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Weekend Unthreaded
 Photo by Geoff Sherrington
8.9 out of 10 based on 32 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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At least a fossil leaves an everlasting impression.
Received a letter from my daughter’s on line school last week. She has been recognised as gifted in maths and science.
She also received congratulations by hand written correspondence from the teachers in relation to the subjects.
That’s my gal…gloat.
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Well, I am really pleased for you, and your daughter. It is great, and she will be buzzing. But remember it is a two edged sword. Your next tasks are to teach her humility, and to encourage a sense of ironic humour, and to make sure that she keeps a circle of friends she can trust. She will need them, as she gets older.
And, if you ask me, that fish doesn’t look very well at all.
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Wise advice, Rereke. Will convey such.
Thanks.
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Scaper,
Your daughter takes after the wife? At least hats what my wife claims about our childrens academic achievements
RW,
It looks like white bait, you probably ate them for dinner 🙂
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My mother reckons I got her intelligence and that’s why she has none.
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Nah, I don’t like the eyes – they watch you …
Now, if we are talking Bluff Oysters, or Stewart Island Crays, or Bay of Plenty Scollops, with fresh kumera, now we are talking. Nothing brings all the Cuzzies out of the bush like the smell of cooking Crays.
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Rereke, having grown up in NZ I still remember Kumera having dark purple veins through it yet I cannot buy anything like it here in Oz. Can you still get it in NZ? Don’t talk to me about bluff oysters – we used to get oysters and chips when I was young – loved them.
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Crakar
When Mrs. Speedy questions my intelligence, I always tell her that I was smart enough to marry her.
Game, set and match. Thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys…
Cheers,
Speedy
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ROFLMAO…..
Nice one, Centurion….
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Let’s hope the ‘science’ they are referring to is not AGW and the maths is not AGW ‘modelling’.
21
Nice photo Geoff; did you have chips with it?
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Online school?
How does that work scaper…?
Can people like me do their weekend detention online too? And their lines?
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PeterK asked an interesting question in the earlier Thread about Big Greens Billions, which intrigued me enough to go and do some checking. (and chasing up accurate and current data is not an easy thing) The question was about how the UK now has around 30,000 wind turbines, and while some of those turbines on poles may be small units for smaller users, the exercise I then undertook deals with just dedicated Wind Plants, and not just for the UK, but for the whole World. (now see how accurate and current data would be hard to find) That UK total for actual dedicated Wind plant towers is only around 5,500.
While these figures are for existing wind power installations, I’ll use those figures and compare them with new technology USC coal fired power plants. In so doing, I’ll use current costing for the equivalent wind power and compare those costings for the new coal fired power. As you can imagine, existing wind plants built across the years would not have cost as much as for new plants, (and the same applies for existing coal fired power plants) but this is a direct comparison of new versus new, and in reality, aren’t I using the new wind totals which are allegedly getting cheaper as years pass, and coal fired power which is allegedly becoming more expensive, so we are told. This exercise shoots that statement of cheaper wind power stone cold dead.
So then, just how much is there right now for existing wind power? I’ll use the bogus Nameplate total always used by renewable urgers, and then do the correct figures for actual power delivered.
Existing wind power comes in at a current Nameplate of 325,000MW, and that equates to around 165,000 Individual towers, probably well more than that because a lot of older towers only have smaller 1.5MW generators, (many even smaller than that) and here I’m using the current average of around 2MW. (while some current units have the newer 3 to 3.5MW generators) That overall total for wind Capacity of 325,000MW equates to around 160 large scale coal fired power plants, (2000MW+) and keep that figure of 160 plants in your mind.
Now, the more important figures are for the actual power delivered for consumption. For wind power, it comes in at just under 540TWH per year, which is actually a huge amount of power. However, let’s break it down then by using the yearly conversion to find the Capacity Factor. This gives us the figure of 18.9%, which is pitiful really, no other word for it. Equating that to an average daily power delivery, that comes in at an average of just on four and a half hours.
Four and a half hours of power delivery per day.
That’s pretty poor really, and if anything else had a ‘working rate’ percentage as low as that, it would be laughed out of existence. Now, some would say here that I’m using older existing wind plants here which would lower the overall total Capacity Factor, but China has only started ramping up their wind power in the last ten years, so these are in fact the modern plants, and China’s Capacity Factor is in fact a little lower than the overall at only 16.7%. The U.S. is a little better than the average at 28%, UK, 21%, Spain 21% and Germany at only 16.3%.
