-downer/
22 May: American Spectator: Special Report: John Brennan’s Plot to Infiltrate the Trump Campaign
It came out of his “inter-agency taskforce” at Langley.
by George Neumayr
https://spectator.org/john-brennans-plot-to-infiltrate-the-trump-campaign/
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???
18 May: IOP Science: Environmental Research Letters: Reduced Urban Heat Island intensity under warmer conditions
Introduction…
Projected economic losses from urban heating have been calculated as high as 10 trillion USD worldwide by 2100 Estrada et al (2017)…
Concluding remarks…
The decrease in UHI intensity with warmer conditions has potentially important implications for accounting for urbanization in long term climate records, where it is often assumed that absent significant changes in urban extent, the urban and rural areas warm at the same rate Hausfather et al (2013), Stone et al (2012)…
That warming areas did not experience any increase in urban heating indicates that the nighttime Urban Heat Island has not been exacerbated by climate change. Absent consideration of changes in synoptic weather patterns, urbanization, or urban extent, our results suggest that the Urban Heat Island as defined by available weather stations may remain constant or possibly decline as background climate warms…
We emphasize that our results do not mean that global warming will not affect cities, but rather that surrounding rural areas may warm faster than urban areas absent changes in urbanization and urban extent…
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aabd6c/meta
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My BS detector is is in the red zone here! The needle is at risk of being bent.
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hey roo http://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/05/torture-in-russia-documented-again-and.html
02
Old style Marxism, a bunch of tossers.
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https://livesupplydemand.global-roam.com
Just found this site, includes WA
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Nice. So much black and brown coal yet both major parties have embarked on the same road to make them unprofitable as soon as possible. In any area such an act would be considered either criminal or treasonable.
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common denominator, IETA:
11 hours ago: PWC UK: Carbon markets: silver linings and clouds – the latest trends and developments in 2018
The 2018 survey of carbon markets participants, produced by PwC UK’s Sustainability and Climate Change team for the International Emissions Trading Association (***IETA), has found:
1. High stakes in China: 71% of respondents believe that if China’s ETS is not considered a success by the global community, the reputation of emissions trading worldwide will be affected. A similar percentage believe the launch of China’s ETS will encourage other countries to implement a carbon price….
3. Governments worldwide need “to get real” if they are to raise global climate ambition. Respondents suggest that a carbon price of €50/tCO2 by 2030 is needed to achieve the two degrees goal, which far outstrips their current price expectations…
“Success in China could be decisive: if the ETS there succeeds, it could inspire others; if it fails it will undermine action around the world.”
Jonathan Grant, Director, PwC Sustainability & Climate Change…
Conducted by PwC, the survey of 119 IETA members from across the globe has revealed considerable progress in carbon markets over the last year, with the hope of more to come…
Tempering this sense of optimism is respondents’ scepticism that developed countries will mobilise the promised $100 billion p.a. commitment in 2020 onwards. Moreover, as in previous years, there is a fairly sizeable gulf between what respondents think carbon prices should be to achieve the two degrees goal, and what they expect them to be…
DOWNLOAD: Carbon Markets: silver linings and clouds
https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/sustainability-climate-change/insights/carbon-markets-silver-linings-and-clouds.html
reminder:
21 May: CarbonPulse: President Xi holds firm on China’s pollution fight, backs away from climate leadership role
Chinese President Xi Jinping this weekend reiterated plans to step up his country’s fight against pollution, but softened language on the role China wants to play in international climate politics.
22 May: EDF: Report Evaluates China’s National Carbon Market
EDF and Chinese government’s Energy Research Institute create framework for gauging performance of China’s emissions trading system
A report evaluating the performance of China’s national carbon market was released today by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Energy Research Institute (ERI) of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. “The Progress of China’s Carbon Market 2017”(LINK) establishes a baseline for monitoring year-over-year progress on the legal, policy and accountability mechanisms of the market, which was launched in December and will become the world’s largest emissions trading system. The report, released after the conclusion of the program’s top-level design phase, also offers recommendations for Chinese authorities to address operational, structural and regulatory issues.
Unveiled at the Innovate4Climate conference co-hosted by the World Bank Group and the governments of Spain and Germany, the report is a unique collaboration between ERI, the Chinese government’s research organization, and EDF, the first registered international non-governmental organization under China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The report is the first in a series to be released on an annual basis…
“The development of China’s carbon market has global significance. This report systematically reviews the progress of China’s carbon market from the pilot to the country under the background of global carbon market development, and focuses on the latest development of the national carbon market system design. The report opens a window for all domestic and international parties who may be concerned about the establishment of China’s carbon market. It also provides recommendations for the next step to improve the national carbon market system design and promote the implementation of the national carbon market,” said Yanbing Kang, Director of Energy Sustainability Center for ERI one of the report’s authors, said…
“This report has important reference value for the power generation sector that is starting to run the carbon market.” Zhixuan Wang, Secretary General of China Electricity Council, said…
EDF has been working for more than two decades to help build China’s capacity and ambition to address climate change. The report was developed with support from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and was unveiled in Frankfurt at an event co-hosted by the International Emissions Trading Association (***IETA) and EDF.
https://www.edf.org/media/report-evaluates-chinas-national-carbon-market
11
Hi folks , had a very interesting chat on the weekend with a highly qualified engineer on the failings of wind turbines . My youngest daughter is revising for her A level chemistry and so I enlisted the help of a tutor , the husband of the tutor and I left them to it for two hours ,we had a stroll in the sun and coffee by the local river . He is a Cambridge graduate with a PHD in physics , runs a business specializing in studying mechanical component failures , he studies computer models of components to see why they didn’t predict the failures .in one project he was ask to study the failures of bearings in wind turbines and told me a turbine is designed to last 20 years but in average the bearings fail in just 2 yrs rendering the infernal bat choppers useless , the problem derives from the computer simulations for the bearings as the model runs assume the turbine is running at full capacity when we all know turbines only run at a fraction of their potential. It’s the intermittency and variability of the wind speed that causes the bearings to fail , the problem is also due to the use of the modern ‘fixed ‘ bearings , he advocates that older technologies such as non fixed bearings would be better as the lubricant forms a liquid barrier between the bearing and it’s casing etc reducing friction to a minimum . PS If there is enough interest ill ask him to visit this blog and explain his research in more detail , when I see him again this coming weekend .
71
One major problem they face is when the blades and hence the bearings are not rotating the weight of the blades can easily damage the bearings rendering them useless. That’s why they often try to keep them rotating at all times. I’m not an expert on these things but I suppose there might be ways to overcome such issues, such as lifting the blades a little using some mechanical means to keep as much weight off the bearings as possible when they are not rotating. Of course the better option is simply not to build them in the first place, for a number of reasons most of us know about. Just remove all incentives and subsidies and the whole issue is fixed. Simples!
71
I am still laughing about the enthusiastic support by Bill Nye (The Science Guy, mechanical engineer who used to work at Boeing) that cow farts should be taxed. In Australia that means all ruminants, animals which eat cellulose or grass. So we have
1,000,000 feral camels
45,000,000 kangaroos
27,000,000 cows
75,000,000 sheep
23,000,000 feral pigs
221,000 horses
150,000 water buffalo (halved with culling because of Brucellosis) All called Bruce.
All affected by a proposed methane tax and not counting their CO2 output which is often far higher than a car as the never stop breathing or farting.
Plus 550,000,000 chickens and 828 species of birds which can produce methane but are too small to fart.
And methane is 30x the Greenhouse gas that CO2 is, it seems we need to ban and tax these creatures. They are the problem. Again the question is who should pay. Clearly the farmers and the tourists. We need to encourage kangaroos not to fart. If nothing else, it is offensive.
Then you get rotting vegetation. Stop it all. Tax it all. Even graveyards, but that was part of the Carbon tax legislation. Tax the descendants.
Taxation, the gift which never stops giving. Ideas brought to you by people who live in another world and want your cash.
