New Report: Renewables indirectly make electricity MORE expensive, so ABC tells Australia the opposite

One big government agency quietly admits renewables make electricity more expensive, and another big gov media agency hides it.

The new AMEC report tells us renewables will make electricity prices go down a tiny 2% in the short run but make electricity more expensive in the long run due to forcing out cheap baseload players. What matters most to Australians — that we can expect our electricity costs to be 2% less than “obscene” for the next couple of years, or that the artificial transition we are forcing on the grid will indirectly make electricity more expensive?

Which message does the ABC headline? Say hello to Trivia!

Renewables set to drive down power prices, new AEMC analysis shows
Does ABC Fake News Make you Mad? Help expose the propaganda, donate here. Thanks. The ABC is essentially a taxpayer funded advertising machine for the renewables industry.

A flood of new renewable energy projects is likely to drive down household electricity bills, according to new analysis by government policy adviser the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC).

On a national basis, household bills are set to fall by 2.1 per cent — but price falls in the eastern states and South Australia are offset by increases in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT.

We pay the ABC three million dollars a day so they can parrot press releases. Unpaid bloggers only had to read to paragraph 24 to find the report says that the renewable subsidy may lead to higher wholesale prices (page V, summary, para 24). The qualification “may” applies to the renewable schemes that don’t “incentivize investment in firming technology”. In other words the “may” might as well be a “must” in Australia. There are no cheap options for “firming technology” that the RET is not actively forcing out of the market.

There’s always a way to blame coal:

The price reductions will go some way to reversing big power bill hikes driven by increased cost and market volatility driven by the retirement of two brown coal power stations — Northern at Port Augusta in SA, and Hazelwood in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.

AMEC, Graph, electricity prices, 2018.

Look what happens when renewables increase and coal decreases…

The big picture is all a bit complicated for big-welfare-journalists. See the graph above. The carbon tax increased the price. The closure of coal plants increased the price. Renewables have increased through the whole duration of this graph and so has the price. What will make electricity cheaper … ABC says “renewables”. Sure.

In the long run, renewables increase the cost of electricity three different ways:

Firstly the subsidy itself costs money, secondly it indirectly it drives out reliable, cheap supply, then thirdly, it adds an unreliable supply that makes the other generators on the grid less efficient and higher in cost too.

The direct costs of the large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) are included in the environmental component of the cost stack. However it is important to also recognise the indirect impact of this policy.  The LRET provides incentives for increased quantities of renewable generation to enter the market, even when demand is flat or falling. This is because the revenue that these intermittent generators receive from the scheme is additional to that available.
Over time, to the extent to which the LRET contributes to the exit of thermal generation but does not incentivise investment in firming technologies, it may result in a tighter supply-demand balance and lead to higher wholesale prices. from the wholesale market and the LGC penalty price is higher than the expected long-run cost of investing in new intermittent generation.
The overall impact of the LRET has therefore been to drive down wholesale prices in the short term but, in the absence of policies and incentives to encourage investment in replacement generation and firming technologies, it contributes to periods of more volatile and potentially higher wholesale prices.   (page 44)
The AMEC committee has been saying the same thing about the LRET since 2015. (2.2 p 31 and 2.2.5 p38)

More solar rooftop PV means higher wholesale prices, not lower:

While the ABC tells Australians that renewables make electricity cheaper, the AMEC report makes it clear that more rooftop panels make electricity generation more expensive for the reliable generators on the grid.

• In the WEM in Western Australia, wholesale costs are estimated to increase throughout the reporting period. This is due to increasing gas and coal prices. Changes in the residential demand shape related to increased penetration of rooftop PV also contribute to an increase in wholesale costs. See fig 6.1

In the WEM, wholesale costs were estimated based on a Long Run Marginal Costs (LRMC) approach for the electricity system.

The LRMC approach estimated that wholesale costs are expected to increase in the WEM from 2017-18 to 2020-21 due to:

  • a slight increase in peak demand and a change in residential demand shape related to the increased penetration of rooftop PV systems. This reduces the energy demand met per fixed capital cost of generation, such that the long-run marginal costs of generation increase.
  • increasing gas and coal prices.

The direct costs of renewable energy targets

The direct costs of the Renewable Energy Target are between $50 – $250 a year and rising. But the real costs are the indirect costs. The price of wholesale electricity has tripled in the last three years. Bear in mind, these are averaged costs. Those with solar panels have much smaller electricity bills and therefore pay a lot less RET.
Direct Costs of the LRET, Renewable Energy Target, Australia, Electricity Bills, 2018. AMEC Graph.

Direct Costs of the LRET, Renewable Energy Target, Australia, Electricity Bills, 2018

AMEC’s tricky message — prices and volatility are going up

But AMEC gets too clever in graphing the effect of renewables. Here they do a graphic that makes it appear the upside and downside of renewables is kind of similar, when we know, and from all around the world that nations with more renewables have a lot more expensive electricity.

AMEC, electricity price cycle, long term, renewables graph, 2018.

Wholesale costs make up 30 – 60% of your electricity bill:

Wholesale market costs account for 33 to 57 per cent of a consumer’s annual bill in 2017-18, depending on the jurisdiction. Decreasing wholesale costs are the primary driver of retail prices and bills in most jurisdictions over the reporting period. The exceptions are Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Strap yourself in: 9 Gigawatts of unreliable energy is coming to Australia

From the report itself:

Trends in national residential electricity prices and bills

On a national basis, residential electricity prices and bills are expected to decrease in the period from 2017-18 to 2020-21. This trend is primarily driven by wholesale costs reducing in South East Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The reduction is driven by the estimated entry of 9,732 MW of accredited, committed or expected new generation and battery storage.

… The wholesale cost reductions are larger than the expected slight increase in network costs and higher environmental costs that are driven by increasing costs associated with the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES).

The 9,732 MW of new generation and battery storage that is expected to enter the NEM over the analysis period is comprised of:

  • • 8,961 MW of new large-scale intermittent generation.
  • • 566 MW of new thermal generation and upgraded capacity of existing generators
  • • 205 MW of battery storage, supported by jurisdictional programs.
What about the new solar PV? That’s not counted in the 9GW?

Australia is adding renewables at an astonishing rate:

How about a 350% increase in the growth of renewables in just one year: We added 1,042 MW of renewable generation in 2018 but will put in an amazing 3,663 MW in the 2019 financial year. We added 30 MW of battery storage in the last year then 75MW is coming this financial year. (see 2.2 p8) This reduced the cost of wholesale electricity from bleeding point to “slightly less”. It’s a temporary blip down from a volatile spike. But the long term trend is up, up, up.

Environmental costs are going up primarily due to the Rooftop Solar PV (Called the SRES)

Of all the renewables going onto the grid, the cost burden that is rising the fastest is rooftop solar, not wind or solar thermal even though they are being added at record levels.

Environmental policy costs directly account for 3 to 14 per cent of a representative customer’s annual bill, depending on the jurisdiction in 2017-18. Environmental policy costs are increasing in most jurisdictions over the reporting period, primarily due to the continued growth in solar penetration and the consequent increase in costs for the Small Scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES). (Summary, paragraph 14-15)

In Queensland, not only is half the cost of the panel paid through the SRES scheme (which means it comes from other consumers) but the other half of the cost is paid as a no-interest loan from the Queensland government. (Section B4, p68). This plan which will make electricity more expensive is called the Queensland Affordable Energy Plan. Naturally.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Queensland government pays a $50 rebate, and has a Solar Future Program as well:

The aim of the program is to have 1 million rooftops or 3,000 megawatts of solar PV in Queensland by 2020. The program’s initiatives include reforming feed-in tariffs, statutory voltage limits and Solar 150 (large-scale solar investment).

Subsidies pile on subsidies. How many ways can the government help the ailing, uncompetitive, pointless renewables industry?

For Australia: we’ve got two more years of increasing the unreliable, unnecessary, expensive parts of our grid:

• Wholesale costs, wholesale price volatility and the wholesale contract market continue to be affected by environmental policy, with increased levels of intermittent generation, incentivised by the large-scale renewable energy target (LRET). As the LRET target for 2020 is expected to be met through the large volume of new renewable investments in the coming years, and the price of large-scale generation certificates (LGC) is expected to fall significantly as a result, the LRET is not expected to drive additional investment in new renewable projects after 2020.

REFERENCE

Price Trends 2018 Report, Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC).

9.6 out of 10 based on 65 ratings

317 comments to New Report: Renewables indirectly make electricity MORE expensive, so ABC tells Australia the opposite

  • #
    Kinky Keith

    This whole electricity thing is obscene.

    Real Electricity should cost roughly $500 per annum.

    Political Electricity costs roughly $1,500 per annum.

    Roughly $5 Billion dollars of household electricity payments go somewhere that they shouldn’t because of political manipulation.

    All the cream is floating away to be skimmed off by those with friends in high places.

    KK

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    • #

      Everyone keeps talking about the direct cost to households, but never the indirect costs that flow from businesses, government agencies, etc who also have to pay much higher prices and pass those onto consumers.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Exactly.
        That’s the issue largely hidden from the public, but certainly not from business owners who face a massive disincentive when trying to work out whether their business or industry is still viable.
        The ONLY business that has grown in recent years is the University business where naive young voters are treated like gods in this wonderful, rich country.

        Then eventually reality strikes.

        KK

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    • #
      clivehoskin

      And those friends are backers of the UN and the Globalists.

      120

  • #
    Sceptical Sam

    More solar rooftop PV means higher wholesale prices, not lower:

    Yep.

    And, rooftop solar means higher costs for those who actually outlay their hard-earned to put those flaky panels on their roofs.

    It’s still cheaper to purchase off the grid.

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  • #
    Robber

    A moderately hot day in SA and Vic (34 degrees in Melb & Adel) and across the AEMO grid mid afternoon total generation is 21.6 GW. Large solar is delivering 1.3 GW and wind is delivering 1.0 GW (20% capacity factor), a combined 10.6% of the total. Coal is delivering 17 GW, gas 0.7 HW and hydro 1.5 GW. Rooftop solar delivered a peak of 3.8 GW at midday behind the meter. But come 6.30 pm this evening when demand is expected to be about 24 GW, and the sun goes down, it will be up to those reliables – coal, gas and hydro – to ramp up to keep the lights on and the air conditioners running. And prices are forecast to be well above $100/MWhr.
    Now tell me again how more intermittent wind/solar (9 GW x 30% cf = 2.7 GW), seeking a return on investment, yet must be 100% backed up by reliables, can lower prices. Ah, almost missed it, mustn’t forget another 0.2 GW of battery power.

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  • #
    pat

    like the Guardian, theirABC provides links to what suits them, but doesn’t bother linking to the AEMC report itself. ABC’s audience must only get ABC’s interpretation.

    as for the following from the ABC article:

    The proposed changes include:
    •Speeding-up and streamlining regulatory approvals and cost-benefit analysis for new transmission infrastructure.

    ANY GUESS WHAT THAT MIGHT END UP COSTING?

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    • #
      gunbuggy

      Of course the ABC won’t allow us to comment to show them the error in their ways. We can’t have that happening now can we? You’ll just have to believe what we tell now you, be good little plebs and don’t question anything..

      70

  • #
    Jeff

    It seems a bit like crime gangs laundering drug money (subsidies) in a fruit shop (electricity market).
    Sell the fruit cheap to start with, put your honest rivals out of business, then jack up the prices.

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  • #
    Mark M

    CSIRO/AEMO study says wind, solar and storage clearly cheaper than coal

    The joint study – GenCost 2018 – by the CSIRO and AEMO shows that the levellised cost of energy (LCOE) of solar and wind is well below that of any other generation source.

    https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-aemo-study-says-wind-solar-and-storage-clearly-cheaper-than-coal-45724/

    > CSIRO; https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2018/Annual-update-finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power

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    • #
      TdeF

      Firstly wind and solar are not taxed to death. The cost of new windmills and solar panels are simply extracted from our electricity bills. A form of communist capitalism where you money is stolen by government order.

      Then of course it is cheaper as they pay neither for wind or even the windmills. If fact it should be massively profitable. Too bad wind and solar are never there when you want it because wind and sun are not commandable. You cannot have power when you want it. No solar at night. No wind when the wind does not blow. So what’s really the value of something which only works 25% of the time at best? Often zero.

      So near useless. But cheap, or it would if it was in a real market. The coal competition is 4c kwhr +6-8c Kw/hr of RET ripoff, or 10-12C a kw/hr, that is all you have to beat. So thanks to the illegal Renewable Energy Act (Electricity) 2000 wind and solar are at least 9c kw/hr, twice the cost of coal power and still ‘cheaper’. So the very cheap coal power stations have to close, as expected. Even though they are much cheaper.

      We need to get the government out of electricity pricing and then maybe you would see really cheap wind power. Until then, just keep paying for those windmills and pay-in rates and solar panels. The whole system is fake. It is nothing to do with Climate Change and man made Global Warming. It is about profiteering with the direct help of compliant governments and politicians who pretend it is nothing to do with them.

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    • #
      Latus Dextro

      Kommen sence will tell you that a claim or “study” that produces such a “levellised” result is abject objective bunkum, except at The Con.

      190

    • #
      ivan

      Mark, is there anywhere that the actual figures they use to make this ‘levellised’ prognosis are available or is this more results of unvalidated models using nameplate values and unicorn farts and forgetting all the lovely subsidies and tax incentives and the requirement for reliable backup when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun has set?

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    • #
      RickWill

      LCOE is a meaningless number when comparing intermittent with dispatachable generators. The fact that it is still used by CSIRO and AEMO underlines their incompetence and why prices will continue to rise in Australia.

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    • #
      Ian1946

      It doesn’t matter how “cheap” wind and solar are as they can’t produce 24/7. Batteries are often quoted as the saviour by people who don’t understand the difference between Gigawatts and Megawatts. Pumped hydro as the other holy grail to renewable fans consumes power which they assume will come from the various solar panels and windmills. The next untruth quoted by renewable fans is the nameplate of the various panels and windmills which they try to say is the actual output.

      Enough is enough. This madness must stop.

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    • #
      truth

      I don’t trust this RE cult article or anything from any of the institutions any more…not from AEMO..AEMC..ESB…COAG…BoM…CSIRO…the universities..government/opposition…not from Bloomberg …only a handful of conservatives and a few other people can be trusted.
      This climate issue has changed everything. We are fed lies with no compunction at all…because ‘the planet’ licenses any deceit…anything and everything….no boundaries.
      As far as I know levelized cost doesn’t include or anywhere near cover…. the costs to make intermittent power useful and totally reliable.
      They say it includes storage and PH costs but how much of them?
      To make the NEM reliable and secure will require a huge amount of both battery storage and pumped hydro…at enormous cost…most of it paid by taxpayers one way or another …not by generators or network providers…paid by us ….even if it doesn’t appear in our electricity bills.
      For any intermittent generation that’s not backed up by batteries and PH…frequency services must be provided to deal with fluctuating frequency ….and synchronous condensers must be provided to maintain inertia…all paid for by consumers [ specified by AEMO.]
      AEMO specifically says all of the new transmission build needed to deliver the intermittents and make sure all generation is available when needed is to be paid for by the consumer.
      So one way or another huge extra costs to enable weather-dependent intermittents will be paid by us…consumers…even if it’s not in our electricity bills.
      It’s also said that the RE build will have to cover 3 times Australia’s expected demand…for reliability of service.
      How all of that can be profitable we’re never told…but you can be sure we will be the ones required to pay to make it appear profitable.
      The article says that until around 50 per cent penetration of RE’s reached…storage is not required…… ‘ because of the existing back-up required to support the fleet of coal and gas generators.’
      Is the writer trying to flog the RE CULT’s regular lie there that the coal and gas generators are not reliable and that their unreliability is not caused by the intermittents and their favored status for dispatch that relegates coal and gas plants to standby mode …in which mode their economics and physical reliability are steadily destroyed?
      Or did he mean to say that until 50% penetration, RE can do without storage because its frequency and inertia services are provided by coal and gas plants that kick in …necessarily at great cost….when the intermittents inevitably fail.
      I think the writer’s flogging his usual lies…trying to convince Australians that FF plants that have reliably powered our country forever are inherently an old unreliable technology…and at the same time lying to us that the intermittents that cannot possibly do without that old technology… are far superior to it…and that when the RE CULT kills off the old technology the intermittents will be even more superior sez the CULT…so long as the ATP spends hundreds of billions of dollars on the expensive storage they must have in order to be anything but rubbish…storage that’s also weather-dependent and drought-affected.
      The writer also points out that the CSIRO added ‘a 5 per cent risk premium for finance to the levelized cost for coal’…which ‘blows coal out of the ball-park. Adding in the cost of abatement for the emissions of coal makes them even less competitive’.
      How convenient for the CULT …including CSIRO…is that!
      The risk premium would be because the RE CULT travelled the world warning investors off investing in anything related to coal…ie the risk in question was created by the lies of the cult itself…the RE only cheaper because it’s all fudged…lies generated by the big lie of CAGW itself that began with the dodgy consensus …voodoo ‘science’ that could not be questioned
      And of course the abatement cost added to coal is also the fruit of the big lie…it’s all circular…all dodgy…almost no one can be trusted…not even formerly revered institutions.

      20

  • #
    TdeF

    Its a simple misdirection. Everyone knows wind and sun are ‘free’. (If only because the State Governments heavily taxes coal, gas, oil and every other natural resource). Water is starting to be heavily taxed, through licences, even the rain which falls. Even so, wind is truly free. So it makes sense that once we (not the owners) have paid for all the windmills, we should get cheap energy?

    No. Coal is free. Oil is free. Gas is free. Apart from onerous taxes, it is the cost of harvesting but in reality oil rich countries are rich countries. Except Australia and Venezuela and most of Russia. Socialists grab the money to implement their social agendas, which is making the elites rich, the new aristocracy, all in the name of sharing the wealth.

    The total collapse of rich Venezuela in 15 years since Chavez and now Maduro has people starving to death. It’s known as the ‘Maduro diet’. Venezuela was the equal of any Western country. Now there is no food. They are even importing oil to meet their contract obligations, so the Socialist government so lauded by people like Jeremy Corbyn and so many dictators is now rolling in cash. The international trader are rolling in cash, exporting to a country and importing it back. All the foreigners have left and no one knows how to refine the oil. A total mess.

    Can Australia go the same way? Small population and at the mercy of the globalists, half socialists, half capitalists. Remember Adolph was fully backed by the biggest company in the world, Krupp. The princes of Russia simply became the communists of Russia. Now our new elite, the billionaires of the US think they can run the world too. George Soros thinks so.

    Remember. Coal and gas and oil are free too. So why blow up working power stations? To cripple Australia. There is no other explanation. There is no fossil fuel CO2 in the air, so it is all a lie.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Two fantastic pieces there TdeF.

      Not only do we have a “fake electricity pricing system” we also have fake government.

      It’s hard to name anything useful done by governments in a very long time.

      KK

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    • #

      Tdef,
      I wouldn’t say that there’s no fossil fuel related CO2 in the air, just that the IPCC over-estimates the climate effect of what little fossil fuel related CO2 is in the air by a factor of between 3 and 6. The effect of doubling CO2 is no where close to 3C, is limited by COE to be no more than 1.4C and is most likely somewhere between 0.7C and 1.1C but could be as low as 0.5C. In other words, the benefits to agriculture from increased CO2 and the benefits to humanity from a slight increase in minimum temperatures far offsets any real or imagined inconvenience from the tiny increase in the average surface temperature that might arise from CO2 emissions.

      Unfortunately for humanity, the IPCC will never embrace the scientific truth as it undermines the UNFCCC’s reason to exist and the fragile ‘consensus’ surrounding IPCC reports is the only support they have. This conflict of interest needs to be more widely exposed as it has rotted climate science to the core.

      210

      • #
        TdeF

        I would.

        I accept that you make the ‘so what’ argument, that even if CO2 levels were man made, they have little effect. That’s self evidently true. Consider CO2 has gone up a whopping 50% since 1900 but it is extremely difficult to find a 50% effect anywhere or at times any effect at all. Then to ascribe any and every effect solely to CO2 is unjustifiable. Missing Polar bears. Localised ocean warming. Bushfires, floods. The list is endless.

        However we have been able to simply date the air with radio carbon dating, a technique recognized in 1954 which in essence specifically dates the Carbon atom in CO2. An extraordinary discovery. Of all the 92 basic elements in the Periodic table, Carbon atoms are the only ones we can date.

        So I can say the total amount of (150million year old) fossil fuel CO2 is negligible. Even in 1956 fossil fuel CO2 was scientifically estimated at 2.0%+/-0.15%. That was after two world wars.

        So the very bedrock of man made Global Warming is proven incontrovertibly wrong. The fact that everything else is wrong too is no surprise. It all starts with a lie. Why not tell more?

        210

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Great outlines TdeF, but does CO2 really drive atmospheric temperature at any level.

          Even IF CO2 is an active ingredient:

          basically water has the same IR absorption mechanism as CO2.

          Water would be 96% of any effect.
          Of the remaining 4%, call that Total CO2.
          Of that 4%, natural origin CO2 is say 97% while human origin CO2 is 3%.

          This means that IF there was actually any greenhouse effect, and I don’t think that it’s a useful concept, the Human Origin CO2 is 0.1152% of that effect.
          That is 1.152 parts per thousand.

          Quantitatively irrelevant.

          Then if you really want to get into ridiculing the Global Warming Mythology we can consider variations in solar output and the vagiaries of orbital mechanics.
          KK

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        • #
          Scott

          Thanks for this TdeF,

          I have been wondering about this man made CO2 in the atmosphere as it does not seem to match the OCO-2 instrumental satellite data that shows a massive natural increase up to 15 ppm in CO2 predominately over the Boreal forests in the Northern Hemisphere peaking in May each year. This peak matches the Mauna Loa Keeling curve’s peak.

          Then by October-November you can hardly see any any high readings of CO2 especially over heavily populated centres. In addition the Keeling curve shows a drop in CO2 while man keeps emitting.

          Can you enlighten me a little more on the carbon dating and how this overcomes the main reason they push the CO2 increase is man made due to the C isotope changes?

          Thanks and Merry Christmas to all.

          40

  • #

    And just remember how we are funding our War on Coal…
    https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/australian-coal-exports-set-new-record-in-2017/

    Don’t worry. The Guardian is expecting coal export prices to follow iron ore prices downward in the coming year. Makes sense. The people who make all our stuff using all our stuff can’t keep on paying out record amounts of dough forever.

    Once the delicious slump occurs there’ll be plenty of those green jobs. Plus eco-tourism, of course. And somebody somewhere will tip more debt money into the ABC and Guardian so they can keep churning out green fiction.

    A de-industrialised Australia facing an export slump will have lots of leisure time for soaking up lots more green fiction. I dare say that perusing the ABC and Guardian could be classified as a green job, thus boosting employment figures. (Actually, most people just look at the stock pictures of wistful polar bears and sooty smokestacks against blood-red sunsets, but that’s sort of a green job when you think about it. I certainly find it a chore.)

    What can possibly go wrong?

    250

  • #
    sunsettommy

    A city in Texas, United States, has LOST almost 7 MILLION dollars for their drive to be 100% powered by Wind and Solar power:

    American Thinker

    Texas city featured in Al Gore film lost millions in green energy investments

    December 21, 2018

    by Rick Moran

    EXCERPT:

    A green energy scheme to supply a small town in Texas with 100% of its electrical needs via cheap solar and wind power is, instead, costing the city almost $7 million.

    Georgetown, Texas was featured in the sequel to Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth as the “future” of American power generation. But falling fossil fuel prices are making the scheme ruinously expensive for the town.

    LINK

    260

  • #

    When referring to energy storage, we need to consistently and accurately report both discharge rating (like some number of KW or MW) and capacity rating (like KWH or MWH) so we know as a minimum, how much generation capacity that storage can replace, and for how long. It would also be useful to know the estimated cost and lifespan along with error margins for those estimates.

    Perhaps we can begin to educate our media to start giving us a more complete story rather than the meaningless and misleading (or outright false) information fragments we get today!

    ldc

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  • #

    Where these journalists fail so comprehensively is that they still think Nameplate is what gets delivered.

    Rooftop Solar power has a Nameplate of around 8000MW. Currently we are now in Summer, the best time for solar PV. Even at its daily maximum, it manages only 4300MW, barely better than half its Nameplate, and across the whole day, it averages at around 1200MW.

    All of that 1200MW (and how do I accentuate ALL of it) is only consumed in the Residential Sector ONLY.

    So, we have the remainder of the Residential Sector, all of Industry, and all of the Commercial Sector consuming (wait for it) ….. 22000MW.

    Trust me, that can only come from ONE source, one which can actually supply that total constantly, reliably, and all the time.

    Coal fired power has a very very long future.

    I see journalists heads swelling to well beyond their breaking point when that little factoid comes to light.

    Tony.

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    • #
      RickWill

      Tony stated:

      All of that 1200MW (and how do I accentuate ALL of it) is only consumed in the Residential Sector ONLY.

      This is not correct. The rooftop solar can be consumed anywhere in the grid. By about 2022 SA rooftops will need to be exporting to Victoria and NSW so they are not curtailed through over voltage.

      This statement is from page 20 of Ausnets latest planning report:

      Increased penetration of Solar PV and other forms of generation have resulted in significant reverse power flow at light load conditions in some parts of the network. The full impact of bi-directional power flow is yet to be observed however, it is envisaged that network augmentation may be required in future to cater for this emerging change in power system behaviour.

      This is link to the report:
      https://www.ausnetservices.com.au/-/media/Files/AusNet/About-Us/Regulatory-Publications/Distribution-Annual-Planning-Report-2018-2022.ashx?la=en

      “network augmentation” equates to higher network charges. The network has to be designed to take the midday peak generation from rooftops. On Sundays in November 2018 South Australia got 70% of its electric power from rooftop solar. In early 2020s it will be more than 100% and what is not used in the state will be exported to NSW and Victoria. That is why the SA-NSW high capacity link is such a priority. Without it the grid connected intermittents will have no demand.

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      • #
        William

        RickWill, the problem with the household solar going onto the grid is that it largely happens when demand is at its lowest. When the electricity is most needed, solar is not generating much at all.

        80

        • #
          RickWill

          This is an irrelevant comment to the point I am making about rooftop solar going into the HV network. It will become increasingly disruptive because it has maximum output for a few hours per day for a few months of the year and it is being installed at a tremendous rate. The network costs are rising to cope with this burst of power from areas of usual high demand to areas of high generation in the middle of the day.

          10

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            And, as you said earlier,

            ” why the high capacity link S.A. NSW is so important”.

            Without that link the scam can’t pay dividends.

            This Market, this Distribution System, this Generation System is a political construct and definitely Not one designed by qualified engineers.

