The Great Renewables Marketing scam known as “climate change”.

Another family friendly picnic day in Australia where nice people spend their leisure time advertising an industry worth more than $476,000,000,000.

A bunch of Australians do free corporate advertising

Climate protest, photo.

They would kick themselves if they knew…

Blue Mountains residents to make ‘human sign’ for climate change action

The message will say: Renewable energy, make the switch now, 100% renewables… imagine.

Blue Mountains residents will stand side by side to form the word “SWITCH” which will then be photographed from the air.

Imagine if this was an advert for Coke, or Exxon? It would be so much better. Coke and Exxon produce something that people want voluntarily.

One hundred years from now, people will look back and marvel at the Great Renewables Marketing scam known as “climate change”.

9.5 out of 10 based on 87 ratings

225 comments to The Great Renewables Marketing scam known as “climate change”.

  • #
    Dennis

    This article on the “Marketing scam” is interesting, and please read the two comments;

    https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/01/catastrophisms-gold-plated-non-solutions/

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    • #
      Roger

      “Modern Warming was driven primarily by Natural Factors, Global Cooling has now begun. “

      New paper published in the journal Atmospheric and Climate Sciences by 4 climate scientists – reported over at ‘Notrickszone’

      “Four climate scientists assert (1) the last ~130 years of temperature changes fit “perfectly” into statistical indices of natural variation, and (2) a long-term deep cooling of the Earth system has recently commenced.”

      Link is here : http://notrickszone.com/2019/01/21/new-paper-modern-warming-was-driven-by-primarily-natural-factors-global-cooling-has-now-begun/

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      • #
        Roger

        Meant to add that this completely explains the current hysteria from the Green rent-seekers ……. they are probably very aware and very nervous …..

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        • #
          David Maddison

          The Left will blame genuine global cooling on anthropogenic global warming. That’s why for marketing reasons they changed the terminology from “global warming” to “climate change”.

          When the magnetic pole reversal happens, quite possibly within our lifetimes, they will blame that on AGW as well.

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          • #
            William

            They already are David: https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/true-polar-shift-wandering-magnetic-pole-could-point-to-unsettled-earth-core/news-story/282db94d50aba6ed1be25df04f383f2f

            I love the breathless way it is reported as well:

            “As this ice retreats, ocean currents are changing course. New shipping lanes are being opened to Canada’s north. The salinity of the surrounding sea is being reduced.

            But it now appears there is more going on.

            Greenland isn’t as heavy as it was.

            This means the pressure it applied to the veins of magma pulsing deep below the Earth’s surface has reduced.

            And this swirling mass of molten iron is shifting.

            Faster.

            In new directions.”

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            • #
              AndyG55

              “Greenland isn’t as heavy as it was.”

              Say what ??? Has it been on a diet or something.

              Here is a graph of the Greenland Total Ice Volume since 1900…(based on Piomess data).

              unless ice is declining in density because of “climate change™”, Greenland’s diet does not appear to be working !!

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              • #
                Robert R

                I Googled
                “empirical evidence which disproves man caused global warming”
                and this is what I got coming up! OMG!

                What part of the word “disproves” do they not understand?

                https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=empirical+evidence+which+disproves+man+caused+global+warming&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Robert F,

                Welcome, thanks for the link to the linkx.

                Instructive, good to have you on duty.

                Basic science says that there is only one finite batch of energy reaching the surface each day and the return of any unused low grade energy to space is accounted for by well understood processes that include CO2 as a very inconsequential bit player.

                The supposed antics of CO2 as a heating gas, a heat trapping gas or some such other just do not occur.

                CO2, the gas of life, does not deserved to be painted as the atmospheres bad boy.

                This whole thing is about politics, money and control.

                KK

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              • #
                Robert R

                Yes, exactly, and knowledge of evidence based obvious physics and chemistry makes me a complete skeptic of AGWarming.
                I just wondered what the above search would bring up and was amazed at the links presented – all totally backing the AGM scam.

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              • #
                Robert R

                “AGW” scam.

                60

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Hi Robert,

                Yes, in that case my response was inappropriate.

                Too many recent posts have links that seems catty, but I can see you had a purpose.

                Telling us that if Joe average searches the internet all they will get is misinformation.

                🙂

                KK

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Robert

                Even the U.N. and subsidiary companies like the IPCCCCC have AGMs.

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              • #
                William

                Interesting Robert, the first to to come up were for that renowned spruiker of alarmist myths, that go to page for the gullible and gormless looking for something to counter sceptical facts and empirical data, the one and only – and very much misnamed – skeptical science! The home of John 97% Cook. Need I say more?

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              • #
                Robert R

                Yes this search result is an alarming example of extreme bias in the management of the indexing (order of appearance) of the search result links to reflect a preferred stance or politic so that they can sway the “look up” generation on issues like climate change and political beliefs. This is on the increase and is even changing the voting intentions of those subjected to these tactics which is frighteningly undemocratic.

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Skatty _ autocorrect.

                11

              • #
                Sceptical Sam

                Robert R,

                I suggest you stop using Google and start using duckduckgo.com:

                https://duckduckgo.com/?q=empirical+evidence+which+disproves+man+caused+global+warming&atb=v79-2__&ia=web

                A much more representative search result. Still not perfect but much superior.

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            • #
              Ve2

              Greenland isn’t as heavy as it was.

              I keep using two words to refute this “Glacier Bird”

              Forced down in 1941, recovered from under 83 metres of ice in 1991.
              It’s companion flight is now under 103 metres of ice.

              30

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Although it show that the (standard) models are wrong as such, they (Mao et al) ignore the solar grand minimum. Also the graph showing the cooling cant be predicted to that level, you cannot predict the solar output as in nature of the minimum or the sunspot counts and mass ejections which are the biggest influence.

        30

    • #
      Bite Back

      This article on the “Marketing scam” is interesting, and please read the two comments;

      I could not get any comments to appear.

      You have to be amazed at all the hysteria. With all the things now known or suspected to have shifted the mass distribution of this planet of ours, why is all the past shifting of things so acceptable and mere suspected future shifts are a world wide crisis?

      Humans are the most adept species at adapting ever to exist and surely can figure out how to get along when the National Weather Service can’t tell north from down. And the laws of physics still say that a rotating body will always rotate around its center of mass, even if something changes that CoM to Canberra.

      I’m not making any specific predictions but I will predict that — like the Y2K bug — whatever the future brings, we’ll still be here.

      And if such a poll was to be made, Sir David Attenborough would end up being the patron saint of lost causes.

      Save me from the hysteria. I’ve heard more than enough of it by now.

      BB

      40

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    It is good to remember the words of the godfather of political scams, Saul Alinsky.
    ‘The issue is never the issue. The issue is always power.’

    One suspects that there was no pun intended.

    This is true in spades when there is a practical and obvious answer to the
    supposed need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Postulate a true crisis.
    Fossil fuels may be found to be essential only in aviation.
    They are also going to be useful chemical feedstocks.
    Nuclear provides as much dispatchable power as needed.
    Faced with a true requirement for electric vehicle use, we solve the range problem with
    batteries that swap out and as many swap stations as we now have gas stations.
    None of the attributes of a predominantly electric world require any invention to speak of.

    But one can only enhance the government’s power over us by making energy relatively scarce and expensive,
    so the government can ration and subsidize.

    SO, it’s about power, and it’s about power.

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  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    Blue Mountains residents
    Does this mean folks from Sydney?

    co-ordinator Annabel Murray said: “We now have all the technology available to make our beautiful planet cooler.

    I say, make the Blue Mountains cooler, if you can.
    Please don’t mess with the rest of the planet.

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    • #
      Radical Rodent

      A good question to ask this lady might be: “Unless you have a particular liking for snow and ice, why do you want to make this planet cooler?”

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    • #
      GD

      “We now have all the technology available to make our beautiful planet cooler”

      Why would we want to make our planet cooler? These fools are hiding their idiocy in plain sight.

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      • #
        MudCrab

        We have the technology?

        Well then, Global Warming is now over. No need for any more research grants. Annabel has spoken. We shall just use some of this technology and bring on a nice man made ice age and all will be wonderful.

        Or… We could go with some facts and say “No we don’t.”

        (yes I accept that what Annabel is really saying is if we build lots of renewables and transition away from evil nasty mean horribly coal then we will make the planet cooler. Flaws with this argument? A – you want someone else to give you money. B – Greenhouse Gas is a lie. C – even if Greenhouse Gas was true you are leaping to the end result. There is no man made method of removing heat from the earth. Your magic technology MAY bring changes that modify the overall system that EVENTUALLY leads to long term effects… or they may not. So short answer is still, “No we don’t.”)

        Annabel is either a gullible fool, an idiot and deliberately lying. Neither bode well.

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        • #
          Another Ian

          “Annabel is either a gullible fool, an idiot and deliberately lying. Neither bode well.”

          Seems to me that she could tick all three

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        • #
          Bobl

          Given that grid scale solar and wind don’t save CO2 because of their high embodied CO2, displacement of sinks and reduction in evapotranspiration, and the energy wastage of the renewable industry this technology doesn’t work to cool anything.

          They harp on about their trendy fav tech even though it makes their imagined problem worse. Same with EVs kW for kW EVs emit twice to three times the CO2 of a diesel and have much higher embodied CO2 than a diesel internal combustion engine. EVs increase and bring forward CO2 emission.

          This is the definition of irrational…

          00

      • #
        sophocles

        GD @ #3.2 said

        These fools are hiding their idiocy in plain sight.

        Yes, they were. They’re no longer publishing all of it, unfortunately.
        Do you recognise these:

        [Establish] A Climate Court against Western Nations only
        CO2 concentration is to be cut to 210ppmv
        Western Greenhouse Gas emissions must peak at once
        Western Nations must cut emissions by more than 100%
        Defence forces to be scrapped because they impact climate
        Western inventors patent rights in third world nations to be scrapped

        These were the draft conclusions of the 2011 CoP in Durban. They were quickly cut out — yes, deleted/removed/edited — after Christopher Monkton published them on Wattsupwiththat the next day. Cut out? Maybe the UN thought the global laughter was aimed at them …

        You will notice the draft conclusions of all later CoPs are no longer issued, remaining secret. That’s so we can’t see what idiocies we are going to have to deal with …

        Are you scared yet? Because these same idiots scientifically “competent” intellectual giants and mathematical geniuses are working on the `regulations’ for the Paris agreement to be delivered at the end of this year.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      John, The Blue Mountains is a range of “hills” about 100km west of Sydney. Has three main small towns. Lithgow, Blackheath, Katoomba.

      It its known for its deep gorges and a very picturesque landscape, worth searching for pictures.

      Snow occurs spasmodically in winter or early spring, not every year, and generally not to any great depth.

      Snow can also fall spasmodically on the Central West Slopes to the west of the Blue Mountains.

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      • #
        yarpos

        Yep, we drove back from Sydney last July going inland as we were bored with the Hume. The hills around Carcoar were all dusted with snow.

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      • #
        Dave V

        All the towns you mentioned, Lithgow, blackheath and Katoomba all played huge roles in building this great nations wealth we enjoy now.
        All three had coal mines, Lithgow, wang and surrounding areas had power stations, one of Australia’s first steel mills, copper smelters, shale oil mines, the great engineering of the zig zag railway to open the state up to freight our great resources.
        Also the Small arms factory that produced the guns for the freedoms these people take for granted today and hundreds of other everyday items that Australia needed last century.
        The list can go on, pay a visit if you can, this part of nsw is great.
        I nearly forgot nearby Bathurst mount panorama where the racing enthusiasts around the world have witnessed the three seasons in one day weather over the years of the great race.
        Sadly, some people of the blue mountains are fog effected and will even protest the commonsense winter burn off that could save them in our natural hot summers.