61
Bill Nye the clown is just that; a clown.
41
You forgot the termites. I know that they contribute only half a gram of methane each, but there is a lot of them.
61
Yes, you are right. Uncaring and thoughtless methane producing enemies of the climate in their trillions turning cellulose into methane. Can’t wait until Bill Nye explains how his termite tax works.
51
WTF? Little Billy Nye is a True Believer! According to him, we are supposed to worry about methane and CO2 …
Both are trace gases, CO2 is at 0.04% of the atmosphere (about 4 molecules per 10,816 or 1 unit of troposphere at sea level) and methane is about 0.0001% or 0.01 molecules per unit of atmosphere. What effect are they going to have? At those tiny proportions, any possible effect from them is totally negligible.
Latest research strongly suggests that there is no such thing as a Greenhouse Gas [Allmendinga 2017] and Nikolov and Zeller [2017] have shown planetary/moon surface temperature to be independent of atmospheric composition but dependent on gravity (planetary mass affecting atmospheric density) and solar insolation.
Ergo, as far as CO2 and CH4 are concerned, So What?. Somebody pour a bucket of ice water over his head, explain his error in words of no more than two syllables and give him a second bucketful.
00
This is an interesting review from AEMO of the Hornsdale Power Reserve:
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Media_Centre/2018/Initial-operation-of-the-Hornsdale-Power-Reserve.pdf
It gives details on how it is being used and comments on its performance. Only time will tell if it has an economic purpose but initial performance has met targets.
The charts on page 6 comparing response of conventional rotating plant to the battery are revealing and indicate why there will be pressure for more batteries as intermittency increases.
11
From reading the document, I have the impression that the HPR is not being used to its full capacity, hence perhaps not paying its way. Another clue is their comment that future battery installations may not achieve economic performance. (OK, they didn’t say that directly, just my interpretation.) The document makes a big deal of the Battery’s ability to compensate for abrupt changes in frequency, but note that this was only for 25 seconds. Presumably other more long-term stable power sources then stepped in to control the frequency. Since the outage was 689 MW, there is not much else the battery’s 70 MW could do. Also it’s now clear that 30 MW is reserved for NEON’s Hornsdale wind farm use, but it’s not clear what NEON actually do with this 30MW.
11
Graeme
The 30MW is used for price arbitrage. So they store when price is low or negative and discharge when price is high. To meet the FCAS requirement they could not use the full storage capacity for arbitrage but using say 60MWh in the middle range of the 120MWh capacity would leave storage margin for the FCAS duty, which is limited to short time periods. As you point out the battery gives the fast response so slower response rotating machines have time to respond up or down.
Cycling 50% of the battery capacity over a range of 25% to 75% would lead to a long cycle life. Maybe 10,000 cycles over that range so that would ensure a long operating life before cell replacement.
There would be diminishing returns from increasing storage capacity because the reduced volatility reduces the opportunities for price arbitrage.
10
G4….. Maybe that 30MWh is used to keep the windmills turning when the wind dies….as discussed in the above posts # 17 ?
And have AEMO forgotten that things works just fine before the big battery was installed ?
That is untill they blew up most of the turbines that smoothed things out before.
21
Ahh,
As Rick says, ..and as noted in section 1:1 , page 4, the 30 MW is used by NEON to play the supply market, to steal money from SA consumers.!
But rick, the document says they are able to use up to 119MWh of the total 129MWh capacity for that.
Leaving only 10MWh for FCAS use.
21
Chad and Rick: Interesting discussion. I have always believed that the only way the battery could make money would be to effectively rip off consumers, by supplying power when prices were high. As such this achieves nothing to lower SA’s very high power charges.
20
21 May: ClimateChangeNews: Emerging economies say rich countries must still lead on climate action
Ministers from China, Brazil, South Africa and India want to see more action from the rich world, in a critical year for writing the rules of the Paris Agreement
By Karl Mathiesen
The biggest future carbon emitters continue to raise the heat on the polluters of the past.
Environment ministers from China, South Africa, Brazil and India met in Durban over the weekend to solidify their cooperation in a year they hope to gain concessions from wealthy countries on the rules of the Paris Agreement…
Brazil, South Africa, India and China, together known by the acronym Basic, account for roughly two thirds of global coal consumption. As middle income countries, they are hit hardest by the blurring of the distinction between developed and developing countries that was engineered into the Paris Agreement.
After meeting this weekend, ministers “urged developed countries to take the lead in emission reductions, achieve the peaking of their emissions as soon as possible if they have not already done so”…
In a joint statement (LINK) the Basic ministers said wealthy nations have failed to meet their pre-Paris deal commitments on cutting their carbon emissions and building up financial flows to help poor countries before 2020…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/05/21/emerging-economies-say-rich-countries-must-still-lead-climate-action/
above links to:
Dept Environmental Affairs South Africa: Joint statement issued at the conclusion of the 26th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change
Mr. Michal Kurtyka, incoming COP President of COP 24, was invited and welcomed as a special guest to attend the meeting…
Durban, South Africa, 20 May 2018
The Ministers took note of the emissions gap in both pre- and post-2020 mitigation ambition. In that respect, they urged developed countries to take the lead in emission reductions, achieve the peaking of their emissions as soon as possible if they have not already done so, and thereafter undertake rapid reductions in accordance with best available science.
In transparency, flexibility for developing countries informed by their national circumstances and capacities must be provided and built into the modalities, procedures and guidelines for the enhanced transparency framework, including in terms of frequency of reporting…
Ministers noted that the enhanced provision of sustained, predictable and adequate finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building support by developed countries to developing countries will enable developing countries to achieve higher ambition in their actions…
Ministers therefore urged developed countries to honour their commitments to reach the goal of USD100 billion per annum in climate finance by 2020. With USD100 billion per annum as a starting point, developed countries should progressively and substantially scale up their financial support in the post-2020 period….
21 May: RadioFreeAsia: China’s Coal Consumption Clouded in Mystery
An analysis by Michael Lelyveld
How many tons of coal did China consume last year? It’s a simple question with no simple answer, despite its critical importance to climate change.
So far, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said only that coal consumption rose 0.4 percent in 2017 from a year earlier, marking the first annual increase since 2013.
But since the NBS has not released tonnage figures for 2016, the calculation for last year remains a black box.
The unknown number of physical tons is important because China produces and consumes about half the world’s coal, making it the single largest source of man-made carbon emissions…
The final physical tonnage numbers are reported annually in the China Energy Statistical Yearbook with a lag time of 18 to 20 months after the end of each year. Numbers are also published in the annual statistical section of the NBS website, but these may be at odds with those in the yearbook.
Unannounced annual revisions may also upset calculations based on prior years.
Fridley noted that the big 4.7 percent drop in consumption reported for 2016 may be only about 1.3 percent due to revisions.
While significant for emissions calculations, the unannounced adjustments pale in comparison to major corrections, like the double-digit retroactive revision that NBS made in 2015 to compensate for undercounting.
That adjustment, made after a five-year economic census, caused scientists to raise emissions estimates by over 1 billion tons of carbon per year.
“In some of the years in question, it was like suddenly having an extra Germany added to global emission numbers,” Korsbakken said…
On April 24, NEA officials held a press conference in Beijing to report energy results for the first quarter. Although the coal data remained incomplete, the figures for January and February showed a marked increase in consumption, far higher than the 0.4-percent growth rate for last year.
“In the first two months, the national coal consumption was about 600 million tons, an increase of 4.2 percent year- on-year,” said Li Fulong, director of the NEA Department of Planning and Development.
The official Xinhua news agency report from the conference on the same day included consumption data for electricity, oil and gas, but no mention of coal, China’s largest energy source…
“The benign explanation is that there are so many different types of coal in China that it is better for statistical and policy purposes to give a single number in terms for equivalence,” Andrews-Speed said.
https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/chinas-coal-consumption-clouded-in-mystery-05212018100931.html
11
Looks as if NSW has one of their gen sets back on line, they are meeting more of their own demand, but SA is again paying too much for their power, nearly three times Qld’s spot price and Vic is double it.