            I can imagine the frustration they must feel.

            KK

            20

          • #
            MatrixTransform

            maaate … its a burst of voltage, not power.

            and no ‘it’ will not be consumed anywhere in the grid

            I struggle to understand the complete lack of understanding that the promoters have.

            turn of the gennies in QLD and see what happens to the voltage whether the sun is shining or not !!

            20

      • #

        I was just going to let Rick Will’s comment slide, because, as I have so often found out, he takes no notice at all of what I say.

        Note this where he says this:

        On Sundays in November 2018 South Australia got 70% of its electric power from rooftop solar.

        So, on the one day of the week which has the absolute lowest power consumption of any day, and in a State which has (arguably, because, as I have now found, with no industry of scale in SouthAus, even Tasmania has higher power consumption on most days) the lowest power consumption of any State in the Country, rooftop solar power provides 70% of all needs. So that’s 70% of 6% on the lowest power consumption day of any week.

        Oh frabjous day. We’re saved.

        And if you seriously think that rooftop solar power generated in South Aus will be used to augment supply in Victoria, you are very very seriously deluded.

        And also, again, as I have lost count of the number of times I have mentioned this to you.

        Please stop using SouthAus as an example for the wider Australia. Melbourne alone consumes double the total power consumption for the whole State of SouthAus. Brisbane alone consumes more than double the total power consumption for the whole State of SouthAus. Sydney alone consumes almost triple the total power consumption for the whole State of SouthAus.

        South Australia consumes about 6% of Australia’s total, (and that excludes WA, so just the major AEMO coverage area) about the amount of a f@rt in a Cyclone.

        Rooftop solar power is lucky if it came make a local Transformer in a suburb.

        Please Rick, I understand you’re boosting rooftop solar, but hey use some rational thought here.

        Okay pacemaker, you can have a rest now.

        Tony.

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        • #

          So then, here we all are on Christmas Day, the single lowest power consumption day of any day of the year.

          Currently the State of South Australia is consuming 5.7% of the power consumption across the whole of Australia.

          The breakdown is this.

          Total power generation for South Australia is this, (including rooftop solar power here) – 1872MW

          Rooftop solar power – 34.2%
          Solar plant power – 5.8%
          Wind Power – 7.4%
          Fossil Fuel – 17.8%
          Interconnectors to Victoria (both feeding INTO SouthAus) – 34.8%

          Man, all that solar power feeding into Victoria is sure keeping that State afloat!!!!!

          Tony.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            At this moment

            Vic is feeding to SA (628)
            Vic is also feeding to Tassie (381)

            but

            NSW is feeding to Vic, (365)

            and Qld is feeding to NSW, (1050)

            So it is Queensland coal (with about 12% wind and others) that is keeping everything working.

            and the spot price in Qld is $16, vs SA $62

            and the premier idiot in Qld wants to close some of those coal fired generators.. !!

            Its all just TOTALLY DUMB and IDIOTIC !!!!!

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            • #

              As usually happens on Christmas Day, every power generating source winds right back, because this day has the lowest power consumption of the year, and umm, is that an indicator or what.

              Power generation on this day is around 4000MW (on average, per hour) lower than any other day of the year.

              Even those coal fired plants dial back on their power generation. Even so, right now, at just gone 3PM (EST) on Christmas Day, coal fired power is delivering 83% of every watt of power currently being consumed.

              That hourly average power generation on this day is around 20% lower than the year round average and is currently 5600MW lower than for the Tuesday seven days ago.

              Why I say indicative above is that on this day, it is the single highest day for power consumption in the Residential sector, because on this day, all work places are closed and everyone is at home, presumably all with the aircons on and consuming power in the home at the max, which very loudly tells me that rooftop solar is nowhere near what it’s ‘beaten up’ to be.

              Tony.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                I’m in Newcastle, haven’t turn on the air-con once this summer. Hasn’t been necessary.

                Haven’t even bothered re-installing the “trough-window” reverse cycle air-con in the bedroom, was using a blanket 2 nights ago.

                Something very odd with the weather forecast here

                “Temperatures will start taking a steep climb over the southeast from Boxing Day as a severe-to-extreme heatwave takes hold”

                yet they are saying a maximum of only 32C.. very inconsistent forecasting, or is 32C now classed as a summer heat wave ??????

                maybe will need the air-con next week or the week after. or…….

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        • #
          RickWill

          The whole of Australia is heading down the same path as South Australia. ALL State governments are aggressively promoting wind and solar. In 2019 there will be a new federal government aggressively promoting intermittents. These intermittents are highly disruptive to the grid and force coal generators into uneconomic operation. That guarantees prices rise and all electricity intensive industry to eventually close up shop. SA is just 10 years ahead of the rest of Australia. It provides insight into the future of Australia.

          33

          • #
            Greebo

            I think your definition of “ahead” differs somewhat from mine.

            00

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Modern politics is bizarre.
            There’s only one explanation, money.

            20

          • #
            Geoffrey Williams

            Thank you Rick for your valuable insight/prediction into the mess this country is headed for! Yours is the voice of sanity and reason that we on this site all long to hear.
            In 10 years time when this country and its energy supply system collapses in a heap of industrial waste of twisted fiberglass blades and smashed up solar panels, we can all say; ‘there you go, Rick was right all along!’ So wonderfull to be right. Happy New Year.
            Regards GeoffW

            30

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    Basically, it looks like in Australia you are well and truly stuffed by the Breenblob. It’s the same here in the UK where we don’t get much sun, so the Greenblob concentrate on the much more expensive offshore wind.

    A visitor from another planet would wonder why there was so much insanity amongst those in charge on Earth. He would wonder why we didn’t have any engineers in charge of the electricity supply.

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    • #
      MatrixTransform

      alright, listen up Scotty.
      doesnt matter if its diplomacy, conflict, or emergency
      I’ve got all the answers

      So, just run the reactors at 110% until I say dump the diLithium core.

      We can get back at light speed on batteries.

      Kirk out

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    • #
      Ross

      Phillip
      I watched an episode of “Mighty Ships” on Discovery Channel last night (I’m in NZ). It showed one of the world’s most sophisticated O&G industry support vessels putting a massive 350 tonne compressor onto an under sea LNG “processing plant” at about 300 meters down. This plant allowed the existing surrounding gas wells to extend their lives by about 20 years.
      The engineering involved in the vessel and the plant was mind blowing. Put the engineers involved in that, in charge of electric supply and it would be like kids play for them. They would sort out the issues in no time.

      210

      • #
        marcus paltridge

        cannot have any engineers near a real problem like this. they know terrible stuff like mathematics and the second law of thermodynamics, the ignorant bastards.

        130

        • #
          David Wood

          Second that and will someone please help us stop those ignorant virtue-signalling politicians from PLAYING at being engineers

          40

    • #
      Latus Dextro

      Firstly the subsidy itself costs money; secondly it indirectly drives out reliable, cheap supply, then thirdly, it adds an unreliable supply that makes the other generators on the grid less efficient and higher in cost too.

      Australia, you managed not to pony up to the UN Global Migration Compact while those virtue signalling Leftists across the Tasman flew the first class carbon junket to Marrakesh to enthusiastically sign-up to the non-binding foot in the door.

      It’s hard to know which of the down-under nations is more skrewed.
      The krapitudinous potential of both appears infinite.
      By Christos, you not only need something meaningful to do in your lives, you need something meaningful to believe in, a vision, a destination that isn’t a damned identity Rainbow with a free pot of worthless green gold to divide at the end.

      I’m banking on a GSM to restore sanity.
      It really seems the only thing that might be capable to putting a cosmic spanner in the treacherous machinations of globalism

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      • #
        Latus Dextro

        By Christos, you not only need something meaningful to do in your lives, you need something meaningful to believe in, a vision, a destination that isn’t a damned identity Rainbow with a free pot of worthless green gold to divide at the end.

        Reference here is made to a generic political vision, the common goals that Australia and NZ once possessed, predicated on a realistic grasp of reality. Identity politics has served up a terrible culture of division, while Green politics undermines the economy under the illusion of wisdom.
        Liberty and prosperity cannot be replaced by chaos.

        Happy Christmas and a more hopeful, blessed 2019 to all.

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    • #
      Gerry, England

      You can’t always trust engineers. My soon to be ex-institute, the Institute of Engineering & Technology is plagued by activist engineers such that they have just agreed a policy with Greenpiss on plastics. Most of the time, if the so-called learned magazine had dropped out of the Guardian it wouldn’t surprise you. They even ran a headline article on the effect of the hot spot over the equator on flights. This was a few years after the real scientists had shown that no hot spot exists.

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  • #
    pat

    the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park solar park in Pakistan, which IEEFA’s Simon Nicholas recently visited, is a case in point. while I often hear how wind turbines are useless when there’s too much wind, this is the first time I’ve heard the complaint in ***#3 below:

    Wikipedia: Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park (Pakistan)
    It is 100 MW solar powered plant spanning 500 acres (200 ha) and hosting 392,158 solar modules… The contract of Phase-1 construction, 100MW project, costing $215 million with $131.15 million as EPC cost and $73 million as O & M cost was awarded to Chinese company, TBEA Xinjiang SunOasis Co. Ltd…

    Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park was unable to produce affordable energy and expected output, due to several reasons:

    1.Bahawalpur is desert terrain, having high dust count, therefore, the efficiency of panels were reduced by 40%. It required 30 people to clean panels with 15 days to restore the panels back to their full capacity, which reduced production of installed 100MW plant to below 18 MW…

    2.It required one litre of water to clean, each of 400,000 installed panels. A total 15 days cleaning cycle required, 124 million litres of water enough to sustain 9000 people, while rain in Cholistan desert is rare and far between. Providing such huge amount of water in desert terrain, became a challenging and daunting task for management team. Besides, the manual cleaning methods allowed setting of dust before it was re-cleaned.

    ***3.The temperature of Bahawalpur rises above 45 degree celsius, which is much higher than required 25 degree celsius for efficient solar power production; another reason of reduced 18MW production…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park

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    • #
      pat

      Nicholas/IEEFA undoubtedly have their eyes focused on shifting much of China’s ***up to $75 billion in the direction of “renewables”:

      5 Dec: VOA: AP: Report Urges Cash-Strapped Pakistan to Pursue Clean Energy
      The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said coal-fired power, one of the central pillars of Pakistan’s energy deals with China, is a costlier and dirtier alternative to wind or solar energy, which China is also supplying but to a lesser degree.

      Simon Nichols, an energy finance analyst with the institute, told The Associated Press that China is dumping its dirtier coal-fired systems on developing nations while leading the world in renewable resource systems that will find a market in developed countries as they move away from fossil fuels.
      “There is no such thing as clean coal,” said Nichols…

      China is putting Pakistan deeper in debt with planned coal-fired and liquefied natural gas plants, which will soon be outdated, he said…

      Pakistan says China’s ***up to $75 billion development project in Pakistan known the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor – an effort to reconstruct the historic Silk Road linking China to all corners of Asia – will bring new prosperity to the country, where the average citizen lives on just $125 a month. The sprawling package includes everything from road construction and coal-fired power plants.

      “With renewable technology ***set to get cheaper in the future, a build out of coal-fired power risks locking Pakistan into decades of outdated technology,” the report said…
      https://www.voanews.com/a/report-urges-cash-strapped-pakistan-to-pursue-clean-energy/4687677.html

      ???

      5 Dec: Pakistan Today: ‘Pakistan can achieve 30pc renewable energy generation by 2030’
      By News Desk
      As renewable energy is now the cheapest form of electricity generation in Pakistan, the government could reduce its reliance on expensive power plants and fossil fuel imports in favour of cleaner, more accessible electricity for people and businesses.
      A report, “Pakistan’s Power Future: Renewable Energy Provides a More Diverse, Secure and Cost-Effective Alternative,” produced by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), examines the current energy system in Pakistan while suggesting an alternative energy model for 2030…

      The report finds that Pakistan’s current power mix has an over-reliance on outdated fossil fuels technology and seasonal hydro-power generation, roughly split in a ratio of 70:20:10, being 70pc thermal and 20pc hydro, with nuclear power making up most of the rest.

      IEEFA’s proposed energy model to 2030, aimed at providing a cheaper, more diversified electricity generation system for Pakistan and therefore greater energy security, is roughly split in a ratio of 30:30:30:10 between 30pc renewables, 30pc thermal, 30pc hydro, and 10pc nuclear power.

      IEEFA financial analyst Simon Nicholas, co-author of the report, said IEEFA’s 2030 energy model would result in a more cost-effective electricity system that is better placed to serve Pakistan’s power needs into the future…
      “By relying more on cheaper renewable energy, the 2030 model reduces the cost pressures of imports and delayed projects, creating the setting for government to attract investment in the abundant domestic wind and solar resources yet to be harnessed.”…
      https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/05/pakistan-can-achieve-30pc-renewable-energy-generation-by-2030/

      50

    • #
      Greebo

      If it wasn’t bad enough that they convert food producing land to ‘grow’ ethanol, now they need to use vital drinking water to clean solar panels?

      Good grief.

      00

  • #
    Mal

    Dont you need double the number of renewable energy generation capacity if you have renewable storage?
    The first lot to generate energy as you need it, the second lot to generate energy to be stored.
    You can’t have them doing both at the same time.
    Have I missed something in my logic?

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    • #
      Hivemind

      Firstly, you need a lot more than double. If you could store it, that would only allow you for the contingency of one day without generation. I is common for wind to fail for entire weeks at a time.

      Secondly, nobody in the world has the technical capacity to store an entire week’s worth of electricity at grid capacity levels. You either have to have coal, oil or gas powered backup, or get used to not using electricity for prolonged periods.

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    • #
      Slithers

      It’s worse than that, solar waxes and wanes with daylight hours. It follows roughly a bell curve so you need THREE times your 24 hour load. One to drive at midday the other two to charge for the night load and top up dawn to about 10am then 4 pm till dark! And that assumes 100% production, no clouds no dust…
      Insane!

      200

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Mal:

      As your renewable capacity usually returns 25% of nominal capacity you have to install 4 times the nominal capacity to supply a 100% renewables scheme. When the wind turbines actually run at a helpful rate you would have to divert the surplus into storage where there are losses of 15-30%. So that essentially means another lot of capacity to “guarantee” supply.
      There are 3 methods of reliable generation:
      Coal, which is cheapest (because 59 Countries want to install new power stations) but generates CO2 emissions ( for what that is worth).
      Closed Cycle Gas Turbines which generate less CO2 but are generally more expnsive to run (except in the USA where they use frakking). Banned in Australia by the Greenies.
      Nuclear with zero emissions of CO2 but generaly more expensive than the previous two when using existing technology. (There are other technologies coming which could be safer and possibly cheaper. Naturally they are banned ONLY because the are NUCLEAR. Bear in mind that even with the exception of Chenobyl there have never been as many fatalities in Nuclear plants as for wind turbines, and that was a non-standard old plant being run out of standard conditions**).
      The farce of “renewables” requires enormous amounts of money to try and stabilise systems with variable output feeding into a variable demand. The real cost of 100% renewables in Australia is more likely to be over 10 times existing inflated costs. Otherwise it will end with (more expensive than conventional methods with higher emissions such as) diesel or Open Cycle Gas Turbines.

      **We should never forget the bravery of those volunteers of the Emergency Squad who went into certain death near the the reactor to try and close it down.

      200

    • #
      AndyG55

      The really bizarre thing is, that coal fired power is at its most efficient and least CO2 per unit of energy when operating at a constant load near its installed capacity.

      Ramping up and down will often increase the total CO2 output while producing significantly less electricity, far less efficiently

      As you say… INSANITY.

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  • #
    Tony Price

    I’ve never seen one obvious fact stated anywhere: ALL electrical energy, however generated, ends up as heat. Heat which ends up in the atmosphere. There are schemes suggested for using light-coloured or white roofs to reflect the sun’s heat back up. Instead, large black solar panels are being installed worldwide, which not only absorb some visible light and convert it into a source of power which ultimately ends up as heat, but absorb much more solar radiation which heats the atmosphere. Very clever.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      I wouldn’t get too stressed Tony.
      Firstly about 30% of incident solar is reflected. With solar panels they absorb, maybe, 17% of incident visible light which as you state winds up as heat, but that is only about 42% of radiation as against 52-55% of infrared. Since some of visible light itself is turned into infrared also and solar at best supplies 1% of the world’s electricity the amount of extra heating is very slight.

      90

    • #
      Slithers

      Mmm,Conservation of energy and all that. PV to electricity, electricity into green car, drive 100km, recharge battery, drive back 100km. So a considerable amount of solar energy converted to Kinetic energy making the earth wobble!
      Am I missing something?

      30

      • #
        RickWill

        Yes you are missing something – All of the energy going from A to B to A is covered to heat eventually. The largest portion for a car travelling near speed limit is lost to air turbulence. That results in temperature rising although you will not detect the increase in temperature because there is a lot of air. If B is at greater elevation than A there will be some energy converted to potential energy on the out trip that is lost to heat on the return trip.

        In you example all energy is quite rapidly lost to heat.

        There are some electric energy processes where the electricity does not end up as heat. A notable one for its global significance is the production of aluminium. Aluminium is aptly termed solid electricity. Most aluminium is recycled so it is unlikely the stored electricity will be converted to heat although recycling requires additional heat.

        10

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          A significant amount of electricity is converted to momentum.

          Examples are in an escalator or elevator.

          In electric cars the battery energy also creates momentum, as opposed to heat.

          10

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Aluminium??
          There’s a lot of heat needed in the aluminium extraction process.

          00

    • #
      MatrixTransform

      enthalpy rocks!

      00

  • #
    PeterS

    Santa & Socialism
    One could make a similar statement regarding Santa and CAGW.

    20

  • #
    Hatrack

    Once upon a time a Coal Fired Power Station (CFPS) worked out that it had to earn a minimum $100/hr to cover costs and show a reasonable return for it’s investors.

    But then along came a Solar Farm (SF) which began producing power 6 hrs/day, and this power was given priority over the power produced by the CFPS. This meant that instead of earning $2400/day, the CFPS could now only earn $1800/day.

    But the CFPS still needed to earn $2400/day to remain viable. So, instead of earning $100/hr, it now had to earn $133.33/hr ($2400 / 18).

    And there was another problem. For every hour of generation by the SF, the CFPS had to give the SF a $50/hr bonus i.e. $300/day. Since the CFPS had been cut back to an 18 hour day, this added another $16.67/hr ($300 / 18) which it needed to recover.

    The end result was that the CFPS now had to earn $150/hr to remain viable.

    And then along came a Wind Farm.

    Of course this simplistic scenario is fictional, but it is how I understand the effect wind and solar have on power prices. AEMC and ABC reports are usually just long-winded, pretentious, verbose BS which try to gloss over simple truths.

    To Jo and all her readers, have a safe and happy Christmas.

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      A very readable explanation of the situation.

      80

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Hatrack:

      Yes, since we used to get electricity at $35 to 40 a MWh wholesale and after renewables we are lucky to get it at $85-100 there has been a deal of disruption. Also the subsidy to ‘renewables’ is a separate charge added on at the retail end, so the effect is not readily apparent except to those who have to pay the bill.
      As neither major Party intends doing anything about this (except for minor fiddling) and both want more renewables, that retail charge will rise due to the extra cost from more disruption so electricity bills will increase over the next few years. Those rushing into solar will not gain much relief as they will also push conventional generation out of business and reduce gain from solar, and it will have to be replaced by short term generation i.e. diesel or Open Cycle Gas Turbines, both of which cost more than wind or solar and have CO2 emitions. (Check out SA, Vic. and Tasmania all of which have added substantial amounts of diesel generation as their ‘renewables’ percentage has gone up, along with the retail price). (Also see the STOR scheme in the UK and the special payments for coal and gas fired power in reserve for when the wind doesn’t blow).

      140

    • #
      Bob Cherba

      On top of your excellent example must be included the costs of increased inefficiency due to cyclical operation and increased maintenance because the metal in turbines and boilers doesn’t like changing temperatures. Thick turbine cases develop surprisingly large cracks, and boilers develop more leaks, increasing maintenance down time and expenses.

      110

    • #
      Robber

      Almost reads like a fairy story, giving handouts to the poor little elves.
      Dr Finkel calculated the cost of a new supercritical coal station to be $76/MWhr, wind without backup $91, solar without backup $92, solar with 12 hours backup $172/MWhr. But as you highlight, solar doesn’t need to provide dispatchable power, and in addition gets priority and then gets to sell special certificates to retailers, currently $70/MWhr, that we all pay for as a hidden carbon tax.

      100

  • #
    RobK

    Some are seeing the light.
    thewest.com.au/business/renewable-energy/1b-bill-cost-to-wa-of-shortens-green-energy-plan-revealed-ng-b881057010z

    WA consumers will pay almost $1 billion extra in energy costs a year under Bill Shorten’s plans for a 50 per cent renewable energy target, previously secret modelling has found.

    Research by the State Government’s chief energy adviser shows lifting the amount of green energy in WA to 50 per cent by 2030 would cost $946 million compared with a business-as-usual approach.

    The finding is in a report by the Public Utilities Office in late 2016, when Mr Shorten had already committed to doubling Australia’s renewable energy target.

    100

    • #
      Ross

      Amazing that a state with an abundance of gas on it’s door step should be prepared to have it’s population pay so much extra.

      70

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Agree Ross. With only 11% renewables and power costs at an OK level, surely it would be political suicide for WA to increase its renewables percentage.

        40

        • #
          Greebo

          I wouldn’t be too sure. Most thinking people believed Dan Andrews was committing political suicide as well…….

          00

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      RobK:

      Another referendum about secession from Australia (as in the 1930’s)?

      50

  • #
    Another Ian

    “A 2019 resolution: Honesty in energy policy”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/24/a-2019-resolution-honesty-in-energy-policy/

    A worthy idea but likely the “deaf ears” will ignore

    10

  • #
    Dennis

    Merry Christmas.

    I was informed by an unreliable energy supporter that Lancaster City, California, has 100 per cent solar energy.

    I doubted that so I checked and as I suspected that is not the case, in fact California has a mix of generators or energy sources;

    https://www.lancasterchoiceenergy.com/about-lce/power-sources/

    40

  • #
    Tdef

    How can wind and solar force coal and gas and petrol out of the market? By making them too expensive. That was always the plan. How can the biggest, the cheapest the most reliable, commandable power stations be forced to close? By forcing their agents to pay their opposition. It’s the law.

    To claim that wind and sun are cheaper is ridiculous. Every politician knows this. The game is to keep the public ignorant. No care and no responsibility.
    Malcolm Turnbull said Hazelwood’s closure was a ‘private company matter’. Daniel Andrews tripled the price of coal overnight.

    Wind and solar remain untaxed and people have to pay them twice. Once for for the production of electricity. Then again for the actual electricity.

    Can anyone spot a pattern here? It’s the people against the politicians. On both sides.

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  • #
    thingadonta

    If a zebra crossed the road at a zebra crossing, the ABC would talk about the colour of the zebra’s droppings.

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  • #
    WXcycles

    Merry whatever day weather deniers, no Lamborghini from Santa this year.

    ABC Zebras get a free govt gender reassignment operation then read you the cricket score.

    70

  • #
    pat

    Dennis – comment #24 – posted about Lancaster, California. Ch9 was promoting the place this week:

    VIDEO: 5min14sec: 23 Dec: 9News: The city where sunshine drives the economy
    by Robert Penfold
    This is a story of a Californian city that is the envy of the world…
    In October, (Lancaster Mayor) Mr Parris was one of the keynote speakers in Kiama, NSW at the Cities Power Partnership Summit…

    “The problem with the Australian process is the State and Federal governments have to pass a law (to hand over power production to local councils),” Mr Parris said…
    “We are literally in a race for the survival of the human species”…
    https://www.9news.com.au/2018/12/23/08/30/lancaster-california-city-relies-on-solar-power

    21 Oct: ABC: US city empowers Australian councils to develop solar as lack of federal climate policy causes concern
    ABC Illawarra By Jessica Clifford
    Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris has attributed an increase in employment, new manufacturers moving to the city, and a reduction in crime to the approach to alternative energy…
    “Climate disruption poses the greatest threat to the public, and the primary function of government is to protect the people,” Mr Parris said.
    “It’s the greatest threat the world has ever seen.”…

    “What we are facing is a planetary catastrophe,” (Macquarie University academic and climate change researcher Lesley Hughes) said. “People need to act now.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-21/californian-city-powered-by-solar-inspires-aussie-councils/10401642

    more to come.

    20

    • #
      pat

      6 Dec: TheFreeLanceStar: Scott Shenk: Big crowd turns out to debate proposed Spotsylvania solar facility
      The 500-megawatt facility would include 1.8 million solar panels erected on the three sections of the property, which once was farmed but in recent years has been used for timber harvesting…

      Mark Boxigian wrote that sPower has built more than 20 projects in ***Lancaster, accounting for more than 550 megawatts, with more on the way…
      A majority of the speakers said they did not want the project…

      Proponents of the project, outnumbered by about 3-1, touted green energy and economic benefit to the county.
      Critics repeated many issues they have raised in the months since the proposal was submitted in January…
      https://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/spotsylvania/big-crowd-turns-out-to-debate-proposed-spotsylvania-solar-facility/article_2fac90c4-b7d7-5615-a16c-1d7d85934eb8.html

      read all the following to find all the stuff ABC/Ch9 didn’t reveal about Parris and China (even tho Vice gives it a nice spin. note also: Parris is a Republican):

      31 May 2017: Vice: The mayor who loved China
      By Matt Sheehan
      (Matt Sheehan is the former China correspondent for The WorldPost, and the creator of The Chinafornia Newsletter. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Chinafornia: Working with Chinese Investors, Immigrants and Ideas on U.S. Soil.”)

      Lancaster is a desert town on the fringe of LA County, population 160,000, an area best known for ???neo-Nazis and meth labs. Crowned the “worst city in LA County” and “the most stressful city in California,” Lancaster has a serious PR problem, one that Parris is determined to fix…

      But to confront Lancaster’s central problem — a hollowed-out industrial economy and public institutions starved of funding — Parris has turned to an unlikely ally: China…
      While Donald Trump has accused China of “raping our country,” Parris, a Republican, believes deep integration with the People’s Republic will revitalize his town’s manufacturing and turn Lancaster into a world leader in green energy. China, he hopes, will Make Lancaster Great Again…

      Cash-strapped public universities have used full-tuition Chinese students as a financial crutch. Silicon Valley and Hollywood find themselves groveling for Chinese investment and access to China’s middle-class consumers. American cities are banking on Chinese-funded skyscrapers…

      Entrepreneurial mayors like Rex Parris are at the front lines of this trans-Pacific boom. They are traveling to China to court investment and rolling out the red carpet at home for Chinese students, tourists, immigrants, and companies…
      https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/3kpevv/a-california-mayor-hopes-china-will-save-his-town-from-meth-labs-and-neo-nazis

      10

    • #
      Dennis

      Thank you Pat

      20

    • #
      AndyG55

      ““People need to act now.”