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        • #

          Dave V,

          that Zig Zag railway is one of the forgotten marvels in Australian rail history. Thank heavens they preserved it.

          I only saw it the one time but I stayed an hour to try and take it all in. Truly amazing.

          I’m not sure, can’t remember, Senior moment I guess, but I think you were allowed to walk part of the track in those days when I saw it back in the mid 70s, and I’m certain I walked down one level from the top.

          On that same trip, (for a Funeral of a beloved old friend) I spent two days at Capertee, with the friendliest people I have ever met. Big Funeral, huge crowd, unexpected for such a small place, as he had a huge extended family from across three States, and they all turned up. In the Megalong Valley IIRC, and the O’Reilly’s of Green Mountain fame in the Lamington originally came from there also. Beautiful area of Australia. (Both of them. Spent ten days of my honeymoon at O’Reilly’s in Jan 81)

          I visited the Zig Zag Railway on the return trip to Williamtown RAAF on the advice of one of those family members.

          Tony.

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          • #
            beowulf

            Just after BHP bought the old Airlie oil shale mine near Capertee I was sent down there in ’81 to care-take the property while the exploration was going on. Rugged country. During the exploration phase there were drilling rigs getting into places where no vehicle should have gone. I used to assist the site geologist and one drill site we had to log was out on a spur with I’m guessing a 500+ foot 85 degree drop on each side. I had to get out and direct our Hilux across the narrow crest of the spur with about an inch of freeboard on each side of the tyres. How they didn’t put their drilling rig into the gorge below I’ll never know. The truck must have been running on the inside walls of the inside back tyres across this spur.

            The oil shale seam was below (or above??) the coal seam that BHP was after and once the coal was mined, the oil shale would be unrecoverable because of the roof collapse. It was strange to be able to hold a flame to a rock and see it hiss and spit and bubble after a few seconds.

            A neighbour down there discovered a layer of diamonds in a gravel seam on top of a plateau while I was there — to the astonishment of all the geologists who said it was impossible.

            I can’t share your fondness for Capertee though. It was undoubtedly the weirdest town I have ever been in. The Lithgow and Bathurst bikie gangs had clashed recently and were marauding the district in a turf war. The Capertee publican had gone berserk and shot up the town with an auto shotgun one night just before I arrived, before he was carted off for treatment. It was like the wild west with some people carrying rifles and shotguns. Living alone out on the property, it is the only place I have ever felt the need to sleep with a loaded rifle within arm’s reach of my bed, and the only place I have answered the front door with a rifle in my hand and the intent to use it without hesitation. Couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

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          • #
            el gordo

            Tony a severe bushfire went through the place in 2013, causing huge damage, but they will be open again sometime this year.

            50

          • #

            Tony and Dave, the zig zag should never have happened.It was a political decision to have the rsil through Lithgow and a minister in the governmrnt owned land near where yhe steel works was built and he profited greatly. The rail should have gone from Bell along the spur just south of Portland and on to Bathurst ehich should have been the capital of NSW. The route was surveyed by Hume in 1827 and also eas part of survey and proposal for a rail between Richmond and Mudgee in 1839. The Zig Zag held back thr devrlopment of western NSW because of the limited capscity of about 500 tonne. Even the replacement with tunnels was a botch. The maximum capcity of coal trains in the 1980s was 3200tonnes when trains elsewhere in Oz or Canada or USA were over 10000 t. Political planning by government members lining their own pockets

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            • #

              By the way read the book Bent Backs an illustrated social and technological history of the Western Coalfields by Jim W Brown 1989 Jim was manager of Western Main mine near the Mt Piper power station.

              50

        • #
          Ve2

          Pity the Zig Zag is closed, I visited Katoomba in August and was very disappointed to find it shut.

          00

    • #
      AndyG55

      And as you can see, Is not going to make a lot of difference if it gets a bit warmer. Just make winter a bit less cold

      Stayed in Lithgow once during a cold snap in winter.
      Was below freezing basically all day., brrrr.

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    • #

      A cooler planet means drought and famine for a big slice of the world, just like the last times. It also means lots of blazing hot days under clear skies here in Oz. Fortunately, it’s not possible to cool the planet by playing with tax knobs, regulation levers and subsidy buttons. Annabel can put down her joystick.

      The bad news is, the planet will cool. Fingers crossed the next cooling is a mere LIA, not the start of the inevitable slide into the Big One.

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  • #

    The only climate action required is to fix climate science which was broken by the IPCC decades ago and remains broken to this day.

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  • #
    tom0mason

    Historically the Chinese had the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (Chinese: 大跃进; pinyin: Dà Yuèjìn)’, that killed many and destroyed so much.
    For the West it is the dual assaults of ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Sustainable Development’. The names are different, the results will be the same — deaths and much destruction.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Well, they have managed to convince people to sign up for a completely pointless exercise.

      Now contemplate how easy would it be to convince people to go off and fight another pointless real war…..

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    • #
      tom0mason

      Meanwhile modernizing China imports evermore coal.

      BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s December coal output climbed 2.1 percent from the year before, government data showed, hitting the highest level in over three years as major miners ramped up production amid robust winter demand and after the country started up new mines.

      Read more in THIS report

      30

  • #
    RAH

    So many lemmings! So little time!

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    • #
      TdeF

      I was amazed on this blog with the story of the faking of the lemmings story by Walt Disney. Special effects in the 1950s. Fake documentary. Fake story. Filmed in land locked Alberta, Canada. I believed it. Poor little misguided suicidal rodents. Except it isn’t true. It’s we the people who were fooled. The lemmings are fine.

      The story of carrots improving your vision was created in England to hide the use of air to air radar over London. Apparently Captain Douglas Bader was sent around schools to encourage children to eat their carrots and achieve the same amazing night vision of British pilots. Disinformation became fact, became history. Unless you have a rare carotene deficiency, eating carrots makes no difference to vision.

      Inconvenient truth. Like Al Gore opening all the high windows in Congress to defeat the airconditioners on a very hot summer solstice in Washington on June 23rd 1988 to help a sweating James Hansen’s prophecy of doom from CO2. Fake news even then. He knew it. Now a billionaire, he nearly rode this stage managed fame into the Presidency, missing by a mere 537 votes in Florida.

      Hollywood, money and power. Renewables are forever. Renewables are cheap. Renewable power is cheap. Renewable power is adequate. Renewable power is guaranteed. Now Batteries will save us. All lies.

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      • #
        TdeF

        It seems the Lemming documentary won an Academy Award in 1958. Terribly tragic from 45 seconds in. Poor little animals. Pushed over the cliff by producers. Where was #jesuislemming when you needed them? Where were the activists for lemmings? Why weren’t they paid? Slave lemmings.

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    • #
  • #

    Comparison of TPW, UAH v6.0 and CO2 demonstrates what has been driving average global temperature. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxYl0-fUcAALEW2.jpg

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  • #

    Is there no way that we could let these people experience first hand what their desires will produce? I wish that there was a way to control electricity entering their homes and businesses to reflect the true output of renewables and give them the joy of living in a 100% renewable Australia.

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    • #

      bemused, I have been thinking about the process of agitating for an “Australian Renewables Day – towards 100%” where we pretend to be brain-dead GetUp footsoldiers and campaign to have all Fossil fuel generation closed down for 24 hours on the chosen day. The business cost would be enormous, but it may be better than just grinding down our capacity into the dust without realising the obvious cost. This would give people a taste of what they are voting for. The irony appeals to me..

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      • #
        Bill In Oz

        I suspect that the total chaos which would result would be a worthwhile exercise in the stupidity of going all renewable or even 10% renewable.

        Tony from Oz’s charts each day of where we get our power from also illustrate this perfectly.

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      • #
        Just Thinkin'

        Along the same lines here….

        I reckon if we just OPENED and LOCKED the inter-connectors between the states
        for, let’s say 48 HOURS, would sort a lot of things out.

        If they want their ” Ruinables ” so much, just let them live with them…..

        Just glad I don’t live in Victoriastan OR South Aus…..

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        • #
          AndyG55

          NSW is also nearly always a net receiver of electricity from other states, mostly Queensland.

          Then need to do something about it, SOON !!!

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      bemused:

      Simple solution. Fit a Smart Meter on their abode and program it to only allow renewable electricity to flow (when it is available).
      To be fair they should also be charged the real cost of renewables.

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      • #
        Bobl

        Yes, I have posed this idea to some of the gullible masses that venture here, that if they liked I could install a device that limits their energy intake to only the fraction of renewable energy produced against nameplate total. For example when renewables are at 100% they get 10kW at 10% of nameplate they get 1kW.

        No-one has taken my generous offer up.

        10

  • #
    mike reed

    Yeh I for one won’t be going to that little get together and I live in the Blue Mountains.It does seem though that a lot of useful idiots will go and demonstrate
    their deeply researched understanding of Climate Science.As I have said before most of these participants wouldn’t have got past Year 10 science (if that).
    The religion of Climate Change just lets you”know and understand” that wind farms and solar panels significantly cool the planet .As for the renewable energy
    side of this scam well we’ve had first hand experience with one of these “reputable” companies called Aussie Solar.We had the $5000 installation of solar panels and inverter completed over 5 years ago.Well what have learnt from our “renewable energy experience” ?
    A.Our 2 kilowatt system probably averaged about 600 watts over a 24 hour period (in the 5 year period that it was operational for)

    B.The inverter fell off of the wall after 5 years and now does not work.(some professional installation it was just screwed onto the cladding !!!!)

    C.The company made a motza in its time of operation importing Chinese panels and “proffesionaly” installing them across NSW

    D.However by they eventually went into liquidation over not paying proper super entitlements to their employees.

    E And I know the principals of this business aren’t on Centrelink benefits at the moment.
    So no I won’t be off to this celebration of all things renewable .What a con.
    Cheers Mike Reed

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    • #

      Useful information, Mike. Any information you can send direct would be welcome – clicking on my name takes you to my website.
      I have a 5kw rig bought from Aussie Solar Queensland in 2017. They still seem to be operating. My inverter died as a result of a very minor spike on the grid during an electrical storm. Desktop PC stayed up, slight flicker of the lights. SolaX very promptly sent a replacement inverter free of charge. Aussie Solar kept promising but it took 2 months for them to find a local installer (the original installer was competent but had gone bust). Maybe me referring the matter to Qld Consumer Affairs (AKA Fair Trading) helped a bit.
      Your experience might suggest that when the alleged mandatory guarantee period of 5 years runs out, then it will be time to look for Plan B. Queensland PV is already overloading the grid at peak supply/minimum demand times. If my stuff stays up for the next three years it may just about pay off the costs. (Translation: other people without solar pv will have paid for my system.) I am wondering what happens when the whole scam collapses. I have no problem with not getting any feed-in payments. I assume the system can be converted to just reducing my pull on the grid, or maybe feed a low-voltage secondary house system? (Easy to add to a house on stumps.) Properly housed rack of tractor batteries? I don’t fancy having a Musk-type unexploded bomb screwed to the wall.

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      • #
        Bobl

        Yes, no reason not to use it to offload demand with some lead acid batteries, be careful to ventilate them as hydrogen is pretty explosive too.

        Best arrangement is to charge batteries with an auto start genset to top up the batteries at night. This keeps the fuel cost low.