Not all watts are equal. When the wind blows and SA is exporting they don’t get much for it but now it’s calm they are paying $150/MW. That’s no way to run a business.
40
NSW still has four of its big Units off line, 2 at Bayswater, 1 at Eraring, and 1 at Vales Point, and that’s a loss of 2700MW.
What is happening is that all of the remaining Units are operating at capacity, (well, as good as they can get out of them anyway) and the total just from coal fired power alone is 6640MW, and that’s 86% of the current NSW total consumption.
Tony.
40
A light hearted Jim Rogers on N Korea and other things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Kk6miiymk
10
According to renew economy synchronous condensers are going to replace gas fired power in the grid.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/cheap-condensers-to-displace-gas-as-renewable-energy-back-up-29544/
10
Bandaids on top of bandaids. ‘Twas so much simpler and cheaper twenty years ago, and nostalgia has nothing to do with this opinion.
21
In reality these appear to be very similar to no-break Gensets, which are often used at hospitals and airports to provide continuous power during power outages. Again, if SA wasn’t using a lot of renewable energy, I’m sure these wouldn’t be required. If they aren’t contributing to the SA power grid, who will pay for them? And it’s also significant that battery installations weren’t considered, since one of the prime functions of the HBR battery seems to be to provide a similar service.
10
I saw a 2015 patent for water dissociation via RF for an Israeli company….
00
You have misinterpreted the use of the synchronous condensers. They have no generating capacity only stabilising ability through rotating inertia. If there were synchronous condensers the number of gas generators connected to the grid at any time in SA could be reduced. I believe AEMO require either 3 or 4 gas turbines connected to provide adequate stabilising inertia. They can all be producing very little power; rather just sitting connected and spinning.
At the present time AEMO is demanding gas generators stay connected despite not producing much power. It is an emergency situation and that invokes a means of special payment to provide that service. If there were synchronous condensers then there would only need to be enough gas plant connected to meet the energy shortfall. Those connected would be generating power and getting paid for that as their source of income. So it would eliminate the need for special payment outside the usual market system, which is the present circumstance.
The cost of condensers is $80M and the network modelling indicates that that would be more than offset by a fall in gas consumption to keep the gas plant spinning. It is one of those circumstances where spending more money on the grid could save more than the cost of the new hardware over time. Running gas plant just to provide rotating inertia is wasteful. It also limits opportunity for gas plant maintenance. Remember though that none of this would be required if there were no intermittents connected.
50
Firstly a disclaimer: I have no idea what “synchronous condensers” look like. My background in electronics does not explain them unless there is an equivalent inductor to make a 50 Hz oscillator.
OTOH I understand what a “synchronous inductor” is, it is a motor/generator with a bluddy big flywheel, I used to bunk near one at the Moranbah sub-station. It was installed to help smooth out the demand peaks/troughs caused by the draglines on the coal fields. No issue on scalability, the technology is well over 100 yrs old.
Is there a technology snobbishness here?
10
I did say “similar”. I looked them up and the motor coupled to a flywheel (or do they just use a heavy rotor?) seemed to be similar to part of a no-break system, which relies on the inertia to smooth out any supply fluctuations. “Condenser” seemed a funny name, though their operation seems to be similar to a large capacitor.
00
Rick, I can’t see where these Condensers will achieve anything when related to wind and solar. Wind and solar can stop for very long times, and the Condensers only seem to be able to provide very short-term backup. What am I missing?
20
The condensers provide rotating inertia. There are time in SA when the wind generators are capable of producing all the required energy but there is not enough inertia in the system to ride through sudden loss of power in the event of a fault or disconnection of a wind plant in a storm. The rotating inertia provides the second or two of time needed for governors, tap changers, selective load shedding and battery inverters to respond. They assist in preventing complete blackout on a system with a lot of low inertia generation like wind turbine inverters.
At present there are rimes gas plant is used as rotating inertia, connected but not producing much.
Synchronous condensers can provide or sink reactive power so they have the ability to also provide voltage regulation. Remotely located condensers can offset inductive voltage losses in a power line so also have the potential to assist in controlling power flow from remote wind generators. By reducing reactive power flow they can also reduce line losses.
00
Rick, i doubt any amount of “synchronous condensers” , big batteries, or magic wands of any sort…will reduce the number of gas generators needed online in SA.
As you know, SA prioritises wind ans solar generation, but still requires typically over 1000MW (often more)…of extra generation (and Gas is all they have now !),.. as well as constant imports from Vic,….just to meet normal demand.
00
I was serious yesterday. There is no way we should be paying for useless lunchtime solar. If they do not want it, we don’t either and cannot use it. As for paying down their investment, it only means we pay for everything and they pay nothing. How fair is that? Just like every windmill in the country.
No, no payin rates. If they want to keep the electricity, they (not we) have to buy a battery. Then the load and variability on the grid would drop, not go up. The cost to everyone else would drop. It is absurd that we should pay a premium for private power when we don’t want it, don’t need it and to wreck a perfectly good steady system with intermittency.
Stop the payin rates. They double the pain to everyone else. A middle class indulgence paid by the poor. If solar makes economic sense, let people buy their own. Like everything else in life.
61
That ‘small solar’ you mention here is rooftop solar power.
There’s currently 7800MW of rooftop panels across the whole of Australia, and really, that’s a huge amount, almost the equivalent of THREE Bayswater’s in Nameplate.
The current output from ALL that rooftop solar is 1800MW, and here we are just beyond the normal daily Peak sunlight.
That 1800MW is at a Capacity Factor of 23% ….. AT ITS MAXIMUM.
If that’s the answer, heaven help us.
Tony.
71
That’s half their answer – the other half is wind. All we need in the future for completeness when we have closed down most of our coal fired power stations is to have a “perfect storm” where there is too little or too much wind and very little sun across the whole nation for a few days or even weeks in row. The risk of it happening might be low but it’s not impossible. If and when it does happen it would be catastrophic for the nation’s economy and many lives at risk of death. The mere fact that we are heading exactly to such a risky situation is enough to call in the psychiatrists to examine the mental health of our leaders.
61
The reliable output from wind is ZERO. The reliable output from solar is ZERO. It does not matter the amount of installed capacity because any amount times ZERO is ZERO.
There is no risk attached to combined solar and wind output being ZERO; it is a certainty in the geographic spread of the NEM. At this very moment there are 5 whole wind farms in SA producing nothing; that is just one single observation. By 6pm there will not be a single solar panel on the east coast generating power. So solar does nothing for 12 hours every day this time of year.
The only way wind and solar can provide a reliable supply is if it is buffered. Buffering is either through fossil fuel generation, nuclear fuel generation, hydro generation or some form of stored energy like a battery. There is no way all the fossil fuel plants can be closed down with the current state f storage technology. Places like Tasmania and NZ with enough hydro capacity to supply their entire demand can make economic use of wind and solar generation as the intermittent generation conserves perched water while the hydro has sufficient capacity to buffer the entire load if required.
AEMO are already working on more emergency generation for next summer to give a larger buffer. The only reason the final of the AusOpen did not go dark was because a “fuse” took out 48,000 homes in inner Melbourne suburbs; how lucky was that. Could you imagine how third world it would be for the lights to go out with all those A-listers courtside and the rest of the world watching.
50
VIDEO: 22 May: GatewayPundit: Cristina Laila: Levin drops a MOAB: New revelation Mueller’s Lawyers Obtained ‘Special Status’ Show Probe is Unconstitutional Under Article II
Constitutional expert Mark Levin dropped a MOAB on Mueller’s witch hunt Tuesday evening, arguing the ‘special status’ obtained by the special counsel’s lawyers show the probe is unconstitutional under Article II.
As previously reported, Robert Mueller and his team of liberal hack lawyers know they don’t stand a chance in Judge Ellis’ court so they are running a shady, legal shell game to salvage their case against Paul Manafort.