      And Les “acting” his little heart out.

      Hollywood would be proud.

      32

  • #
    TdeF

    I am sick of the ripoff of the poor. Never has Australia had such a bunch of uncaring, even evil people at the top.
    So here’s the plan.

    Take them on. Find a coal generator who will. Maybe Enron. Does anyone know the state of Hazelwood?

    Hazelwood was charging 4c kwhr. The lease had 20 years to run. Liddell as well. They only need maintenance. Thanks to the LGC certificates, they are uneconomic. We all know that. They are being forced to close.

    Add the LGCs, $60 each and as high as $85 each for a MegaWatthour, so 6.0 to 8.5c
    Now you are at 10c to 12.5c for electricity from coal, so wind can sit comfortably at 9c kwhr with no competition, as you have to buy it all. They don’t care. They get paid anyway.

    However the reality is that coal provides 90% of all our power and at times 100% (obviously at night and when the wind doesn’t blow). So they can play the government on a break.

    So why go broke? This is what the government wants to achieve their 50% ‘renewable’. To do this they have to force the coal generators out of business and it working well. At the same time they had to force the public to unwittingly pay for wind towers and solar panels by stealing from their electricity bills, not by legal taxation by illegal legislation. Westminster based Governments are not allowed to this and no government should.

    So how to fight back?

    Easy. Stop being nice. Stop going quietly into the night.

    If even a single coal power plant went to 9c kwhr, they would get it. The market has nowhere else to go, except gas.

    Firstly, the cost is conveniently estimated by the chief scientist at this level so it is politically justifiable. Secondly coal alone has reliable 24/7 power. Wind and solar cannot compete. Gas is limited. Finally there is a critical power shortage especially over summer. This is no less than the gas generators are doing at present, making fortunes in shortages and we all know wind and solar are utterly incapable of supplying the need. So we need one just coal supplier to go feral, like the wind operators and middle men and solar opportunists. Greed and survival. Others would follow.

    Of course electricity prices will rocket, as the middle man doubles everything. 30,40,50c,60c kwhr. It is far less than we are being forced to pay at crisis points which are becoming more frequent. The public will demand government action. Yes, it is extortion, but the Unions are very familiar with that. It works!

    Integrated retailers like AGL, who are making fortunes marking up the illegal payments will be seen as villains. They will not like this. Their shareholders will dump them.

    So they can simply refuse to pay for the LGC and STC certificates or the $60 per Mwhr fine. Go to court. Argue it is unconstitutional, which it is. Then refer the action to the High Court for a determination on the legality of the RET as with Mabo, arguing that it is wrong to force to everyone to pay for nothing. Argue correctly that the LGCs are legalized, government mandated theft which has been banned since Magna Carta, the enrichment of friends of the government and the Greens. As well argue that the Federal government has no business in coal or gas or petrol or diesel, let alone agriculture.

    To save face the government could just repeal the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, or have the High Court rule that every cent collected was illegal, for nearly 20 years. Maybe $100Bn to be returned to the public. Or hand over the windmill to the public. If the government wants the world’s highest carbon tax, they have to legislate it, not force the electricity retailers to collect the money from the poor. No government has the guts to do this openly.

    The coal generators could then take their prices back to 4c kwhr when they were profitable. Turn Hazelwood back on. Fix Liddell. Take away the compulsory closing of coal power stations by stealth, by making them uneconomic. Build more power stations because coal is free too.

    Carbon ‘pollution’ is not the problem. It is fake science, like fake news. Taxing the air we breathe. Socialist politicians doing what they are told by the EU and UN are the entire problem. That’s Labor, the Greens and the Liberals. All complicit.

    Or a Morrison government would win the election easily if Scott promised to halve electricity prices. At no cost to the government. Stop the obscene payments for nothing to windmill and solar operators from the pockets of the poor. We have enough windmills. Let them compete and force their prices down.

    Get the Federal government out of electricity. This was never a right gifted to the Federal government in the Constitution. Nor the NBN. In fact as Gillard found, the Federal government has no right to tax coal or gas.

    The unnecessary National grid was simply a Green device to enable Canberra bureaucrats to control all the energy, just as the NBN attempts to take over the internet.

    Now Tasmania and South Australia are basket cases. Victoria is next. Windmills driven Canberra currently has an unearned $35Million in LGCs. Pure Green profiteering by public servants. All to please the overseas money men who pay for jet setter parties in New York and Paris and Rio and Copenhagen and Durban for government officials and ministers. All with your money, without your knowledge.

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      Dennis

      And their associates opposite in the cooperative of politicians have even more evil plans if elected to government next year.

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    • #
      RickWill

      No single coal plant can compete against wind and solar. Grid scale wind and solar have priority access to the market. They have standing bids at negative prices so are always on the bottom of the stack. They only get curtailed if there is a grid stability issue. otherwise everything they can produce goes to market.

      More intermittents will mean more coal generators will be required to ramp up and down.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        “No single coal plant can compete against wind and solar.”

        YOU ARE DELUSIONAL !!!

        Wind and solar are so often a NON-EVENT as to be more of a nuisance than a benefit.

        If coal generators are force to ramp up and down, they become highly inefficient, often produce MORE atmospheric CO2, and either HAVE to raise their price or close.

        If they close, the whole grid COLLAPSES.

        This has been explained to you often enough, so WHY are you so totally incapable of comprehending even the most basic facts. ???

        Could it be that you are totally brainwashed, to the stage that you have zero working synapses ????

        What coal and gas should do is say,

        NO, we are not ramping down to make way for wind and solar..

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      • #
        MatrixTransform

        ad hoc propter hoc

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    • #
      Serp

      As always your optimism is very heartening TdeF.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    “New Report: Renewables indirectly make electricity MORE expensive, so ABC tells Australia the opposite”

    But (e.g.)

    “The Hendy Wind Farm Scandal”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/24/the-hendy-wind-farm-scandal/

    Highly unlikely to be cheaper with fiddling like this (IMO)

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    Mat

    As Jo quoted, the AEMC report says:

    The overall impact of the LRET has therefore been to drive down wholesale prices in the short term but, in the absence of policies and incentives to encourage investment in replacement generation and firming technologies, it contributes to periods of more volatile and potentially higher wholesale prices.

    So it is the absence of policies that encourage investment that risks raising prices (and has already done so). The Coalition STILL haven’t legislated an energy policy, and they’ve been in power since 2013. Business say they won’t invest with this uncertainty.

    But with the right policies which encourage the right investment in generation and firming, renewables can continue to drive down the cost of electricity. That would be nice.

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    • #

      Key paragraph Mat, well spotted.

      Or maybe, rather than an “absence” of policies, it’s the presence of policies that destroys the market.

      Instead of a policy to counter the policy, we could try a free market. (Like we used to have).

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    gunbuggy

    So with this upcoming heat wave I wonder how our cheaper wind and solar will cope with the demand? Lets turn off the coal and see how well it manages. I guess we’re lucky that its over the holidays so demand may be reduced with some industry off for the break. I know I’ll be running my split system – why should we be made to turn it off? Are we not supposed to be advanced enough to allow us to make our lives more comfortable? Yeah years ago we didn’t have AC but we have now, so why not use it, why should we suffer?

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    • #
      Greebo

      You shouldn’t suffer, but if you have a “smart” meter you probably will. This was the purpose of the mandated smart meter roll out. They just didn’t ssay so at the time.

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    Serge Wright

    Unfortunately our current charge to the edge of the cliff and beyond appears unstoppable. The notion that Green energy is both cheaper and as reliable as the coal has been branwashed into too many heads.

    The big question is when will we have our “grand failure” moment. This is the moment our national grid collapses and when both the food from the supermarket shelves and the water from our taps stops flowing. This moment in history will also be marked by mass riots and deaths as law and order collapse. My tip is somewhere between 2020 and 2025. It could either occur in winter when solar output in at a minimum or in summer when demand is at a maximum. In either case it will be accompanied by a prolonged period of no wind.

    Following the grand failure moment we will either unite to restore order and prosperity and transition back to coal power, which will still require an uphill climb for 25 years to repay the massive climate debt and restore business confidence, or we will forever become the Venezuela of the south. Only time will tell.

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    TdeF

    Put is simply using Hepburn Wind 2018 Annual report
    Electricity sales $917,358. RET sales $834,475 (for which the public get nothing)
    Electricity generated (per MWhr) $81.70 Certificates $82.67
    so they are being paid a total $16.55 by the electricity retailers for every kwhr.
    The $82.67 is a gift. Why?

    Compare with CS Energy 4,035 Megawatts.
    Last year income $374Million. So the retailers pay 9.1c per kwhr for coal electricity.

    Demand price parity. The same pay for the same electricity. How can it be a free market when one party is paid half as much as the other for the same job? Obviously no one dares object.

    Watch it all fall apart if one breaks ranks. If just one coal power station demands price parity with wind and solar or go on strike, the farce will end quickly.

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      Bill In Oz

      Tdf, If you want this message spread, could you please explain what you mean more clearly so anybody can understand.. ?

      that means no engineering jargon etc..
      Bill

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      • #
        Joe

        Bill, I too am confused by TdeF’s posts. He has moderated his claims over time and has reduced them now to the point where he claims that wholesale price of coal fired electricity is given by the formula: wholesale price /kwh = $0.04 (the much touted production cost which remains independent of time and input costs apparently) + cost of a Large Scale Certificate(LGC)/1,000. So $0.04 + $80/1000 = $0.12 per kwh.
        I think that TdeF crafted that formula to support Jo’s claim of 300% increase in wholesale price being due to all the warmy BS schemes. He has hinted though that the $80 cost could be lower ($60) now based on this latest report which mentions the falling price of the LGCs.
        I have no idea how he arrives at that either. The wholesalers don’t have to buy these certificates, those are bought by retailers and furthermore they only have to buy certificates for about 20% of the electricity they sell as that is around the current Government mandated figure. So even if TdeF is referring to some sort of ‘wholesale equivalent’ price, he seems to leave out that 20% factor.

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      RickWill

      As I noted above – no one coal generator can have an impact because wind and solar have priority access to the market through standing bids at negative prices so are the first in the scheduling queue. The market takes all they can produce unless there is a stability issue.

      As it stands most coal generators are owned by proponents of grid scale intermittents so it is in their interests to close down the coal plants to keep wholesale prices high.

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      TdeF

      The other hidden cost is the way State and Federal governments have paid people to keep quiet. Hazelwood received hundreds of millions a year. So did Alcoa. In South Australia, Port Pirie, Whyalla and more all received hundreds of millions a year. I have read reports that subsidies to Alcoa amounted to $80,000 per person to keep the doors open. That’s our money!

      So companies which should have been screaming and closing have been paid to keep quiet and pretend all is well. So both State governments and Federal have been complicit in a massive lie that electricity prices were fine all along, while signing non disclosure agreements to pay people to do nothing. That is continuing more openly as big consumers are paid to not work when demand is high. The amount of public and private money going into proving that the system works well is incredible. There is no market. It is all fake, controlled, contrived, make believe. In fact companies have learned to extort money for their silence. When will it end? No political party admits there is a problem.

      What is needed is for a brave company to break free, go public and sue. Or a brave politician. The intimidation by the press though is overwhelming. It’s not just the ABC. The front page of the Australian talks about coal power producers being forced out of business, as if it makes perfect sense. No one explains why such madness is being promoted and accepted as inevitable. We are not allowed use our biggest export ourselves? Please explain.

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    Joe

    Jo, where’s your Christmas spirit? I think it’s a bit mean spirited of you to have a dig at the $50 the Qld Gov is handing back to all electricity customers? It has nothing to do with solar schemes at all. We are always complaining that the Gov is taking too much from us and yet when the Gov hands back a tiny $50 for a limit of 2 years only you get upset it is unfair. The Gov owns most of the generating assets up there and so collects a lot of money from electricity users and admitted to collecting a bit too much. That $50 makes a big difference to those on low incomes who face a lot of the same fixed charges (which are often a much bigger portion of their bill) as the wealthy users. Why do you rally about such trivial social(ist) matters, it is not as if it is anything like unemployment or sickness benefits? Do you want to see Australia adopt a totally hard core non-socialist form of Government? I found it interesting that one of your earlier posts where they polled the left and right about what they wanted from government and found that they were not all that different and the righties wanted Gov to look after their health just as much as the lefties did. Not only that but a not too different chunk of righties wanted the Gov to save them from the wrath of sunshine too.
    While the report claims an even lower cost impost of the SRES and FiTs than the ACCC’s report (about 1% and 2% respectively) and notwithstanding your claim that a further (indirect) ‘environmental cost’ is hidden as 66% of the wholesale cost and presumably you would concede that some of that large network cost also has more hidden ‘environmental costs’ (I think that might actually get a mention in the associated methodology paper they issued), I think it is fair to say that many of the small rooftop solar are done by people to reduce their bill by making some of their own, not with the intent to be grid power suppliers. Sure that makes a tiny less demand on the generators and obviously put’s their amortized cost up (by a similarly tiny amount) but then anything the consumer does to reduce their use will have the same negative effect. Similarly if we have lots of new competing power stations as you propose, then some are going to run at reduced capacity in a fixed market. If you choose to use gas for your heating, cooking and hot water, arguably that makes a much bigger dent in the demand than a small rooftop pv – and should you feel guilty about that? You are gas city over there in the west, do you pay to get the gas converted to electricity to cook your food or do you buy the gas and use that directly? Why curb the desires of the individual to be a bit less dependent on a giant communal power supply? The rooftop subsidies are nearly a non-issue now and many people are going to be able to role-their-own power supplies and be a lot more independent for their home needs. You could do the same, you don’t need to become a believer to do it.

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    pat

    the future?

    5 Dec: The Conversation: Making Australia a renewable energy exporting superpower
    Authors:
    Roger Dargaville, Senior lecturer, Monash University;
    Changlong Wang, Researcher, The Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne;
    Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member

    Disclosure statement
    Roger Dargaville has received funding from ARENA and DEWLP.
    Changlong Wang has received funding from CSIRO.
    Scott Hamilton is affiliated with H4 CO PTY LTD; Renewable Energy Insights Pty Ltd; a panel member on the Australia-German Energy Transition Hub and a member of the Australian Labor Party.

    Our recent study, which will be presented on December 11 at the UN Climate Change Conference, models electricity generation and demand – as well as the cost of augmenting and extending transmission infrastructure. We found a transmission network connecting Australia to Indonesia could help both nations achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2050…

    Our modelling found that, in the absence of a climate policy in Indonesia, the cheapest option is to meet all demand with domestic fossil fuel, primarily coal and natural gas.
    However, if Indonesia wishes to achieve a carbon-neutral power system, it will be extremely difficult to meet the extraordinary growth in demand with domestic renewables alone.
    Indonesia would need to build a huge amount of renewable capacity to meet peak demand, which would then go to waste most of the time. The lack of high-quality wind and solar resources, and a broad geographic area make this route very costly.

    Australia can help
    Australia’s northwest desert region has some of the world’s best solar and wind resources. An underwater high-voltage Direct Current (HVDC) link connecting Indonesia’s Java-Bali power grid to the Australian National Electricity Market grid through the Northern Territory would help both nations to achieve a 100% renewable power system by 2050…READ ON
    http://theconversation.com/making-australia-a-renewable-energy-exporting-superpower-107285

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    robert rosicka

    Jo you’ve made a mistake!

    “The ABC is essentially a taxpayer funded advertising machine for the renewables industry”!
    There’s no essentially about it , they are blatantly passing on misinformation and plugs for renewables and don’t care about their charter .
    I reckon the ABC should be defended by one quarter every time they are in breach of their own charter , then maybe we will get some balance back .

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    Earth needs a huge investment to solve energy’s pollution problem
    Financial Times – 23 Dec 2018
    We stand on the threshold of a once-in-a-century change in a market sector worth $10tn annually, or more than 10 per cent of global gross domestic product…
    These could include electricity storage that is much cheaper than present day batteries; small modular nuclear reactors that are competitive because they cost half as much as today’s reactors; refrigeration and air conditioning that do not cause global warning; zero net energy buildings that are no more expensive than ordinary construction; cutting the carbon impact of both agriculture and the production of steel, concrete and chemicals…

    full text here – still trying to buy off the “plebs”:

    24 Dec: Myxikk: from Financial Times: Earth needs a huge investment to solve energy’s pollution problem
    (The writer was founding director of the US’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. George Shultz, former US secretary of state, and Sally Benson, Stanford University professor, also contributed)
    The response to the French gilets jaunes protests against fuel duty increases (and similar movements elsewhere) should be clear.
    Most people will support an energy transition if society produces attractive and affordable technological options so that citizens are not economically damaged in the process…

    One idea that is gaining traction in the US is to charge energy producers $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted. Such a fee would prompt companies to invest in low-carbon technologies and raise about $200bn annually at current emission rates.

    But it would also increase energy prices, so we cannot stop there. Instead, we should return that $200bn as a transparent carbon dividend so that every US citizen would receive a $600 cheque every year, or $50 per month — reducing their costs. A household could potentially earn about $200 per month. Those who are generally more frugal could actually come out ahead…
    https://myzikk.com/2018/12/24/earth-needs-a-huge-investment-to-solve-energys-pollution-problem/

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      robert rosicka

      Typical socialist economics with no thought to manufacturing or small business or even hospitals , never mind the detail or even if it’s needed just tax tax tax .

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  • #

    “Firstly the subsidy itself costs money, secondly it indirectly it drives out reliable, cheap supply, then thirdly, it adds an unreliable supply that makes the other generators on the grid less efficient and higher in cost too.”
    All very well, for the moment Jo. But ultimately, renewables are all we have.
    Coal will last maybe 200 years at present rate of consumption, and is far better used for stuff like road tar and inputs to the chemical industry than for power station fuel. 200 years is as far into the future as Captain Cook is into the past: ie not so far at all. Oil, not even 200 years; we are probably past its peak. And that is, assuming that the AGW proposition is dead wrong, along with those 198 scientific organisations worldwide that endorse it, including the CSIRO, the Royal Society and the AAAS.
    Coal-fired power also requires centralised generation and massive investment in power lines and other distribution infrastructure, while solar and wind are inherently decentralised, and can generate right where they are needed: as has been shown by the fact that solar has almost completely displaced the traditional Aussie windmill for pumping artesian, sub-artesian and river water in the bush.

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    • #

      I predict we will never run out of coal. One day we’ll get cheap nuclear and no one will bother digging out the last black rocks because they will be worthless.

      Australia has 300 years of coal left at the present rate of consumption — as our main supply of electricity and our largest export earner at the same time and assuming we don’t discover more or shale, or gas.

      How many years of uranium and thorium do we have?

      If renewables are really that important to our future then why don’t we spend the subsidies researching them to make them safe, reliable and cost effective?

      Instead we create jobs in China and build billions of dollars of non-competitive infrastructure which is worse than useless — which ruins the good infrastructure we spent two generations building. Why? So we can make the world 0.00C cooler in 2100?

      Research might make us rich, but pagan witchcraft will destroy that which men gave their lives to protect.

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        Kinky Keith

        Good response Jo.

        The main issue with renewables has been the indecent haste with which they have been introduced prior to completion of research and development that confirms their place on the grid is justified.

        Premature introduction of renewables has been a financial, environment and engineering disaster that has only benefited virtue signalling politicians and their cronies.

        We are now enriching someone to the tune of $1,000 p.a.per household and leaving our children an eco mess of monstrous proportions to clean up.

        The concrete base of the local demo windmills is still here years after the thing was “sold” (or more likely dumped quietly at sea).

        Pure, unadulterated Politics.

        KK

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    “If renewables are really that important to our future then why don’t we spend the subsidies researching them to make them safe, reliable and cost effective?”
    According to the report below, Australia is on track to have 50% of its electricity generated by renewables by 2025. This despite the efforts of luminaries like Tony Abbott (King of the coal shills) to prevent this from occurring.
    Between them, there is nothing to stop a mix of solar, wind and hydro from providing 100% of Australia’s electricity. And coal will never be ‘worthless’. It provides the best and cheapest material for sealing roads, which if you ask me is what it should be increasingly and exclusively kept for. Its other major use is for steel-making, and with electricity available from renewable sources, that becomes a preservation/conservation argument as well.
    Renewables are not your enemy, Jo; unless maybe you have major investments in coal mines somewhere that you are keeping quiet about, and are keen on quick returns. The past is closed, but the future is open-ended. Our species has been on this planet maybe one million years. The stock of coal that we have on our endless journey through space has to last us for the rest of time: the safest assumption being that it will never be generated again as it was in the Carboniferous and Permian.
    The second of the two links below deals with the reasons nuclear power generation is running into cost-effectiveness problems. Renewables are getting cheaper all the time, and are cutting into the coal-generators’ market too much.

    https://theconversation.com/at-its-current-rate-australia-is-on-track-for-50-renewable-electricity-in-2025-102903
    https://theconversation.com/the-demise-of-us-nuclear-power-in-4-charts-98817

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    Oh, and I should have added: we are at present in the warm phase of a roughly 100,000 year glacial cycle of our present Quaternary Period. In terms of geological time, we will shortly be entering into a cooling phase. In a few thousand years time, our descendants will need to stop glaciers doing what they did not so long ago: advancing over large parts of the Eurasian and North American land masses, and to one helluva depth.
    Our descendants will possibly need all the carbon dioxide they can get: and other GHGs.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation#/media/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg

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      Kinky Keith

      He got it right.

      But then spoils it by saying that CO2 may help save the situation.

      Unfortunately CO2 doesn’t heat the atmosphere.

      Best to go for the Equator.

      KK

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      AndyG55

      Note that AT NO TIME was peak CO2 able to even maintain peak temperature.

      In fact, peak CO2 was ALWAYS coincident with the start of the drop in temperatures.

      Not a good series to back up the anti-science of atmospheric warming by CO2, McDoog. 😉

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    Jo Nova describes herself on this site as “a science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host…” As such I am sure that she seeks truth above all else, and would shun the idea that she might be seen as a mere shill or carpet-bagger for the coal and fossil-fuel industries.
    She is confident that temperatures globally ar not rising, despite reports in both the media and the scientific literature to the contrary. And of course, there can be endless argument over thermometer readings, heat island effects and so on: well covered by the AGW sceptic Ian Plimer in his magnum opus, ‘Heaven + Earth’, in which he assures his readership that even if all else fails, God will save us. His very final sentence in the book: “Human stupidity is only exceeded by God’s mercy, which is infinite.”
    Nice to know; especially for a warmist mainstream-science-endorser like me.
    I am not the slightest bit interested in temperatures, or in arguments over them. What has led me to this position is the fact that the world’s glaciers and icecaps are melting, resulting in measurable sea-level rise. Which is accelerating.
    “These [sea-level] increases were measured using satellite altimeter measurements since 1992, including the Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2 and Jason-3 satellite missions, which have been jointly managed by multiple agencies, including NASA, Centre national d’etudes spatiales (CNES), European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the U.S. portion of these missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The rate of sea level rise in the satellite era has risen from about 0.1 inch (2.5 millimeters) per year in the 1990s to about 0.13 inches (3.4 millimeters) per year today.
    “The Topex/Poseidon/Jason altimetry missions have been essentially providing the equivalent of a global network of nearly half a million accurate tide gauges, providing sea surface height information every 10 days for over 25 years,” said Brian Beckley, of NASA Goddard, second author on the new paper and lead of a team that processes altimetry observations into a global sea level data record. “As this climate data record approaches three decades, the fingerprints of Greenland and Antarctic land-based ice loss are now being revealed in the global and regional mean sea level estimates.”
    In other words, the Earth is its own thermometer, with sea water in place of mercury. That sea level is rising, with the rate of rise increasing. And that means that the planet is warming, spelt W-A-R-M-I-N-G. Warming.
    Now scientifically literate people like Jo may dispute that rising carbon dioxide concentrations both in the air and in sea water have anything to do with it, or are anything to worry about. But the Precautionary Principle inclines me to the assume to the contrary, and that the fossil carbon would be best conserved for uses like road tar. (And note also that Ian Plimer asserts that there is no such principle “in science”. (Plimer op. cit; pp. 339, 485. I presume he has never studied chemistry, used a fume cupboard, or even worn goggles when out hammering rocks.)
    I honestly wish that the AGW ‘sceptics’ were right, and that none of us have anything to worry about. But I am not prepared to bet my life, or the lives of my family or any others on the basis of any assurances to the contrary from the fossil carbon barons, or their acolytes.

    https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level-rise-accelerating/

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      AndyG55

      Well that was a one sided diatribe,.. based on ignorance and blind. “belief”

      Fact 1. The satellite data record is highly adjusted. Adjustments started in 2002.

      Fact 2. Grace cannot be used over volcanic regions, it becomes meaningless. Grace was also shown to be highly inaccurate over its first 2-3 decades and its still a nonsense when over volcanic regions

      Fact 3. Scientifically IGNORANT people like YOU, cannot produce one bit of empirical evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming.

      Fact 4. The only warming in the last 40 years has come from El Nino events, which is SOLAR driven energy, NOTHING to do with atmospheric CO2

      No warming from 1980-1997

      No warming from 2001-2015, El nino transient has now dropped back to that zero-trend line.

      Fact 5. Sea level as measured by tide gauges is actually DECELERATING.

      Sorry that your “beliefs” are scientifically UNFOUNDED and based purely on anti-science GULLIBILITY.

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      Kinky Keith

      The fact that you earlier referred to Jonathan Pilger as a source says a lot about your personal scientific skill level.

      No doubt he believes that seas are rising: good luck to him and, he’s correct.

      They are rising marginally but for how long.

      The current rise rate is barely measurable and right now is the most stable sea level we have had in 7,000 years.

      That’s the Science.

      KK

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      AndyG55

      “But the Precautionary Principle inclines me “

      Always the fall back of those INCAPABLE of providing actual empirical evidence.

      Do you wear a tin hat in case aliens are trying to read your mind.

      Don’t worry, no-one can hit a target that small. !!

      ——-

      would be best conserved for uses like road tar”

      And your IGNORANCE compounds itself. Coal is NOT used in roads.

      Fact 6…Enhanced atmospheric CO2 is TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY BENEFICIAL to ALL LIFE ON EARTH, and is currently at dangerously LOW levels.

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      AndyG55

      McDoog, did you know that in 60 years, the whole of oceans down to 2000m have risen in temperature by 0.08ºC.. according to NOAA “modelling” ??