        I also like the micro solar approach where one or two panels and a car battery power each appliance and use genset for cooking and exhaust heat for your hot water. Bit harder to do because you need to wire the house for 12v power and buy automotive/caravan appliances.

        00

    • #
      yarpos

      Interesting reading B) invertor screwed to cladding

      Our ex neighbour who fancied himself as a “builder” had a solar system put in for cheap. Didnt notice until the Ausnet inspector told him that the panels were screwed to the roofing iron not to the underlying trusses and battens.

      A lot of people in the solar biz who have no clue what they are really doing. There must be some really interesting electrical work under the covers in some places. I guess those are the ones that burn occasionally.

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  • #
    Dennis

    There is a significant population of extreme Green and moderate Green people living there, the picture probably shows most of them.

    It is a very scenic area too.

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    • #
      yarpos

      reminds me of totally renewable Yackandandah who will achieve “energy sovereignty” by 2022. Not sure what that means so maybe it will be deemed to be whatever they have done by 2022. You go to their site and there are lot of smiley picks of people giving awards to one another but nothing like a plan of what they plan to achieve by 2022 and how.

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  • #
    John

    An apt quote from the past:

    “What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that carbon dioxide was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin.
    It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that carbon dioxide, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.”
    (Edward Ring, Editor, EcoWorld 2008)

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    • #
      Dennis

      While most people debate and argue the point about carbon dioxide causing man-made global warming the truth was revealed in October 2015;

      2/10/2015
      Economic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man’s stewardship of the environment. But we know that’s not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.

      At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.

      “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.

      Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Yes Dennis, and still nobody takes her seriously.

        Of course she won’t succeed. However, massive economic and social damage will be incurred by her and her zealots before they are consigned to the dustbin of history.

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  • #
    yarpos

    I do like the way they made the arrow by arranging their EVs though

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  • #
    RickWill

    The linked paper should be mandatory reading for all believers. It sets out the basis of how their thoughts have been manipulated:
    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.109.8191&rep=rep1&type=pdf
    It sets out the method of manipulation of the masses where weather has become Climate Change and proof of Global Warming.

    We also loosely draw from psychology in reference to the cognitive processes of recognition and experience of change. At the heart of a social consensus is a set of beliefs, some of which are core, i.e. cannot be changed significantly without threatening consensus; others of which are peripheral and are more readily changed.

    Whilst social constructionism can help us understand the classification and meaning given by scientists to such extremes, it still remains the case that floods and extremely hot and dry weather were directly, inter- subjectively, experienced by large numbers of people. In effect, we bring the social construction of reality down to the social construction of daily reality and experience for the average member of a society and its compounding effects on belief.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    Alarmists in great numbers vow,
    To demand climate action right now,
    In a ruinous appeal,
    For renewable zeal,
    Which skeptics worldwide disavow.

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  • #
    Robert Swan

    Do you think we could convince some disreputable characters to stand nearby forming the words “DITCH THE”?

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  • #
    Mark M

    Short memory, must have a … in the Blue Mountains …

    Arcing powerlines sparked fires that destroyed almost 200 homes in the Blue Mountains

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/falling-trees-caused-devastating-blue-mountains-fires/9790740

    > Let’s remember how their ABC reported on this fire in 2013:

    ‘Climate Council links NSW bushfires to [global warming]’

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-25/climate-council-links-bushfires-to-climate-change/5046164

    Wait.

    New South Wales snow and floods a sharp contrast to 2013 bushfires

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-15/nsw-snowstorms-and-floods-contrast-to-2013-bushfires/5814676

    You would have to be incredibly stupid, or insane, to believe a solar panel & a windmill will stop a climate from changing -that has been doing it forever.

    150

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Ah buty we at least are coming from a osition of science knowledge.

      This is the danger of your average punter being under-educated in critical hard disciplines overall.

      Interstingly, you;’d think people with a limited education might fall for it the worst, but they are usually the people who arte mor elikely to work outside and will tell you that heat and cold arent much different to normal. The ones who seem to fall for it are the “educated” middle class, who likely spend more time looking at their smartphones and being drip fed “knowledge” ( coz they are “smart”, right? ) rather than actually thinking. I wonder hwo long it would take them to concede when confronted with teh science, vs the emotive tosh that passes as “reason” these days? To be fair, the slick CAGW machine is nearly onmipresent and people arent taught to have backbone any more, rather become group-think dominated lemmings. One of my leftist relatives who is very smart, started to rebel against the greenist monster, and very quickly got kicked back into line by her “friends”.

      This is why unrelentingly rail so hard against hard core leftism, as its so corrosive and evil….

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    Loosely on the heading topic of “Climate Change”..how-to-geek just supplies other peoples info on a daily email circular, often interesting like this one:

    https://www.howtogeek.com/400828/huge-supercomputers-still-exist.-heres-what-theyre-being-used-for-today/

    Loved this paragraph..

    “Supercomputers are the backbone of computational science. They’re used in the medical field to run protein-folding simulations for cancer research, in physics to run simulations for large engineering projects and theoretical computation, and even in the financial field for tracking the stock market to gain an edge on other investors.

    Perhaps the job that most benefits the average person is weather modeling. Accurately predicting whether you’ll need a coat and an umbrella next Wednesday is a surprisingly hard task, one that even the gigantic supercomputers of today can’t do with great accuracy. It’s theorized that in order to run full weather modelling, we’ll need a computer that measures its speed in ZettaFLOPS—another two tiers up from PetaFLOPS and around 5000 times faster than IBM’s Summit. We likely won’t hit that point until 2030, though the main issue holding us back isn’t the hardware, but the cost.

    The upfront cost for buying or building all of that hardware is high enough, but the real kicker is the power bill. Many supercomputers can use up millions of dollars worth of power every year just to stay running. So while there’s theoretically no limit to how many buildings full of computers you could hook together, we only build supercomputers big enough to solve current problems.”

    No “tipping point” on the horizon here..

    70

    • #
      Slithers

      Nope the real cost is the electricity 100Mil$ per annum and the manufactures don’t know how to connect all that power to the system and the building!
      The projected delivery date was supposed to be 2020…
      Fat chance of that.

      51

  • #
    Kinky Keith

    It’s enough to read the second link and see what is behind this: a commercial entity based in Tathra.

    Another organisation helping out is identified as a not for profit.

    From experience of watching all the NFPs like the Clinton Foundation this means that only reasonable expenses will be taken.

    Getting away from Katoomba and looking on the national level it can be seen that we are close to crisis point now that both major partis want more Renewables.
    There is no attempt to differentiate there because they both want the votes, the money and control.

    What’s in store for us here can be seen in Europe if we look.

    Yesterday I ran into a person visiting from Greece.

    In small business, they’re caught in the mess over there and have to pay 76% tax.

    In Europe the residents have seen the horrifying descent into chaos and madness and wonder what all of their work and effort has been for.
    Decades of personal effort, generations of family commitment washed away by the European Political Elites.

    Now they are all equal: in total despair.

    So far we haven’t resisted very well and the Elites running Australia from New York must feel very pleased with progress.

    KK

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    • #
      joseph

      And then there’s this, thought you might find it of interest if you haven’t seen it . . . . .

      https://kurtnimmo.blog/2019/01/18/green-new-deal-delusion/

      50

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        The power of Media.

        In your face constantly and enabling the Elites to be in our pockets without constraint.

        KK

        52

    • #
      yarpos

      If the I can arrange my consulting invoices to be paid through a “not for profit” I can personally still make a nice living.

      Say for example you promote a community Micro Grid project, apply for grants and maybe even get community investment. Of course then you need feasibility studies and designs and project management which may be skills that coincidentally you happen to have, or colleagues happen to have, which can all be offered at extremely favourable rates. In fact those rates could be tailored to suit the amount of available funds, and at that stage a further grant may be possible to move this wonderful initiative forward to production.

      Then of course a level on ongoing management and administrative effort to ensure its effective operation. Really who better to manage the system than those who built it? its only logical.

      All this can be made to happen via a not for profit

      70

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    The renewables market includes (from the link in the article above) Hydro, Biofuels (E10 for example) and Geothermal – I support Geothermal and Hydro – so where does that put me?

    55

    • #
      AndyG55

      Empty as usual.

      Hydro, only limited possibilities in Australia.

      Biofools, should only be made from waste, not from rainforest ravaging or food crops

      Geothermal, was tried once in Australia by the Flim-flam man.. Failed !

      None of these are necessary, because Australia has one of the best, most efficient, most reliable resources in the world.. coal.. and there is zero scientific reason for not using it.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        I support more hydro especially more dams but in our country droughts are common so factoring in that alone maybe more dams less hydro but more coal generation .

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      • #
        DAW

        I put my money on Geothermal here in Australia – AND LOST. Australia has masses of very hot (250-285C) granite rock. The only hassle is how to commercially extract it. A firm established itself as Geodynamics drilled several holes to depths of 4,200 metres They ran a 1MW machine continuously for 90 days.Seems the problem they couldn’t solve was how to stop the water they were pumping in from disappearing into the strata somewhere.
        Sadly they not only stopped but have now plugged the holes and gone. And so has my money!

        200

        • #
          Bobl

          Is your name Tim Flannery by any chance… geodynamics was his pick. Along the way they wasted was it $400 million of taxpayer money too.

          10

    • #

      I support hydro and geothermal (in place)…which is why I abhor lumping them in with the gigantic and crippling wind and solar scams.

      Of course, the term “renewables” is yet another green stunt. When the skeps complain about the above-mentioned gigantic and crippling wind and solar scams, just say “hydro”, as if dams and whirlygigs were somehow a team. Go Team Renewables!

      Ah, but everything about Big Green is a big stunt. I wonder if the sanctimonious mountain picnickers know they are fighting Big Oil’s battle against the superlative Australian coal which underpins their wealth and well-being?

      200

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        🙂

        62

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        I can only agree here. It has been pointed out that the wind and solar systems have a limited life compared to hydro and coal. The advantage of solar and hydro is that they are scalable, with each unit costing only a fraction of the cost of standard size coal fired power station. Back in the ’80s when this all got going it was envisioned that solar and wind would be but stepping stones to more technically challenging systems like large scale geothermal (also large scale heat pumps, which are popular in Canada), and large scale tidal and wave systems. Although these last two have improved they still face significant challenges in both engineering hurdles and cost per kilowatt hour. In the meantime, resources which could be used for those systems are diverted into the original stopgap, solar and wind.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “with each unit costing only a fraction of the cost of standard size coal fired power station.”

          Hydro, maybe

          Solar, most definitely NOT !! Each unit of electricity costs the same as the next.

          Coal is very scalable, and the more you need, the cheaper it costs to build, per unit of electricity.

          Back to your little dream fantasy land, pfutz

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        • #

          …..with each unit costing only a fraction of the cost of standard size coal fired power station.

          And, in direct reference to solar power

          …..with each unit generating only a fraction of the power of standard size coal fired power station.

          Tony.

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          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            yep, solar is not really suited for large scale generation. It’s niche is in the small scale, time independent systems like ag pumps.

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          • #

            There are currently 32 Solar power plants in Australia. That’s THIRTY TWO of them.

            Their total Nameplate comes in at 2241MW.

            At peak insolation yesterday (Monday) at 1.20PM, their combined total power generation was 1350MW. That was the absolute maximum on the day. That’s at a Capacity Factor of 60.24% ….. at the BEST it can do in Mid Summer.

            At exactly the same time, the Bayswater coal fired power plant ….. ONE coal fired power plant with a Nameplate of 2640MW was generating 2637MW at a Capacity Factor of 99.84%, DOUBLE the power generation of an almost equivalent Nameplate for those 32 solar plants.