Mueller’s lawyers filed for, and obtained, an obscure special status giving them dual roles as not only special counsel prosecutors, but also as ‘Special Assistant US Attorneys (SAUSAs) which could make it difficult for Judge Ellis to hand the case over to other prosecutors.
According to Politico’s reporting, this special status given to Mueller’s lawyers theoretically allows them to rove around and pursue matters outside of the special counsel’s mandate.
This bombshell revelation may be the key to dismantling Mueller’s entire operation, says Mark Levin.
Since Mueller’s lawyers have dual status as US Attorneys, that makes Mueller a US Attorney rather than a Special Counsel. Only a President can appoint a US Attorney. By appointing Mueller, Rod Rosenstein usurped the President of the United States…
TRANSCRIPT/VIDEO
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/05/levin-drops-a-moab-new-revelation-muellers-lawyers-obtained-special-status-show-probe-is-unconstitutional-under-article-ii-video/
31
Pat
FYI – re Mueller’s team
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/12/going-against-the-odds/
10
excellent:
22 May: National Review: Andrew C. McCarthy: The Real Origination Story of the Trump-Russia Investigation
The Trump-Russia investigation did not originate with Carter Page or George Papadopoulos. It originated with the Obama administration.
Exactly when is the “late Spring”?…
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/trump-russia-investigation-obama-administration-origins/
21
Youtube: 49mins24secs: House Republicans Press Conference Demanding Second Special Counsel 5/22/18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a22F2XhgghE&feature=youtu.be
22 May: Tweet: Donald J. Trump: If the person placed very early into my campaign wasn’t a SPY put there by the previous Administration for political purposes, how come such a seemingly massive amount of money was paid for services rendered – many times higher than normal…
…Follow the money! The spy was there early in the campaign and yet never reported Collusion with Russia, because there was no Collusion. He was only there to spy for political reasons and to help Crooked Hillary win – just like they did to Bernie Sanders, who got duped!
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/999096013674680321
21
And I think there are still shy Trumpsters out there, as there were in ’16.
41
AEMO’s summer report. It is nice to see that AEMO are using the latest CSIRO climate model to improve its demand forecasting:
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Media_Centre/2017/AEMO_Summer-operations-2017-18-report_FINAL.pdf
No longer any need to rely on measured data for predictions when there is access to a Climate Model.
Believe it or not that quote is straight from the AEMO document. Under this scenario the tropical oceans will be boiling by 2090.
20
RickWill –
10C increase!
21 May: NatureClimateChange: Antibiotic resistance increases with local temperature
Based upon our findings, a 10°C increase in temperature, an extreme but conceivable scenario for some parts of the United States by the end of this century, could yield additional increases in resistance on the order of 10% for certain antibiotics.
Further research is needed to confirm these relationships and elucidate the role of climate in antibiotic resistance spread. Our findings suggest that, in the presence of climate change and population growth, already dire predictions of the impact of antibiotic resistance on global health may be significant underestimates…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0161-6
21 May: Phys.org: Scientists find link between increases in local temperature and antibiotic resistance
Children’s Hospital, Boston
Seeking to better understand the distribution of antibiotic resistance across the U.S., a multidisciplinary team of epidemiologists from Boston Children’s Hospital and the University of Toronto have found that higher local temperatures and population densities correlate with a higher degree of antibiotic resistance in common bacterial strains. The findings were published today in Nature Climate Change…
Not surprisingly, when looking at antibiotic prescription rates across geographic areas, the team found that increased prescribing was associated with increased antibiotic resistance across all the pathogens that they investigated…
More unsettling still, when looking at population density, the team found that an increase of 10,000 people per square mile was associated with three and six percent respective increases in antibiotic resistance in E. coli and K. pneumoniae, which are both Gram-negative species. In contrast, the antibiotic resistance of Gram-positive S. aureus did not appear to be significantly affected by population density…
“The bottom line is that our findings highlight a dire need to invest more research efforts into improving our understanding of the interconnectedness of infectious disease, medicine and our changing environment,” Brownstein concludes.
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-scientists-link-local-temperature-antibiotic.html
same study:
4 Oct 2017: NCBI: Antibiotic Resistance Increases with Local Temperature
Results
An increase in temperature of 10oC was associated with increases in antibiotic resistance of 4.2%, 2.2%, and 3.6% for the common pathogens Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus. The effect of temperature on antibiotic resistance was robust across almost all classes of antibiotics and pathogens and strengthened over time.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that current forecasts of the burden of antibiotic resistance could be significant underestimates in the face of a growing population and warming planet.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5631699/
10
Where would we be without models ? , the leaf reckons we would be dead but if that was the case we never would have made it out of the cave .
I think the word “Model” needs to be changed to making stuff up in the hope no-one notices or bothers to check my work .
12
Predictions, Predictions, Predictions!
Has anybody else noted that the single greatest press release output of just about every single elitist scientific asshole who has a degree in social sciences and is therefore knows it all and is vastly superior in intellect to those of a lower educational status, invariably makes utterly preposterous predictions, at least utterly preposterous to the rational mind, about the future of some largely irrrelevant object or future possible events.
They seemingly just can’t help hemselves and keep their mouths shut as by now after some 30 years of making an immense number of predictions, it seems that not one of those countless alarmist predictions on climate , weather, animals, butterflies, biology and oceans, humanity and etc and etc, archeology and geology seems to have missed out on the predictions, [ I wonder why? ] all of which have never been recorded as occurring as predicted or likely to occur, from some obscure self promoting individual who claims to have some sort of scientific credentials ,
He knows the differnces between the alkaline and acid storage cabinets so he doesn’t mix things up with catastrophic consequences.
They seemingly have arrogantly granted themselves theancient roles of the prophets and oracles of mankind with a claimed and self promoted uncanny ability to predict and read read the entire future of some subject or object or climate phenomena
As they have granted and claimed for themselves the ability to foretell the future of numerous items to a minute fraction of time and events, I wonder why they are still in science and academia as with their self promoted future predicting abilities they surely must be able to predict the numbers need to win each weeks biggest lottery prizes.
Oh!, They can’t predict those lottery numbers then!
Well as they can’t predict the lottery ticket numbers and therfore it appears they can’t predict the future at all, then just bloody well shut up with their predictions and stop making utter fools of themselves.
11
The measure of their stupidity is that they are still employed in academe.
If they were any good at forecasting they’d be retired and living in the south of France with me or the south coast of NSW or Subiaco. However, that requires them to be able to predict the behaviour of the stock market.
Have compassion for them. They are just more of those intelligent fools that somebody or other identified years ago. (Who was that again?)
01
read all:
23 May: RenewEconomy: SA Liberals vow to continue energy transition, go big in batteries
By Giles Parkinson
Dan van Holst Pellekaan, the energy minister in the newly elected South Australia Liberal government, has vowed to continue the state’s dramatic energy transition and show other states “how it can be done”.
In a keynote speech to the Australian Energy Storage conference and exhibition in Adelaide on Wednesday, van Holst Pellekaan said expectations that the election of a Liberal government would be the end of clean energy in the state were false.
“We heard about the end of renewables and return to energy systems of the past,” van Holst Pellekaan said.
“The transition is underway, and the transition will continue. It is being driven by the fundamental economics of clean energy as the lowest cost new build energy source…
“South Australia will lead and show the world how a sensible transition can be done.”…
In the speech, and in a later interview with RenewEconomy that readers will be able to download next week from our Energy Insiders podcast (LINK), van Holst Pellekaan says the focus will be on an “orderly transition” built around storage…
https://reneweconomy.com.au/sa-liberals-vow-to-continue-energy-transition-go-big-in-batteries-93367/
30
Seriously!!!
A State with 6% of the total power consumption of Australia.
NSW, Qld, and Vic consume almost 90% of the power.
A bit like entering a Lightburn Zeta in the Hardie Ferodo 500 back when any car could compete, and the driver saying ….. “Oh yeah We’ve got a good chance of winning this one outright.”