      Does 0.08ºC in 60 years SCARE YOU ????? BOOOO !!!!!

      Are you that much of a snowflake ?????

      54

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      tom0mason

      Ian MacDougall,

      The planet has over the last 200 years or so (since leaving the Little Ice Age) warmed at an astonishing rate of just under 1°C/century. Actually this is neither alarming nor unusual, just quite natural. And CO2 has very, very little to do with any of the warming.

      Your howling alarmism is also not unusual and is indeed very prevalent among the young and poorly educated these days. I would strongly advise you to please review of the weather and climate changes that have happened over the last 1,000 years to help you get a more reasoned sense of proportion.

      P.S.
      Your written version of SHOUTING — spelt S_H_O_U_N_T_I_N_G — just shows how childlike you are on this subject.

      53

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      A good laugh.

      The precautionary principle!

      42

    • #
      AndyG55

      Here are a couple of very simple questions for you, McDoog.

      1. In what way has the climate changed over the last 40 years that can scientifically proven to be of human influence? (no, not some modelled attribution study, that is not real science)

      1b..In fact, apart from a fraction of a degree of natural warming, in what way has the climate changed at all?

      2. Can you produce ANY empirical science that shows that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming?
      (models based on dubious, erroneous assumptions and anti-physics nonsense, are NOT scientific proof)

      44

  • #

    KK: @# 38.2,

    “The fact that you earlier referred to Jonathan Pilger as a source says a lot about your personal scientific skill level.”
    a. Where did I do that, on this thread?
    b. Are you saying that ‘Jonathan Pilger’ is always wrong; on everything? That would have to make him the world’s leading negative intellectual, and a great asset to the world. Just find out what position he takes on any issue, and do exactly the opposite. What could possibly go wrong?
    c. On AGW, I stand with mainstream scientific opinion, including the Royal Society, the AAAS the CSIRO, and a worlwide total of 198 scientific organisations all up that endorse the AGW proposition.
    d. On sea level, I am not interested in land-based tide gauges, as their altitude can change over time with isostatic movements of the Earth’s crust.
    For your interest:
    Global Mean Sea Level rise as assessed by scientific organisations:
    GMSL Rates
    CU: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    AVISO: 3.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr
    CSIRO: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NASA GSFC: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NOAA: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr (w/ GIA)
    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

    Do the arithmetic. 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr (CSIRO) ~ 33mm/decade (= 3.3 cm/decade ~ 33 ± 4 cm/century ~ 330 cm/1,000 yrs: ie 3.3 metres/1,000 yrs
    ~ 33 metres/10,000 yrs.
    And that is without the hunk of the Antarctic’s Totten Glacier departing from the rest and sliding off the land into the sea. The Totten holds enough ice the raise sea levels worldwide “by more than 11 feet,” according to:
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01112017/east-antarctica-totten-glacier-melting-winds-warm-ocean-sea-level-rise-study
    http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html There you will find a full list of the world’s scientific organisations that endorse AGW.

    BTW computer modelling of climate is mainly about trying to predict outcomes in a naturally complex system, rather than just waiting to see what happens and hoping for the best. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040503722.html

    But mainstream science and climatology has not established AGW as a basis for energy policy-making out of computer modelling. Rather, that modelling has been used as a basis for trying to predict where this complex, warming climate system of the plant will head to. And despite ‘skeptics’ and their antics on the political Right (that being where most of the anti-climatology rants come from) those models are reportedly quite good when tested in the short term situation of weather forecasting.

    Also, I will say this for Jo Nova. Unlike say, the Koch brothers and other leading ‘sceptics’, she does not appear to have any significant investment of her own in coal or mining. She appears to have arrived at her position on the basis of her own thought and reason. (But I may be wrong there.)

    The other responses are noted. (AndyG55 @ 38.3: whatever your real name is, I am not interested in the childish exchange of insults and personal abuse that you appear to favour. But note, coal is not used for roads in the form it takes when mined. In the steel industry, it is used for making coke for the charges of blast furnaces. Road tar is one of the by-products of the coking process. I am sure you will be able to find more on this in your school library next term. Ask the librarian or your teacher to help you. So off to beddy-byes now. Big day tomorrow, I’m sure. Make sure you have done your teeth and been to the toilet.

    35

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Is there really any point responding to a scientific illiterate who needs big daddy to tell him what to say?

      Quoting organisations which are force fed huge amounts of our tax payments is not about science or looking after the community, it’s about giving the politicians what they paid for: a super scare campaign. Another excuse to Tax us.

      The question you need to ask is after 20,000 years of ice melt, is there any left to melt.

      The answer basically is that the melt is over, just ask those in the Northern hemisphere who have had very unwarm and cold icy snowy winters of late.

      Sense of perspective needed.

      43

    • #
      AndyG55

      “I am not interested in the childish exchange of insults and “

      Poor muppet, Yet that is how you start your every post.

      You were given some questions and you have FAILED TOTALLY.

      33

    • #
      AndyG55

      “Road tar is one of the by-products of the coking process. ”

      Oh dearie me. Your ignorance continues.

      While coal tar has occasionally been used as a road binder, but it is highly toxic and its use has been phased out (around the 1980s). Special procedures are required for its removal.

      Its distillation gives far more useful products.

      Most bitumen comes from crude oil, not coal.

      33

    • #
      AndyG55

      “On AGW, I stand with mainstream scientific opinion… blah blah…”

      So you are a non-thinking brain-hosed muppet. OK, that is patently obvious.

      That you think sea level change can be extrapolated 10,000 years is quite “charming” in its naivety.

      Keep digging.. its hilarious to watch your attempts. 🙂

      You still have some questions to answer..

      33

  • #

    KK: “Sense of perspective needed.”

    Perhaps you would like to read the speech delivered by the the chemist-turned-British-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on November 6 1990 at the 2nd World Climate Conference. Find it at https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108237.

    “But the threat to our world comes not only from tyrants and their tanks. It can be more insidious though less visible. The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.

    “Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order. It’s because we know that, that we are here today…

    “For two centuries, since the Age of the Enlightenment, we assumed that whatever the advance of science, whatever the economic development, whatever the increase in human numbers, the world would go on much the same. That was progress. And that was what we wanted.

    “Now we know that this is no longer true.

    “We have become more and more aware of the growing imbalance between our species and other species, between population and resources, between humankind and the natural order of which we are part.

    “In recent years, we have been playing with the conditions of the life we know on the surface of our planet. We have cared too little for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man’s activities and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have taken for granted and on which human life depends.

    “We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late. That duty is constant. It is never completed. It lives on as we breathe. It endures as we eat and sleep, work and rest, as we are born and as we pass away. The duty to Nature will remain long after our own endeavours have brought peace to the Middle East. It will weigh on our shoulders for as long as we wish to dwell on a living and thriving planet, and hand it on to our children and theirs…

    “I want to pay tribute to the important work which the United Nations has done to advance our understanding of climate change, and in particular the risks of global warming. Dr. Tolba and Professor Obasi deserve our particular thanks for their far-sighted initiative in establishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    “The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree, as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make that observation! I know both worlds.

    “Of course, much more research is needed. We don’t yet know all the answers. Some major uncertainties and doubts remain. No-one can yet say with certainty that it is human activities which have caused the apparent increase in global average temperatures. The IPCC report is very careful on this point. For instance, the total amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere each year from natural sources is some 600 billion tonnes, while the figure resulting from human activities is only 26 billion tonnes. In relative terms that is not very significant. Equally we know that the increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere date from the start of the industrial revolution. And we know that those concentrations will continue to rise if we fail to act.

    “Nor do we know with any precision the extent of the likely warming in the next century, nor what the regional effects will be, and we can’t be sure of the role of the clouds.

    “There is a continuing mystery about how atmospheric carbon, including the small extra contribution from human sources, continuing mystery about how that is being absorbed: is most of it going into the ocean, as used to be thought? Or is it being increasingly absorbed by trees or plants, of soils, especially in the northern hemisphere? These are questions that need answers, sooner rather than later.

    “Global climate change within limits need not by itself pose serious problems—our globe has after all seen a great deal of climate change over the centuries. And it’s notable that the blue-green algae which dominated the Precambrian period at the dawn of life are still major components of the marine phytoplankton today. Despite the climate changes of many millions of years, these microbes have persisted on earth virtually unchanged, pumping out life-giving oxygen into the atmosphere and mopping up carbon dioxide.

    “The real dangers arise because climate change is combined with other problems of our age: for instance the population explosion; — the deterioration of soil fertility; — increasing pollution of the sea; — intensive use of fossil fuel; — and destruction of the world’s forests, particularly those in the tropics.”

    Perhaps food for a Kinky Keithian thought. Then again, perhaps not.

    Blunder on, Kinky Keith, if that is what you are best at.

    35

    • #
      AndyG55

      WOW, a collection of mindless political cut and paste. ! HILARIOUS. !!

      You are obviously a non-scientist who has zero ability for rational thought of your own.

      Do you have any actual empirical evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming..

      .. or just the continued ranting attempts at attention-seeking distractions?

      53

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Andy

        As I have been told, the Margaret Thatcher business was a reaction to British Unions and was a political move rather than a scientific one.

        There are Many Many things wrong with our behaviour regarding the environment, but causing Globul Warming by introducing Human Origin CO2 into the atmosphere is not one of them.

        In a similar way to Margaret, modern politicians “save money” (where does it go?) by not managing the bush on a regular basis and then point at the resulting deadly bushfires as being caused by CAGW.

        Nothing changes, but if Brexit, Trumpit and the yellow vests of France are an indication, the world is starting to wake up and demand an end to the current slavery.

        There is No scientific mechanism that links CO2 in the atmosphere with so called Global Warming.

        KK

        43

      • #
        AndyG55

        And just to make sure McDoog gets the message.

        Enhanced atmospheric CO2 is TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY BENEFICIAL to ALL LIFE ON EARTH

        It is no danger to anyone or anything at any conceivable whole of atmosphere concentration, unless it drops BELOW about 280-250ppm.

        There is NO scientific mechanism for atmospheric warming by atmospheric CO2, and such warming has NEVER been observed or measured anywhere.

        The only change in climate in the last 40 year (of reliable data) has been a slight warming from El Nino events , most likely stored energy from the Grand Solar Maximum of the latter half of last century, and the rising leg of the cycle of the AMO in the NH… certainly NOTHING to do with human influence or enhanced atmospheric CO2.

        43

  • #

    “As I have been told, the Margaret Thatcher business was a reaction to British Unions and was a political move rather than a scientific one.”
    As you “have been told.” Well, bully for you. So dear old Margaret was not only a vendor of a scientific fraud, but a political one as well, given that what she SAID she was about was at variance with what she was really about.
    Was she just pretending to endorse AGW? Or was she sincere; albeit in your view misguided? Or could she possibly have been on this topic in her OTHER field of expertise (choke! caaargh! splutter! hawk! spit!*) dead right?

    34

    • #
      AndyG55

      YAWN, the evasion of simple questions of “science” is quite hilarious.

      Who gives a stuff if a politician endorses the AGW scam to further her own political agenda.

      IRRELEVANT to actual reality.

      Do you have ANY empirical evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming..

      … or are you going down the normal headless chook distraction path like so many other AGW zealots ?

      33

    • #
      AndyG55

      “field of expertise”

      Your “field of expertise” obviously is one related to mindless bluster.

      Never been near any real science in your whole brain-hosed life.

      Which is why you are INCAPABLE of putting forward even the remotest bit of science to back up the most basic non-fact of the AGW agenda..

      ie… the failed CON-jecture that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming

      We are WAITING !!!

      33

  • #

    NOTE TO READERS: My reply to 40.1.2 is ‘awaiting moderation.’ Has been since 8.05 am, Jan 1 2019.
    As in:
    00
    #
    Ian MacDougall
    Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    January 1, 2019 at 8:05 am · Reply

    23

  • #

    In 2018 the Australian government chased its energy tail. Here’s a more hopeful story
    by Simon Holmes à Court
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/2018-australian-government-energy-more-hopeful-story

    34

    • #
      AndyG55

      Gruniad and leftist agenda .. walking off into the sunset, holding hands. (in a non-gender-specific way)

      So funny that people like you are so GULLIBLE to the fabricated nonsense.

      43

  • #

    One word: Venus. The same planet that got Jim Hansen of NASA started on the AGW Hypothesis, now mainstream science.

    Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

    Its atmosphere, BTW, is almost pure CO2. (And please don’t tell me ‘pressure’.)

    https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/in-depth/

    33

    • #
      AndyG55

      YAWN, and STILL the total INABILITY to answer simple questions.

      Another childish attempt at distraction.

      And yes atmospheric PRESSURE plays a large part in Venus’s surface temperature.

      At the same atmospheric pressure as on Earth, Venus is almost exactly the temperature it should be relative to its distance from the sun

      …… so, NOT CO2

      Now ANSWER THE QUESTIONS !!

      33

    • #
      AndyG55

      ROFLMAO

      And Hansen has been TOTALLY WRONG with every “prediction” he ever made.

      No wonder you choose him as your guru. 🙂

      AGW is still a NON-VALIDATE anti-science CON-jecture…

      … never even made it to the hypothesis stage.

      Even the almighty YOU (only in your own feeble mind) is incapable of putting forward any real evidence to support its most basic fallacy, ie warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

      23

  • #

    AndyG55:
    Note the source I quoted: NASA. As at
    https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/in-depth/

    And what is the source for your rant? The top of your head? (Assuming it is still attached, and has not blown off.)

    24

    • #
      AndyG55

      Quoting NASA.. roflmao.. They are propagators of the farce.

      Read that link of yours.. Its for children..

      Obviously that is where you learn from.

      “The thick atmosphere traps the Sun’s heat,”

      Precisely, by the gravity thermal gradient, NOT by any CO2.

      Temperature at 1 Earth atmosphere is pretty much exactly what it should be for its distance from the sun. Its basically set by the sun and the atmospheric pressure, just like on every other planet with a viable atmosphere.

      There is NO CO2 warming effect.

      32

  • #
    AndyG55

    ROFLMAO

    Still the total inability to answer simple questions about CO2 NON-warming..

    So pathetically hilarious. 🙂

    Remain EMPTY, Mc Doog.. your natural state.

    http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html

    WAY beyond your ability to comprehend, and certainly to counter.

    There are also many papers on the gravity-thermal effect, a MEASURED, OBSERVED phenomenon on every known planet.

    … as opposed to warming by atmospheric CO2, that has never been observed or measured anywhere on any planet.

    33

  • #

    Andy G55: From your linked site, belonging to one Harry Dale Huffman (aka Andy G55? Or just your guru?)

    “Independent research physical scientist, author (‘The End of the Mystery’), and discoverer of the astounding world design behind all the ancient mysteries. “ [Oh, wow!]

    The flip side of the entrenched incompetence in science today is that all it takes is scientific competence to make revolutionary discoveries, or fundamental corrections to current dogma. Being a competent physicist rather than an incompetent climate scientist (which 97% of them demonstrably are), I was able recently to post an answer on yahoo.com to a question about the greenhouse effect on Venus, an update to which I give here….

    “which 97% of them demonstrably are”….! Why so modest? Why not round that figure up to 100% and be done with it? Or better still, to 150%; just to be on the safe side…? (Precautionary Principle and all that…)
    I presume you have contacted the Nobel Committee in Stockholm to let them know when you will be available to pick up your gong, so they can make their own arrangements accordingly.
    Best of luck….

    23

    • #
      AndyG55

      Still EMPTY, mcDoog. ?? seems to be you are great at MINDLESS RANTING, but HOPELESS at presenting any actual science.

      So HILARIOUS watching your pathetic attempts to NOT ANSWER simple questions

      Noted that you were INCAPABLE of refuting anything said in the link.

      No empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2 , McDoog

      No CO2 warming on Venus either. Same pressure, same relative temperature.

      PRESSURE, not CO2

      GET OVER IT. !

      24

    • #
      AndyG55

      ““incompetent climate scientist …which 97% of them demonstrably are”….! “

      According to John Cook, most definitely 97%

      They “BELIEVE” (spooky music) in the fallacy of AGW, despite there being NO EVIDENCE to back up the most basic tenet of the farce. (as you keep showing by your totally inability to PRODUCE any)

      That makes them undoubtedly and TOTALLY, INCOMPETENT.. just like you.

      32

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Not only no evidence but No Credible Scientific Process by which man made CO2 can drive the atmospheric temperature up.

        KK

        41

        • #
          AndyG55

          Its very odd that they don’t see just how deep they are digging into their own BS by their constant blathering and distractions in attempting to not answer simple questions.

          They make a MOCKERY of themselves, with very little help from us. 🙂

          32

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            But Andy, it’s still working for them. Look at the 3 billion being diverted from our electricity accounts every year.

            That’s enough to buy off every politicians in Australia.

            KK

            20

  • #

    “….the fallacy of AGW, despite there being NO EVIDENCE to back up the most basic tenet of the farce. (as you keep showing by your totally inability to PRODUCE any.”
    Back at #39, I gave you the evidence: glacial melt and sea-level rise. But like any other member of the Ostrich School of Climatology, you refuse to accept it.
    Svante Arrhenius, who you may have heard of, showed around 1900 the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide, and realised the implications of it re industrial flue gases.
    There are high school level experiments on the internet to demonstrate it.
    But no. Can’t possibly be happening. Because fossil carbon is too important.
    And Andy, if your pants were on fire, what would it take to convince you of that fact? After all, even a dry pair of pants can be used to beat out flames! And what would have to happen at the molecular level to bring this about?
    And anyway, the heat could be coming from the BBQ next door.

    12

    • #
      AndyG55

      Roflmao!

      “glacial melt and sea-level rise”

      Trees under melting glaciers which formed during the LIA.

      Be very glad it has warmed NATURALLY since the coldest period in 10,000 years..

      You do know that most glaciers formed during the “Neoglaciation” period don’t you (go look it up)

      You do know they started melting at the end of the LIA, don’t you?

      You do know that there has been a Steady sea level rise with tide gauges showing deceleration over that last 20or so years, don’t you?.

      You do know that there was MUCH faster sea level rise 10,000 years ago,

      and that Sea level were a couple of metres higher 1000-2000 years ago.

      That is evidence of NATURAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY

      You obviously are so manically brain-hosed that you think every little weather variation is cause by man..

      Your IGNORANCE and GULLIBILIY of basically everything to do with climate is quite amusing. 🙂

      Arrhenius used ENCLOSED containers. Do you REALLY think the atmosphere is an enclosed container. WOW.. !!!

      He showed that CO2 is a radiative gas, NOTHING MORE. Everything else was conjecture.

      So are many other gases, particularly the H2O which totally dwarfs CO2 in the atmosphere.

      And yes the “experiments are JUNIOR high school level.. at best. ! Your level. time for you to progress.

      You obviously have no understanding what “empirical” even means

      Go back, try to get past junior high level science this time.. and try to LEARN something you can put rational thought to.

      Or choose to keep digging into your own ignorance of any scientific reality, McDoog.

      As I said.

      There is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

      We are all waiting, and rotfloao 🙂

      Thanks for the slap-stick style entertainment 🙂

      31

  • #

    AndyG55:

    First, thanks for the tip about asphalt for roads coming from oil wells. The tar from coking of coal apparently has other uses; which for anti-renewables fossil-carbon enthusiasts has to be a mixed message. Peak asphalt is probably closer than many realise. Which means the cost of sealing roads will inevitably and fairly rapidly climb.

    Some of your other points, which necessitate a trifle more detail:

    “Be very glad it has warmed NATURALLY since the coldest period in 10,000 years.”

    Where or when did I deny the Pleistocene, or any other glacial epoch? We are in an interglacial now, and if the last 2 million years or so is anything to go by, in ~10,000 (??) years our descendants will enter a new glacial age, and arguably need every warming aid they can get, including CO2. But by then, on present trends, all the fossil carbon will be somewhere in the aerial, marine or biospheric phases of the Carbon Cycle.

    The water content of the atmosphere is not controllable: witness the present drought. The CO2 content can be controlled, via control of CO2 input; Paris Agreement and all that.

    “You do know that most glaciers formed during the ‘Neoglaciation’ period don’t you (go look it up).”

    Answer: http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm

    “You do know that there has been a steady sea level rise with tide gauges showing deceleration over that last 20 or so years, don’t you?.”

    Satellite altimetry, already cited by me, is highly accurate: far more than tide gauges subject to isostasy. But at the risk of getting repetitive:
    GMSL Rates
    CU: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    AVISO: 3.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr
    CSIRO: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NASA GSFC: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NOAA: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr (w/ GIA)
    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

    Note the accuracy +/- ~0.5 mm/yr. Note also that NASA is the organisation that has just done a flyby on Ultima Thule; an object 6 billion km from the Earth, and has beamed back pictures of it.

    “You do know that there was MUCH faster sea level rise 10,000 years ago, and that Sea level were a couple of metres higher 1000-2000 years ago. That is evidence of NATURAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY.”

    Answer: Source?

    “You obviously are so manically brain-hosed that you think every little weather variation is cause by man…”

    Add: ‘Nyaa, nyaa, nyaa, nyaa! ‘ (Naturally follows there, don’t you agree?)

    “Arrhenius used ENCLOSED containers….”

    Would you have preferred he used open ones?

    “Do you REALLY think the atmosphere is an enclosed container. WOW.. !!!”

    (I thought it generally agreed in the scientific community that the planets and stars ride above us on crystalline spheres. Did I get that wrong? 😉
    But, come to think of it, the atmosphere IS gravitationally enclosed in both the Newtonian and Einsteinian senses: which is why we still have it.

    “He [Arrhenius] showed that CO2 is a radiative gas, NOTHING MORE. Everything else was conjecture.”

    So it radiates without first absorbing…! Like say, radon…! Hooray..! What a fantastic new energy source…! Thanks for that…And so now….I’m in the market for CO2 options…! And you should be on TV.

    “So are many other gases, particularly the H2O which totally dwarfs CO2 in the atmosphere.”

    Agreed. But as I said, we have far more control over atmospheric CO2 concentration than we have over atmospheric H2O. Drawdown or precipitation of H2O (ie rain) is also far more rapid than photosynthetic drawdown of CO2, all other conditions being equal; which we cannot guarantee in a warming world.

    “And yes ‘the experiments are JUNIOR high school level.. at best. ! Your level. time [sic] for you to progress.”

    You mean progress to your level, so clearly on display here? Oh, I don’t think I could ever do that. And do you mean that junior high school science teaches kids stuff that is bullmanure, and wrong..?? (Or should that be ‘stuff that you don’t agree with?’ Like, ah say… (I’m racking my brain…)…. mainstream climatology, perhaps?

    A simple experiment that I encountered in my own first year of high school: take a quantity of iced water; put a thermometer in it. Now gently heat it, stirring all through the procedure and reading the thermometer every 30 seconds. You probably know the rest.

    That simple experiment is being carried out now on a global scale, with glaciers melting on all continents; and the polar icecaps too. I suggest to you that while those vast ice fields remain at the geographic poles, and on the ‘third pole’ of the Earth – the Himalayas, temperature will remain fairly constant as the total heat content of the ever-circulating global system rises. But after the ice goes, true runaway warming with significant temperature rise is a possibility. (For the coal industry and its acolytes, that JUST HAS TO BE FALSE, and an impossibility.)

    But I stress that the outcome of this global experiment is unknowable and cannot be deduced from first principles, because the atmosphere-ocean-icecaps-continental-surface combination is too complex, and the accuracy of computer modelling diminishes as projections go further into the future, and probably logarithmically. But the initial results are in, and are there in sea-level rise, and no cause for ‘sceptic’ optimism. One possible outcome is that nightmare of runaway catastrophic global warming. And on that, there is only one sure way to find out…

    “You obviously have no understanding what ‘empirical’ even means.”
    I do so too..! ‘Cos when I was a kid, we used to have bonfires and beaut fun with fireworks and crackers on the night of Empirical Day.

    “As I said. There is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.”

    Well, let’s see.

    1. Globally, sea level is rising, thanks completely to thermal expansion of sea water and/or glacial melt. Both clearly indicating global warming, unless you want to invoke undersea volcanoes and falling comets.

    2. Anthropogenic CO2 concentration is abnormally high, and rising fast on the time scale of the last 2 million years or so. From the American Chemical Society: “Until the past two centuries, the concentrations of CO2 and CH4 had never exceeded about 280 ppm and 790 ppb, respectively. Current concentrations of CO2 are about 390 ppm [actually today about 405 ppm] and CH4 levels exceed 1,770 ppb. Both numbers are much higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years. Data for the past 2000 years show that the atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4, and N2O – three important long-lived greenhouse gases – have increased substantially since about 1750. Rates of increase in levels of these gases are dramatic. CO2, for instance, never increased more than 30 ppm during any previous 1,000-year period in this record but has already risen by 30 ppm in the past two decades. Further ice-core analyses have extended this record back to 800,000 years with the same conclusion that the concentrations of these greenhouse gases were always lower before industrialization.” (https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html )

    3. CO2 is a heat-trapping gas: known since the work of Fourier and Arrhenius.

    Putting 1, 2 and 3 together, we can say that your statement “There is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2” is dead wrong. There is.

    I think that what you meant to say was “There is NO 100% WATERTIGHT PROOF for warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.” And that is a different matter entirely, and on that I would agree with you. Also that there is no 100% watertight proof that the Sun will rise tomorrow. Also that there is no 100% watertight proof that there is no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy; though the available evidence would point pretty solidly in that direction, and in both cases. (But then again, in Santa & Co’s defence, one cannot prove a negative.)

    BTW: If you have not already done so, I suggest you give yourself a chance to widen your horizons a bit beyond this little ‘sceptic’ echo chamber and read the physicist Spencer Weart’s comprehensive survey of the history of AGW, ‘The Discovery of Global Warming.’
    https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm

    Jo Nova provides reasoned arguments from the sources she has surveyed and apparently has arrived at her present position on the basis of that; not from any apparent financial interest in the fossil-carbon industry and related mining. But there are many ‘sceptics’ who come from the fossil-carbon industry and who illustrate the observation made by the American writer and humorist Mark Twain, in his ‘Corn-Pone Opinions’.

    “FIFTY YEARS AGO, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to me because I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and delightful young black man -a slave – who daily preached sermons from the top of his master’s woodpile, with me for sole audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, and did it well, and with fine passion and energy. To me he was a wonder. I believed he was the greatest orator in the United States and would some day be heard from. But it did not happen; in the distribution of rewards he was overlooked. It is the way, in this world.