Some of you may perceive an anomaly here. Most new or near new currently existing wind plants have a Capacity Factor around 30%, so my use here of that figure of only 18.9% could be seen as an attempt to make wind power look bad, but that’s not the case. In much the same manner as a coal fired power plants have a lowering Capacity Factor over their lifetime, the same applies for wind power, and this data bears out that fact, because it takes into account ALL wind power, and some of those units are now approaching the end of their effective life, and the Capacity Factor has dropped markedly over the years, thus lowering the lifetime average Capacity Factor.
So, a total power delivery of 540TWH. How many large scale coal fired power plants would be required to deliver that amount of power? The new USC coal fired plants are currently averaging a Capacity Factor of around 92.5%, but over the years that will get lower, so, a lifetime average Capacity Factor would be closer to 80%, which is slightly more than 4 times better than for wind power.
So, remember I asked you to keep the Nameplate equivalent of 160 plants in mind. Now we find that the same power from ALL that wind power will be delivered from only 40 of those coal fired power plants. Again, this is also not an equal comparison, as coal fired power plants have a life span of around 50 years, while wind plants can barely manage half that at 25 years.
So, in truth, those 40 coal fired plants will actually deliver double the total power delivered from all that wind power.
OK then, let’s do the sums for the cost comparison, and here, keep in mind that coal fired power construction cost is supposed to be rising sharply, and wind power construction costs are supposed to be dropping dramatically.
For comparison here I’ll use the proposed King Island Wind plant which will cost $2 Billion and have a Nameplate of 600MW. For the coal fired plant, I’ll use the German USC plant, the 2 units at Neurath which burn Lignite. That plant is 2200MW and comes in at a cost of $4.5 Billion, again, both figures here expressed in AUD, and I’ll lower the Nameplate for the coal from this plant’s 2200 and just use 2000, and here note how, as with everything I do, I’m quoting best case for wind, and worst case for coal fired power. While that cost for the Neurath plant is $4.5 Billion, part of that is for the expensive addition of the coal drying unit at the front end, but hey, here again I’m using the worst case for coal fired power.
So, for a total Nameplate existing for wind, of 325,000MW, then that’s divided by 600 and then multiplied by $2 Billion, which totals out at $1083 Billion and I’ll even round that down.
$1,080 BILLION ….. sunk in yet?
40 new coal fired plants will deliver the same yearly power, so that’s $4.5 Billion multiplied by 40, which totals out at $180 Billion.
$180 BILLION.
Umm, that’s only 16.7% of the cost for the wind power, or wind power plant construction will cost 6 times as much. Then, remember, you actually get twice as much power over the life of all those wind plants.
The coal fired plants will actually be able to deliver power on a 24/7/365 basis, as long as the powdered coal gets pushed in at the front end, only closing for scheduled maintenance. The wind plants will deliver you their power for around 4.5 hours a day on average.
Add on the cost of coal for the full 25 years and the cost is still well less than half the cost for all those wind towers, and keep in mind here that the coal fired plants have double the life span, so to equal the power delivery from those coal fired plants, you need to construct a whole new total for wind while all the coal fired plants require is another 25 years of coal.
The cost is unimportant in this day and age of Billions available for wind power because far and away the most important thing is actual power delivery and the time that power is available for, which is where the coal fired power wins with no contest.
What would also add significant costs to wind is their maintenance rate, for almost 170,000 wind units compared to only 40 coal fired plants, the failure rates for wind, also high, and the added cost of having gas fired power in place to cover the time wind is not delivering power. Add in the emissions entailed over the life of all that wind, all the construction concrete emissions, and you quickly find that wind power is enormously expensive for very little end result, the reliable power delivery from those 40 coal fired power plants.
Frankly, there is no comparison.
Do not ever believe the spin from the green zealot wind power supporters.
Tony.
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Thanks for overview Tony, keep ’em coming. Meanwhile, here in the UK, we have a situation where someone has erected a wind turbine and may have to take it down.
Here’s the link – the battle goes on!
http://www.wacat.co.uk
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Hi Tony, let me have a go at peer review of your little research effort.
What is the source for this nonsense, a whole page of personal opinion and “back of the envelope calculations” which are all wrong. Just a load of rubbish. The entire UK grid only has a capacity of about 80gW and you have calculated that turbines which make up about 10% of the total capacity you calculate at 325gW. Where do you get this from?? Everything that come after this are just more calculations based on initial errors.