Tony.
(Note I picked a car made in that fine State of SouthAus.)
50
Further proof that the once mighty liberal party are now nothing more than the third Green Party .
40
I’m thinking that by the time the state goes completely broke putting all this renewable junk in then having to rip it all out and build coal fired power stations they could have brought North Korea and have change left over .
30
Being of the same age as thou, I remember the Zeta. Their cement mixers were better built.
10
Yep, and I remember pelicans too.
This is the new Liberal Pelican looking after the interest of all South Australians.
https://youtu.be/Vv1u7IGe5jo
00
read all…PODCAST OF ZIBELMAN:
23 May: RenewEconomy: For $6 extra, AEMO keeps lights on and defies renewable skeptics
By Giles Parkinson
And, according to AEMO’s Summer 2017/18 Operations Review, released on Wednesday, it cost just an extra $6 per customer to obtain the 2GW of capacity in a special reserve that ensured there were no more blackouts or load-shedding.
“When it came right down to it, the cost of getting the reserves …. was $6 for the year, for consumers,” Zibelman told RenewEconomy…
RenewEconomy interviewed Zibelman about the summer report, and readers can listen to that interview via the link below.
PODCAST 10mins36secs
Was AEMO surprised and relieved by its success over the summer?
“Pleased, yes. Surprised, no, because we put a lot of effort into our preparations,” says AEMO’s head of operations Damien Sanford.
“We are pleased with the ***level of cooperation that we got from industry, and the feedback from my control room was that it was the best we have seen for some time.”
Indeed, according to some in the sector, AEMO went around and “read the riot act” to many in the industry, to ensure that their machinery was in good repair and ready to deal with the summer heat….
As a result, coal availability over the summer was the highest it was for almost a decade, despite the well documented sudden trips in some generators that, thankfully for AEMO and consumers, did not occur at times of critical demand.
As for new technologies, Sanford pointed to the performance of demand response, particularly those gathered under the trial scheme sponsored by AEMO and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which helped boost the operator’s available reserves…
In the last summer, AEMO says there were only two close run events when it had to enact the emergency reserves known as the RERT mechanism…
https://reneweconomy.com.au/6-extra-aemo-keeps-lights-defies-renewable-skeptics-27947/
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22 May: Phys.org: The right mix of green energy
Uppsala University
The Nordic countries could meet their energy needs simply by expanding renewable energy, according to a study from Uppsala University. But there are several challenges along the way, according to Mikael Bergkvist, researcher in electricity…
The difficulty of electricity production is that it takes place in real time – the electricity that is needed right now must be produced right now. At the same time, our electricity consumption varies every hour of the day all year long. The more dependent we are on intermittent sources, such as wind power, the greater the demands are on flexible balance regulating power.
“In Sweden, we are fortunate since we have a lot of hydropower that can be used to quickly regulate variation but, thanks to large hydropower reservoirs, can also be stored at times when we have high wind power production and low demand for electricity. But it requires a lot of planning. In today’s system, we have good possibilities of balancing daily and seasonal variations, but it’s harder for example in the event of a few weeks of windless weather,” says Bergkvist…
In Sweden, we get as much energy from nuclear power (40–45 per cent) as from hydropower. This is followed by wind power at 10–14 per cent. Lastly, we have combined heat and power plants, condensing power and gas turbines that together provide around 10 per cent.
Solar energy is more uncommon at our latitudes, but a lot of research and development is under way…
Wind power is the third largest form of electricity production in Sweden, but its expansion has come to a standstill…
“Right now, we are trying to model conceivable scenarios for the future. If we build in certain ways, how will it affect acceptance? What advantages and disadvantages are there with different solutions? Overhead lines and power cables would be needed for distribution, but how would they be perceived by the public?”…
“Some people fear that renewable energy will give us an unstable power grid and that we won’t be able to handle the situation, but in Sweden we can. Our hydropower is an enormous resource for storing energy, compared with battery storage, which doesn’t have anything like the same capacity and is primarily a local solution,” says Mikael Bergkvist…
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-green-energy.html
22 May: Bloomberg: Top China Wind Power Producer Shines as Fewer Turbines Idled
The Chinese government’s moves to ramp up renewable energy consumption have sparked optimism over the future of China Longyuan Power Group Corp., the country’s biggest wind power producer…
Driving the bullishness on Longyuan and other Chinese wind power producers like Huaneng Renewables Corp. and China Datang Corp. Renewable Power Co. is a series of initiatives taken by the government recently to boost renewable energy demand and ease curtailment — a problem caused by overly rapid wind turbine installation and infrastructure bottlenecks. Grid operators have been forced to cut back on purchases as they are unable to fully absorb the intermittent power from renewables such as wind and solar…
China, the world’s largest wind power producer, is considering setting a national target to reduce average wind curtailment rates to less than 10 percent next year and to about 5 percent by 2020, according to an April 12 government policy proposal document…
In addition, China is clamping down on the ability of local authorities to plan new wind power projects in regions where the most turbines stand idle, slowing the expansion of the industry to a pace manageable for the electricity grid…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-22/top-china-wind-power-producer-shines-as-fewer-turbines-sit-idle
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22 May: TVO: The future of wind turbines is being debated in rural Ontario
Opposition candidates call for a halt of wind turbine development after Chatham-Kent residents complain that green energy ruined their wells
by Mary Baxter
(This is one in a series of stories about issues affecting southwestern Ontario. It’s brought to you with the assistance of faculty and students from Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies.
Ontario Hubs are made possible by the Barry and Laurie Green Family Charitable Trust & Goldie Feldman)
WALLACEBURG — Water Wells First, a grassroots group of about 60 families based north of Chatham, has struggled over the last two years to convince the provincial Liberal government that the area’s wind farms are ruining their well water, but to no avail.
Some residents are dealing with well water so full of sediment that it has turned brown or black, as TVO reported earlier this year. During a recent news conference to raise awareness of the residents’ plight, a chef from Toronto poached eggs in the sediment-rich water along with a dash of vinegar, turning them black. “I watched them cook it, and holy crow, it bound the black shale, all of those sediments,” says Kevin Jakubec, a spokesperson for Water Wells First. The black eggs gave him an idea: “That is nasty-looking. And a light bulb went off: I’m taking that to every politician.”
***Now, with the provincial election looming, the situation is prompting offers of help from all directions. In their pitches to the voters of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, the Progressive Conservatives, NDP, and Green Party all back the residents’ call for a health hazard study. (The incumbent MPP is the PCs’ Monte McNaughton.)… READ ALL
https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/the-future-of-wind-turbines-is-being-debated-in-rural-ontario
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btw I read somewhere today wind was producing almost nothing in Oz today. anyone got those figures?
22 May: Southampton Press: Critics Dominate At East Hampton Town Hearing On Wind Farm
by Michael Wright
Skeptics and critics dominated what likely will be the final public airing of community concerns about plans for a $1.6 billion offshore wind farm to power the South Fork before local elected officials decide whether to grant Deepwater Wind permission to allow the cable from the wind farm to run beneath local beaches and roads.
More than 50 residents took to the microphone last Thursday night, May 17, at LTV Studios in Wainscott to weigh in on the lone phase of the project’s years-long review process on which local officials will have a say. But almost nobody actually referenced the actual work that the town is approving in their comments.
The majority of speakers urged the joint panel of the five Town Board members and nine Town Trustees not to put their stamp of approval on the project—even if it ultimately would not stop the project from moving forward, and would mean that the town might forfeit millions in “community benefits” that Deepwater has offered as part of its application to the town…
Opponents likened the package to a bribe from the hedge fund-backed offshore wind developer, and pleaded with town officials to reject the project on principle, saying the long-term costs of offshore wind development are still unknown.
“We are not in a position to approve this project—we have much more to learn to do it right,” said Rachael Gruzen, an environmental planner. “You have to throw out this community benefits package. This is not the time … to put a price on our natural resources.”