    “He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to saw a stick of wood; but the sawing was a pretense -he did it with his mouth; exactly imitating the sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way through the wood. But it served its purpose; it kept his master from coming out to see how the work was getting along. I listened to the sermons from the open window of a lumber room at the back of the house. One of his texts was this:
    ‘You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is’.”

    http://www.paulgraham.com/cornpone.html
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/mar/12/climate-change-copenhagen-monbiot
    https://theconversation.com/current-emissions-could-already-warm-world-to-dangerous-levels-study-66040

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      AndyG55

      Poor McDoog,

      STILL ZERO-EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2

      You have shown NOTHING except anti-science illogical, irrational AGW mantra.

      Just LOTS of copy-paste junk, showing zero-comprehension

      Combined with TOTALLY MINDLESS and IRRELVANT ranting.

      Sea level rise is decelerating at tide gauges. It was 1-2m higher 1000-2000 or so years ago.

      Only warming in last 40 years has come from El Nino and AMO ocean events.

      NOTHING to do with atmospheric CO2 or unicorns.

      —-

      “Anthropogenic CO2 concentration is abnormally high”

      What a complete and utter NONSENSE statement.

      Atmospheric CO2 level is barely above plant photosynthesis levels.

      “CO2 is a heat-trapping gas:”

      Yet another IDIOT statement

      Its a “radiative” gas. It does not TRAP anything, it absorbs in a tiny thin frequency spectrum and re-emits in a tiny thin frequency band.. In the lower atmosphere, the re-emittance time is magnitudes slower than the collisional time. Comprehend ????? Nope, I bet you don’t, you only understand “copy/paste” requiring zero independent thought process.

      Please keep displaying your ABJECT IGNORANCE about basically EVERYTHING, McDoog.

      Keep up the childish AVOIDANCE and DISTRACTION of presenting any REAL EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

      You only continue to make yourself look more and more FOOLISH.

      Its HILARIOUS. 🙂 🙂

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      AndyG55

      “thanks completely to thermal expansion of sea water”

      Poor McDoog..

      You probably think that enhanced atmospheric CO2 makes oceans warmer.

      So funny !!.. SO ZERO-PHYSICS.

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      AndyG55

      “So it radiates without first absorbing”

      Seems you don’t even know basic terminology.

      Not surprising…

      You certainly keep mining into the depths of your ignorance.

      For ALL to see.

      You should be embarrassed, but I doubt you even realise you dumb you look.

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  • #

    49.1, 49.2 Noted.
    “You probably think that enhanced atmospheric CO2 makes oceans warmer.”
    A route for heat from the atmosphere to sea water lies through rain (directly) and through glacial melt and rivers (less directly).

    BTW: Fourier, Tyndall and Arrhenius. I should have added a hat-tip to Tyndall.

    https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1397

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      AndyG55

      “A route for heat from the atmosphere to sea water lies through rain (directly) and through glacial melt and rivers (less directly).”

      ROFLMAO !!

      make it up as you go along ! 🙂

      You have NOTHING. !!

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      AndyG55

      Your ANTI-REALITY is becoming more and more BIZARRE by the post

      Warmer rain ??

      Warmer rivers ??

      Glacier melt is warmer..????

      …. and all because of a tiny increase in a trace gas.

      With absolutely ZERO real empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2

      Truly SLAP-STICK COMEDY, McDoog

      Please keep trying. 🙂

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      AndyG55

      And SKS? Seriously..

      Are you TRYING to make a mockery of yourself !!!

      Angstrom: H2O saturates CO2 bands in lower atmosphere.

      Arrhenius: CO2 radiates in UPPER layers of the atmosphere.

      OOPS.. you should read your links first lest you continue to make a fool of yourself.

      The mean free path of the frequency of CO2 radiation in the lower atmosphere is around 10m or so. The re-emittance time in the lower atmosphere is MANY times SLOWER than its thermalisation

      CO2 doesn’t re-emit below 11km, so any energy flux will be towards space.

      In the lower atmosphere it is just part of the normal upward thermal cooling of the surface and atmosphere.. absorb, thermalise to 99.96% of atmosphere. convection, conduction etc as regulated by the MEASURED AND OBSERVED gravity based thermal gradient.

      There is NO “REAL PHYSICS” MECHANISM by which enhanced atmospheric CO2 can cause atmospheric warming.

      Such warming by enhanced atmospheric has NEVER been observed or measured anywhere on the planet.

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      Graeme No.3

      Is that the Fourier who said a Greenhouse Effect could only occur is a section of the atmosphere solidified WITHOUT CHANGING its optical properties?
      Still I think valid after 190 years.

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    Well, since this is a thread about renewables, perhaps you would prefer this:

    “Renewables have overtaken coal as Germany’s main source of energy for the first time last year, accounting for just over 40 per cent of electricity production, research shows.

    “The shift marks progress as Europe’s biggest economy aims for renewables to provide 65 per cent of its energy by 2030 in a costly transition as it abandons nuclear power by 2022 and is devising plans for an orderly long-term exit from coal.

    “The research from the Fraunhofer organisation of applied science showed that output of solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric generation units rose 4.3 per cent last year to produce 219 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity.

    “That was out of a total national power production of 542 TWh derived from both green and fossil fuels, of which coal burning accounted for 38 per cent.”

    And clearly going down.

    https://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/renewables-overtake-coal-in-germany/news-story/98dea19a5df3e6d33ddf5f71187ab6aa

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      Graeme No.3

      And its effect on CO2 emissions? Especially as Germany’s overall emissions went up (very marginally) last year. In fact they haven’t dropped for 9 years. Probably something to do with lots of Germans burning imported wood pellets from Finland, Slovakia and Russia because electricity is so expensive.

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      AndyG55

      Renewables as percentage of nameplate

      ROFLMAO !! Notice for half the time, they were LESS THAE 16% of nameplate

      Or we could look at wind’s share of Germany’s energy mix in 2016, a MEASLEY 2.1% USELESS.

      Solar 1.2% ROFLMAO !!!

      ERRATIC, UNRELIABLE, DISRUPTIVE, COSTLY only held together by French nuclear , Germany brown coal , Russian Gas, and Polish Black Coal

      Hence Germany’s emissions INCREASED this last year, certainly DO NO DROP, and that have the highest electricity prices in the EU and the World.

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      AndyG55

      And yet again we see McDoog’s child-minds attempt at distraction from the real question.

      STILL ZERO-EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2

      It would continue to be funny if it wasn’t SOOOOO pathetic 🙂

      Did you figure out what “empirical” means yet.? McDoog.

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    “…because electricity is so expensive.”

    Be that as it may. But the argument that ‘coal-fired electricity is cheapest’ has to be accompanied by climate change ‘scepticism’, ‘denial’, call it what you will. Because if coal’s cheer squad does not dispute coal’s role in AGW, the real cost of coal-fired power has to include the cost of the arguable side-effects: increased frequencies of droughts (like this present one in Australia – worst in the living memory of the oldest of us cockies) floods, bushfires, and the rest. And they do not come cheap.

    And that cost is not met by say, carbon taxation, by those who have secured for themselves a proprietary right to our nation’s coal deposits. Oh no. It is passed on to the populace at large, and in a whole variety of ways.

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      AndyG55

      Droughts are LESS frequent now than around Federation.. They even had one called the Federation Drought which makes the current dry spell look tiny


      And there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO EVIDENCE that human enhanced atmospheric CO2 has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with it
      , just mindless anti-science conjecture.

      You have been totally incapable of producing any actual evidence, just a couple of irrelevant brain-washed coincidences.

      Bushfires, floods, droughts have been part of Australia’s landscape FOREVER.

      Why do you continue to DENY HISTORY ????

      Why do you continue to sprout mindless, scientifically unsupportable NONSENSE.

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      AndyG55

      ” ‘coal-fired electricity is cheapest’”

      It I certainly the cheapest and MOST RELIABLE method of producing electricity.

      Here’s a dare for you, little hypocrite.

      When it gets dark, if there is no wind, you turn off ALL appliances in your house.

      But we know that you won’t.

      You are TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY RELIANT on that DESPATCHABLE coal or gas fossil fuel electricity supply.

      Yet you and your ilk want to destroy what you are totally reliant on.

      SO DUMB !!!

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    Andy, the problem with your position is something physicists call the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You may have heard of it.

    One day, like it or not, all the coal and oil will be gone. Used up. No escaping it. Likewise all the uranium, thorium and other nuclear fuels. Then all our descendants will be left with will be your despised renewables, and possibly controlled fusion power. And if ever that becomes a reality, it will be very much a game-changer for centralised generation. But it is always 50 years or so off into the future, like some sort of mirage.

    Renewables, particularly solar panels, are the most decentralised form of power generation now available. Unlike stationary engines, which they are fast displacing, they need little in the way of servicing or supervision. That is why they are appearing all over the country. Solar panels have also replaced the traditional Aussie windmill for pumping artesian, sub-artesian and river water. Everywhere. And very cheap to install by comparison with everything else. And they are getting ever cheaper by the day. Likewise battery and other forms of storage.

    Which is what is driving coal shills like Tony Abbott completely bananas. And why they cheer so loud when a hailstorm smashes up some solar panels: without stopping to think how their own lives might one day be heavily dependent on them. Like cutting off their nose to spite their face.

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      No escaping that we have 300 years left of coal even though it is our major export earner and supplies 70% of our electricity too.

      no escaping that hardly anyone would buy solar panels if the government didn’t force everyone else to pay for them.

      Nuclear will take over. No ones lives will be dependent on intermittent unreliable generators. Though some peoples livelihoods are….

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        “…no escaping that hardly anyone would buy solar panels if the government didn’t force everyone else to pay for them.”

        It has been conservative governments in the main that have done that, driven in part by the replacement costs of coal-fired generation.

        And coal-fired power is subsidised heavily in Australia, to the tune of ~ $4 billion pa. It is by no means a level playing-field.

        But for remote rural water-pumping, solar is a standout. Traditional Aussie windmills are being left derelict everywhere, due to severe maintenance costs, and are largely being replaced with solar units. When I last enquired, several years back, they wanted $20,000 per pole just to get mains power to our (second) bore after the collapse of the old Comet windmill. Solar would be ~ $8,000 all-up. Switches on automatically when the sun comes up, and pumps away all day till it sets. No timing gear needed either.

        I think that has ‘primed the pump’ for the widespread introduction of (subsidised) solar power to take over from (subsidised) coal-fired mains power increasingly across Australia.

        https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-11/coal-oil-and-gas-companies-receive-4-billion-dollar-in-subsidie/5881814

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      AndyG55

      “One day, like it or not, all the coal and oil will be gone”

      Peak coal, Peak oil????

      roflmao.. known reserves have generally been increasing faster than usage.

      AGAIN we note the silly attempt at distraction from the FACT that there is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

      The atmosphere will ALWAYS need CO2. We must keep it up way above the current level if mankind is to survive and continue to feed itself. Or start growing all out food in CO2 enhanced actual greenhouses.

      “That is why they are appearing all over the country. Solar panels have also replaced the traditional Aussie windmill for pumping artesian, sub-artesian and river water”

      Solar panels have their NICHE uses.. where REAL dispatchable electricity is too costly to reach or where intermittent supply is not an issue.

      Have you taken up that “dare” yet.. Just do it for a week. INTERMITTENT, UNRELIABLE electricity supply from wind and solar are USELESS unless wholly backed up by RELIABLE DISPATCHABLE electricity.. the stuff that is there when you need it. IN in most countries, that means COAL or GAS. Hydro works in some suitable places, and nuclear should have a future, but its use is declining, again because of anti-science scare agendas.

      People, like Tony Abbott, with rational minds and a grasp of REALITY, who are not BRAIN-WASHED SLAVES to the leftist anti-CO2, anti-life agenda, KNOW this.

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        AGAIN we note the silly attempt at distraction from the FACT that there is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

        How can one tell whether an egg is boiled or raw, and without cracking it open? Spin it. If it spins easily, like a top: boiled hard. If it lags: raw. And a range of in-between possibilities. That’s ’empirical evidence’of the situation inside the egg.

        There is no such simple test for GW, let alone AGW: except global sea-level rise as measured to an accuracy of ~+/- 0.5 mm. That can only be explained by global warming, cannot be explained away, and is I maintain our strongest ‘empirical evidence’ of AGW.

        So in answering your question, I ask of you a little bit more indulgence of my ‘cut and paste’.

        The Australian Institute of Physics endorses AGW as follows:

        “Although the human responses to climate change are volatile, the laws of Physics are not. Since the 1905 Chemistry Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius first modelled the greenhouse effect on the temperature of our planet little has changed from his prediction of a 2.1 degree Celsius temperature rise for a doubling of the 1905 carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Today, with greatly improved physical models, the prediction is between 2 and 4.5 degrees under the same scenario. Physics helps us understand the past, present and future scenarios for the climate of our planet. Working out what to do about our emissions and climate change requires us to look at our present and future energy budget. But it is power that drives our civilisation, not energy. The paths from energy to power are constrained by the unbreakable laws of entropy…”

        Professor David Jamieson
        University of Melbourne
        http://aip.org.au/author/aipwpeditor/page/5/

        (Note that the computer models are set up in order for predictions to be made: a distinct feature of physics going back to the time of Archimedes and Pythagoras in the 6th C BC.)

        Similarly, The American Physical Society says:

        “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

        “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.

        “If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

        “Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

        “(Adopted by the Council on November 18, 2007; Revision approved by Council on November 9, 2018)”

        https://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

        Now, nit-pick your way through that.

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          AndyG55

          “That can only be explained by global warming,”

          An argument from IGNORANCE.

          Then arguments from arrogance.

          There is NO empirical science linking the NATURAL WARMING out of the LIA (with COOLING from 1940-1970, and 33 years of NO WARMING in the last 40 years.. JUST EL NINOS)

          There is NO MECHANISM by which a same enhancement of atmospheric CO2 can warm the oceans, to provide energy for thos El Ninos.

          Sea level has been rising STEADILY since the end of the LIA, and has NOT accelerated, while the level of CO2 continues to rise. This discounts CO2 as the cause of the ocean warming.

          “If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems,”

          What a load of model based NONSENSE, based on the erroneous, UNPROVEN assumption of warming by atmospheric CO2. Models, models.. NOT REALITY, which have proven to be so wide ranging and so WRONG in their projections that one can be almost certain the NONE of them are correct, and NONE of them are useful.

          Why do you keep cutting and pasting stuff you don’t have a clue about ???

          And why do you keep cut/pasting from political statements ?
          Or you so naïve that you don’t you realise that is what APS and climate group statements are ??

          “Physics helps us understand the past, present and future scenarios for the climate of our planet. ”

          But they very obviously DON’T !! Their projects have already been shown to be manifestly WRONG.

          Tell me.. which of the “models” is actually correct ????

          The one closest to REALITY is a Russian model that basically uses ZERO warming by atmospheric CO2.

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          AndyG55

          “the prediction is between 2 and 4.5 degrees under the same scenario”

          ROFLMAO

          its been that from the beginning of the scam

          a wide, wild assed GUESS based on non-science un-validated assumptions.

          They started off without a clue, and they STILL HAVEN’T GOT A CLUE, because it NEVER been observed and measured ANYWHERE on the planet.

          Meanwhile , the real science of the climate sensitivity to doubling of CO2 draws closer and closer to ZERO. !!

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          AndyG55

          ““The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.”

          Out of the COLDEST anomaly of the last 10,000 years

          MWP, RWP, Holocene Optimum were ALL warmer than now.(despite Micky Mann’s sloppy attempt to erase the MWP.

          In the NH, temperatures in the 1940s were similar or a bit warmer than now (those left untampered by the “climate” scammers)

          The new Ice Age scare in the late 1960’s-70s WAS REAL, despite the pathetic DENIAL of the climate glitterati.

          Sea level was about 1-2m HIGHER a couple of thousand years ago. Was that caused by man’s SUVs and coal fired power?

          So NO, the steady trend in sea level rise IS NOT any sort of evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2..

          It is evidence of a NATURAL and HIGHLY BENEFICIAL warming out of the coldest period in 10,000 years.

          The slight warming in the last 40 years occurred only in El Ninos years, so CANNOT be from the steady climb of atmospheric CO2. Co2 CANNOT cause arming of the oceans, DWLWR cannot penetrate the surface and actually causes evaporation which has been measured as causing a slight COOLING of the top 1mm of the ocean.

          Now where were those direct measurements of the observed warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2, McDoog.

          No more excused.. no more childish distractions.

          Those El Ninos, powered by solar energy, and the drop in cloud cover over the tropics, where THE SUN has most ocean warming effect.

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      AndyG55

      I see a time, way in the future, when humans have woken up to the fact that enhanced atmospheric CO2 is a NECESSITY, and not a problem.

      The dissolution of limestones will be carried out using nuclear energy to MAKE SURE that the atmospheric CO2 level remains well above 500ppm, with an aim to reach 1000ppm.

      The future will realise that we must NEVER allow the atmospheric level of CO2 to drop down to the plantlife subsistence level of 250ppm, ever again.

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        The dissolution of limestones will be carried out using nuclear energy to MAKE SURE that the atmospheric CO2 level remains well above 500ppm, with an aim to reach 1000ppm.

        I am sure the UN will vote you into office as Special Envoy to the Whole World (!!!), with sweeping powers to foster plant life. There will be nuclear bomb craters all the way across the Nullarbor Plain, I am sure: the whole thing is one huge limestone bed underneath hardly anything else.

        And royalties and rent paid to Australia by a grateful world will enable the rest of us to retire to wherever we might choose…! (My pick would be the tropical paradise of Macquarie Island, or maybe the balmy coast of Greenland.)

        (Chortle)

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          AndyG55

          Poor McDoog..

          You really are inept, aren’t you.

          You do know the world EXISTS because of atmospheric CO2, don’t you ????

          You do know that current levels are not much above plant subsistence levels, don’t you ???

          You do know that plant life NEEDS and FLOURISHES under much higher CO2 levels that now, don’t you. ?????

          Why continue to display such arrogant IGNORANCE, little McDoog???

          It looks like basically every one of your comments is based on manic denial or ignorance of basic biology, physics, science.. basically in denial REALITY altogether.

          And you STILL haven’t put forward one bit of actual empirical science showing warming by ENHANCED atmospheric CO2.

          Poor EMPTY McDoog. !!!

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      AndyG55

      “is something physicists call the Second Law of Thermodynamics”

      Where did you copy that from, because I doubt you have the vaguest clue of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

      The Second Law of Thermodynamics makes a MOCKERY of the AGW mantra and its fairy-tale mechanisms. They are just NOT POSSIBLE under the laws of physics.

      And as you have discovered by now, there is no empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

      ———————-

      I would like you all to think carefully about one of the REAL problems facing the future of the planet.

      Over the next 50 years or so, it is estimated that the Earth’s population could grow by some 5 billion.

      I assume that these extra people will require to be fed.

      Now, all food on this planet, be it meat, vegetables, grains, fruit etc is ultimately dependant on one single chemical reaction.

      That chemical reaction is photosynthesis.

      Photosynthesis requires 3 basic ingredients. Sunlight, H2O and CO2.

      We are stuck with how much sunlight we have, and with good planning can generally get enough H2O (even if it requires desalination)

      This raises the BIG question……

      HOW are we going to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration far enough to feed these extra 5 billion or so people ?..

      ..We are going to need to further enhance the atmospheric concentration of CO2.

      Thankfully, China and India and several other countries are doing their bit, but other countries need to wake up to the reality of the situation….

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        The Second Law of Thermodynamics makes a MOCKERY of the AGW mantra and its fairy-tale mechanisms. They are just NOT POSSIBLE under the laws of physics.

        Now Andy, or whatever you real name is, that is a classic. And I mean that. It will get you a Nobel Prize for sure: IF you can prove it.
        Suggest you contact the Australian Institute of Physics with your proof straight away. I am sure they will publish it or get it done for you PRONTO. Pure gold.
        Also, ask them if they would contact the Nobel Committee on your behalf, and let them know the GREAT NEWS!!!
        Tell you what: you will be able to dine out on this for the rest of your life. People will pay an arm and a leg just to be in a photo with you.
        I always knew deep down that some genius would make this breakthrough…!!!
        Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Einstein… and now AndyG55…!!!!

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          AndyG55

          WOW .. STILL the anti-science distractions in your avoidance of producing empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

          How much deeper can you dig your hole of ignorance???

          How much more EMPTY and IRRELEVANT can you make your posts???

          Do keep digging… .. Its funny !! 🙂

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          AndyG55

          Come on McDoog,

          Describe, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, the mechanism whereby enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming of oceans or anything else.

          Provide empirical evidence to back up your fairy-tale.

          (This will be HILARIOUS as McDoog continues to display his abject ignorance of atmospheric physics, taken straight from the comedy web site SkS.) 🙂

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            Andy:
            It appears to me that your greatest skill is avoidance.

            I have given you the empirical evidence, which is in sea-level rise, and which cannot be explained away, but can only be explained by global warming. Nothing else works. (Satellite measurements of accuracy ~+/- 0.5 mm.) It can only be explained by the AGW theory endorsed by 198 scientific organisations worldwide at the link below, including the Royal Society, the AAAS and the CSIRO: who you apparently think are a bunch of idiots.

            And you continue to play your mindless games with it. Well anyone can do that. It is the equivalent of a child sticking its fingers in its ears.

            So let me ask YOU. IF the planet was warming (just hypothetically) as those 198 scientific organisations say it is (and granted for the moment that they are a total pack of galahs) what in your view would constitute (in your own words) “empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2…”?

            What could possibly fill that bill to YOUR satisfaction…? A joint statement by Tony Abbott and Jo Nova that they had both changed their minds..?

            Not good enough?

            Jesus Christ himself coming down from the clouds and announcing that it was getting too hot for him up there in Heaven; because AGW, down mainly to CO2…? STILL not good enough…?

            A lump of frozen CO2 coming to life and saying as it rapidly sublimated “you’d better all believe it, folks”..?

            PRECISELY WHAT?

            http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html

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              AndyG55

              Poor McDoog,

              Still trying to use the NATURAL SEA LEVEL RISE out of the coldest period in 10,000 years as a crutch for your unquestioning, unthinking, mindless “belief” in human caused warming. Are you one of these twerps that thinks the LIA was the “normal” for the Earth’s temperature. You should be VERY THANKFUL for that slight warming since that cold anomaly.

              Its such a PITY to see someone so incapable of looking beyond what his job HAS to have him “believe” An unquestioning, mindless FOLLOWER.

              Steady sea level rise started WAY BEFORE any possible CO2 effects (which have never been observed anyway.)

              Sea level was 1-2m higher than now only a couple of thousand years ago. Ignore the facts.

              You poor brain-washed AGW apologist !! You can’t even allow yourself to even question the “CON-sensus”, can you.

              And your continued deferment to so called “authority” is quite hilarious.

              Its as though you have never had a rational counter thought of your own in your whole lifetime.

              BORG !!!

              And STILL no empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

              Still nothing in your own words.

              AVOIDANCE, EVASION, DISTRACTION

              The unthinking headless chook approach adopted by so many AGW apologists. 🙂

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              AndyG55

              “what in your view would constitute (in your own words) “empirical evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2…”?”

              Certainly not some coincident link between NATURAL sea level rise out of the coldest period in 10,000 years

              You seem stuck on sea level rise.. I’m guessing its your “hammer” so its all you know how to use.

              Sea level was 1-2 m higher a couple of thousand years ago SUV’s, coal ????

              CO2 CANNOT warm the ocean.. there is no mechanism except in fairy-tales

              What else could possibly warm the ocean ? 😉

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            • #
              AndyG55

              “Nothing else works.”

              The “IGNORANCE” argument doesn’t work here. !!

              Sea level has gone up and down many times in the past.

              SUV’s, Coal fired power ?

              Can’t be anything else, nothing else works.. !!!! roflmao !! 🙂

              Pity your RELIGIOUS brain-washing cannot accept NATURAL variability from a gradually increasing solar input as a cause for NATURAL sea level rise out of the coldest period in 10,000 years.

              DENIAL of solar affects is one of the FUNNIEST parts of the AGW fallacy.

              Then to try to link it to an imaginary, unobserved, unmeasured, scientifically un-validated, anti-physics warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

              Just HILARIOUS. 🙂

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            • #
              AndyG55

              “Jesus Christ himself coming down from the clouds and announcing that it was getting too hot for him up there in Heaven; because AGW, down mainly to CO2…? STILL not good enough…?

              A lump of frozen CO2 coming to life and saying as it rapidly sublimated “you’d better all believe it, folks”..?

              Certainly NOT your imaginary fairy-tales. What do you smoke to enable that fevered mind to come up with such childish hallucinations???

              So far you have presented NOTHING, just an anti-science imaginary link between sea level rise and enhanced atmospheric CO2..

              A vague correlation for a short 20 or so year period is not even a correlations, yet alone any mechanism for causation.

              Then of course you could look at Epica and GRIP and explain how the rise in CO2 caused warming as the temperatures dropped into the LIA during the Neoglaciation.

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              AndyG55

              To quote Neville

              Willis Eschenbach has a look at the latest data adjustments to try and find more dangerous acceleration in SLR.

              What a con, what a fra-d.

              https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-acceleration-factory/

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              AndyG55

              “Jason-2 flies in a low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 1336 km. With global coverage between 66°N and 66°S latitude and a 10-day repeat of the ground track, Jason maps 95% of the world’s ice-free oceans every ten days. Sea surface height accuracy is currently 3.4 centimetres, with 2.5 expected in the future.”

              — source: https://www.eumetsat.int/jason/print.htm#page_1.3.0

              I’ll repeat that bit

              Sea surface height accuracy is currently 3.4 centimetres

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  • #

    From the Australian Academy of Science:
    “For two thousand years before the mid-19th century, the long-term global sea-level change was small, only a few centimetres per century. Since then, the rate of rise has increased substantially; from 1900 to 2012, sea level rose by a global average of about 19 centimetres. In the past 20 years, both satellite and coastal sea-level data indicate that the rate of rise has increased to about 3 centimetres per decade. A similarly high rate was experienced in the 1920 to 1950 period (Figure 6.1).” [Which is a plot of global average sea-level from 1700 to 2010, with projections out to 2100 on high GHG and low GHG emission pathways.]
    Check it out, Andy. It’s at:
    https://www.science.org.au/learning/general-audience/science-booklets-0/science-climate-change/6-how-are-sea-levels-changing
    While you are at the AAS site, drop them a line requesting their support for your Nobel nomination. I am sure they will jump at the chance to get involved.
    (Chortle.)

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    • #
      AndyG55

      You are an IDIOT, a borg like drone… 3mm/year SO WHAT !

      “A similarly high rate was experienced in the 1920 to 1950 period “

      Massive faceplant from McDoog… so NOT related to atmospheric CO2.. THANK YOU ..

      Why did the rise slow between 1950-1990, while CO2 climbed constantly..

      Did you know that the tide gauges have now slowed down again?