This is the kind of nonsense that peer review is there to prevent.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=uk+electricity+generating+capacity&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=VmqEU-zgA8SN8QeT5IH4Dg
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Do peer reviewers often miss the fact that the figures were for worldwide wind energy, not England? Also, are peer-reviewers the guys that sell the turbines, becaues I see a really severe conflict of interest there. Tony was clear this was an approximation and was worldwide. The “peer-reviewers” need to wake up and read carefully. (The Global Wind Energy Council says in 2010 there were 225,000 turbines worldwide, which is higher than Tony’s 165,000 since not all of these are 2MW or higher. It’s interesting that the page has such outdated statistics. You would think these people would be way proud of their wind. Also, it says the 225,000 turbines are “spinning’, but it does not say producing power or connected to the grid. Bet your “peer-review” wouldn’t catch that one.)
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The myriad of folk who refer to “big oil” are a bit out of date with what has happened in the O&G businesses.
Big Oil used to be internationally spread organisations such as Exxon, Shell, BP, Total, etc. These days, those companies are chicken feed – in production and particularly in reserves. Big Oil for the past 15+ years have been the national oil companies of Saudi, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, etc, etc.
And since the Arabs are not the greatest donors you have ever seen, it is highly unlikely they are backing anyone other than the palaces in their kingdoms.
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Not too long ago, I read a report from the government (UK) that work was being done to reduce the cost of wind power to “just” £100 per megawatt-hour (MWh), while more conventional methods were rising from £55/MWh. My initial reaction was along the lines of: “What? Twice the cost of coal!? How can that be of benefit to us?” Followed closely by: “At least twice the cost of coal!” having noticed that they had cunningly dodged revealing the actual cost of wind. I have long kept an eye out for what the price of wind-power really is; naturally, this sort of information seems not to be available for public perusal.
Thank you, Tony, for taking the time to address that question.
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Tony, you mentioned the matter of the cost of the fuel at the end of your analysis. You didn’t elaborate with the figures for that cost but I imagine there is some uncertainty there with the future price of coal for those investing in a coal fired station. The gas turbine power was looking quite economical and had the huge advantage of being highly dispatchable (and thus a good partner technology for when there are non-dispatchables in the mix) but that took a big downturn as the gas prices skyrocketed. The EIA has some forecast figures for the cost of electricity looking forward at plants commissioned in 2019. They concede it is a bit of a black art forecasting these costs but have made a good attempt to do so. The wind versus coal does not look as disparate as your estimates (at least when they look at specifically at ‘onshore wind plants’). They also attempt to mention where US Gov subsidies might apply so you can see the cost estimates without the subsidy (to an extent).
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm
Of that 325GW installed base you worked from, does the majority supply power into large grids already being supplied with coal fired energy?
The big advantage of the coal fired is really only realized in a large grid. A ‘small scale’ coal fired station is probably not going to fit the bill for a small isolated grid like King Island. I don’t think the 24/7/365 thing is the issue there, as any wind power they get is simply less diesel fuel used.
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Joe
You didn’t think that King Island would use 600 MW surely? Or even 100 Mw?
the whole intent of the project was to justify a further marine cable to the mainland, to overcome the constraints of the Bass Link.
It could only ever be justified with the economic interference of the RET and the tax on air. Of course it would have also alleviated the dilemma of providing electricity to Bass Strait islands.
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Rod, Thanks for your comments on the King Island setup. I am not defending or promoting the King Island project as the ‘right’ solution. You seem to be privy to a particular stated ‘intent’ of the project, perhaps you could elaborate on that and say who’s intent this was and what their reasoning was. I have no doubt the whole ‘green’ thing was probably milked. The whole concept of the long power lines across Bass Strait to me seems somewhat silly (it might even be the longest in the world). Is it Victoria looking after Tasmania with some backup or is it Victoria buying it’s share of ‘green energy’ from Tasmania’s hydro just to meet the RET?
The point I am raising with Tony is that his analysis used the costs of a single very large coal station to compared with a large number of relatively small wind generators. I am asking what percentage of those widely distributed wind stations could have feasibly been substituted with such large coal fired stations to warrant the comparison. I also suggested that his analysis differed somewhat from the EIA predictions I linked and Tony can probably explain what is going on there. It may be Australia specific, as I have seen more recently some figures on an Australian Solar Thermal pilot which they say would operate at 10 cents which is probably even more than Tony’s ‘double’ figure.
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…. and they were saying that that solar thermal elec price of 10 cents was comparable with wind generated in Australia.
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Of course, and they will also tell you that bacon from flying pigs tastes better, too, and that cow farts can change the weather so long as the flatulence is directed INTO the wind.