Speakers who spoke in support of the project on Thursday applauded it and said that the need to kick-start a shift to renewable sources of energy should trump all else…
But several of the Town Trustees appear to be strident skeptics, if not outright opponents.
At the conclusion of the joint hearing on Thursday, the Town Board voted to keep the public hearing open for additional comments for two weeks, which would allow the board to vote on the application at its next meeting. The Trustees, however, voted to keep the record open for a month.
The Deepwater proposal calls for as many as 15 turbines, each some 600 feet tall, to be erected in the Atlantic about 30 miles southeast of Montauk in a popular fishing area known as Cox Ledge. The project, know as the South Fork Wind Farm, could generate up to 90 megawatts of energy, about 50,000 homes’ worth; because of losses over the long delivery distance, however, it is seen as more likely to provide 30 to 40 megawatts of power to the South Fork at peak production.
Critics have said that the wind farm will do little to reduce the carbon footprint of Long Island’s power generation, will not steel the South Fork against power outages, and will cost Long Island Power Authority ratepayers hundreds of millions…
The approvals being sought from the town simply allow for drilling of a bore hole beneath the beach and parking lot at Wainscott’s Beach Lane, through which the offshore power cable will be brought ashore, and then running the cable beneath several town roads to the LIPA substation in East Hampton Village…
While fishermen like Mr. Farnham led the critical voices at most of the more than 20 public meetings that have been held on the project over the last year, Thursday’s skeptics came from all walks—most notably from a divided environmental advocacy community.
“I hate fossil fuels,” said Ira Barocas. “But this project is not the right project at the right time. We need to understand the costs. We need to understand the environmental impacts. We need to take a step back.”…
Carl Safina, a biologist and author of numerous books that advocate for better management and protection of the world’s marine environment, raised doubts about whether offshore wind was the right approach to ending reliance on fossil fuels.
“Is there another clean path, a more jobs-rich path for our town?” he said, casting doubts on whether LIPA was to be trusted to choose the most economical path for its hogtied ratepayers. “It seems to me we are being bamboozled. Another era of centralized, meter-run monopoly—with the added wrinkle of industrial fields in the ocean.”
Fishermen have decried the project as potentially making it impossible for commercial fishing boats to work in the area where they are built and have said not enough is known about the effects of electromagnetic pulses underwater yet to run the electricity transmission cables through such economically important fishing grounds.
“I’m not against renewable energy—I just don’t want to lose fishing grounds,” said Dave Aripotch, a Montauk fisherman. “I don’t see anything good about this. These things are no good. Put them on land.”
http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/East-End/557035/Critics-Dominate-At-East-Hampton-Town-Hearing-On-Wind-Farm
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Tony Abbott on the Ridd saga.
‘… I have no reason to think he hasn’t done his teaching and his research in a highly competent and professional manner he happens to question the politically correct orthodoxy about man made global warming.
‘If we can’t have debate, we can’t have true science. Because true science is not what 98% of scientists vote for, true science is what corresponds with the actual facts out there and that’s what we have to get to the bottom of. …’
Herald Sun
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Prof. Ridd raised his $260,000 in double quick time.
It looks like JCU will have a fight on its hands. I’m looking forward to seeing Prof. Ridd taking the JCU enviro-fascists to the cleaners.
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“Changes in the Rate of Sea Level Rise”
Willis E takes a look
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/22/changes-in-the-rate-of-sea-level-rise/
And the comments
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Gawd!
A comment worth reading IMO
” Leo Smith
May 22, 2018 at 10:50 pm ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/22/former-aussie-prime-minister-sacking-peter-ridd-was-an-attack-on-science/#comment-2824172
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That comment quotes Nevil Shute’s “Slide Rule”. Haven’t read that but “On the Beach” is a classic, done in a movie with Ava Gardner and a TV special. The exact opposite of most doom’s day stories which tend towards Mad Max.
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Hanrahan
A recommended read
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23 May: SMH: Costly backup power saved east coast from blackouts, AEMO reports say
By Cole Latimer
The east coast of Australia avoided a blackout last summer because companies cut their power usage at critical times, with the operator of the electricity network now calling for more control over the way large companies use power during future heatwaves.
Two reports released by the Australian Energy Market Operator on Wednesday show the regulator believes there would have been blackouts last summer in South Australia and Victoria but was saved by triggering backup power mechanism called the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT).
The reports found that coal-fired generation operated at its highest level of capacity since 2008. Existing coal-fired power stations such as Origin’s Eraring in Lake Macquarie were pushed harder to make up for the energy gap left by the closure of Victoria’s Hazelwood station in 2017.
But AEMO was still forced to call on the backup mechanism to stop blackouts. Using the RERT secured around 1141 additional megawatts – almost the same amount generation capacity as the Liddell power station in the Hunter Valley – as backup power.
The operator will push for new rules that would expand the time it can call on companies covered by the RERT to reduce power usage before expected hotter weather. AEMO want to move from giving 10 weeks notice to companies to nine months notice.
The operator found electricity demand across Australia’s east coast declined over summer but it was still a battle to stop hot weather – which puts greater pressure on power plants and power lines – from causing wide-spread blackouts.
A spokesman for AEMO said that over the 2017/18 summer period, the regulator called on the mechanism twice, in South Australia and Victoria, at a cost of $51 million, below its initial forecasts of $76 million.
“If we didn’t call on the RERT then there would have been load shedding throughout Victoria and South Australia,” the spokesman said…READ ON
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/costly-backup-power-saved-east-coast-from-blackouts-aemo-reports-say-20180522-p4zgu2.html
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The JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY GOES NUCLEAR thread (about 4 threads back) has become very active thanks to the contributions of Professor William Laurance of James Cook University.
An epic battle has erupted between Professor William Laurance of James Cook University and Jo Nova (BSc UWA)
GO and check it out and give you opinion on who is winning the war of logic and Science.
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Not much of a battle he refuses to answer Jo’s questions about the Peter Ridd sacking and the science but like all trolls went off on tangents and wanted to know where we all get our money from for commenting on this blog .
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The prof also seems to have challenged authority when younger. Clearly a dyed-in-the-wool greenie.
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BTW concerning the on going scandal here. I Love this one showing the total duplicity of the Washington Post as it does backflips trying to protect the deep state and status quo.
“Washington Post, May 8: Revealing the Name of the Spy Could Put Lives in Danger
Washington Post, Today: Let’s Talk About This Stefan Halper Fellow In Detail
—Ace of Spades
Flashback to the Washington Post’s report of May 8th, which shrieks about the danger posed by revealing this unknown, completely-anonymous deep-embed NOC’s name.
Last Wednesday, senior FBI and national intelligence officials relayed an Murgent message to the White House: Information being sought by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes could endanger a top-secret intelligence source.
Top White House officials, with the assent of President Trump, agreed to back the decision to withhold the information. They were persuaded that turning over Justice Department documents could risk lives by potentially exposing the source, a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI, according to multiple people familiar with the discussion and the person’s role.
…
The debate over the risk to the source is now at the center of a pitched battle between House Republicans and the Justice Department.
…
For the intelligence agencies, Nunes’s request threatened to cross a red line of compromising sources and methods of U.S. intelligence-gathering, according to people familiar with their views. Intelligence officials fear that providing even a redacted version of the information Nunes seeks could expose that person and damage relationships with other countries that serve as U.S. intelligence partners.
Note that a week after they ran this scarifying report, the Washington Post itself released a “redacted version” of the information Nunes sought — giving a full biographical sketch of the spy, which just happened to match Chuck Ross’ details about Stefan Halper.
And of course they got that from their friends at the DOJ.
So: Is this a grave threat to national security or not?
National Security Clown Nose On,
National Security Clown Nose Off.
Oh by the way: Bonus points for a “Republicans Seize.”
The role of the intelligence source in the Mueller investigation may now be seized upon by conservative Republicans who have publicly accused the Justice Department and intelligence agencies of overreach and misuse of their surveillance powers.