      Sea level was 1-2m HIGHER a couple of thousand years ago.. SUVs, Coal fired power.?

      you have ZERO EVIDENCE that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming

      The NATURAL sea level rise out of the COLDEST period in 10,000 years is NOT any evidence of CO2 Warming…. We know the world has warmed from SOLAR influence over that time.

      And I am not interested on fantasy “projections” based on fantasy emission effects, when there is no evidence of ocean warming by atmospheric CO2.. They are MEANINGLESS

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        AndyG55

        No link between enhanced atmospheric CO2 and sea level rise..

        OOPS, McDoog FAILS AGAIN. !!

        Its the SUN, stupid !!!

        11

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      AndyG55

      Let’s have a closer look at the tides record

      https://i.postimg.cc/RCtZ2MZr/Jevrejeva-2014.png

      Notice any pattern?

      Now let’s have a look at a the longer term Ocean Heat content…

      https://i.postimg.cc/zGjnSbzn/OHC_in_perspective_2.jpg

      See that little red squiggly line at the end , that is your supposed “human” forced warming.. HUGE hey , roflmao

      You really need to get away from propaganda pap, non-science “projection” nonsense like that you linked to, grow a brain that works by itself, and get back to REALITY.

      21

    • #
      AndyG55

      I defy you to find any long term tide gauges with acceleration of sea level rise.

      Do some work for yourself instead of constantly copying non-science based propaganda pap

      https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_us.html

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      AndyG55

      Show us all where CO2 force sea level rise kicked in, mindless one.

      Maybe your headless chook can help you. 😉

      http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/clip_image006_thumb6.jpg

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      AndyG55

      You should of course have no problems going to the AAs site and finding a paper that shows empirically that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming..

      They MUST have one somewhere, wouldn’t you think 😉

      Off you trot.

      It is noted that you have not produced one bit of actual science or data in the whole of your rambling, just cut/paste in a feeble attempt at “argument from authority”. I’m not interested in unsupportable anti-science pap from “true believers”

      WHERE’S THE DATA..

      Show me the empirical measurements directly linking atmospheric warming to enhanced atmospheric CO2…

      not garbages based on some failed, model based junk !…

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    Gee, that is one helluvan image at https://postlmg.cc/cvvgdJ8H, Andy. Did you draw it all by yourself?
    If so, well done…! My suggestion: show it to your teacher. You might get a gold star to stick in your exercise book.
    It certainly beats anything done by the Australian Academy of Science.
    Send it on to them. I’m sure they won’t stop jumping for joy.

    (Chortle.)

    [Be proud of yourself Ian, you’ve committed the logical error of argument from authority. You’ve done it several times before. Don’t persist because it makes us moderators very cranky.] ED

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    • #
      AndyG55

      DATA… McDoog.????

      YOU HAVE NONE.

      You obviously have zero thought process of your own and have never bothered digging any deeper than façade that is the AGW group-non-think authority based propaganda nonsense and BS.

      Note hat the AAS “data” was linear until they started combining satellite and tide gauges (proven to be a mathematical corruption/delusion).

      Its only their meaningless “climate model projections” that show anything different.

      Just “believe” (spooky music), despite zero-evidence….. its all you seem to be capable of.

      Be part of the BORG.. its safer that way, right 😉 !

      WHERE is your empirical data showing warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2 ??

      We are STILL WAITING ! and laughing 🙂

      Sea level rise is NOT it. !!

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      AndyG55

      “Gee, that is one helluvan image at https://postlmg.cc/cvvgdJ8H

      Oh dear.. So you have absolutely ZERO data to counter the graph.

      And zero ability to search for the paper given on the graph.

      And no, its from Ross McKitrick, someone with mathematical abilities FAR beyond any of the so called climate modelers.

      It presents data straight from a peer-reviewed paper.

      Maybe you would like one going back even further. showing just how INSIGNIFICANT the recent ocean warming has been.

      That recent OHC data is straight from NOAA, btw.. shows a MASSIVE (lol) 0.08ºC warming in the top 2000m of whole of ocean in 60 years. INSIGNIFICANT

      Or maybe the data for the all important Equatorial average sea temperature upper 300m?

      And Whatever you do, don’t look at that sea temp in the North Atlantic. 😉

      Do you have any counter evidence?.. or just more borg-style yapping.

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        AndyG55

        So funny.. all his ranting but absolutely ZERO COUNTER of all my data showing the total INSIGNIFICANCE of the small NATURAL warming out of the LIA cold anomaly, and this putz STILL cannot produce one little skerrick of actual evidence, still stuck on the IDIOTIC idea that the NATURAL solar forced sea level rise is due to CO2..

        NO EVIDENCE that the beneficial warming is in the slightest bit anthropogenic.. NADA, NOTHING… EMPTY. !!!

        Just mindless ranting and distraction

        Typical AGW apostle. 🙂

        Sea level 1-2m Higher a couple of thousand years ago.. was it SUVs or coal fired power? HC ????

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      AndyG55

      Another graph to put things in perspective,

      Ian is a climate change Den!er and therefore lacks perspective of the insignificance of recent climate changes.

      https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png

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    Andy,
    You keep asking for ’empirical evidence’ despite the fact that I gave it to you. But see below: there it is yet again. Nothing but global warming explains it. And as the AAS statement and graph already discussed shows, it is a slow process. It is in the words of one of the world’s leading climatologists (not a member of the Ostrich School) David Archer, it is ‘The Long Thaw’ (Princeton University Press. He is also Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago.) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5430624-the-long-thaw

    Global Mean Sea Level rise as assessed by scientific organisations:
    GMSL Rates
    CU: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    AVISO: 3.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr
    CSIRO: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NASA GSFC: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NOAA: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr (w/ GIA)

    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

    So Andy:
    “So far you have presented NOTHING, just an anti-science imaginary link between sea level rise and enhanced atmospheric CO2..
    “A vague correlation for a short 20 or so year period is not even a correlations, yet alone any mechanism for causation.”

    So let me repeat my previous question, which you are so clearly reluctant to answer. What in your view would constitute ‘empirical proof’ of:
    a. Anthropogenic global warming;
    and while we’re at it
    b. Heliocentric motion of the planets; and
    c. Continental drift ?

    You will possibly agree that b, and c also had their ‘sceptics’ before being pretty-well universally accepted. Interestingly, the opponents of all three have this in common: a sense that they had too much to lose if their own rival established view was junked.

    In the case of continental drift and plate tectonics, Wegener’s opposition had built their academic and professional reputations on the theory that the continents were glued to the Earth like chewing gum to a beach ball.
    The heliocentric theory was opposed by the Catholic Church of Galileo’s day, because if Galileo was right, there were theological consequences they could see straight away; and they would be the losers.

    And of course, AGW is opposed vehemently by the main parties to be affected if it is right: the fossil-carbon industries and their shills, like, say, Tony Abbott.

    Take your time, but answer the question. What would be sufficient ‘empirical proof’ as far as you are concerned…????

    After all, you must have some idea. You keep asking for it.

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      AndyG55

      So STILL no empirical proof of ANTHROPOGENIC warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2

      That means direct measurements linking CO2 to warming

      You have produced NOTHING.!!

      “Arguments form IGNORANCE” (it can’t be anything else) ARE NOT PROOF, , just a further sign of your IGNORANCE.

      … especially when the solar cycles are very much more likely to be the driver of the slight by highly beneficial NATURAL warming since the LIA cold anomaly.

      Until you can produce evidence that the warming is by enhanced atmospheric that YOU ARE NOT WORTH the WASTE OF TIME.

      You remain EMPTY.

      Stupid analogies

      Everything else you rant mindlessly about is just childish non-science NONSENSE and attempted distraction from your INEPTITUDE also showing you are a closed minded political bigot.

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      AndyG55

      STILL WAITING. !!!!

      22

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      AndyG55

      INSIGNIFICANT rise in Ocean Heat Content

      ABSOLUTELY ZERO evidence it is caused by enhanced atmospheric CO2

      22

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      AndyG55

      Take your time McDoog.

      DATA. Real Evidence…. !!!!

      And please, not so much of your mindless EMPTY bluster !!!

      22

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    AndyG55

    Show us where enhanced CO2 started causing sea level rise, McDoog. !

    Show us the “CO2 signal”

    https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/8518750_meantrend_shadow-1024×432.jpg

    https://i.postimg.cc/x10Ksm9Z/sydney-tides.png

    WAITING

    22

  • #

    Andy:
    Still waiting? Yes I am. For you to announce your answer to the simple question: What sufficient ‘empirical proof’ would be, as far as you are concerned.
    As in WHAT????

    23

    • #
      AndyG55

      Still EMPTY, poor little mcdoog ??

      Sea level rise is evidence of NATURAL WARMING out of the coldest period in 10,000 years.

      You have NO EVIDENCE of warming by atmospheric CO2.

      You know that now….. EVERYBODY knows that now. 🙂

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      AndyG55

      You have also not countered ANY of the points and data I have raise..

      You obviously KNOW that you can’t, otherwise you would have at least tried.

      So funny the way to try to AVOID presenting ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL. 🙂

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    AndyG55

    Frome Neville

    Willis checks out the Greenland Holocene ice core temp record versus co2 levels.

    He finds that for about the last 7,000 years co2 has increased while temps have dropped.

    Rather stuffs up their theory about co2 being the strong driver of temp doesn’t it? See graph at link.

    I know the lefty extremists couldn’t care less about the science, but where are the better pollies and sensible MSM when we need them?

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/08/greenland-is-way-cool/#comment-2581485

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    AndyG55

    Oh dearie me

    2019: New research from WHOI has found that the deep Pacific Ocean is still cooling from the Little Ice Age:

    The long memory of the Pacific Ocean
    Historical cooling periods are still playing out in the deep Pacific
    January 4, 2019

    https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2019/01/long-memory-of-pacific-ocean

    Your kookie fantasy that CO2 causes ocean warming is looking more and more and more like a bad fairy-tale based on absolutely NOTHING. !!

    22

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    Andy:

    I think I’d rather be out there searching for the Holy Grail.
    Still waiting.
    Surely you can’t find it that hard.
    Still waiting.

    23

    • #
      AndyG55

      “I think I’d rather be out there searching for the Holy Grail”

      So you ADMIT that you cannot find ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL of warming by atmospheric CO2

      We have been waiting a long time for an admission that warming by CO2 is JUST A MYTH. !!

      Reality wins again ! 🙂

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      A statement is either true or false. If’n it can’t be demonstrated ( and isn’t demonstrated,) why, it’s false. Aristotle’s law of contradiction. No other state is possible. Bringing in yr Holy Grail enter deux ex machina, yr mystical third way
      and diversion.. True or false,that’s it, the scientific testable methodology. Models adjusting measurement to fit theory, cart before horse or worse.

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    Andy:

    So you ADMIT that you cannot find ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL of warming by atmospheric CO2
    We have been waiting a long time for an admission that warming by CO2 is JUST A MYTH. !!

    No. You can put your keyboard on CAPS LOCK all you want. But that won’t get you off that hook that by your own words you admit you are on.

    Just answer the question; as best you can.

    [And just find some evidence as best you can too Ian – Jo]

    13

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      AndyG55

      NATURAL and STEADY sea level rise out of the coldest period in 10,000 years is NOT evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.

      Through the last 10,000 years, CO2 rose while sea levels and world temperatures FELL.

      1000-2000 years ago, sea levels were 1-2m higher.. NOT from human CO2 warmin

      You have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to back up your constant anti-science yapping.

      It is obvious that you haven’t a clue what constitutes empirical evidence.

      I’m not here to help you overcome your ineptitude. Its probably not even possible.

      Warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2 has never been observed or measured anywhere on this planet or any other.

      As you say.. its the Holy Grail of the AGW doctrine. !!

      Its JUST A MYTH !!!

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    ED @# 55:

    “Be proud of yourself Ian, you’ve committed the logical error of argument from authority. You’ve done it several times before. Don’t persist because it makes us moderators very cranky.” ED

    Let me ask you, Ed, under those circumstances what on Earth would I have to be ‘proud’ of…? In this discussion / debate; call it what you will, I would be serving myself up on a plate to whoever was looking to score a serious point at my expense. Thus those whose perception of the climate change issue is at variance with mine should welcome the opportunity so given to them.

    So you say I have done it [argued from authority] several times before. Please tell me where exactly. The post # number will do. And to “don’t persist because it makes us moderators very cranky,” you might have added: ‘we don’t like our opponents to use flawed arguments. It makes it too easy for us to refute.’

    However, there is no rule of scientific discourse I am aware of (and please correct me if I am wrong) that says that the thoughts of others cannot be cited by someone in the course of making their case. It is when one hangs one’s case solely on the thoughts of others that philosophical problems start. (‘X says Y, and X is a professor of physics at the University of Z, so X must be right.’ An alternative might be ‘X says Y, and X is only the town dog catcher I ran into one day down at the local pub, so X must be wrong.’)

    But “…don’t persist because it makes us moderators very cranky….” Would not have been out of place in Stalin’s Russia, Goebbels’ Germany or Torquemada’s Spain. Moderation, as the term itself indicates, only exists on the Internet to filter out vile language, abuse and threats. This I confess to be the only site I have so far encountered, though I do not deny the possibility of others, where a test for ideological correctness is also involved.

    Well, you live and learn.

    Science after all, is the great consensus, and as Thomas S Kuhn argued in ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’, a field whose theoretical base is erroneous or faulty in some way will progress along like a car with one flat tyre until some crucial paradigm shift occurs, often the result of new field work or research that the old theory cannot accommodate, and a new formulation rapidly emerges, accommodating the new, previously anomalous, data. Then there follows movement en masse to the new paradigm: especially by younger scientists, who are often responsible for it anyway.

    And in citing Kuhn there, I am simply avoiding a charge of plagiarism, not resting my case on him. I rest my case on history. And history is ALWAYS disputable, and NEVER final.

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    • #

      Ian, there is no “test of ideological correctness” here. What we get cranky with is repetitive fallacies — over and over — backed with claims that there is overwhelming evidence except that those who cite “consensus” can never seem to find any.

      I encourage debate, want comments. Thank you.

      We discourage a pattern of repeat fallacies because it is boring.

      As for the Kuhn quote regarding the car with on flat tyre — how about a whole field where the official models still fail after 30 years and $50b in funding. Where the wide ranging vague estimate of climate sensitivity now is almost the same as it was in 1990.

      Hows that for a flat tyre? Looks like a failing theory going around in circles.

      There are no grants to show the theory is wrong or find holes with it, scientists get sacked when they question it, outside the field, but inside science — thousands upon thousands of scientists are pointing out flaws. Half of meteorologists don’t believe the climate scientists and two thirds of geologists and engineers don’t. This is partly argument from authority back at you, mostly to show how fragile the whole “authority” thing is. Governments can bestow “authority” on any expert in dead mammals that they like. That doesn’t mean said expert knows what he is talking about.

      BTW: Simply citing the scientific process itself as evidence is argument from authority. But you knew that. Sure the method has worked, but how would we know if we were in the process of a “successful” theory or in the process of a flawed one that was about to have a revolution? Only data will tell.

      Speaking of data. I’ll reply to your sea level rise points next.

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        One person’s tired repeat fallacies is another person’s effort to counter tired repeated fallacies who is in turn responding to

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          AndyG55

          Yep, Ian should stop his brain-washed idiocy.. So should you, gee-gee.

          Which point of mine is a fallacy ?????

          Come on gee-gee… produce something to counter anything I have said.

          You poor insipid, brainless leaf. !!!

          Maybe YOU can find some empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.

          NOPE, you are known to be base-level incompetent at basically everything except mindless yapping.

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        • #

          A cop out Gee Aye. One of us is wrong.

          The person making fallacies isn’t necessarily the one. They might accidentally unwittingly be right. If so, where is the evidence? If it’s so overwhelming, how come they can never find anything but “consensus”?

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    Andy:
    I am still waiting for you to announce your answer to the simple question: What would your sufficient ‘empirical proof’ be, that the atmosphere and/or ocean of our planet here is warming. Never mind the cause, just your idea of empirical proof that of warming will do.
    If you cannot do that, how can you possibly tell the difference between a genuine scientific proof, as against compelling evidence, as against common-or-garden evidence, as against what ‘sceptics’ like yourself claim is a complete scientific fiasco, if not an outright hoax.
    HOW could you possibly tell?
    As in HOW ????
    Jo:

    [And just find some evidence as best you can too Ian – Jo]

    I posted the best evidence I know of at #56 above. Sea-level rise. But to save you the trouble of scrolling up, here it is again:
    EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: Global Mean Sea Level rise as assessed by scientific organisations:

    GMSL (Global Mean Sea Level) Rates
    Colorado University: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    AVISO altimetry data: 3.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr
    CSIRO Australia: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NASA GSFC: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr (w/ GIA)

    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

    Unfortunately, the satellite altimetry system that I got real cheap on eBay packed it in before I could get it working, so I have to rely on stuff like the above.
    But I might ask you the same question as I asked Andy Whateverhisnameis: what would you, Jo, take as sufficient proof that (a) the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are warming, and if you thought they were, what in your view would be sufficient proof that such warming could be put down to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions?

    12

    • #

      Ian, did you know the raw satellite data in the 1990s showed hardly any rise. It got adjusted up around 2002 apparently calibrated against one sinking gauge in Hong Kong.

      Sounds ludicrous til you know that when Beenstock looked at over 1,000 tide gauges around the world the rise was only 1mm a year.

      When Nils Axel Morner (publisher of 500+ papers on sea level) isolates one beach in Scandinavia by looking at 60 beaches around it to find which was the most stable — he finds sea level rise there is 1.25mm a year.

      Then there are all the historic photos and lines carved in rocks, and old jetties or forts etc, and the message is the same — seas go up and down all the time. Current rise in the last 50 years is normal, barely anything, not accelerating, and any form of warming would cause sea level rise.

      We hit the highest solar activity for millenia in the last 50 years. If the sun caused climate change, seas would still rise.

      My posts on Sea Level. Should you wonder.

      In answer to your last question – I need evidence that not only is the Earth warming but that it is man-made, and that comes from a/ verified models with a proven track record of which there are none, or 2/ evidence the famed Hot Spot exists which would show the major feedbacks of the theory were correct (which they are not according to 29 million weather balloons). Warming from man-made CO2 causes almost all the same things as warming caused by solar effects. The only key difference is the behaviour of the atmosphere at 100-250 Hpa over the tropics. That’s the fingerprint pattern the experts named. The same experts went silent when the evidence showed they were 100% wrong.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        “when the evidence showed they were 100% wrong.”

        Those are the one’s that Ian listens to. The ones that were 100% WRONG. 🙂

        21

    • #
      AndyG55

      “I am still waiting for you to announce your answer to the simple question:”

      Poor McDoog

      I am still waiting for you to figure out what “EMPIRICAL” actually means.. been waiting a LONG time.

      … and NO, it is not some random NON-correlation between sea level rise and atmospheric CO2.

      Do you DENY that sea level was 1-2m HIGHER, 1000-2000 or so years ago, when CO2 levels were MUCH lower?

      Do you DENY that during the Neoglaciation (look it up) sea levels FELL while atmospheric CO2 increase.

      Sorry mcDoog, but INVERSE CORRELATION is not going to help your FANTASY.

      21

    • #
      AndyG55

      “Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are warming,”

      A Grand Solar Maximum will do that to a planet. 🙂

      Did you know that according to NOAA, the whole of oceans down to 2000m have warmed by a HUGE 0.08ºC in the last 60 years. Scary , Hey 😉 And that now its been found that the deep oceans are actually cooling, apparently from the effects of the LIA.

      There is, of course, no known scientific way for enhanced atmospheric CO2 to warm oceans, and absolutely zero evidence that it does so.

      You believe there is empirical evidence for enhanced atmospheric CO2 warming oceans..

      Then produce it..

      and yes, we know sea level has been rising steadily since the LIA, with NO acceleration.

      Quoting sea level rises is not evidence that it is caused by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

      And please no more “ignorance” arguments of “it can’t be anything else”, that makes you look incredibly brain-addled and stupid.

      [Edited to remove yelling – j]

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      AndyG55

      “here it is again: empirical evidence: Global Mean Sea Level rise “

      Evidence of sea level rise. SO WHAT.!

      Sea level has been rising since the LIA, but it was falling before that, while atmospheric CO2 INCREASED.

      In fact, 1000-2000 years ago, it was 1-2m HIGHER.

      What has rising sea level got to do with atmospheric CO2 ???

      Nothing

      And its in the middle of the ocean where it doesn’t affect anyone.

      Do you live anywhere near the sea?

      Have you actually seenany sea level rise?

      I know I haven’t,

      But then and again, 0.65mm or less per year is hardly going to be obvious, is it.

      [Andy, please stop YELLING at us. There are button for bolding and italics. I have edited, but don’t want to. – Jo]

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      AndyG55

      “that the atmosphere and/or ocean of our planet here is warming.”

      Yes, we KNOW there has been a bit of warming out of the COLDEST period in 10,000 years.

      The cause is NOT CO2, and you are incapable of producing any evidence that it is.

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    doc

    As a ‘lay’ person claiming no expertise in ‘climatological’ science, I find it particularly
    puzzling how inference of conditions from historical data over eons from things like tree rings,
    written or legendary spoken word can be used in accurate scientific equivalence to modern measurements
    of all kinds where modern methodology measures accuracy to around 4 decimal places. I also find
    using ‘homogenisation’ to adjust modern measurements because natural environments change with time
    a rather wierd and probably unacceptable manipulation of the scientific method. In my youthful
    school days, or even student University biochemistry lab days, I wish I was allowed such data manipulation
    to arrive at the known result I was required to achieve. We would all have been 100%ers.

    But that of course, seems to be what is going on: Achieve a desired outcome! BUt Why? That’s the bigger question!

    In effect, such data from altered conditions would/should have to be dumped. One gets the impression it is retained in climatology
    because nobody wants to dump huge amounts of irrelevant ‘data’ simply because it is there. Keeping it also ‘justifies’ the
    homogenisation. To now proclaim it is irrelevant due to changing environments under which measurements are still taken would be a
    scandal of the highest order. It seems such homogenised outcomes are used very politically, currently, and huge amounts of funding
    are attached. If so, how do scientists sleep with themselves if they know they are abusing the scientific method to stay employed.
    Do they justify it by arguing with themselves that maybe they will stumble upon the outcome that will allow them to expose the
    fallacy of what they seek to prove?

    Historical records surely can only be useful as guides. They are not mathematically accurate enough to be used
    in modern scientific method investigation. Similarly, changing systems of instrumentation or what is being
    measured must create comparative problems. Balloons and satellites? Supposedly the most accurate measurements of
    av. global temperature etc – yet even there what happens to the data that it cannot agree between different sources?
    Scientists presenting different outcomes but methodology ‘a secret’? That itself is a highly funded scandal if some
    manipulate the data to maintain a political outcome.

    Being a descendent possibly of the doubting St Thomas who the bible says had to stick his dirty fingers into the risen Christ’s wounds
    before he would believe, I believe the sea levels on the rocks and solid objects. No doubt the argument there will
    be land masses rise and fall; but it is easier to believe those lines than it is to believe the true believer’s ‘science’.

    My last point before I cop a belting: What drove the politicians of primarily the Western democracies to declare the ‘science’
    is in? As I recall, it was units like the World WiLd Life Federation that were the loud spruikers of this stuff. The
    politicians in unison followed line when the UN formulated a very anti Western, first nation policy where the economic destruction
    of those nations was laid out for all to see but which nobody wanted to read. Now the politicians have so damned
    fossil fuels and have (particularly) Australia so far down the tube that they are probably scared witless against
    challenging what they themselves declared fact, have achieved and have us on the brink of a failed power system, an inability to
    support heavy industry, a forecast loss of income, standard of living, jobs. That’s before they start on Agriculture
    and transport to finish the job. What on earth possesses our politicians; this is what they are condemning their own
    families and people to. I would hate to see them have to fight a war. Why do they wish to destroy the nation based on
    a matter in which the science is increasingly doubtful, let alone not being ‘IN’?

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    Jo,

    “I need evidence that not only is the Earth warming but that it is man-made, and that comes from a/ verified models with a proven track record of which there are none, or 2/ evidence the famed Hot Spot exists which would show the major feedbacks…”

    As I have said before, personally I am not interested in tide gauge and thermometer readings, or hotspots for that matter either, because however they turn out ‘sceptics’ will always dispute them. London to a brick. So unless you want to assert that in the absence of a hot spot, and regardless of whatever other indicators might be saying, there can ipso facto be no planetary warming, that still does not answer the question.

    In the absence of a hotspot, would such satisfactory evidence be? That is, evidence that the Earth is warming? Or is it hot spot or nothing, even if the paint is melting off your walls?

    And as well, I think that computer modelling is largely misunderstood. It is not done so much to ‘prove’ the AGW theory, hypothesis, fraud; call it what you will, as to predict where the climate of the world might be heading. Feed in the multitude of variables in all their combinations and permutations, and see what comes out. And whatever does will only be an indication; never a ‘final proof’.

    For my own part, I am not interested so much in tide gauges and thermometer readings, because they can be so easily and endlessly disputed. But the satellite altimetry as published says present global mean ocean rise is 3.3 mm/yr to an accuracy of +/- 0.4 mm/yr, and the data published by the AAS and the University of Colorado show it steadily rising since 1993, with data based on proxies going back to 1700 and projections forward on different scenarios to 2100. And there can only be one explanation of that. If ice melts, the sea rises. If oceanic water warms, it rises. And if ice is melting and sea-levels rising, there can only be one total explanation: warming. And if warming is occurring and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are rising, then for anyone save those from the top deck of the good ship Ostrich, it should be End of Story.

    And so, as an exponent of precautionary behaviour, I favour reduction of the use of coal in industry wherever possible, simply because the cost to future generations will be most likely far greater to them if we don’t than the cost to us if we do. If my grandchildren nonetheless finish up inheriting a hothouse world, I will be able to look them in the eye and say ‘I did everything I could to prevent this’. This is not to deny the possibility that on our way through from here to that highly likely hothouse, we may well pass through a paradise for plants. Or alternatively, we in Australia may experience prolonged drought like the one we are presently having to put up with, followed by flooding rains; drought then flood, again and again and again. We cannot tell for sure, because though they are the best predictors we have, no computer model is a crystal ball out of some fairy tale. We are, whether we like it or not, conducting an experiment on the only planet we have: first run, and with no control. Save of course, the ever-disputable Venus.

    Before I conclude, Jo, let me repeat the question. What would satisfactory-to-you evidence that the Earth is warming actually be?

    See link 3 below: not some back-room blogger but an Australian Government site. I think that it can be taken as a fair indication of what the modellers are trying to do. How successful they are is a matter of judgement and opinion, and as I have pretty-well zero expertise in computer modelling, I leave judgement of it to others.