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The existing Bass link interconnector is a DC marine cable from Loy Yang to George Town. It is the second longest of its type (400 VDC) the world over. Basslink enhances security of supply on both sides of Bass Strait; protecting Tasmania against the risk of drought-constrained energy shortages and protecting Victoria and southern states against the forecast shortage of peak load power identified in the AEMO Statement of Opportunities. Furthermore, it enables Hydro Tasmania to trade in accordance with AEMO rules.
King Island is currently supplied from the 8.5 MW (nameplate) Currie power station. The load is up and down like a yo-yo. This facility includes a mix of ‘renewables’ and the very necessary diesel backup.
With the current ‘clean energy’ nonsense in place, Hydro Tasmania could see and advantage in an additional link via King Island to the mainland. What better way to justify this investment than with a huge windfarm, subsidised through to the hilt with REC’s and the sales advantage of energy with no tax on air? When the wheels started to fall off the tax on air, the wheels fell off the windfarm bandwagon. This of course was helped immeasurably by the referendum of the King Island residents.
As long as an electricity grid is supplied with equipment with the reliability and availability of modern large coal fired stations, a very large geographical area can be supplied from relatively few locations. In this example the facilities are hydro. However, the GM Shrum and Peace Canyon facilities are supplied from the Williston Lake Reservoir, whose water shed is enormous, and its capacity gigantic).
However, stringing a myriad of small unreliable occasional generators together is like depending on a set of those series Christmas lights.
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Rod, 400kvdc
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Yes of course. I apologise. 500MW would require a massive current at that!
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Tony,
if you look here http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
and in particular look at the way the natural gas generators, and sometimes the foreign interconnects, are being utilized. You’ll see that it appears that they are used to even out the grid variations that the windmills generate.
Not the best or efficient way to run the grid, eh?
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Very deceptive, but cleverly disguised deception. Did anyone notice? No? Here it is, explained.
Take the very worst performance of wind-turbines, at 17 percent capacity factor. Note that good wind sites, the best wind sites are offshore at 35 to 40 percent capacity factor. Note also that the average power plant on the grid has only about 55 to 60 percent capacity factor.
Now notice that the author uses a baseload, coal-fired very large-scale power plant, of 2,000 MW. Of course such a plant has a high capacity factor, it’s baseload design. Of course such a power plant has low unit costs, it enjoys economy of scale.
Now notice that the wind plant he compares it to has only 600 MW and 200 turbines at 3 MW each. Such turbines are not the largest, so do not enjoy the economy of scale. Vesta has, for example, built and is now operating an 8 MW turbine offshore. Economy of scale comes into play with larger and larger turbines. A fair comparison would be to compare a coal-fired plant of approximately 500 MW, to the 3 MW turbines. And, place the coal-fired plant far from the grid so it must have long transmission lines run.
Further, the coal fired plant he chooses for comparison will likely not require many miles of transmission lines – are those in his cost estimate? No? Yet, most wind-farms today must have that as part of their cost.
Next, he states that wind turbines must be replaced after 25 years, but his coal plant will run for 50 years. More mis-direction. After 25 years (if that is even a realistic life for wind, it will likely be much, much longer), a wind-farm will not require 100 percent replacement. What will occur is simply repowering, with only the worn parts replaced. There is no need for new towers, new transmission lines, new real estate to be modified, new foundations to be poured, so the repowering cost will likely be only about half the initial cost. But, the author does not mention that. He also does not mention the serious capital costs in a coal-fired plant as major equipment wears out, and requires replacement. Some parts will make it the entire 50 years, but not all of them. Those replacement costs are non-trivial.
Next, the author does not mention that coal has a very limited supply world-wide, and will likely run out or experience dramatic price increases due to scarcity in only 90 years, more or less. Some countries will run out much sooner, as India, for example, has coal reserves of less than 20 years remaining. Wind, though, will be blowing just like always in 100 years, 1000 years, and more.
However, such argumentation tactics are pretty much the usual for the anti-wind crowd.