            Please don’t ever try and tell me those 32 solar plants cost a ….. FRACTION of the cost of Bayswater, or an an equivalent new tech HELE coal fired plant of the same Nameplate.

            Tony.

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            • #

              But then again, that’s REAL data and not modelling, so I guess it doewsn’t count, eh!

              Tony.

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              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                I was thinking of rooftop, but to your point about those 32 large plants, yeah the cost per megawatt hour is stupid. I would happily support new coal in large cities, where there is a match between demand and supply. Port Hacking would be a good site for example, close to coal, lots of cooling water in the old dams like the Woronora, and being that close to Sydney, you remove a lot of the transmission losses.

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              • #

                Same time, same reference, Bayswater.

                Rooftop Solar, with a current Nameplate (indeterminate but reported) at above 8000MW, so THREE (plus) times greater Nameplate than Bayswater. Actual generated power at the same time was 4070MW, (at a CF of 50.88%) versus Bayswater 2640MW, so rooftop with three times the nameplate is only delivering 54% more power, and only at a single point in time of its best power generation, and rooftop solar power for that Nameplate has cost in the vicinity of ….. who knows, since the cost has been spread across 10 years plus, but $20 Billion would be a close approximate, and even that would be on the low side.

                Don’t try and tell me rooftop solar is cheaper either, and it generates even less power, none of it consumed outside (a minor part of) the residential sector.

                And transmission losses aren’t as large as you might think, in the vicinity of less than 2% at Peak power time.
                Tony.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Woronora is part of the Sydney water supply system.

                Port Hacking is heavily populated. The coal is hard to get at without disruption.

                Again, the total lack of rational thought, or is it just that you are totally UNAWARE.

                I’d call it a random thought-bubble, but it can from the wrong end.

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              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                All good points Tony, as I first said I see solar and wind as stopgaps on the way to something else.
                AndyG55 plenty of coal around the Hacking (in the park, but you could put a large plant in Bundeena), the Woronora is only supplying the shire, and they can transfer to the Avon if needs be. Or are you suffering from nimbyism.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Or are you suffering from nimbyism.”

                Nowhere near where I live.

                Open cut coal is far cheaper,

                So while the Sydney water supply system struggles to keep up with demand, you want to take a dam out to use for power station cooling.

                DOH !!!

                Wind and solar are not even a stop-gap. They are a nuisance to grid stability.

                Upgrading the Hunter power stations to HELE coal while upgrade capacity is the best, cheapest and most logical solution. All the infrastructure is already there.

                102

              • #
                Dennis

                Andy

                South Australia example.

                The unreliable intermittent operation backers pretend that exercise in inefficiency and not cost effective investment is great.

                50

              • #
              • #
                el gordo

                Lake Windamere would be a great place for a coal fired power station and new satellite city.

                30

              • #

                Hmmm. Coal, which is in superabundance through the Sydney-Gunnedah-Bowen basins, could be taken from a National Park on the city fringe and processed using Sydney water supply. And a coal plant could be erected in Bundeena. Unless we skeps are into nimbyism.

                Satire? GeeUpping us again, Peter?

                Hmmm. Just…hmmm.

                51

              • #
                AndyG55

                Yep moso, nobody could be that stupid or unaware to type some of the nonsense he types.

                Very obviously a desperate, childish, attention-seeking, trolling attempt.

                But why not bite anyway. 🙂

                Give him his jollies for the day.

                62

              • #

                To any GeeUppers…

                Please be aware that stunts (like over-agreement and ad absurdum agreement) always seem ingenious to the herd, but that individuals accustomed to expressing free opinion in isolation can usually smell such stunts.

                My advice would be to GetOut entirely.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “and large scale tidal and wave systems.”

          large scale tidal: for a few hours a day, changing peak supply times. No “large” tidal surges around Australia. And of course, you totally destroy the natural environment (not an issue to the “renewables” agenda )

          And yep, wave power could be so good, just have to SINK enough money into it. 😉

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          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            There are big tidal surges on the Kimberley coast, and on the east coast there is that Eastern Australian Current and the Leeuwin over in the west, all of which have energy begging to be extracted

            612

            • #

              Tidal power has the same CF as wind, and even lower, and again, any plant is the tiniest fraction of the power generation of a coal fired plant.

              Tony.

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              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Considering the main parts of a typical Transmission & Distribution network, here are the average values of power losses at the different steps:

                1-2% – Step-up transformer from generator to Transmission line
                2-4% – Transmission line
                1-2% – Step-down transformer from Transmission line to Distribution network
                4-6% – Distribution network transformers and cables
                The overall losses between the power plant and consumers is then in the range between 8 and 15%.

                Schneider 2013

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            • #
              AndyG55

              so, uselessly far away, tiny capacity factor, only works as tide flows at changeable times each day.

              And you want to take energy out of ocean currents.. WOW.

              zero environmental consideration

              What a grand idea.. NOT !!!

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            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              here is a handy comparison table from our US friends in the DOE
              Power Plant Type Cost (LCOE – levelized cost of electricity)
              $/kW-hr
              Coal with CCS $0.12-0.13
              CC Natural Gas $0.05
              CC with CCS . $0.075
              Nuclear $0.093
              Wind onshore . $0.059
              Wind offshore $0.139
              Solar PV . $0.063
              Solar Thermal $0.165
              Geothermal $0.045
              Biomass $0.095
              Hydro $0.062

              CCis for carbon capture

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              • #
                robert rosicka

                I didn’t think anyone was doing CCS at a coal fired power station .

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              • #

                There is no CCS, and there never will be on any scale, let alone the scale required. It’s just a ploy used to artificially, and hugely increase the cost of coal fired power.

                LCOE needs to be taken with a (pretty huge) grain of salt, as there are more variables than you may think, and it has had more incarnations than anything else over the eleven years I have been watching, each one different from the next. Take your pick.

                Anyone who uses CCS in any calculation has quite obviously not done any research at all.

                Tony.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “CC is for carbon capture

                The most utterly stupid idea in existence.

                Unless used for a specific purpose, the VERY BEST place for CO2 is in the atmosphere where it belongs.

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              • #
                RickWill

                Peter
                You are out of date using these misleading LCOE figures. Even ARENA recognise their misuse as you have done in your list:

                In much of the previous published analysis that informs electricity policy, single LCOEs per technology have traditionally been used in a rather misleading manner to compare generation technologies that are variously continuous, peaking or variable.

                Quote from page X of the summary:
                https://arena.gov.au/assets/2018/10/Comparison-Of-Dispatchable-Renewable-Electricity-Options-ITP-et-al-for-ARENA-2018.pdf

                The report concludes that no one will build dispatchable intermittents without subsidies being offered – see page 107. They are just too expensive compared with dispatchable coal generators.

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            • #
              Another Ian

              Checked the length of the powerline needed to get any to where the demand is?

              70

            • #
              Geoffrey Williams

              Yeah, but just try doing it Pete . . .
              GeoffW

              40

            • #
              AndrewWA

              And the Kimberley Coast has geographic proximity (for efficient power distribution) to which large population centres?

              70

        • #
          Bill In Oz

          Such as nuclear power plants Fitz !

          30

        • #
          AndrewWA

          “….as I first said I see solar and wind as stopgaps on the way to something else.”

          Stopgaps are only necessary if no other alternative is available. The current large commitment to WIND and SOLAR is nothing but economic vandalism for this country.

          Hydro is out of the question as The Greens will NEVER allow another large dam project.

          NUCLEAR is seemingly non-negotiable without any level of rational discussion. We’ll just keep exporting Uranium for other to use.

          COAL still is still a sensible, efficient long-term alternative for Australia as our coal is plentiful and it’s cheap and close to our main population centres – for very good reasons.

          50

        • #
          Bobl

          As continually pointed out to you, solar doesn’t scale, as a rooftop system they save 20% more than the CO2 emitted to build them, with batteries they Nett emit equal the savings, grid scale they emit more than 5 times the savings and overbuilt with storage ( 95% reliable) they emit 20 times the CO2 saved.

          This is the problem, your return on CO2 emitted is too low and even rooftop costs 5 times per kg CO2 than you would expect because your nett CO2 saving is only on 1/5 of your energy production. By the time your solar system is 10 years old the UV degradation of the panel makes them break-even even on rooftop.

          Hydro is far better because the infrastructure is less expansive and they last much longer than the average solar and properly maintained the capacity factor doesn’t change much over time.

          To power Victoria using solar you need to tile an area twice the area of Victoria with solar panels and batteries. Each panel needs replacing every 10 years. Work it out, how are you going to schedule that?

          What happens if a hail storm takes out your energy source or a dust storm scratches up and deposits 2mm of dust over your hundreds of square km of panels? How long do people go without while you repair, what’s the cost to repair, where does your income come from in the meantime, do you end up insolvent?

          Solar only works on a small scale.

          00

    • #
      sophocles

      Peter Fitzroy said @ # 19

      I support Geothermal and Hydro – so where does that put me?

      Easy: if you’re in Australia, then it puts you in the wrong country.

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  • #
    Mark M

    “Every night on the evening news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.” – Al Gore

    At first I laughed at Al Gore, “himself an investor in renewable energy“, joking how every Thursday night, just after late night shopping in Oz, was plague of locusts night.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/al-gore-ted-talk-vancouver-1.3444986

    And then … it happened …

    17 Jan, 2019: Plague of Tens of Thousands of Locusts Descends on Mecca, Islam’s Sacred City

    https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2019/january/plague-of-tens-of-thousands-of-locusts-descends-on-mecca-islams-sacred-city

    > How many renewables must Australia build before Australia prevents its first ‘plague of locusts’?

    60

  • #
    Drapetomania

    I live in the Blue Mts..
    The green blob zombies are everywhere here..
    They will drive cars to this demonstration..and the majority are on the grid up here.
    The greens candidate supporters drive their cars to the stations to hand out flyers..and blink when I query this.
    One guy was at the petrol station filling up his car with climate action stickers all over it.
    I asked him if it was an electric car…yes..I thought that was funny.
    Within 10 seconds he was screaming like a mental case with spittle forming ..I managed to ask him if he was off the grid..he stumbled in his screaming rant..I said “I knew it”..he then bladed his body towards me and was about to hit me with a right cross..I told him to get back or I would squirt him with fuel..
    The local paper has crazy climate letters all the time..I posted a correction to one of their more insane readers..nope..never got through..
    But curiously..they allowed one slightly bonkers christian who said god would not allow us to be destroyed by global warming(what the hell)..
    And then allowed a host of faux green writers the following week to basically go all ad hominem and defamed him badly…
    The green disease is bad here 🙂
    I firmly believe the majority mean well..but are just in trancelike states repeating cool memes and bumper sticker slogans…and its virtually impossible to break the trance induction techniques that have pushed this bilge into their tiny brains..
    The Orwellian Left..has won..

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    • #
      el gordo

      I live on the Central Tablelands where the atmosphere is more pleasant, a Nationals stronghold of farmers and graziers. The townies have been badly influenced by the propaganda, through the ABC and Fairfax, but I’m hopeful that balance will one day return.

      These people are brainwashed Ranters.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        It will return to normal when the blackouts really get going and someone dies as a result….

        Yes some of the climate clowns are very unhinged…Ive had a near toe to toe in an office once with a belligerent leftist who couldnt form words on the CAGW nonsense without getting agitated.

        I’m convinced many who buy into the green stupidity are not quite all there….