Now compare their story of May 8th to their new story: Who is this jaunty fellow called Stefan Halper anyway?”
———————————————————————————————-
It really is revealing just how far they will go to try and provide cover for their deep state leaking buds. And this is just a sample of the damage the old media is doing to itself. CNN’s primetime viewership ratings are down about 1/3rd from what they were this month last year. It’s being called a “collapse”.
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FBI’s Life in danger?
The main danger for Stephan Halper is going to Jail for illegal spying and perjury.
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The way things are going he will have a lot of company. Things are starting to get really hot over there in just the last day or so.
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If they don’t assassinate Trump first, and I have no doubt there are plans, and if it can’t be done with a single4 bullet it will be with however much collateral damage it takes, there will be need for a “truth and reconciliation commission”.
US corruption is so deeply embedded that of necessity many guilty must be given a free pass. There have been a lot of retirements in both business and government lately. Are they the smarter rats, deserting before it becomes obvious the ship is lost?
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Yes they are. They’re closing in fast on Clapper, who today admitted spying AT the Trump campaign was going on, though claims it was for their own good and not targeted at the campaign! How desperate is HE?
And Brennan is also on a very hot seat.
Every ploy they and their media have tried has failed to prevent the facts from coming out.
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That episode was an elaborate attempt ensnare Nunes into becoming privy to information, leak the information themselves, and then blame Nunes as the leaker. Nunes didn’t take the bait. But Nunes must getting too close for comfort.
Now they have admitted further illegal activities themselves in their ploy.
01
Arcing powerlines sparked fires that destroyed almost 200 homes in the Blue Mountains
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/falling-trees-caused-devastating-blue-mountains-fires/9790740
Let’s remember how Their ABC reported on this fire in 2013:
‘Climate Council links NSW bushfires to climate change’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-25/climate-council-links-bushfires-to-climate-change/5046164
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Not sure if this is accurate I’m sure the Victoriastan minister was asked to shed load and refused so they blacked out somewhere in NSW instead .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/no-load-shedding-over-hot-summer/9792802
Either way it was more luck than good management
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Ok. I am going to toss a bit of, I hope , a hand grenade into the discussion on Australia’s energy needs both now and into the future.
We may not even need to re-establish coal fired generators IF there is some flexibility of thinking amongst the political illuminati and the grow a large pair of cojones to take on the illiterate greens and the illiterate inner city elites [ and thats gospel as they are almost tottally illiterate as to what and how civilisation is powered and who keeps that civilisation going ] .as you will see with my suggestion.
In fact with the winding down of our coal fired generators and the now accelerating global dis-illusion with renewable energy despite all the propaganda to the contrary, Australia might just be a prime position to take on a couple of brand new power generation technologies that will have the ability to take Australia through to the mid 21st century when Fusion will finally begin to come on line.
And these technologies, in fact two separate technologies will both reduce the so called greenhouse gases which about so much rubbish is being promoted but which is becoming a dead issue even amongst researchers into the unfathomable complexities of the always changing global climate.\
.
The first technology and the one that is responsible for reducing the USA’s green house gas levels at a rate that is far faster and greater than any other nations and this despite Trump or maybe because of Trump withdrawing the USA from the cabortion of the legalistic non event Paris Climate Agreement is the fracking of shale for its natural gas content.
To quote America’s EPA; Greenhouse gas emissions in 2016 (after accounting for sequestration from the land sector) were 12 percent below 2005 levels.
Note that date and figure, America;s green house gas emmissions are now 12% below the 2005 levels
.
As we have seen in the desperation of South Australia to get some sort of reliability back into their power grid, gas turbine generators using piped in gas can be installed very rapidly and have a life of around 15 to 20 years.
The Closed Cycle gas generators that are used for continuous running base load have efficiencies in fuel burn of up to and exceeding 55%.
Fracking of Australia’s immense shale deposits for natural gas can begin in months and probably be on stream using the latest American fraking technology within a year or so.
The British are doing that right now as their shale deposits are up to 3000 feet thick unlike the American multi layered shale deposits which run in multiple stacked seams each of only a few metres thick.
Unfortunately it seems our politicals are so damn thick and dumb that they can’t get their minds around the fact that we could have an almost complete reliabilty of power supply as well as reducing the “dangerous” [ sarc! ] greenhouse gases and do it all with 5 years or less if they just gave the ok to go fracking and do so without any red tape.
But outright utter stupidity, arrogance , ignorance in spades and hubris that they know it all seems to be the order of the day for almost all of Australia’s inner city dwelling politicians who can’t seem to be able to get their minds around the simplest solutions or grow a decent pair of cojones to take on the rabid greens and inner city elites and so solve most of looming our power supply problems within a very few years.
.
The second leg to an almost 100% reliability and cheap and ultimately very simple solution with a decentralised power generation grid, a good thing in my opinion as it means disasters of any major type can be isolated to specific areas unlike if a very large generator such as sabotage by the usual suspects these days, goes down and takes most of or the entire grid output with it.
It is the Nuscale Small Scale Modular Reactor which passed the first and major phase of its American nuclear regulatory license early in May.
This reactor system will likely be commercially operational within 8 years with the first production of the Nuscale SMR’s beginning around 2020. [ other SMR reactor manufacturers aren’t far behind and may yet beat NuScale into production.]
To quote from the Nuscale site [ Rolls Royce in the UK is also developing a similar modular reactor as are Westinghouse and other nuclear nations such as Russia ]
&
Benefits of NuScale’s Technology
NuScale Power has created a new kind of nuclear power plant – a smaller, scalable pressurized water reactor with passive safety features, allowing shutdown and self-cooling, with no operator action, no AC or DC power, and no external water.
Natural forces of physics, such as gravity, convection, and conduction, are used for normal operations and safe shutdown.
.
The installation of a SMR [ Small Modular Reactor ] involves digging a silo type pit, lining it with a very heavy concrete and steel lining so it can’t be breached by outside events, drop the whole self contained 500 tonne reactor into the pit off the back of its transport from where it has been transported after being built on an assembly line production system, connect it up to the grid and fill the pit with water.
There can be no runaway nuclear event because the small size of the reactor and its large relative to volume cooling surface area prevents any potential overheating and thwarts any potential runaway reactions.
About all that will happen if things go wrong is for the water in the pit to boil away in a few weeks unless somebody tops up the water levels in the pit..
And by then after a couple of weeks, the nuclear reaction will be running down to a safer level.
So every 15 or 20 years you lift the self contained reactor out of its pit and drop the newest and latest reactor version in and connect it up to the grid and away we go again with the ultra reliable power supply again and no greenhouse gases at all.
The old reactor is checked for condition and either refurbished or stripped of its used nuclear fuel and then taken away to the nuclear grave yard to cool down radiation wise internally and then cut up after a few years and the metal and etc disposed of or recycled.
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Strangely with the grid having to be extended and decentralised for the wind turbines , the grid stucture will be there for the a widely distributed group of SMR’s to be installed and located at a number of nuclear node points across the states and nation.
Unfortunately here in Australia we seem to have politicians who are totally incapable of looking ahead , who have the cojones of neutered mice when it comes to taking on and making long term plans based on what is already reality , with the fraking for gas and the use of very large Closed Cycle Gas Turbine generators and their very high efficiencies of around 55% gas powered generators.
The technologies are already there, the reality already exists and is already in widespread commercial use in the USA as a proven power generation technology with the British and Russians now coming up and not far behind the Americans.
All there for Australia to have the fraking and the gas generators installed in probably less than three years or even two years.
But I guess when your nation is run by utter self satisfied wimps without political cojones of any sort and who are so ignorant of the realities and importance of ultra reliable and adaquate cheap power production for both our civilisation and our nation and its peoples , then we will get what we deserved by voting such political wimps and ignoramuses and low political achievers into office to run our nation.