    1. https://www.science.org.au/learning/general-audience/science-booklets-0/science-climate-change/6-how-are-sea-levels-changing
    2. http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
    3. https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/climate-campus/modelling-and-projections/climate-models/theory-and-physics/
    4. https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

    Andy G55: re those frequent episodes of CAPITALISED cerebral flatulence that you call your posts. The best ever was that pitch to generate CO2 for plant food by nuclear cooking of limestone (a series of nuclear bomb craters across the Nullarbor Plain perhaps, or perhaps a reactor or two at Jenolan Caves ?)

    @#53.3: “The dissolution of limestones will be carried out using nuclear energy to MAKE SURE that the atmospheric CO2 level remains well above 500ppm, with an aim to reach 1000ppm.”

    Classic stuff. Please keep them coming.

    (Chortle.)

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      Ian, this is why I rarely get into long comment discussions but on active new posts I leave it to the readers to say what I don’t have time too. I’ve said this 100x on posts. If you had read here for long you’d know:

      1. I think the world is warming, just not that much, and it’s natural. Your question is irrelevant and you miss the point. We know the Earth has warmed since 1680, but we need evidence of what caused it.

      2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that at most (ask James Hansen) will do 1.2C of warming if it doubles (Hansen 1984, Bony 2006, IPCC XXXX — every single report.)

      3. All the amplification of that comes from supposed feedbacks – the main one being water vapor, and the testable hypothesis of that is the Hot Spot in the upper Trop that didn’t happen. Hence that limits warming to just 1.2C not 2C, not 4C.

      4. That all the raw data from every dataset shows CO2 does nothing measureable bar absorb some IR as predicted (Harries et al). We see no evidence of it causing warming, or amplifying warming.

      5. That nearly every dataset gets adjusted in the same direction — the one that non-randomly fits with model predictions. This defies any sense that the scientists doing the adjustments are free of confirmation bias, or looking for reasons they might be wrong. You know, it just seems such bad luck that every instrument measuring climate change is biased to show CO2 doesn’t do a lot. Gullible patsy anyone?

      That includes 500 million years of proxy data. Sea level data from 1000 tide guages. Ice cores. 28 million weather balloons, 3000 Argo buoys, 6000 bore holes, 38 years of satellite data, stalagmites, stalagtites, sea floor mud, corals, pollen, lake sediments, documented records, 1000s of thermometers, drought records, flood readings, newspaper archives, historic storm surges, and I could go on and on.

      6. As I said on sea levels alone, we have 1000 tide gauges which corroborate the raw satellite readings which fit the marks carved in rocks, the rocks washed on shore, the ancient forts. There’s a pattern here…

      7. On models I’ve said x 10: “all models are wrong but some are useful”. STandard lore. With climate models none are useful — yet. Models can never prove anything but with no planet B to split test, we’ll accept hints from validated working models that we should prepare for a problem.

      8. Precautionary? How about we have a proper scientific debate and fund the counter argument, do some auditing, and get models mostly working before we risk a major fall in quality of life, power, freedom and cripple our kids with major debts and an energy system designed on the pagan belief that solar panels might slow storms? That’s precautionary. Acting to “save the Earth” based on dubious non random adjustments by scientists that never admit their failures and models we know are broken is reckless stupidity.

      9. Look, if you have to believe authority and farm your decisions out to someone else, go for it. I suspect most people are not equipped to make up their own minds. They need committees to do it for them, and it works a lot of the time. If you want to understand this debate, keep asking questions. Keep reading and you’ll find out why there are more skeptics now than 20 years ago, and why this debate isn’t going to end until skeptics win, and not for any other reason than “reality bites”.

      10. Once I used to believe like you do. For years.

      PS: Andy probably isn’t reading this thread. Please move to a newer one, OK?

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    AndyG55

    No evidence, that natural sea level rise is caused by enhanced atmospheric CO2.

    just more mindless rhetoric.

    Enhanced atmospheric CO2 is absolutely for the continuation essential for all life one Earth.

    As Jo says.. move on. You are in a deep enough hole already. Time to stop digging.

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      AndyG55

      ps. The real beauty of the situations, with China, India and many other countries continuing to build up the coal fired electricity fleet, with some 1000+ new coal powered stations being built in Asia, Africa etc, with an estimated increase in global CO2 emissions of some 40%.. these new power stations will last at least 50 year , probably a lot longer

      .. is that CO2 emissions will continue to increase for a long time into the future, to the benefit of all life on Earth..
      .
      .
      .

      And there is absolutely NOTHING the AGW CO2-haters can do about it. 🙂

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    A belated comment:
    1. CO2 traps heat as incoming EM radiation of whatever wavelength; that takes the form of electrons changing energy levels within atoms.
    2. This enhanced internal energy of each CO2 molecule is then passed to other molecular species in the air, either by re-radiation or contact.
    3. There are high school science experiments on the Net to show students the CO2 greenhouse effect. Small enclosures of CO2 inside transparent walls, controls consisting of normal air, ray lamps shining into both, and thermometers to measure temperature rise are pretty well all that is needed.
    Interestingly, to pass from the trapped CO2 to the mercury or whatever inside the thermometer, it would seem to me that the internal energy of the CO2 molecule, involving electron energy level changes, would have to pass by contact or re-radiation to the thermometer. That alone would illustrate how enhanced CO2 could heat the atmosphere-ocean-biosphere system: which is the most complex system we know about in the entire universe.

    [Indeed Ian! the most complex and some claim to know all about it. Please ponder this: CO2 has properties that can do what you suggest. What is unknown is what the most complex system does to get to near equilibrium. The atmosphere and water in all it’s forms dwarf the poor little .041% CO2. Assumptions made about water vapor being an amplifier are purely guesses because the systems are too large to measure. I think with a little more contemplation you are well on your way to becoming a sceptic] ED

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      Ian,

      1. True.
      2. True.
      3. CO2 does heat the system. Good we are getting somewhere!
      4. Small closed box experiments don’t replicate the planet with clouds and layers and rain and jet streams and magnetic fields.
      5. There are many ways for heat to escape Earth to space. We’ve reduced the flow from one path. How do the other paths respond? Climate models which don’t predict anything above chance alone (eg Arctic, 1; Antarctic, 0), say that the atmosphere responds to amplify the warmth from 1 up to 4C. Skeptics contend that the empirical evidence (before it is adjusted) shows that this idea is wrong. The extra energy CO2 puts into the atmosphere finds another way to get to space and the real effect of CO2 has negative feedbacks and is likely 0.25 – 1C.
      6. Small warming is beneficial. Extra CO2 is beneficial (feeds poor and starving). Therefore reducing CO2 is unnecessary. Solar and wind farms are worse than pointless — depriving the poor of cheap electricity.
      7. The Renewables Industry — worth some $300b in investment annually, and unlike fossil fuels are 100% dependent on a political theory (CAGW) — respond to scientific arguments by calling us “deniers”.

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      AndyG55

      “This enhanced internal energy of each CO2 molecule is then passed to other molecular species in the air”

      YES, final you comprehend “thermalisation”.. WOW. !!!

      The energy is then dealt with by the normal atmospheric effects of convection, conduction, advection and bulk transfer, just like any other warming in the atmosphere.

      Convection and conduction RULE in the lower atmosphere, so much so that CO2 does not re-emit until 11km up.

      It is controlled by the gravity thermal gradient of the atmosphere.

      If you strike a match, HEAT RISES.

      This is why enhance atmospheric CO2 has no measurable, no observed , and no measured warming effect warming effect in the atmosphere..

      CO2 can NOT and does NOT interfere with the IR opacity of the atmosphere.
      Miskolvski proved that through MATCHED theory and measurement.

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      AndyG55

      Thermalization and the complete dominance of water vapor in reverse-thermalization explain why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Terrestrial EMR absorbed by CO2 is effectively rerouted to space via water vapor.

      Because the duration between absorption and emission of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) for CO2 molecules is approximately 6 micro seconds (µs) but thermalization (the process of absorbing EMR and conducting the absorbed energy to other molecules) for any atmospheric molecule at sea level takes approximately 0.0002 µs, essentially all terrestrial radiation absorbed by CO2 is thermalized.

      Similarly, all EMR absorbed by water vapor (WV) is thermalized. The thermalized energy is expressed in the froth of molecular velocity and spin with molecular speeds characterized by the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. It is observed as temperature and pressure of the gas.
      Molecular species are identified as greenhouse gases (ghg) by the property that they absorb/emit EMR at wavelengths of significant terrestrial radiation (approximately 6-100 microns (µm). CO2 absorbs/emits at only one wavelength in that range (15 µm broadened at sea level to about 14-16 µm by pressure, etc.). Water vapor molecules, however, have, according to a count reported in a 1938 paper (Astrophysical Journal, June 1938, v 87, no 8, p 499) “about 170 lines in the range 75-550 cm-1” [133-18.2 µm].

      Global average WV at sea level is approximately 1.5% = 15,000 ppmv while CO2 is only 505 ppmv so there are approximately 15000/505 = 29.7 times as many WV molecules as CO2 molecules. Thus in the typical case, there are 29.7 X 170 ≈ 5100 absorption/emission ‘opportunities’ for WV plus one opportunity for CO2 for a total of 5101. If you double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, the number of opportunities increases to 5102. The resultant increase in warming effect (if any) is (5102-5101)/5101 = 0.000196.
      This increase of about 0.02% is insignificant.

      Climate sensitivity is not significantly different from zero.

      And that is before convection takes place.

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    “The atmosphere and water in all it’s [sic] forms dwarf the poor little .041% CO2.”

    That is of course true. But the way DOWN for water out of the atmosphere is very simple and direct: it gets cold enough by getting high enough latitude-wise, or high enough altitude wise, and it precipitates out as solid or liquid. And nothing can stop it, save rising thermals off dry landmasses like the Sahara or Central Australia.

    But the only way down for CO2 is via photosynthesis, or else in weak solution in water being precipitated out of the atmosphere, or into the surface layers of the vast and restless ocean. Except the warmer those sinks get, the less the rate of solution of CO2, and hence the rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii and Cape Grim, Tasmania: which rising concentration is a relatively recent (ie post-1750 AD) phenomenon. Atmospheric H2O concentration rising, locally or globally? So what? Rising atmospheric concentration of CO2? Beware the possible consequences.

    The other matter that arouses my scepticism is the hostility to renewables (chiefly solar and wind) generation of electricity that goes with the ‘sceptic’ territory, and the chorus of praise for coal over renewables, as you have put into this thread. It appears to me that those who have a secured for themselves a proprietary right to our coal and other mineral deposits are in a helluva hurry to get it all mined, converted to $$$ and lodged into their bank accounts as soon as possible. Or into their childrens’ bank accounts; from where a fair part of it makes its way into their lawyers’ bank accounts as the coal proprietors family members file lawsuits against one another. From whence it trickles down to the lawyers’ relatives, dogs and cats; and never (God forbid) via a mining tax to the general revenue.

    And they buy themselves as much political influence as possible. Witness the current turmoil in the Coalition.

    If those coal owners wanted to extend the life of the coal deposits as far as they could into the future, they would welcome renewables, urge for more research into them, and invest in them as well. And discourage shills like Tony Abbott from pushing to defund renewables research, from attacking the CSIRO, and generally behaving like some long-forgotten monk from the cellars of some Early Mediaeval monastery up to the north of John O’Groats. (See link below.)

    “I think with a little more contemplation you are well on your way to becoming a sceptic.”

    Well Ed, I have been one all my life, and the more I have learned about nature, science, history and political economy, the more of a reinforced sceptic I have become. Which is why I am rather reluctant to let the membership of the Ostrich School of Climatology claim some sort of exclusive title to the word. And if you think that I am heading to join you here in this Last Chance Saloon, why are mine clearly the only posts stuck forever in the queue ‘awaiting moderation.?’

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/14/australia-could-hit-100-renewables-much-sooner-than-most-people-think#comment-124638821

    Now awaiting moderation. Yet again.

    [Funny. OSC LCS sounds like you have a very rational scepticsm (sarc). I appreciate your belief that there is a pro carbon conspiracy. There isn’t except for those of us that need and want to stay warm and reliably need electricity. Have your renewables if you want, just do not demand that I give up my reliables PLEASE? coal is simply cheap and I like to stay warm cheaply. Maybe there are political gains to support carbon but if you gain a sceptical view let me ask; whom might gain from forcing carbon out of the energy supply? I can tell you are a thinker Ian, please let all this think in. I’ll be happy to pass your currently moderated comments. Just so you know there are very few people watching these old topic threads. ]ED

    ******
    [Ian,
    Check your email. I have a question for you on moderation. The only reason Ed and other mods are not approving your comments immediately is so I can see them as soon as possible. As I said, I don’t usually debate one on one much.

    Let me know what you prefer. — Jo]

    [PS: How would you have any idea how many comments are in moderation when clearly you can’t see them? – jo]

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      “The atmosphere and water in all it’s [sic] forms dwarf the poor little .041% CO2.”

      That is of course true. But the way DOWN for water out of the atmosphere is very simple and direct: it gets cold enough by getting high enough latitude-wise, or high enough altitude wise, and it precipitates out as solid or liquid. And nothing can stop it, save rising thermals off dry landmasses like the Sahara or Central Australia.

      A one percent change in cloud cover could cause all the warming you blame on CO2. How do you know that didn’t happen? You don’t. Yet you appear to be saying that we can’t control water therefore it doesn’t matter? Is that right?

      But the only way down for CO2 is via photosynthesis, or else in weak solution in water being precipitated out of the atmosphere, or into the surface layers of the vast and restless ocean. Except the warmer those sinks get, the less the rate of solution of CO2, and hence the rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii and Cape Grim, Tasmania: which rising concentration is a relatively recent (ie post-1750 AD) phenomenon. Atmospheric H2O concentration rising, locally or globally? So what? Rising atmospheric concentration of CO2? Beware the possible consequences.

      The natural sinks and cycles of CO2 is an entirely different debate. Shouldn’t we have the discipline to stick to the question: does CO2 cause dangerous warming? Logically, this is all over the place.
      OK, so now it’s ad homs. I guess we’ve reached the end of your ability to reason with evidence and purely scientific processes. I understand these emotions, suspicion, fear of change, skepticism of motives — are all real and worth discussing, but as long as you admit they have nothing to do with the atmosphere. Yes?

      The other matter that arouses my scepticism is the hostility to renewables (chiefly solar and wind) generation of electricity that goes with the ‘sceptic’ territory, and the chorus of praise for coal over renewables, as you have put into this thread. It appears to me that those who have a secured for themselves a proprietary right to our coal and other mineral deposits are in a helluva hurry to get it all mined, converted to $$$ and lodged into their bank accounts as soon as possible. Or into their childrens’ bank accounts; from where a fair part of it makes its way into their lawyers’ bank accounts as the coal proprietors family members file lawsuits against one another. From whence it trickles down to the lawyers’ relatives, dogs and cats; and never (God forbid) via a mining tax to the general revenue.

      All your points apply even more so to the believers. Does that bother you? Believers howl down, scorn, ridicule, attack, launch RICO investigations, lawsuits, get skeptics sacked, explode their children in “funny?” videos (see 10:10), threaten their children for real (Art Robinson, Oregon).

      Maybe skeptics praise coal because it actually works, keeps most of us alive, warm, well fed, keeps jobs. Argue with facts and numbers, convince us.

      Believers earn 3500 times as much as skeptics (google “climatemoney” and my name 2009). Even most of the fossil fuel industry supports believers against skeptics. Shell and BP lobby for carbon trading probably because of the profits — their main competitor is coal. This gives them an advantage. More unreliable wind and solar = more gas, less coal.

      And they buy themselves as much political influence as possible. Witness the current turmoil in the Coalition.

      Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better. The Green industry is a $1.5Trillion dollar vested interest. The Carbon market would become the largest commodity market in the world. Your argument supports skeptics.

      If those coal owners wanted to extend the life of the coal deposits as far as they could into the future, they would welcome renewables, urge for more research into them, and invest in them as well. And discourage shills like Tony Abbott from pushing to defund renewables research, from attacking the CSIRO, and generally behaving like some long-forgotten monk from the cellars of some Early Mediaeval monastery up to the north of John O’Groats. (See link below.)

      Tony Abbott has never once said we shouldn’t research renewables. Neither have I. Got a quote? Or are you not paying attention to the pea?

      Australia should be leading the world in renewable research. Instead we spent $10b (at least) on inefficient, non competitive infrastructure built in China, that will not help the environment in any way. What part of that do you support?

      “I think with a little more contemplation you are well on your way to becoming a sceptic.”

      Well Ed, I have been one all my life, and the more I have learned about nature, science, history and political economy, the more of a reinforced sceptic I have become. Which is why I am rather reluctant to let the membership of the Ostrich School of Climatology claim some sort of exclusive title to the word.

      A real skeptic would read the best of both sides. Apparently you havent read any serious skeptics or I wouldn’t be repeating stuff I’ve been posting for ten years.

      Stick around. Keep asking the hardest questions you can think of (but please do it on new threads, because I can’t keep giving private tutorials. We’ll be happy to open your eyes and welcome you into the ranks of real skeptics. 😉

      And if you think that I am heading to join you here in this Last Chance Saloon, why are mine clearly the only posts stuck forever in the queue ‘awaiting moderation.?’

      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/14/australia-could-hit-100-renewables-much-sooner-than-most-people-think#comment-124638821

      See my reply previous re moderation.

      Why did you post the Guardian comment? (and which one did you mean?)

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    Thanks for the “private tutorials.”
    The main story in the Groan was about the possibility/likelihood for a quick transition to a 100% renewables energy economy in Australia.
    ‘Australia could hit 100% renewables sooner than most people think.’
    The 5 main points made in that were what interested me; not the comments. Though I was going to reply to one, then decided not to. Hence the url.
    Also, ANU-UNSW-Monash cooperative research I read about today promises to make solar panels both cheaper and more efficient. Significantly.

    https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/solar-research-boosted-292-million
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/14/australia-could-hit-100-renewables-much-sooner-than-most-people-think

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      People have been researching solar panels and batteries for 50 and 70 years or so. The great breakthrough is always just around the corner.

      Let’s keep researching it. Lets not waste money buying immature uncompetitive prototypes.

      When we finally figure it out we won’t need the RET or a carbon market will we?

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    Jo:

    Let’s keep researching it. Lets not waste money buying immature uncompetitive prototypes.

    Does that apply also to motor vehicles, household appliances, computers, medical and scientific equipment… etc, etc, etc. In short, to all technology ? Or just perhaps to solar panels and wind generators?

    I can just imagine the response of the proud inventor of the first-ever stone axe if his or her tribal associates had come up with that one.

    😉

    [As long as you want hyperbole, lets have government (us) pay for every wacky idea no matter the cost or likely success. The stone axe is a herring of some sort since its merits are obvious unless you already had a steel axe. Try a little harder please?]ED

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      Sure Ian, because the government needed to force poor people to buy computers for other richer people so Australia could be a world leader?

      All those other modern inventions actually made money for the nations that invented them. (The key word being “invention” which means research, not industrial production (which we are not even doing). We are the lowest part of the food chain, a mere “consumer” — we don’t get the patent, the expertise or the profit, we just get The Bill and a whole lot of second rate inefficient infrastructure.)

      The nations with forced programs that bought 10,000 PDP11s didn’t lead the world in computer development. The nation that let the free market pick the winner, did.

      Ian, seriously? I think you need your morning coffee.

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      Kinky Keith

      No comment.

      Argument for arguments sake and nothing else.

      KK

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    The AGW proposition only needs probability. The ‘sceptic’ position needs certainty. Because if IT is wrong, and AGW is right, the consequences could include runaway global warming. We are in completely uncharted territory here.
    A game of roulette which could turn out to be of the Russian persuasion.
    Hence organisations of physicists figure prominently in the following list.

    http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html

    [No Ian, what you are describing is the Precautionary Principle. In and of itself is not evidence of AGW and application of PP could easily cause worse problems for humanity than doing nothing. One could easily make your argument in reverse and it would be just as valid: The sceptic position IS probable because we know that the climate has varied throughout history. It is in fact the Warmists that need to find certainty because of the hardship they are foisting on the public. There is no replacement energy for what they want to reduce carbon consumption by. Besides that no credible scientist predicts “runaway” global warming. That is simply fearmongering. ] ED

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      If the odds are 1 in 100,000,000 that you will get hit by an asteroid. Will you buy my insurance policy and support our StarWars defence for $10 Quadrillion?

      Baby logic is binary, Panic now: Yes or No?

      Grown ups know everything is cost benefit. What are the odds and what will it cost.

      If ALL the raw data sets support the idea that CO2 has minimal to no effect, how much should we spend, given that the models predict nothing better than a coin toss does?

      Answer: get the models to work first. Get better data. Plan to adapt to all climate changes until we actually can predict what is coming. Set up competing research teams. Pay them to understand the climate, not to find a crisis. Anything less is advertising, not science.

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      AndyG55

      “The AGW proposition only needs probability”

      Very, very close to ZERO percent. !!

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      AndyG55

      “organisations of physicists”

      And again the argument to political authority (you do know the people at the top of those bodies, the ones that publish statements, are there because of their political bent, don’t you?)

      No actual scientific evidence is needed, in your mind.

      Just blind “belief” in a politically based agenda.

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    robert rosicka

    So Ian says the proof that Co2 causes warming that’s catastrophic lies in the fact that scientists have looked at every possible cause for recent warming and can only assume that it’s Co2 wot
    dunnit.
    So that’s your definition of proof , it could , it may , its possible , etc , etc , did the scientists check the relationship between the rise of tofu and warming ? Did the scientists check the relationship between aluminium foil hats and warming ?
    No well what else did they discount , the sun ? Oxydale ? , my god listen to yourself man !

    11

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    Jo:

    I have a somewhat detailed response to yourself and AndyG55 nearly completed. But I am also about to receive my young grandson, who I do not see that often, shortly for a 3-day visit. So the response will have to wait, and I ask that you either keep this thread open, or allow me to post it on another thread, where it may have less relevance to the threadstarter.
    So, over to you.

    Ian, fair request. Let me know when you are ready to continue. We’ll find a way. — Jo

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    And again the argument to political authority (you do know the people at the top of those bodies, the ones that publish statements, are there because of their political bent, don’t you?)

    No, Andy (@# 73.3), I definitely did not. Thanks for letting me know. When the press gets hold of this, it will blow the Royal Society, the AAAS, the CSIRO clear out of the water, and the other 195 scientific organisations worldwide which endorse AGW as well.

    And as, like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie, I will have to confess to the world’s media that it was you, AndyG55 or whatever your real name is, who tipped me off about it.
    So prepare yourself to be the centre of a blaze of publicity, and also to be festooned with gongs and all sorts of awards.

    Just goes to show: Stalin and Hitler were probably not wrong in their seeming paranoia, with conspirators lurking everywhere and plotting against them.

    I am not a climatologist, but am always mindful of that statement made by a young black American slave and recounted by Mark Twain: “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.”
    (Karl Marx put it in more scholarly fashion in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”)
    From your post above (January 1, 2019 at 4:26 am ) I get the feeling that you are in the mining industry or some related field. In my experience, the closer people are to the coal industry the more likely they are to be AGW ‘sceptics’. (Ian Plimer, whose book ‘Heaven + Earth’ first got me interested in this whole AGW issue, is an ore-body geologist, who began his studies in geology after I began mine. )
    As well, people in my experience incline to resort to personal abuse when they perceive their livelihood as under threat and they have the feeling, real or imagined, that their backs are to the wall. On the face of it, that is where you are at. Certainly in the field of abuse, I would say that you are pretty highly qualified and skilled. And as that sort of thing is foreign to any sort of real scientific discourse, it leads me to the opinion that as far as science is concerned, you are a bit of a greenhorn. Abuse of the high level at which you practice it in my experience denotes someone who feels that his or her inner operating system (worldview, religion, whatever) is under threat. That is why IMHO it is so often encountered coming from children. Posting as you do under a pseudonym only reinforces that.

    These sorts of blogs and chatrooms in my experience tend simply to collect adherents around an agreed set of propositions, rather in the manner of a church: fundamentalist or established – take your pick. Thus they tend to become echo chambers of mutually reinforced opinion. Dissenters and sceptics of the ‘sceptics’ propositions are generally invited, on way or another, to leave.

    http://www.paulgraham.com/cornpone.html
    https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/294252-it-is-not-the-consciousness-of-men-that-determines-their

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      AndyG55

      The tops echelons of all of these societies are either ELECTED positions or put their by a politician, (like the top brass of CSIRO, an appointed bureaucrat).

      You cannot get elected unless you are “political” about it.

      You do not get “appointed” to the position unless you are known to the politicians doing the appointments.

      It has been that way since year dot.

      Even from the beginnings, the heads of high authorities like the Royal Society in England were very much linked in with the Monarchy.. even sponsored by them. It was always that way.

      What I find totally amazing is that you were not aware of this. !!

      Surely nobody can be that naïve !

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    • #
      AndyG55

      btw…. Where do you get all your mindless waffle from?

      20-30 lines of gibberish…Well done. !

      You must learn to be more concise in your waffling.

      Cut it to a few lines , with some actual content.

      21

    • #
      AndyG55

      “On the face of it, that is where you are at”

      WRONG again.

      Livelihood not at threat, except from the AGW agenda.
      (everyone’s livelihood is at threat from that agenda)

      My back is not the least to the wall. Why is yours?

      Found any evidence at all that the tiny insignificant sea level rise is caused by increased atmospheric CO2… or are you still hanging onto that anti-science fairy-tale.

      21

  • #

    As well, people in my experience incline to resort to personal abuse when they perceive their livelihood as under threat and they have the feeling, real or imagined, that their backs are to the wall.

    Spot on. Some scientists get higher pay and status if there is more fear of an effect that they specialize in. When they feel threatened they lose all objectivity and call other scientists “deniers”.

    We see it quite a bit…

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    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Hi Jo,

      Is the sort of threat and abuse contained in comment No 75 acceptable on this blog?

      KK

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        The above series of comments up to 75 is just aggression for the sake of aggression.

        This is not about free speech, abuse is not debate.

        Chronic abuse diverts the blog from its purpose.

        KK

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        AndyG55

        Post #75 is just mindless yabber. Says nothing of any merit whatsoever.

        Like every other one of his posts.

        He knows basically NOTHING about anything, just a self-opinionated drone.

        And no, I am not related to coal mining in any way, except in deriving solid, reliable electricity supply from it for most of my life, as well as the benefits of modern steel, aluminium, and everything else that is totally dependant on that coal for manufacture.

        Just like you have been, Ian.