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    • #
      el gordo

      Andrew Gee, a member of the ginger group, is being groomed to take over the leadership of the Nationals.

      https://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/5860676/andrew-gee-to-be-sworn-in-as-assistant-minister-to-deputy-prime-minister/

      His seat covers coal miners, farmers and graziers. Gee also wants high speed rail under the Blueys and then above ground all the way to Parkes.

      70

  • #
    glen Michel

    On another note Mike Bergin of the BoM is retiring after 40years there. A man who after all that thinks that natural disasters are getting worse- plus all the other memes that go with a planet facing disaster. It makes you wonder where his head is at.

    130

    • #
      Another Ian

      “It makes you wonder where his head is at.”

      Alternate view would be confirmation of its position

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    • #
      yarpos

      Maybe just doing and saying whatever is needed to reach retirement age in a senior role. A lot to lose by rocking the boat.

      70

  • #
    David Maddison

    Before traitorous Leftist political parties and policies could become successful they had to stop teaching critical thinking and real history in schools and otherwise infiltrate all other institutions of influence. This was accomplished over many decades via Rudi Dutschke’s subversive “long march through the institutions starting in the 1960’s and which infiltrated the entire Western World.

    https://youtu.be/fdTTr4iYT0M

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Lenin was a big advocate of turning schools into indocrination centres….

      Interestingly, if you look at influential New Ager Alice Baileys’ aims ( which have seemingly heavily influenced the UN with its green drive ) and the aims of the Communist Party of the USA, they are strikingly similar….

      Bailey also formed the Lucis trust, previously named the Lucifer Trust.

      Lucifer is one name used for the Devil.

      Coincidence?

      70

      • #
        Annie

        ‘Light carrier’….hmmm.

        51

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          13 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
          14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
          15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.

          ( 2 Cor 11:13-15 )

          40

    • #

      Link @ Chiefio’s blog. Soros funded Media Matters plan to destroy conservatives.
      https://stream.org/media-matters-after-conservatives/

      32

  • #
    robert rosicka

    A bit OT , ANU have been doing a study into how long it takes for soil to recover after logging and bushfires , they claim it takes decades to recover .
    Near where I live the bush has seen both and the regrowth after just one year is incredible, after two to three years the regrowth can be a barrier so I’m not sure where they’ve conducted this research .

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    • #
      Annie

      Robert, a lot has recovered here in the almost ten years since the firestorm. Marysville is looking beautiful again. Unfortunately, a lot of flammable scrub has been allowed to grow along the roadsides; not at all sensible from a human safety point of view. There are still sterile areas, where the heat was so intense that all life was eradicated to quite a depth.That sort of damage does take years to mend. On the other hand, in Marysville there were new shoots coming up and I saw shoots coming up from the rootstocks of my little apple trees only five weeks after the fires.
      I was permitted to go in to see the dreadful results of the fires there as I was over on a short visit from England and would not be around once the town was re-opened. That visit hardened our resolve to come back to Australia and settle in this area.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      People who make announcements that the bush will never recover have never been there. I bushwalk (US = hike) extensively and in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne it was extensively clear felled for logging less than 100 years ago. I have sern pictures of it, there was nothing left. Today, it is a beautiful wilderness, albeit with very few trees older than 100 years (but the famous Ada Tree is still there and about 300 years old).

      130

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        David M.

        In 1989 I was in the S.E. of NSW where I got talking to the owner/manager of a small timber mill. He explained that the mill would have to close shortly because timber was becoming unobtainable. I must have looked startled because he explained that the local forests had been classified as OLD GROWTH so the virgin growth couldn’t be disturbed.
        He was philosophical as he was near retirement age anyway, and his offspring weren’t interested in the mill, but he was sour about the legislation. He said that his Great Grandfather had first logged those forests in the 1840’s, and the 3 succeeding generations had as well. That the Greenies thought that the forest was pristine showed that “they hadn’t a clue” about the timber business.
        Further he remarked that the only wood the politicians and public servants knew was in between their ears.

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      yarpos

      Only got to look out my front window at some of the crew cut looking hilltop skylines full of dead trees 10 years after the fires to agree that it will take decades to recover.

      I guess it come down to what constitutes recovery. If you mean nature is alive and coming back, then yes. If you mean is it 50% or more of what it was, then no.

      50

  • #
    Neville

    If these silly fools really think that any country can run 100% on S&W, then we should head back to the caves.
    Forget jobs, forget industry and a civil society. In the meantime even Labor will maintain our coal/gas exports and the jobs involved, but of course they will rule out any chance of future reliable energy here in OZ. Does this make any sense to anyone?
    None of this idiocy will change the climate at all, but that doesn’t seem to matter to these religious fanatics.
    BTW Dr Nic Lewis has a look at the Cheng et al ocean warming study and found plenty of problems with it. Ditto Willis Eschenbach a couple of weeks ago.

    https://judithcurry.com/2019/01/21/is-ocean-warming-accelerating-faster-than-thought/#more-24638

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Another Lor for Victoriastan today but I can’t understand why we are pumping 500 mw into south oz but they are sending 50mw back .

    80

    • #
      yarpos

      Wind in SA providing 63MW and interconnectors maxed out. They must have lost the key to the generators.

      80

      • #
        yarpos

        the keys have been found and the wind has come up – crisis averted

        70

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          I have this mental image of all those public school kids who have been bussed in, standing in front of a bord shredders, doing their Socialist patriotic duty with a Kim Il Jung look alike keeping the timing drum going…..

          …..and blow….and blow….and blow

          ….boom….boom….boom…..

          🙂

          50

  • #
    el gordo

    ‘We are sending a message to our politicians to say that we want a bipartisan approach to climate change, and we want it now.’

    I agree, they don’t take imminent global cooling seriously and should begin to build coal fired power stations.

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  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    Annabel Murray said: “We now have all the technology available to make our beautiful planet cooler. Join us to send a clear, pre election message to the Australian government and business leaders calling for climate action now”
    I doubt people like Annabel Murray have any idea of the technology she is referring to. It is just headline grabbing behaviour for those to get high on climate virtue activism.
    GeoffW

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  • #
    TdeF

    Extraordinary review by Andrew Bolt of a devastating 2004 Pentagon report. It’s impossible to believe. That anyone believed it. No one questioned it. End of the world by freezing by 2020 Next year. I grew up on Ripley’s believe it or not. Fake is one thing. Climate Change is a farce.

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  • #
    pat

    21 Jan: CarAdvice: NSW EV charging investment, electric bus trial announced
    by Mike Stevens
    As the NSW state election nears, the incumbent party announces its own EV infrastructure and fleet plans to counter the opposition’s promises…
    If successful in the March 23 election, the NSW Liberal party claims its Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Plan will include a $3 million co-investment in fast charging points on major regional corridors, along with $2 million on chargers in commuter car parks…

    In 2018, the Victorian Government announced a $3 million regional charging station plan, which followed news that the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) would partner with the Chargefox network on a $15 million fast-charging network of 21 stations in locations around the country…

    “More people are embracing electric and hybrid vehicles and we need to do our part to ensure we have the infrastructure in place so that people are confident to use these vehicles right across the state,” NSW Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Andrew Constance, said today.
    “That’s why we’re planning fast charging points for major regional corridors including the Newell, Great Western, New England, Pacific and Princes Highways and the Hume Motorway.”
    The program has yet to announce a partner for charger supply and installation, confirming only that it will soon be sounding out the market “to ensure we get the best value for money”…

    The NSW Government also announced today that it will aim to have at least 10 per cent of its vehicle fleet made up of EVs from 2020, while even sooner, four electric buses will begin operating in Sydney’s Inner West from July 2019 on a two-year trial…
    Newspoll data and reports in recent months suggest the March election for the leadership of NSW may go to the opposition, which could bring even bigger wins for proponents of the electric vehicle movement.
    Getting in earlier on its election promises, the NSW Labor party promised last month that it would aim for its fleet to be 25 per cent electric by 2025…

    The state opposition has also committed $10 million over three years to electric vehicle infrastructure, along with promising reforms to planning requirements on residential apartment blocks, and a $1 million spend on an awareness campaign around the benefits of EV technology.
    https://www.caradvice.com.au/718325/nsw-electric-charging-plans-detailed/

    QLD electric car charging stations only used 1240 times in a year
    Queensland installed electric car chargers at 17 locations at a cost of $3 million, but they have been used only 1240 times in the past year
    Courier Mail – 15 Jul 2018

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    • #
      MudCrab

      Electric buses?

      Adelaide City Council invested in a green (literally as well as politically) electric bus about 10 year ago. High profile virtue signalling until it disappeared from the roads for a couple of years. Word was the battery had died and no one in Australia could replace the thing.

      Having been a semi regular on the route it (sometimes) took I can say I thought it was horrible. It was designed to be wheelchair friendly, but very poorly so for its size there was very few actual seats. It was also unreliable. Its route used to be the council ‘community’ route which is shared with some conventional 19 seater mini buses. It was meant to be an hourly service and normally worked quite well. When it didn’t work well and you realised your bus was pushing 20 minutes late it was almost always that sodding green monster that eventually turned up as it crawled around the route.

      When you did get on it you used to have the air con cut in and out when trying to drive up hill as the power management struggled to keep all systems working at once.

      Horrible vehicle.

      Mind you that route has largely been replaced by hybrid buses which have very violent transmission that jump cuts between electric and conventional. Yes they are better at sticking to the timetable, but uncomfortable to ride in.

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  • #
    pat

    no mention of cost of electric vehicles in Australia ($100,000?); no mention how long it would take to charge the vehicles; no mention that fossil fuels would be used to charge them; no mention of the unique problems Australia has with EVs due to its size and population spread:

    21 Jan: SMH: Highways, car parks to get charging stations for electric vehicles
    By Matt O’Sullivan
    As part of an attempt to encourage a greater uptake of electric vehicles, the government announced $3 million for charging points on major roads, including the Pacific, Princes, Great Western, New England and Newell highways, and $2 million for installing them in commuter car parks.
    The government was reluctant to put a figure on how many charging points would be installed, although Transport Minister Andrew Constance said it would be in the “hundreds”.
    “It’s about reducing emissions but it’s also about reducing the cost for business,” he said…

    “Electric vehicles are here, they are cheaper to fuel and maintain, but we need to keep developing the network and charging infrastructure to further drive their uptake.”
    The running cost of an electric bus in the Illawarra which is part of a pilot program was about 11¢ a kilometre, which Mr Constance said was about 10 per cent of the cost of a diesel bus.
    A lack of charging points has been a barrier to a greater uptake of electric vehicles.

    In Australia, there are about 800 public charging locations and the sale of electric vehicles is “very low” compared with other developed countries such as Britain, the United States and New Zealand…
    The state government has also committed to at least 10 per cent of new vehicles in its fleet being electric or hybrid from next year.
    It is far less ambitious than the ACT government, which has committed to all newly leased government passenger vehicles being zero emissions by 2020-2021…
    “The ACT is the size of a postage stamp. NSW is a huge state and what we are doing is ensuring those charging points are not resting only on the taxpayer,” (NSW Roads Minister Melinda Pavey) said.
    AD UNDER COMMENTS: LEARN MORE ABOUT… DISPATCHABLERENEWABLES.ENTURA.COM
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/highways-car-parks-to-get-charging-stations-for-electric-vehicles-20190121-p50spg.html

    no mention of anything I listed above in here either, apart from various chargers/hours listed on p.42 of a 50-page report:

    21 Jan: NSW Got Transport: Electric Vehicles: They’re multiplying – it’s electrifying
    DOWNLOADS
    https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/news-and-events/media-releases/electric-vehicles-theyre-multiplying-its-electrifying

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    • #
      yarpos

      “…..and $2 million for installing them in commuter car parks.” imagine what going to happen once assorted vandals, smart ar$e$ and idiots twig that these things are left plugged in while the owners are at work.