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ROM, whilst i 100% agree with your thinking, and even would suggest there are several other potential “Nuclear” based solutions that will ultimately HAVE to be considered for energy throughout the world…
BUT, As im sure you are aware , Australia currently has a moritorium on Nuclear power and as such it would require a change of legislation (Act of Parliament) before any nuclear solution could be initiated..
The current political power mess unfortunately totally prevents any such possibility until there is a political revolution on a similar scale of a nuclear disaster !!
10
22 May: Nikkei Asian Review: US shale-based LNG gushes into Asia
Japan follows South Korea, China and India in signing long-term contracts
by YASUO TAKEUCHI and RYOSUKE HANAFUSA
TOKYO — Liquefied natural gas originating from the U.S. is flowing into Asia at an accelerating pace, with Japan becoming the most recent country to buy the fuel under a long-term contract.
Japan will begin sourcing a sizable portion of its LNG from the U.S. to improve its energy security. Tokyo also seeks to alleviate pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to address their bilateral trade imbalance. Other Asian countries are tapping this relatively new source as well, amid growing demand for energy.
A tanker carrying 70,000 tons of LNG from the Cove Point terminal in the U.S. state of Maryland docked Monday at the Negishi terminal in Yokohama, operated by Tokyo Gas. The company agreed to buy about 1.4 million tons of LNG annually from the Cove Point project for 20 years.
Energy-hungry Asian countries are eager buyers. South Korea started importing American LNG under a long-term contract last year. India did the same in March, with state-run Gail (India) signing a 20-year deal with Texas-based Cheniere Energy. Cheniere also announced in February an agreement to sell 1.2 million tons yearly to China National Petroleum, the first long-term LNG import deal between American and Chinese players…
China overtook South Korea last year to become the world’s second-largest LNG importer — behind only Japan — and is expected to top the list in 2030…
LNG plants are sprouting across the U.S., as Japanese buyers plan to procure 10 million tons annually from American sources, data from the industry ministry shows — enough to meet more than 10% of Japan’s demand…
The country brought in 83.6 million tons of LNG last year. Australia accounted for 30% of the total, followed by Malaysia and Qatar…
“We’re considering policy measures” to boost LNG imports further, a Japanese government official said. Japan also plans to work with the U.S. to promote shale gas exports to other Asian markets. Companies are conducting feasibility studies for facilities such as receiving terminals and power plants around Asia.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/US-shale-based-LNG-gushes-into-Asia
00
Sceptics Deny the Earth is Flat. Therefore the World is Warming
Geoff Chambers on the latest pathetic smear of climate sceptics by the co-called Conversation.
00
Shell wins on both counts; B’berg & Guardian go into a spin:
Shell Sees Off Controversial Votes on Climate Change, CEO Pay
Bloomberg-22 hours ago
The company won the backing of about 94 percent of shareholders to not set specific emission-reduction targets…
Shell investors revolt over pay and maintain pressure over climate change
The Guardian-22 hours ago
the fight-back begins:
22 May: The Hill: Former Trump adviser heads effort to crack down on climate shareholder resolutions
By Timothy Cama
A former top energy and environment adviser to President Trump is leading an industry-backed effort to crack down on corporate shareholders’ resolutions on hot-button controversies like climate change.
George David Banks, who was the top White House adviser on international energy and environment policy, is serving as executive director of the project, dubbed the Main Street Investors Coalition.
In recent years, investors such as big firms, state pension funds and nongovernmental organizations have pushed shareholder votes — frequently nonbinding — asking corporations to take certain actions like better account for their greenhouse gas emissions or distance themselves from the gun industry, a process known as shareholder advocacy.
The new group, backed by the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Council for Capital Formation and the Savings & Retirement Foundation, argues that the resolutions hurt investors like 401(k) holders.
“The rise in low-fee passive investing has been a good thing for retail investors,” Banks said in a statement. “But as the size and influence of these massive institutional holders has grown, so too has their ability to drown-out the voices and interests of Main Street investors who, despite controlling the single largest pool of equity capital in the world, have no ability to influence the decisions these funds make on their behalf, with their money.”
The group will focus on public advocacy, trying to convince individual investors that the resolutions are a bad idea.
Banks is also the executive vice president of the American Council for Capital Formation and an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
He left the White House in February after he was denied a security clearance due to his admission that he smoked marijuana previously.
Banks had a leading role in the administration’s policies regarding the Paris climate agreement, energy-related sanctions and energy trade, among other matters.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/388763-former-trump-adviser-heads-effort-to-crack-down-on-climate
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***”global power demand will surge 58 percent by 2040 from 2016 levels” says BNEF…most of it fossil fuels, yet Bloomberg comes up with this spin:
23 May: Bloomberg: A Greener Planet Could Slash Oil Company Income by $19 Trillion to 2040
By Rachel Morison; With assistance by Kelly Gilblom
The global transition to electric vehicles and renewable sources of power will see oil company revenue plummet.
The rollout of 540 million electric vehicles by 2040 will cause oil demand to peak in the mid-2020s, slashing income by $19 trillion, according to Oxford, England-based Aurora Energy Research Ltd. Gas and power will provide more than half of final energy consumption, up from 39 percent currently.
Aurora’s “analysis points to a possible energy future of mass electrification, digitization, and new technologies, in which the rise in electric vehicles and continued improvements in fuel efficiency lead to peak oil demand occurring in the mid-2020,” Richard Howard, head of research at Aurora, said in the report. “This flips the very idea of ‘peak oil’ — previously hypothesized for the supply side – as electricity grows in importance as a transport energy source.”
Oil companies are struggling to find an identity for themselves in a greener, more environmentally aware world. But they recognize that they need to change to survive. Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc are trying to find ways to offer EV charging alongside traditional gasoline pumps at service stations and are buying up renewable generation.
***Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates global power demand will surge 58 percent by 2040 from 2016 levels, with $10.2 trillion of investment needed in the sector. During the same period the growth of electric vehicles is seen displacing about 8 million barrels of oil a day — equivalent to the current total production of Iran and Iraq…
With demand declining in the 2030s, the company’s “burnout scenario” predicts that oil prices could fall to $32 per barrel in 2040 from about $80 currently.
Total fossil fuel revenue will fall to $21 trillion, 10 percent of which is due to coal, as that fuel loses favor in power generation. Prices will collapse to $28 a ton by 2040, from about $90 now, “barely above the marginal cost of production and transport.”
Natural gas will probably emerge as the main fossil fuel “winner” as it balances renewables in power generation and is used as a substitute for oil in petrochemicals. Long-term gas demand is set to increase by 15 percent, or by 750 billion cubic meters, compared to business as usual, Aurora said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-22/green-shift-to-slash-oil-company-income-by-19-trillion-to-2040
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They want to save the world, but on someone else’s dollar.
“the country is at risk of being left behind”. What does that even mean? There is no prize for being good/wasteful consumers. We will never actually be manufacturers of either the cars or the batteries.
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It would be unwise to think Kim uneducated and that he hasn’t read The Art Of The Deal. It is to be expected that one or the other would walk away for a couple of weeks. Let’s see.
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Scott Adams explains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySL4DOPh90A
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No-Ko’s response surprisingly mild. All is not lost.
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Liddel operator AGL plan to convert open coal mine to pumped hydro storage facility..
This made the headlines and news , and sounded like an inspired answer to the future energy debate….to a casual listner.
But did anyone notice the flaws in the proposal ?
1) no mention of where the power to pump up the water will come from
2). No mention of where the water used will be sourced or pumped from (lower storage area)
3) no mention of the actual capacity (MWh) of storage proposed
But all the obove is probably understandable since this mine is probably the smallest open pit in the state and will be insignificant in any power supply for the future..
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/agl-to-transform-coal-mine-into-renewables-plant/ar-AAxJ691
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I could find the actual figures on my own puter [this is my son’s] but this sounds like a lesser project than that for the old Kidston mine and that has been talked about for ages but the money for that has not been forthcoming.
A small pumped storage project has little value in the grand plan other than PR, it is not a generator of new electrons as you say.
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