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      • #

        Keith – look, there are so few who try to defend CAGW I’ll take what I can get. I would much prefer Ian M could argue with evidence and reason, but after a promising start it appears we’ve reached the scorn and derision level already.

        So Ian, if you have to sort through the unscientific “vested interests” arguments first, that’s OK. If you stick around we’ll show you how the money on your side of the debate is vastly larger and infinitely more dependent on that belief.

        Then slowly slowly we’ll explain how skeptics outrank and outnumber believers and are independent scientists in the sense that they make no money either way.

        Of course, I’d never argue that skeptics are right because they get less money, are higher ranked, out-score and outnumber believers, because that’s ad hom reasoning.

        We’re right because hundreds of proxy studies, thousands of ocean bouys, icecore layers and 28 million weather balloons all report CO2 has minimal effect and the models are hopelessly wrong.

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    AndyG55 (or whatever your real name is) @#76.1:

    You cannot get elected unless you are “political” about it….are known to the politicians ….been that way since year dot…Royal Society in England were very much linked in with the Monarchy…. even sponsored by them. It was always that way.

    Well AndyG55 (or whatever your real name is) what you have uncovered here is a global scientific conspiracy of massive and unprecedented proportions. From your precious jottings, ramblings and CAPITALISED bursts of cerebral flatulence it has become clear to me that we are entering a new Dark Age.
    But at the same time, I counsel against despair. This site, and others on its blogroll, will be like those remote Irish monasteries which kept classical learning alive as darkness descended across Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire.
    And AndyG55 (or whatever your real name is) have faith. You will never be forgotten. I predict that future cyberpilgrims will search out this site seeking the tiniest holy relic of St AndyG55 (or whatever his real name was) grateful for whatever tiny morsel they can find of evidence and reminder of his huge and heroic role in saving the world from the most monstrous ‘scientific’ (with scare quotes in heavy bold) fraud and folly. They will sing your praises to the skies, AndyG55 (or whatever your real name is) reminding themselves always that without your exposure of said fraud and the consequent shutdown of the fraudster organisations like the so-called ‘CSIRO’, they would not be able to enjoy tropical holidays on Macquarie Island, or watch the happy hula dancers under the swaying palms of West Antarctica.

    (Chortle.)

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      Ian, (chortle) you have a deft hand at derision. Clap Clap.

      Do you want to discuss science or did you come here to “prove” your intellectual superiority to yourself by ignoring evidence and debunking a style of writing?

      This is a science debate where the good writers generally “believe” and those good with numbers don’t. That’s why engineers and hard science guys are more likely to be skeptical while psychologists and social “scientists” are more likely to be duped by groupthink.

      People who may lack style in explanation and verbage sometimes have a gift that they are not fooled by sentence composition and logical flaws.

      Over to you Ian. Are you an arts brain or a numbers one?

      PS: I constantly admonish AndyG for YELLING at us, but if you stop baiting him you will find he has a far better grip on scientific evidence and reason than you apparently do. So are you up for a calm discussion, a real debate? Have you got an open mind, or did you merely come to score smugness points in your own word game?

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        AndyG55

        “a deft hand at derision.”

        Jo, I see no derision from little Ian.

        Just the beginnings of justifiable hero worship. 🙂

        21

    • #
      AndyG55

      Poor deranged Ian.

      Try saying something with some actual scientific content.

      Do you even know what that is ??

      21

      • #

        Now Andy, can we call a truce on the scorn and derision from both sides?

        It takes two to flame war. Lets discuss actual issues instead of commenters?

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Okey dokey , Jo..

          And just when I was having fun. 🙁

          I will only answer to scientific content in Ian’s posts…

          … like real scientific proof of CO2 affecting sea level rise.

          21

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      AndyG55

      [Snip, c’mon Andy — Jo]

      Oh and do try to keep up… #76.1 was KK, not me.

      21

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    Do you want to discuss science or did you come here to “prove” your intellectual superiority to yourself by ignoring evidence and debunking a style of writing?
    This is a science debate where the good writers generally “believe” and those good with numbers don’t. That’s why engineers and hard science guys are more likely to be skeptical while psychologists and social “scientists” are more likely to be duped by groupthink.
    People who may lack style in explanation and verbage sometimes have a gift that they are not fooled by sentence composition and logical flaws.
    Over to you Ian. Are you an arts brain or a numbers one?

    Ignoring evidence???? I have been the only one here to provide evidence and answers to questions from you and other participants; which is then ignored, dismissed or explained away. (Sea-level rise, for the umpteenth time.)
    According to NASA: “Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position…”
    (But we all know, don’t we, that unlike researchers in all other fields, climatologists are just a bunch of crooks, and only in it for research grants, whose opinions can be dismissed out of hand.)
    For the rest of it, Jo, I am both an ‘arts’ and a ‘science’ type. I have an Arts degree from Sydney University, where I majored in history and philosophy (under the legendary Professor John Anderson), and then I went on to study Science, majoring in biological sciences, which in turn required biochemistry and chemistry, which in turn required physics. I also subsequently studied history and historiography under Prof Manning Clark at the ANU, and taught physics, chemistry, biology and geology at lower and upper secondary level in the ACT School and Senior College system for 28 years. So I have my feet well and truly in both camps. (In all, I have completed 18 undergraduate units at University level.)
    I wished to go on to postgraduate studies at the ANU in History of Science, but had to abandon that due to responsibility to a young and growing family. But that is another story.
    (And now, stand by for another spray from AndyG55, or whatever his real name is.)

    https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

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      So read my previous reply. My papers are listed at the links on this comment. You had no rebuttal but switched to ad hom after that.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        An example of a Civilised discussion about Globall Warming.

        ———————————————-

        Richard

        You mentioned 1850; supposedly the starting date for us humans to have begun : “global warming”.

        This is a look at the “quantitative” possibility of man made CO2 being a Force for evil: it uses the start date of 1850.

        From 2011

        —————————————————————————

        Every “Climate Scientists” presentation I have seen tells lies by omission.

        For example we are told that “Carbon Dioxide will blah, blah, blah ….. and if CO2 doubles then … blah, blah, blah ”.

        They will Never separate out the Human effect of CO2 from the Total CO2 effect.

        They will never acknowledge the presence of water vapour in the air because as a Green House Gas it wipes the floor with CO2.

        So, as a last post, I felt it important to give examples of how the CO2 we produce really influences the climate and will use a very

        concrete example of a real measured period from our recent past.
        ————————————————————————————————–

        With apologies to Rudyard Kipling.

        IF

        Active Carbon Dioxide Distribution is:

        a. 98% of Earths ( active ) CO2 is dissolved in the oceans.

        b. 2% of Earths ( active ) CO2 is in the atmosphere.

        c. 97% of atmospheric CO2 is of Natural Origin.

        d. 3% of atmospheric CO2 is Human attributable.

        And

        e. Atmospheric H2O is about 95% of the total greenhouse effect.

        It would seem then that if we want to control CO2 levels we need to control three items:

        1. The oceans and 2. Water vapour 3. Natural CO2 emissions.

        Logically the Atmospheric CO2 and Ocean origin CO2 interaction needs serious study and Human CO2 emissions are rendered insignificant by

        the sheer weight of the Water GHG effect and natural origin CO2.

        So the Total GHG effect is

        1. Water about 95%

        2. Total CO2 about 4% of GHG effect

        3. Human proportion of CO2 is 3% of the above 4% or, from another viewpoint, 0.12 % of all GHG effect.

        IF

        If world atmospheric temperature rose by 0.6 C degrees over the last 150 years from 1860 (maybe).

        And if Greenhouse gases are the only cause of this rise (very debateable).

        And if human origin CO2 is to be taken into account.

        THEN.

        Our part of the world’s green house gas effect is 0.0009 C degrees of the temperature rise of 0.6 C degrees.

        (calculated as a min). (Approx 0.0016 C max)

        The rest is nature.

        Likewise we are responsible for 0.0048 mm (max) of the annual 3mm ocean increase.

        Over 100 years WE would cause 0.48 mm sea rise.

        Holy Crap Batman.

        We’ve been had by the IPCC, WWF and many politicians.

        The “revelation” above is simply confirmation of the real science.

        When you quantify the “Green House” ( if I can use that term) effects:

        • we have a major winner in Water

        • followed by Natural produced CO2

        • and way behind both in magnitude, Human Related CO2 struggling to make any visible impression on the system.

        So CCS and Carbon Abatement, Carbon Footprint, Responsible Energy and other catchphrases of the Church of AGW may now be consigned to
        the sin bin where they belong.

        ps.
        Also because of the log effect of CO2 we humans will provide even less bang for the buck when next the atmospheric CO2 increases

        by the same amount as from 1850 to now. (if there was any actual increase after the fudging is removed.

        KK

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      AndyG55

      “I have been the only one here to provide evidence “

      NO, you have not provided one tiny bit of scientific evidence.

      All you have ever linked to is propaganda statement.

      Propaganda statements are not evidence, ever.

      Sea level was 1-2m higher 1000 or so years ago, it fell during the LIA, and has been rising at a steady rate ever since, There is absolutely zero CO2 signal in the natural sea level rise out of the coldest period in 10,000 years.

      Steady sea level rise is NOT evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.

      And then you try the 97% consensus malarkey.

      You really are totally clueless about anything to do with real science, aren’t you Ian, as your education attests.

      11

  • #

    Jo and AndyG55 (whatever your real name is): I asked back at #66:
    What would satisfactory-to-you evidence that the Earth is warming actually be? You must have some idea.
    J’attendrai.

    (Which is also the title of a lovely French song.)

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    • #

      Irrelevant.

      Read my reply at #66.1 You miss the whole point.

      1. I think the world is warming, just not that much, and it’s natural. Your question is irrelevant and you miss the point. We know the Earth has warmed since 1680, but we need evidence of what caused it.

      So now you just recycle and repeat? Irrelevant squared?

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      • #

        OK. I should have been more precise and specific.
        What would convince you, Jo, that anthropogenic greenhouse gases were (let’s go the whole hog) the main cause of the (atmospheric, oceanic, whatever) warming you agree is happening?
        What would be sufficient ’empirical evidence’?

        00

        • #

          I asked for evidence explicitly on Jan 2nd 2010. Nine years later, I’m still waiting.

          There is no catastrophic warming without the hot spot. But since there hasn’t been much warming since 2000 we wouldn’t expect to see much of a hot spot in the last 20 years. So that means the 43rd reanalysis of the data from when the earth was warming from 1970-1999. 28 million weather balloons say there was no warming up at 10km.

          The big problem is that it’s harder and harder to believe scientists who show no honestly. They don’t admit it when they’re wrong. They keep finding solutions to solve gaps and problems that they never announced were gaps or problems.

          Hence after 20 years of reanalysis where they threw everything at the missing hot spot, including resorting to dropping the thermometer data and using wind shear, homogenising these carefully calibrated balloons, and even changing the color of the scale in rank deception, we’d need to see a very honest attempt with very good justification, and a transparent process for any other “reanalysis”.

          And even if they do that, then they need to explain why the sea level measurements, ice cores, ocean bouys, boreholes, lake sediments, satellites etc etc all show that CO2 has had very little effect in the past and isn’t causing seas to accellerate, or antarctica to melt (except where there are volcanoes). and stuff like that. But if they had models that worked… were verified, I could be convinced.

          00

        • #
          AndyG55

          There can be no “empirical evidence”, because, as explained in #79.2, warming by atmospheric CO2 is insignificant, and immeasurable.

          ie, to all intents and purposes, it does not exist.

          Furthermore, the only warming in the last 40 years has come from El Nino and ocean cycles, therefore is NOT linked to atmospheric CO2

          You have no evidence, Ian.

          Time to grow up and face that fact, instead of trying to get us to do your homework for you.

          00

    • #
      AndyG55

      Earth was cold during LIA

      Earth warmed, NATURALLY, due to increased solar energy.

      Arctic is same temperature now as in the 1940s

      It cooled a bit to the late 1970s, then warmed back up a bit.

      Only warming in the last 40 years has been from El Nino and ocean events.

      No warming from 1980-1997

      No warming from 2001-2015

      CO2 cannot cause ocean warming, there is zero evidence that it does.

      Zero evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 has anything to do with it.

      The physics is very much against warming by atmospheric CO2

      Thermalization and the complete dominance of water vapor in reverse-thermalization explain why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Terrestrial EMR absorbed by CO2 is effectively rerouted to space via water vapor.

      Because the duration between absorption and emission of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) for CO2 molecules is approximately 6 micro seconds (µs) but thermalization (the process of absorbing EMR and conducting the absorbed energy to other molecules) for any atmospheric molecule at sea level takes approximately 0.0002 µs, essentially all terrestrial radiation absorbed by CO2 is thermalized.

      Similarly, all EMR absorbed by water vapor (WV) is thermalized. The thermalized energy is expressed in the froth of molecular velocity and spin with molecular speeds characterized by the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. It is observed as temperature and pressure of the gas.
      Molecular species are identified as greenhouse gases (ghg) by the property that they absorb/emit EMR at wavelengths of significant terrestrial radiation (approximately 6-100 microns (µm). CO2 absorbs/emits at only one wavelength in that range (15 µm broadened at sea level to about 14-16 µm by pressure, etc.). Water vapor molecules, however, have, according to a count reported in a 1938 paper (Astrophysical Journal, June 1938, v 87, no 8, p 499) “about 170 lines in the range 75-550 cm-1” [133-18.2 µm].

      Global average WV at sea level is approximately 1.5% = 15,000 ppmv while CO2 is only 505 ppmv so there are approximately 15000/505 = 29.7 times as many WV molecules as CO2 molecules. Thus in the typical case, there are 29.7 X 170 ≈ 5100 absorption/emission ‘opportunities’ for WV plus one opportunity for CO2 for a total of 5101. If you double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, the number of opportunities increases to 5102. The resultant increase in warming effect (if any) is (5102-5101)/5101 = 0.000196.
      This increase of about 0.02% is insignificant.

      Climate sensitivity to CO2 is insignificantly different from zero.

      And that is before convection takes place.

      11

    • #
      AndyG55

      Oceans have warmed.

      See that little red squiggle 😉

      The real problem is that sea surface temperature are now starting to drop in many places.

      11

      • #

        All noted.
        “Earth warmed, NATURALLY, due to increased solar energy….” (etc)
        So does that explain all the glacier melt and sea-level rise?
        If so, how do you know?

        00

        • #
          AndyG55

          Solar energy melts glaciers hence feeds sea level rise.

          Most of those glaciers didn’t exist before the LIA (coldest period in 10,000 years)

          Tree stumps and human artefacts found under retreating glaciers.

          CO2 does not and cannot melt glaciers.

          There is no scientifically rational mechanism, and absolutely zero empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.

          Sorry the information in #79.2 was above your understanding capability, but that is what an Art degree will do to you.

          11

    • #
      AndyG55

      The big question is , .

      What total LACK of evidence on your behalf, and what actual science showing that CO2 warming cannot take place, would allow YOU to admit that you are WRONG.?

      I am guessing that absolutely NOTHING could ever get passed your baseless “belief” and brain-washing.

      01

  • #

    AndyG55 (or whatever your real name is).
    Here is my last post on this thread, unlike anything of yours, likely to spend time ‘awaiting moderation):
    1. “Solar energy melts glaciers hence feeds sea level rise.” Correct.
    2. “Most of those glaciers didn’t exist before the LIA (coldest period in 10,000 years)” According to the research of Scotese, http://www.scotese.com/lastice.htm, an authority (choke! caaargh! splutter! hawk! spit!*) recognised by both sides of the climate debate, the Earth has been in an Ice House Climate for the last 30 million years. So highly likely.
    3. “Tree stumps and human artefacts found under retreating glaciers.” Actually Homo erectus dates from about 2 million years ago; Homo sapiens from around 200,000 years ago, so given (2.) this is hardly surprising.
    4. “CO2 does not and cannot melt glaciers.” Hot CO2 definitely can. If it cannot, the whole field of thermodynamics is up for serious revision, and with it, all of physics.
    5. “There is no scientifically rational mechanism, and absolutely zero empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.” In this thread (above) you have contradicted that yourself. I leave it to you to find where.
    6. “Sorry the information in #79.2 was above your understanding capability, but that is what an Art degree will do to you.” Nyaa, nyaa, nyaa, nyaa!!
    7. What total LACK of evidence on your behalf, and what actual science showing that CO2 warming cannot take place, would allow YOU to admit that you are WRONG.?” As a denialist, who denies that the CAGW position must be inherently, intrinsically and absolutely wrong, I would actually be delighted if you and your fellow climate ‘sceptics’ turn out to be right. But unlike you, I am not prepared to bet the future on it.
    8. “I am guessing that absolutely NOTHING could ever get passed [sic] your baseless ‘belief’ and brain-washing.” See (7) above.

    Ian, I offered you faster moderation in an email, but said I would not be able to reply personally so often and my comments would be hugely delayed. Your choice. You didn’t choose? — Jo

    10

    • #
      AndyG55

      “So highly likely.”

      Many glaciers did not exist during the MWP and RWP, Again, you lack of basic knowledge of the subject lets you down.

      “Hot CO2 definitely can”

      what the heck is “Hot CO2”?…. get back to reality.

      Do you imagine little superheated molecules of CO2 roaming the atmosphere, or something even more anti-science and bizarre.. You lack of scientific education is causing you real problems, Ian.

      ““Tree stumps and human artefacts found under retreating glaciers.” “

      Dated some 1000-3000 years ago.. do at least try to keep up with the facts, Ian

      #79.2.. thanks for confirming your lack of comprehension with your childish reply..

      I have seen what passes for Physics and Chemistry in Arts degrees, basically a re-hash of mid level high school work.

      “In this thread (above) you have contradicted that yourself. I leave it to you to find where.”

      So you can’t find it, make it up as you go along, Ian.

      So, you have confirmed that no amount of LACK of evidence, No amount of real science showing warming by atmospheric CO2 is not possible, will change your mind.

      That is RELIGION, Ian.. not science.

      The continued rise of atmospheric CO2 is a given, China, India and many other countries are building large numbers of new coal fired power stations.

      Atmospheric CO2 will continue to increase. The world will continue to be fed.

      And there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it.

      Religious calls to a farcical “Precautionary Principle” are those of an irrational brain-washed mind, devoid of any real scientific comprehension.

      You have NOTHING worth discussing further.

      [Andy, for the 50th time, please don’t YELL. I realize you just want to emphasize words. Please stick to standard grammar — italics and some (limited) bolding. (I can see you know how to use that). Even sympathetic readers find it unenjoyable when someone YELLS AT THEM. (Even if it is only a little bit) – Jo]

      11

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Hi Andy,

        Your comments sum things up very well.

        One comment from the blog clogger, item 4, talks about something called “hot” CO2.

        A few days ago it was “enhanced” CO2.

        Some here on the blog say that these unscientific, deliberately confrontational, often abusive and misleading comments should be ignored.

        If the only reason for the comments was genuine inquiry, then there would be no problem.

        Unfortunately the aim of quite a number of these “posters” has been to disrupt the blog.

        The more access given to troublemakers, the more will come piling in.

        There was even a cameo appearance by one such a week or so back who was previously involved in very unpleasant business here.

        A simple examination of far too many recent posts shows no intent to discuss, little or no scientific comprehension and are highly committed to expressing their disapproval of the blog and any sensible discussion on the CAGW issue.

        Their purpose is obvious and comes across in the form of comment used which is often repetitious and pedantic.

        To leave critical comments like these unanswered runs the risk that someone may read it and accept it as truth.

        The most recent item “hot CO2”, illustrates the point perfectly, but only if you are skilled enough to know that CO2 cannot be any “hotter” than the parcel of air it is in.

        The concept is scientifically bizarre, but then that goes for the entire CO2, renewables, climate change meme.

        The last 7,000 years has been sending us a signal that humanity seems intent on ignoring. In that time, sea levels have been oscillating down and have fallen 6 metres and have been relatively constant. Alarmists who claim 1 mm per annum is “rising sea levels” are thrashing a dead horse there. Can you even measure that accurately. I think that 10 mm per decade is making a statement that the overall present trend is up: barely.

        How humans can claim to be an intelligent species while endorsing the concept of Man Made Global Warming is unbelievable.

        How did we get into this mess????

        KK

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    Andy: “CO2 does not and cannot melt glaciers.”
    My reply: “Hot CO2 definitely can. If it cannot, the whole field of thermodynamics is up for serious revision, and with it, all of physics.”
    Andy: “what the heck is ‘Hot CO2’?…. get back to reality.”
    My reply, right now: For melting glaciers, that is CO2 at any temperature above about 4C. As CO2 in air at any temperature greater than 4C. (Plenty of that around.)
    Or if you like, CO2 as it comes hot out of a blowtorch. That sort of CO2 I would call really hot CO2.
    After all, it was you who proposed that “CO2 does not and cannot melt glaciers.”
    Glaciers are melting all over the world at the moment, with few exceptions, thanks to contact with warmer air than they normally get contact with. That is a mixture of warm nitrogen, warm oxygen, warm water vapour, and warm trace gases including CO2. And warmer liquid water when below sea level.
    And that is why sea level is rising: the best indicator of global warming. Hot spots or no hot spots.

    https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1

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      Ian, keep circling the drain… yes Sea Levels do show global warming (to some degree) but what caused the warming. Doh.

      Just imagine the sun had the most active cycle in 5,000 years and the magneto-dynamo reduced cloud cover by 1% for fifty years, what would happen to Earth’s temperature…. what would happen to the sea?

      The only evidence that matters relates to The Cause.

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      AndyG55

      Totally wacky !!

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      AndyG55

      Most of those glaciers did not exist before the LIA (coldest period in 10,000 years)

      Of course they melt as climate returned to normal as solar energy increased.

      Most melting was actually between 1850 and 1940, but you will again just ignore the facts.

      Interestingly, here is the procession and recession of Swiss glaciers..

      And here is one of the Mt Baker glaciers.

      Notice anything? …. or will you continue to ignore facts and data.

      CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere, Ian.

      There are NOT little “Hot CO2” molecules running around all over the place, certainly not enough to cause any measurable warming.

      You do know that warming by atmospheric CO2 has never been measured or observed on this planet or any other planet, don’t you ??

      Stick to junior high level science, its all you have.

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        Kinky Keith

        Great summary.

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        Kinky Keith

        The advance / retreat line at the My Baker link shows a retreat since 1980.

        Obviously one glacier isn’t the whole world but it’s continental US and possibly reflects what’s happening there generally.

        If lots of glaciers were shedding at the same time this adds to sea levels.

        Similar graphs for a wider range might reflect movement in sea level,?

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        Kinky Keith

        The advance / retreat line at the My Baker link shows a retreat since 1980.

        Obviously one glacier isn’t the whole world but it’s continental US and possibly reflects what’s happening there generally.

        If lots of glaciers were shedding at the same time this adds to sea levels.

        Similar graphs for a wider range might reflect movement in sea level,?

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    Global Mean Sea Level rise as assessed by scientific organisations:
    GMSL Rates
    CU: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    AVISO: 3.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr
    CSIRO: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NASA GSFC: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
    NOAA: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr (w/ GIA)

    http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
    That is not from tide guages subject to isostasy etc, but from satellite altimetry whose reference point is the centre of the Earth, and claimed accurate to +/- 0.4 mm in all cases.

    Do the arithmetic. 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr (CSIRO) ~ 33mm/decade (= 3.3 cm/decade ~ 33 ± 4 cm/century ~ 330 cm/1,000 yrs: ie 3.3 metres/1,000 yrs
    ~ 33 metres/10,000 yrs.
    I suggest that sea level has not risen globally in the last 10,000 years (roughly since the end of the last major glaciation.) We are in the middle of an interglacial, and have been heading down in a bit of a sawtooth, jerky manner towards a new glaciation, but the Industrial Revolution (1750 – ) turned that around. (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1 )

    And that is without the hunk of the Antarctic’s Totten Glacier departing from the rest and sliding off the land into the sea. The Totten holds enough ice the raise sea levels worldwide “by more than 11 feet,” according to:
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01112017/east-antarctica-totten-glacier-melting-winds-warm-ocean-sea-level-rise-study
    http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html List of scientific organisations worldwide that endorse AGW.
    There I go; not just citing authority in the normal manner, but allegedly arguing from it.

    ‘Agriculture’ as we practice it in Australia has been in my opinion rightly defined as ‘the process whereby land is used to turn petroleum into food and fibre’. The implications of that are serious. Human fixation of nitrogen (based on the Haber Process for making synthetic ammonia) a few years ago surpassed the output of all the world’s nitrogen-fixing bacteria in legume crops, and other crops. Once we have ammonia (NH3) we can go on to synthesise urea, ammonium sulfate and other essential nitrogenous fertilisers. .And where does the hydrogen come from to combine with the nitrogen? From gas and oil wells as hydrocarbons like methane, CH4.
    Thus the very last thing we should be doing with our fossil carbon reserves is burning them up in furnaces to generate steam to drive the turbines in power stations.
    Also, modern agronomy and animal husbandry is also highly dependent on ‘poly’ pipe, made of cheap black polythene. As fossil carbon runs out, stock and domestic farm water is going to get more expensive and difficult to pipe from place to place on farms and stocked properties.
    Thus every lump of coal, such as the one Scott Morrison brought into Federal Parliament, dumbly looking at it as if it had just fallen out of the sky and hit him on the head, should be replaced asap as an energy source with renewables. Because starting in about 200 years’ time (about as far in the future as Captain Cook is in the past), future generations will likely have pretty well nothing else but renewables for their energy supply.
    Conventional thermal (coal-fired) and nuclear power stations do not have a clean track record or good investment and insurance prospects, and controlled fusion is always 50 years away; and has been since the first H-bomb was detonated.

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      Kinky Keith

      Recent sea level observations in the historic Fort Dennison observation point say that “apparent” rise has been 0.65 mm per annum.

      Since the measuring station is subsiding, corrections are necessary to get the actual sea level change.

      Sea levels are going up at the rate of 0.16 mm per annum.

      Solid, grounded, unmolested scientific measurements.

      But of course this has never been about the science, it’s the money and power and ultimately that retirement in New York just across Manhattan from the U.N.

      But you won’t get any of that: to them, you’re expendable.

      KK

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      As I have already pointed out (and you ignored) those very same satellites showed similar small rise to 1000 tide gauges for ten years. Then someone adjusted the satellites up from 1 to 3mm post hoc.

      A new study shows 700 Pacific Islands are expanding not shrinking, further supporting the idea that seas are not rising fast.

      Nils Axel Morner studied 60 beaches in Scandinavia to find the one most stable central beach and it was rising at 1.25mm pa.

      So you see Ian, all the raw data (yet again) supports the skeptics. All the fake adjustments support a religion.

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