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    • #
      Serp

      The idea that there will be mass take up of electric vehicles anywhere in the world is not even wishful thinking, it’s just plain stupid.

      The Australian grid is on the verge of collapse with effectively no battery cars recharging from it.

      Anybody sincerely trying to get away from the internal combustion engine would be looking at mass producing small nuclear powered engines.

      It won’t be happening in nuclearphobic Australia though: we’re stripping the power plants out of the frog subs and refitting them with diesel engines and fuel tanks –yeah, they’ll be beaut eh!

      100

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        The elite are tearing down what has been built, and rebuilding it in thier demented and deranged green image…it reminds me of that movie “Altered States”…. or maybe “The Shining”….

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      • #
        sophocles

        Serp @ # 32.2 says:

        Anybody sincerely trying to get away from the internal combustion engine would be looking at mass producing small nuclear powered engines.

        Yes! They’ll all be driven by steam!
        I like that idea. I do foresee problems—mostly surmountable—such as boiler certification etc… 🙂

        Buy a nuclear car and never have to refuel it … wonderful!

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    • #
      Bobl

      Must be a slow bus, maybe it has no bottom and you have to run like the Flintstones. 10c buys you 330watt hours, that wouldn’t even run the air-con.

      00

  • #
    David Maddison

    Marketing expensive unreliable energy is cheap to do because there is a limitless supply of useful idiots to do it for you for free.

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    pat

    18 Jan: EIA: EIA forecasts renewables will be fastest growing source of electricity generation
    EIA expects non-hydroelectric renewable energy resources such as solar and wind will be the fastest growing source of U.S. electricity generation for at least the next two years. EIA’s January 2019 Short-Term Energy Outlook (LINK) (STEO) forecasts that electricity generation from utility-scale solar generating units will grow by 10% in 2019 and by 17% in 2020. According to the January STEO, wind generation will grow by 12% and 14% during the next two years. EIA forecasts total U.S. electricity generation across all fuels will fall by 2% this year and then show very little growth in 2020.

    EIA projects that the share of total U.S. electricity generation produced by all renewables other than hydropower will increase by three percentage points during the next two years, from 10% of total generation in 2018 to 13% in 2020…
    The share of total U.S. generation from wind is projected to increase ***from 7% in 2018 to 9% in 2020…

    The U.S. electric power sector plans to add more than 4 GW of new solar capacity in 2019 and almost 6 GW in 2020, a total increase of 32% from the operational capacity at the end of 2018. Because of this increase, solar is forecast to contribute slightly more than ***2% of total utility-scale generation in 2020…

    Even with the growth from renewable energy sources, fossil fuels will still provide most of the electricity generated in the United States. Coal and natural gas combined provided 63% of electricity generation in 2018 and EIA forecasts that they will provide 61% in 2020…

    In addition to ***environmental regulations that led to retiring or modifying U.S. coal power plants, the electric power sector’s switch to natural gas from coal has been driven by the sustained low cost of natural gas. Between 2016 and 2018, the price of natural gas delivered to electricity generators averaged about $3.25 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) compared with $5.09/MMBtu in 2010. Increased overall efficiency of the natural gas power plant fleet has also allowed natural gas to increase its market competitiveness…
    https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38053&src=email

    the FakeNews marketing spin – no mention how much wind & solar generate:

    21 Jan: CNN: Solar and wind are booming, while coal keeps shrinking
    By Matt Egan
    The boom in solar and wind power in the United States will deal a fresh blow to coal country in the next few years.
    Renewable energy, led by solar and wind, is projected to be the fastest-growing source of US electricity generation for at least the next two years, according to a report published Friday by the US Energy Department…

    “Coal is just an expensive technology that can no longer compete,” said Kingsmill Bond, new energy strategist at Carbon Tracker, a think tank that examines the relationship between energy and financial markets.
    That’s despite President Donald Trump’s promise to revive the beleaguered coal industry…

    Besides environmental regulations, coal has been hurt by fierce competition from cleaner energy sources, especially natural gas. Thanks to the shale revolution, the United States has an abundance of cheap natural gas. In 2016, natural gas surpassed coal as America’s leading fuel source for the first time…

    Power plants will keep moving away from coal because of economics and concerns about climate change, too…
    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/21/business/solar-wind-coal-power-renewable-energy/index.html

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  • #
    RickWill

    The hottest place on Earth, on average, is somewhere on the tropical ocean surface (it moves about a bit with the seasons). This is where the rubber meets the road; where solar energy gets absorbed into Earth’s climate system. The atmosphere is cooler than the ocean surface. The water below the surface is cooler than the surface water. So all heat must flow from the surface in the tropics to the atmosphere; below to deeper ocean and to ocean at higher latitudes.

    Over the past two years the tropical ocean surface has cooled:
    http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectyear.cgi
    That means the rate of heat input must be declining or even negative.

    This year surface temperatures have been relegated to low interest topics as ocean heat gets the headlines. The ARGO data for 0-2000m recently published is now hyped as the best indicator of global warming as it does not have the noise of surface measurement and, most importantly, is still rising. The thermal inertia will cause a lag in the time between surface response and temperature from deeper water. However with the tropical ocean surface cooling, the water below must at least reduce its rate of rise.

    If the solar field models are accurate we should see the surface temperature continue to decline and ocean heat in the top 2000m eventually falling off. There needs to be a reduction in surface temperature of 0.15C to offset the recent imbalance of 0.8W/sq.m. The surface temperature is now close to this reduction from the peak.

    The hyping has shifted from lowest ever arctic ice to hottest ever surface temperature and now to ocean heat content. We do not have long to wait to see the ocean heat content turn down.

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    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      The atmosphere is cooler than the ocean surface???? in Darwin the temp is 31, sea surface is 30.

      36

      • #
        AndyG55

        But the sea temperature at Darwin is ALWAYS around 30C, day and night, nearly all year

        Atmospheric temperature summer average high is around 32C, but the winter average is less than the winter average of the oceans, often by 4-5C.

        So yes, on a yearly average, the ocean around Darwin IS warmer than the atmosphere.

        Time to start being more “aware”, pfutz

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      • #
        AndyG55

        And the oceans are warmer, because they absorb more SOLAR energy,

        .. NOTHING to do with enhanced atmospheric CO2.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Andy,

          What the hell is an “enhanced” molecule?

          41

          • #
            AndyG55

            The “enhancement” is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

            Increasing the ppm of atmospheric CO2 is enhancing the carbon cycle, and enhancing the whole planet’s biosphere.

            63

            • #
              Kinky Keith

              But the “enhancement” is only temporary as the atmospheric CO2 content is in equilibrium with that of the oceans.

              00

              • #
                AndyG55

                That is why we can be very glad that coal fired power is having a resurgence in China, Asia, Africa etc etc etc

                We MUST continue to try to grow the atmospheric CO2 content if we hope to feed the world’s future populations..

                20

          • #
            philthegeek

            What the hell is an “enhanced” molecule?

            One wearing Tone’s red budgie smugglers?? Red..it goes faster. 🙂

            11

      • #
        RickWill

        Peter
        From the BoM link:

        By equating the emitted (long wave) radiation to the absorbed (short wave) radiation, the earth’s planetary temperature can be estimated, that is the average temperature in the absence of any other influences, which turns out to be -18°C (255K).

        The radiation absorbed by these gases is re-emitted in all directions, some back toward the surface leading to a net warming of the surface.

        As soon as I see nonsense like this I know the authors need to buy a clue because they have none.

        The moon receives identical average solar EMR as the Earth. It provides the perfect example of what Earth’s temperature would be without distributed surface water. The temperature range on the moon is from 100K to 400K.

        Oceans are Earth’s solar panels; thermal storage units and heat distributers. Without the connectedness of the oceans and the unique phases of water, Earth would be a much less hospitable rock.

        Anyone who thinks an object of low radiance radiates to an object of higher radiance does not have a clue about electro-magnetic radiationan, the electric field and the magnetic field. If you are really keen to learn something about the atmosphere and how little is actually known, spend an hour listening to Michael Mishchenko (the only NASA GISS scientists I know of who has a clue):
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjKJyn_uoIE

        NASA climate scientist Dr. Michael I. Mishchenko presented a Maniac Talk entitled “How much first-principle physics do we need in remote-sensing and atmospheric-radiation research.” Michael explained his skepticism and how it has shaped his contributions to the disciplines of electromagnetic scattering, radiative transfer, and remote sensing, which have found widespread use.

        But the BoM and CSIRO have no clue of Michael Mihschenko or application of fundamental physics when it comes to their Global Warming fairy tale.

        Take the time to listen to the whole talk including the questions. You will find his comment on climate models illuminating.

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    John of Cloverdale, Western Australia

    I notice in the photo, the arrow, next to CO2, is pointing at a clump of healthy trees.
    How unintentionally ironic!

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    • #
      John

      Also the CO2 is on top of the cricket pitch, which is twice as green as the oval.
      Symbolic of the greening of earth with atmospheric fertiliser.

      61

  • #
    pat

    Wisconsin is being targeted for utility-scale solar, even tho the state has plentiful energy. 3 pieces worth reading in full:

    19 Jan: WisconsinStateJournal: Wisconsin regulators gather evidence on solar farm proposals
    by CHRIS HUBBUCH
    A judge for Wisconsin’s utility regulatory agency heard testimony Friday on proposals from two utilities seeking to invest nearly $400 million in new solar energy projects.
    Madison Gas & Electric and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. together want to buy 300 megawatts of generation from two proposed solar farms.

    Chicago-based Invenergy has proposed building a 300-megawatt project, called Badger Hollow, in western Iowa County. More than 100 times the size of any solar project in Wisconsin, it would be one of the largest solar farms in the country, with a footprint roughly twice the size of the UW Arboretum.
    NextEra Energy Resources has proposed building a 150-megawatt solar farm, known as Two Creeks, between Manitowoc and Kewaunee…

    The utilities have said the project not only saves money but satisfies consumer demand for renewable energy, which prompted Judge Michael Newmark to question how the utilities know that’s what their customers want.

    ***Jeff Knitter, director of planning for wholesale energy at WPSC’s parent company, WEC Energy Group, said customers in general — including those of WPSC — have an interest in replacing coal and natural gas generators with renewable energy ***based on reports in the news media, trade publications and “protesters outside our offices.”…
    https://madison.com/wsj/business/wisconsin-regulators-gather-evidence-on-solar-farm-proposals/article_2e3c741f-e65e-5e15-8833-256e977b4086.html#tncms-source=infinity-scroll-summary-siderail-latest

    18 Jan: WisconsinStateJournal: As costs decline, state policymakers still have issues with renewable energy
    by CHRIS HUBBUCH
    Although Wisconsin is still largely dependent on coal-fired generation, total solar energy capacity surpassed 100 megawatts in 2018 and is likely to be quadrupled in coming years by just a handful of utility-scale projects.
    There are more than 5,000 megawatts of new utility-scale solar projects being studied, along with 1,000 megawatts of wind. Renewable sources account for more than 80 percent of the new projects under consideration; the rest would be powered by natural gas…

    But Ellen Nowak, the state’s top utility regulator, said the Public Service Commission must remain focused on three core issues as it considers those and other renewable-energy proposals in the coming years: reliability, affordability, resilience.
    Appointed to the PSC by then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, in 2011 and again in 2018, Nowak has not been seen as a champion of renewable energy, which she said had to do with costs and needs ***in a state that has more generation capacity than it needs.
    “Adding new generation is not like going out and buying a new car and trading in your old car,” she said. “If you have a new plant that’s still being paid for, you can’t turn it in.”…
    https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/as-costs-decline-state-policymakers-still-have-issues-with-renewable/article_8602d1cd-7edf-5a25-8e4f-a746016144f6.html#tncms-source=infinity-scroll-summary-siderail-latest

    in-depth piece, loads of detail:

    30 Dec 2018: WisconsinStateJournal: Rural Wisconsin county split on solar energy project that would be among largest in nation
    by CHRIS HUBBUCH
    “In the best case it’s going to make a solar panel wasteland where nobody’s going to live,” said Richard Jinkins, a computer programmer who also raises cash crops (and who, along with Alan Jewell & another nearby farmer, are leading the charge against the project).
    “It’s not going to be the Driftless area. It’s going to be the utility district of southwest Wisconsin.”…

    Opponents, including a family whose home will be bordered on three sides by solar panels, have raised concerns about glare and the noise from 3,150 motors used to track the sun, as well as what will happen if the panels break and why there’s no plan in place for restoring the land once the project is done…

    Under the proposal before the PSC, Badger Hollow is considered an independent power producer, meaning the owners would sell the electricity generated to the wholesale market rather than recouping their investment directly from ratepayers.
    That exempts it from the needs analysis that would be required it it were proposed by a regulated utility.
    But Madison Gas & Electric and Wisconsin Public Service Corp., a subsidiary of the WEC Energy Group, have agreed to buy half the solar panels once they are installed, a transaction the PSC is considering separately.

    If the utilities themselves applied for permits, the commission woujld have to evaluate the need, economics and engineering – alongside alternatives – rather than simply determining where to put the solar panels…

    The PSC has no rules in place for siting solar farms, which also worries critics…
    The developers have proposed using the county’s agricultural setback rules, which would mean panels could be built within just 20 feet of a neighboring property or home…

    Invenergy would be responsible for taking down the panels once the leases expire, but the company wants to wait 15 years before developng a plan or putting up money to pay for it because of the uncertainty around the future value of the equipment…

    In 2001, the Montfort Energy Center was erected as one of the state’s first large-scale wind farms, with 20 towers that are visible for miles. Now utilities are proposing a controversial high-voltage power line, known as Cardinal-Hickory Creek, to carry wind energy from Iowa to Madison. It would run right past the Badget Hollow area which opponents say is no coincidence…

    (Chicago-based) Invenergy plans to pay landowners $700 an acre annually – five times the average rate for renting Wisconsin cropland – for 25 years, with the right to eten the leases another 25 years…

    Jinkins doesn’t like that a company with hundreds of millions of dollars is benefiting from government subsidies. Federal law allows owners of both residential and commercial solar projects to deduct 30 percent of the investment from their tax bills…
    https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/rural-wisconsin-county-split-on-solar-energy-project-that-would/article_dd4efefb-a335-5ccf-9a9c-66c046a3a21c.html

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  • #
    Terry

    These people need to have a “Stupidity Tax” levied on them.

    It is completely voluntary and the proceeds will be used to offset the damage caused by the myriad of “action on climate change” policies.

    Of course, it won’t raise a cent. These people are calling for “someone else” to pay for their virtue-signalling.

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  • #
    pat

    very detailed:

    21 Jan: EconomicTimesIndia: View: Busting myths behind opposition to Adani mine
    By Dr Ashutosh Misra
    (The writer is CEO and Executive Director of Institute for Australia India Engagement. Views expressed are his personal and not of economictimes.com)
    In recent weeks in Australia, two incidents made media headlines. First, public protests against the proposed Carmichael mine by AdaniNSE 0.40 % in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland flashing placards “Stop Adani”, “Coal Kills” and “Quit Coal”. And second, protestors disrupting Labour leader Bill Shorten’s speech at a Labour conference in Adelaide, waving the “#Stop Adani” flag. These are very compelling stories.

    So is there any substance to the following key charges: coal kills; robs our water; destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and destruction of ancestral lands, waters and cultures of the indigenous people…

    First, Greens and environmentalists argue that coal fired power generation is decreasing globally. Well, according to the International Energy Agency Energy Outlook 2017 figures world coal production has increased by 3.2%, which is driven by the 3.6% and 6.9 % percent output in China and US, respectively. Global coal consumption has risen by 1% in 2017, with 4.8% consumption growth in India

    Although India has increased the share of hydro, gas and nuclear in electricity generation, coal tops the list and understandably. For a Munni, sitting in a remote village waiting for electricity climate change movement is a luxury, and through the Carmichael mine Queensland can light up the world of millions of Munnis.

    Also, contrary to the claims that Carmichael mine is a ‘super/mega mine’, it constitutes merely 2.5% of the total world thermal coal traded in 2018 and 0.5% of the world thermal coal demand in 2017…READ ALL
    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/metals-mining/view-busting-myths-behind-opposition-to-adani-mine/articleshow/67619641.cms

    50

  • #
    el gordo

    Why wasn’t I informed?

    ‘THE state government has approved the $200 million upgrade of Bayswater Power Station.

    ‘The upgrade project has been declared of critical state significance and involves replacing four turbines over a four-year period prior to the closure of nearby Liddell power station in 2022.

    ‘According to the government Bayswater’s 2,640 megawatts (MW) of power is a significant contributor to the state’s energy supply. Bayswater is Australia’s second largest coal-fired power station producing enough energy to power two million homes.’

    Herald.com

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    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      it as on the ABC on 28 Feb 2018, so nearly a year ago, the approval finally came through on the 7th of December 2018, with AGL footing the bill.

      60

    • #
      beowulf

      It’s old recycled news Gordo. It has been announced about 3 times previously as part of AGL’s excuse for shutting down Liddell. Don’t get excited — it’s only 100MW extra. A drop in the bucket.

      Its real significance is that turbines are being renewed.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        “Its real significance is that turbines are being renewed.”

        which means another 60-70 years of luverly atmospheric plant food 🙂

        122

      • #
        el gordo

        Okay thanks beowulf,

        20

      • #
        Dennis

        But AGL has turned down at least one offer to buy Liddell Power Station.

        And the upgrade does not include the additional two generator units planned when the NSW Government still owned Bayswater?

        20

  • #
    PeterS

    The climate change madness can be overturned only when science no longer sells its integrity for money and instead returns to its roots.

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  • #
    pat

    if Indian $7 billion is part of the $10.5 billion, this is not a lot of investment in RE from such a big summit:

    21 Jan: GulfNews: $10.5 billion worth of deals reached at (World Future Energy Summit) in Abu Dhabi
    Deals to be implemented across 20 countries
    The event at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre saw a consortium led by Masdar and France’s EDF won a tender to build a $500 million 400-megawatt wind farm in northern Saudi Arabia as part of the country’s efforts to increase its renewable energy capacity to 60 gigawatts by 2030…

    The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a company of the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, unveiled its $7 billion Cold Desert Regions Ultra-Mega Solar Power project. SECI invited global investors to participate in the multi-billion-dollar alternative energy investment opportunities created by the state-backed scheme.

    WFES 2019 convened more than 34,000 attendees in addition to 3,000 students from over 150 countries, including 15 heads of state, as well as more than 100 ministers and 3,000 participants from some of the world’s largest companies operating in the sustainability and renewables sectors…
    The expo also hosted over 800 exhibiting companies from 40 countries.
    https://gulfnews.com/business/energy/105-billion-worth-of-deals-reached-at-energy-summit-in-abu-dhabi-1.1548070371434

    if it ever happens, it may make sense in this particular region:

    14 Jan: PV Mag: Planned 5 GW Indian solar plant will be ‘the world’s largest’
    Known as the “roof of the world,” the scenic Ladakh region of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir could soon host the world’s largest single-location PV plant.
    by Uma Gupta, PV Mag India
    The Ladakh project is expected to be complete by 2023, with abundant sunlight and clear air making Ladakh unusually suitable for solar technologies.
    The power generated from the 5 GW PV plant in Leh district will be transmitted, along a 900 km stretch of the Leh-Manali road, for consumption by Kaithal district in the state of Haryana. It will be supplemented by another 2.5 GW solar project in the Kargil district, to provide electricity to light up the plains and reduce dependence on diesel generators for a population that remains cut off for around half the year..

    Besides enabling developers to set up the power transmission and evacuation infrastructure, the 7.5 GW Jammu & Kashmir tender encourages them to add storage. Developers are encouraged to explore different forms of storage technology, including battery, molten salts, pumped storage or a combination thereof, for innovative and efficient utilization of the transmission evacuation infrastructure.

    A report in the Times of India quoted SK Mishra, director of power systems for the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), as saying: “We have addressed issues faced in previous tenders and taken into account the challenging geography.
    “Another positive is the Leh and Kargil administrations have designated 25,000 and 12,500 acres of non-grazing land, respectively, at prices remunerative for the hill councils, which will also earn rental of around Rs1,200 per hectare, per annum, with 3% annual escalation,” he added.
    https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/01/14/planned-5-gw-indian-solar-plant-will-be-the-worlds-largest/

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    Roy Hogue

    Oooo! A Human sign — I’ve never seen one of those before. Jo, be sure you get some good photos of it and post them so we can all see who thinks this is a good thing to do.

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    pat

    waiting for Ash Barty/Kvitová match saw 9 News again. more’s the pity.

    this is a rough account of what kept me watching:

    they spent the entire hour beating up a story about how would Qld renters & landlords like to be paid for every kw of energy they use.

    you had to wait til the very end of the news to find out it was a Gold Coast company called Income Energy, and someone had to still pay for solar panels and you got 20% discount if you are a renter and a 17cent tariff or something if you are a landlord. another tariff was mentioned as well, 11 cents. don’t know what that was for.

    mentioned cost of panels between $5,000 and $9,000 that would take years to pay off, didn’t say who would be paying for them – the landlords presumably – so what was the hype all about?

    had a couple of people come on to say the numbers sounded dodgy; had an Energy Income guy come on and say they weren’t cos that had the data or something.

    only thing I can find right now:

    Energy company powers up solar market for investors
    A GOLD Coast energy company (Energy Income) is hoping commercial landlords plug into a new solar power package it claims is a “win win” scenario for tenants and investors…
    Gold Coast Bulletin – 18 Jan 2019

    to top it off, 9News kept making out like the Barty/Kvitová match would start after the news. instead, first set was already done and, so far, it’s not looking good for Ash. oh dear.

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      robert rosicka

      Pat , new scam I talked about late last year , the Tennant would pay it off in my case but you’d have to be a mongrel dog if you forced your Tennant to pay for your solar .

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        pat

        Robert Rosicka –

        thought i’d heard about something similar. must be what you wrote previously.

        if you can find more detail, please post it.

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    Another Ian

    Ummmm! Some people there aren’t going to like this

    “Mao et al 2019 Show an Upcoming 1-Deg C + Decline in Global Land Surface Temperatures by the Early 2100s”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/21/mao-et-al-2019-show-an-upcoming-0-6-deg-c-decline-in-global-land-surface-temperatures-by-the-early-2100s/

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    TdeF

    More on semantics, words.

    Fix Climate Science? The Science?

    The real achievement of the people pushing the Global Warming scam in 1988 (as opposed to Global Cooling which was current) was to create this new language, this new ‘science’, Climate Science. In Climate Science, you do not need any rational fact based science. So Tim Flannery and Al Gore are both qualified. One as Chief Climate Commissioner (whatever that means) and the other as Nobel prize winner, presumably in ‘Climate Science’, ‘The Science’.

    In fact Climate science as distinguished from meteorology does not exist. It is manufactured. The very fact that 97% of scientists according to JohIn Cook et al explicitly excludes meteorologists defines it as a new non logical field populated by people who call themselves anything they like. It pays very well. So mathematician physicist Michael Mann became a Climate Scientist overnight and has a PhD in tree rings. So did tens of thousands of others.

    There is no Climate Science to fix. It is not meteorology. It is certainly not to be confused with the weather over a day, a week or a month. It is a special long term science which does not relate to the day to day trivia of the weather but is far above such mundane matters. The Climate is not just the sum of days, it is a new science. Plus as we can see over the last 30 years, it has been completely wrong. You just have to believe.

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    theRealUniverse

    Via Iceagenow
    DR Roger Higgs, consultant geologist.
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325805849_Global_warming_ended_in_2016_proof_that_the_sun_not_CO2_drives_Earth's_climate
    He says – geologists failed to speak out. (against this AGW thing.) Maybe they thought it was so ridiculous that it wasnt worth saying anything.

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      AndrewWA

      I work with a number of seemingly intelligent geologists who have joined the Church of Climate Scientology.

      Any discussions usually include statements such as:

      “I’m not interested in your facts or logic, I prefer to believe in the anecdotal evidence and the 97% of scientists”.
      End of discussion.

      PS I’m a Mining Engineer.

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    TdeF

    Also on Briebart

    ‘Devout socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) says that the world will stop spinning in a dozen years if “climate change” is left unchecked. ‘

    So we have a departure from the norm. Usually world ending, end of days scenarios take exactly 10 years. That is according to Prince Charles and the Pope and many others over the last 30 years since 1988. However newly elected extreme socialist Ocasio-Cortez says that the world will stop spinning in 12 years.

    It shows that socialism is dangerously mad. This is being written from 2 metres above sea level at a beach which was supposed to be 30 metres under water by now. The only constant are the surreal predictions of ‘The Science’. They make Scientology look sensible.

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    GADAB

    ‘The E-Cat SK[1:] is a product designed to be used in … electricity generation.’
    The death knell for intermittent renewables, oversized nuclear fission plants and grandiose nuclear fusion research.

    [1:] https://www.prweb.com/releases/leonardo_corporation_to_introduce_revolutionary_new_e_cat_sk_heating_technology_in_worldwide_broadcast/prweb16046298.htm

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    pat

    apparently the contract signed means we have to turn it on when there’s still enough water to last 2 years, even if no rain falls in the catchment area during that time! Nathan Rees sounds so smug:

    22 Jan: 9News: Sydney desalination plant to be switched on by Saturday
    by Chris O’Keefe
    Sydney’s controversial desalination plant is likely to become fully operational within days, for the first time in its history…
    The “trigger point” for the desalination plant to become operational is 60 per cent water levels at Warragamba Dam, it currently sits at 60.3 per cent…

    The pricing tribunal found in a December report that water bills will increase annually by about $25 to $35 once it’s switched on.
    “Customers are unlikely to experience this bill increase until 2019-2020, when the desalination plant would reach full production” IPART said.
    The $1.8 billion Kurnell facility was announced by Labor’s Bob Carr in 2005 and opened in 2010.

    It’s been “switched on” for test periods but has never supplied any drinking water to the Sydney basin.
    The plant was heavily criticised by the Liberal and National Party during its construction as a “white elephant”, and has been costing around $166 million a year to be kept in “hibernation”…

    Even if the dam levels are replenished, the government can’t just switch the desalination plant off.
    “The desalination plant will stay on for 14 months, ***that’s part of the contractual arrangements,” Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said.
    The facility was badly damaged in a storm in 2015 and has only just been fully repaired.

    Former Labor Premier and Water Minister Nathan Rees has told 9News, the decision to build the plant has now been vindicated.
    Mr Rees claims if Sydney continues to grow, he believes another plant is “almost a certainty”.

    The facility was leased by the O’Farrell Government for 50 years to a private Canadian consortium in 2012 for $2.3 billion.
    Shadow Water Minister Chris Minns said now it’s operational, that money could have been returned to taxpayers.
    “The money is collected from the NSW taxpayer and sent overseas,” Mr Minns said.
    “If it was still owned by the taxpayer it could be reinvested into the Sydney Water network, it could be used to ease the cost of your bills.”
    https://www.9news.com.au/2019/01/22/18/03/sydney-news-desalination-plant-to-be-switched-on-by-saturday

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    pat

    ???

    15 Jan: Nature: How much can forests fight climate change?
    Trees are supposed to slow global warming, but growing evidence suggests they might not always be climate saviours.
    by Gabriel Popkin
    With nations making little progress controlling their carbon emissions, many governments and advocates have advanced plans to plant vast numbers of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an attempt to slow climate change. But emerging research suggests that trees might not always help as much as some hope…

    Many scientists applaud the push for expanding forests, but some urge caution. They argue that forests have many more-complex and uncertain climate impacts than policymakers, environmentalists and even some scientists acknowledge. Although trees cool the globe by taking up carbon through photosynthesis, they also emit a complex potpourri of chemicals, some of which warm the planet. The dark leaves of trees can also raise temperatures by absorbing sunlight. Several analyses in the past few years suggest that these warming effects from forests could partially or fully offset their cooling ability…

    ***At the same time, some researchers worry about publishing results challenging the idea that forests cool the planet. One scientist even received death threats after writing a commentary that argued against planting trees to prevent climate change…

    “People want an answer; they want to be able to say, ‘this is what we should do’,” says Gordon Bonan, a geoscientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. When it comes to forests and their ability to cool the climate, he says, “there are a lot of misstatements or overplaying of what can be done.” …

    Atmospheric chemist Nadine Unger, then at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, conducted one of the first global studies examining one part of this exchange: the influence of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, emitted by trees…
    She followed up on her research paper by writing an opinion piece in The New York Times entitled ‘To Save the Planet, Don’t Plant Trees’, which argued that the large uncertainties around the extent to which forests cool or warm the climate made tree planting a risky strategy for fighting climate change.

    ***The article, and especially the headline (which Unger did not write), triggered a tsunami of complaints from researchers, who disputed the science and said the piece threatened to undermine years of research and advocacy. A group of 30 forest scientists wrote a response on the environmental news website Mongabay, saying, “We strongly disagree with Professor Unger’s core message.”

    ***Unger says she received death threats, and that some colleagues stopped speaking to her…

    To estimate the climate impact of planting forests in different parts of the United States, ecologist Christopher Williams at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, is combining global satellite data collected over more than a decade with carbon-sequestration figures based on data from the US Forest Service…
    Getting planners to adopt such methods could prove challenging, however. Williams has found that some resist considering albedo effects, including representatives of companies hoping to sell carbon credits for forest projects. “Even other scientists sometimes have disbelief in the magnitude of the albedo effect, or even its existence,” he says.

    ***“I have heard scientists say that if we found forest loss cooled the planet, we wouldn’t publish it.” …
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00122-z

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    pat

    FT still dreaming:

    21 Jan: Financial Times: Renewables boom fails to dent investment allure of hydrocarbons
    Transition to lower carbon economy looks set to be led by Asia, not Europe or the US
    by Nick Butler
    (The writer is an energy commentator for the FT and chair of the King’s Policy Institute at King’s College London)

    The transition to a lower carbon economy has been long promised but the reality remains elusive.There is no doubt that the costs of renewables — led by solar and onshore wind — are now materially cheaper than they ever have been, having fallen respectively to the point at which the International Energy Agency in its latest short term outlook sees prices falling to between $20 and $50 per megawatt hour.

    That means they can compete with other fuels, even if some of the costs of providing back up to cover the intermittency of renewable supplies are included. In some markets, neither subsidies nor protected market shares will be necessary.
    Why then is the pace of change in the sector, especially in the developed world, so slow?

    Hydrocarbons continue to dominate with oil, gas and coal providing over 80 per cent of energy supply. Most serious long term forecasts suggest that dominance will decline only slowly and that renewables will still be providing little more than 15 per cent of the world’s electricity needs in 20 years’ time…

    The reasons are straightforward. The energy majors continue to generate high yields. Despite price volatility, the returns look secure — the industry has successfully adapted to low oil and gas prices and most of the companies continue to generate plenty of new investment projects. For investors, the choice is easy.
    ..

    As reported in the FT in December, none of the majors invests more than 5 per cent of total capex on low carbon projects. In every case, oil and gas receive more than 95 per cent of the annual total

    China already dominates the production of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries and is a world leader in grid technology. In the absence of a serious consolidation of the renewables sector in Europe and the US, we may soon find that the worldwide transition to lower carbon economy is a project led by Asia.
    https://www.ft.com/content/32237728-133f-11e9-a168-d45595ad076d

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      pat

      for Nick Butler –

      don’t you read your own paper?

      22 Jan: Financial Times: China spends $36bn on coal-fired power despite emissions goals
      China financed more than a quarter of all coal plants announced outside the country last year according to a new report, ***putting its clean energy image at risk as Chinese institutions fund coal-fired projects in emerging markets.

      Chinese institutions last year provided $36bn of financing for coal plants outside the country, 26 per cent of the 399 gigawatts of such plants planned or committed last year, according to a report published by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a US-based non-profit.

      As development banks scale back or completely halt their investment in coal-backed energy projects, China has emerged as a chief lender for such power plants, putting its international policies at odds with its domestic agenda to cut coal use, reduce carbon emissions and boost consumption of renewable energy…
      https://www.ft.com/content/baaa32dc-1d42-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65

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    pat

    22 Jan: EnergyLiveNews: New onshore wind installations at lowest level since 2011
    New analysis reveals the figure fell by nearly 80% last year
    By Priyanka Shrestha
    Installations of new onshore wind farms have hit the lowest level in seven years.
    That’s according to new analysis by RenewableUK, which found the figure fell by nearly 80% last year since 2011.
    A total of 598MW of new onshore wind capacity was installed last year, consisting of 263 turbines at 54 sites – a fall from 2.66GW installed the year before.

    The trade body suggests the announcement of Hitachi suspending the development of a new nuclear power station at Wylfa in north Wales adds to the gap in clean energy needed to meet the UK’s carbon targets…
    With the closure of ageing nuclear plants and other power stations in the 2020s, the nation faces a shortfall of more than 55TWh by 2030, the analysis adds…READ ON
    https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/01/22/new-onshore-wind-installations-at-lowest-level-since-2011/

    behind paywall:

    22 Jan: UK Times: Undersea rocks could store power from wind farms
    by Rhys Blakely
    Britain could store enough renewable electricity to last through winter by creating vast reservoirs of compressed air under the North Sea, a study has suggested.
    Researchers from the universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde propose using electricity generated from wind and tidal power to force hundreds of millions of cubic metres of air into porous sandstone formations.

    These undersea reservoirs of compressed air could be charged during the summer, with the air released during the depths of winter to drive turbines that would produce electricity when demand rose.
    Supporters of the technology say that it would address one of the biggest challenges facing renewable energy sources: our inability to turn them on and off to meet our needs…
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/517b3b2a-1dc0-11e9-bcfa-eb6ef536f22f

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    Ciantar

    Now to get these people to put up:
    “No grid or subsidies for us- its too important.”
    It’ll show how serious these people are.

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    Crakar24

    Did the vic-nsw interconnect break?

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