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Roger, please factor in effects like this:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-01/wind-turbines-leave-clouds-and-energy-inefficiency-their-wake
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That sounds like a bunch of lawyer twaddle.
a) 40% capacity factor is in your dreams. For what period, 3 hours? 17% is a generous figure to use across the spectrum of windfarms.
b) The comparison is legitimate. Why would a cost benefit analysis for a new windfarm be compared to an old power station? 2000 MW is a logical size of new facilities, in China, Germany, and as it was even 40 years ago in North America.
c) The once proposed wind project used for comparison does NOT include the cost of transmission lines. Logically, any new coal fired plant would be located relatively close to existing high voltage transmission lines. In this continent there is no shortage of such locations that are in close proximity to coal.
d) The life expectancy of wind is in the order of 15 to 20 years. Where have any operated successfully for longer periods? As for large steam plant, it is just well run in at fifty years.
e) All equipment requires maintenance, but the cost of constant drive transmissions and the need for very large mobile lifting plant puts wind in a class all its own. In addition, since wind is available only now and again, a facility of similar size must exist somewhere for backup. Did you take that into account?
f) You might be short of coal in California, but on this continent there IS enough to last for a thousand years.
g) What is usual for your crowd is that you can’t see past your fee.
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Rod
You are right re coal. Roger is obviously unaware of the huge undersea deposits found ( and measured !)a few years back off the coast of Norway. Recoverable ? I’m sure ways will be found to recover it if it is needed.
But 90 years is a long time and I’m sure thorium will be on stream well before then , thanks to the Indian and Chinese engineers and scientists.
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Here is the link to the details on the Norwegian coal resource
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/03/3000-billion-tons-of-coal-off-norways-coast.html
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Roger Sowell:
Very deceptive, but cleverly disguised deception.
Firstly, no-one builds 500MW coal fired stations because they would be more expensive than a 2000MW station.
Secondly: the average power plant on the grid includes those things like OCGT which are run at 10-15% capacity factor as they are there for covering short periods of supply shortage, such as wind turbine output dropping off. So the rush to wind turbines has led many countries having to install more OCGT plants. Curiously their emissions (nor their running costs) are not included in the case for wind. So the actual CF of a coal fired will easily be 80% or more as stated.
Thirdly, off shore wind might be more available but the cost of the installation and maintenance is such that the cost is very much higher than on-shore wind.
Fourthly, Economy of scale DOES NOT comes into play with larger and larger turbines. GO look at their costs. The cost per MW capacity rises from turbines about 2 MW capacity but with 3MW becoming the preference and the squeeze on manufacturers margins due to declining orders, there isn’t enough difference to make the comparison invalid. The larger the turbine (capacity) the higher the cost as the stresses on the blades means higher strength materials and production methods are in use. Vacuum moulding perhaps, carbon or other fibres in place of glass and ultimately vacuum autoclaving of epoxy. And the increased costs of the tower and base along with extra costs in handling.
Fifthly, the Capacity Figure used was 18.9% which is the world average. Yes, new turbines in the best places for wind might start at 30% CF or better, but as you run out of top sites the average drops, hence the UK figure of 21% down from 26% about 10 years ago (although that lower figure includes performance degradation as the turbines as they age and possibly a weather factor).
Lastly “After 25 years (if that is even a realistic life for wind, it will likely be much, much longer), a wind-farm will not require 100 percent replacement. What will occur is simply repowering, with only the worn parts replaced.” Re-powering occurs in the UK at 7-9 years, and the available figures suggest that a life of 19 years is about all that can be realistically expected. Maintenance costs in the UK average 10% of the income, in Germany over 20%. Indeed in Germany it seems that the return from wind turbines for Cooperatives is 2-2.5% p.a. – hardly brilliant and will turn into a loss when subsidies are cut or dropped.
You are also assuming that the steel tower will never rust, the bolts never pull out of the concrete base and that same base will be stable and not eroded.
Oh, and wind is not always blowing, that is the fundamental problem with it.
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Roger perhaps needs to review his investments in Berkshire Hathaway. Roger not only kissed the Blarney Stone, he must have seduced it!
This is what Warren Buffet ACTUALLY said “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
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Kissing the Blarney Stone implies he has luck. No, he just donated to the Kenyan’s campaign. That’s the world’s highest IRR investment.
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No, seriously, Roger is correct here. (cue Curly)
What needs to be done is to completely and utterly disregard those wind towers that have low capacity factors, you know, just leave them out of any data altogether, just show the good ones.
As I mentioned in my main comment, China has been ramping up wind power considerably over the last few years, so virtually all their wind power is new, and yet their overall Capacity Factor is only 16.7%, and because they have the most wind power, that low figure drags down the overall average.
All along, wind power has been spinning that it is a viable replacement for large scale coal fired power generation, so the comparison is indeed a valid one. For more than 6 years now in the U.S. wind power has also ramped up considerably, and yet, not one coal fired plant greater than 750MW has closed. The only ones which have closed are the older plants (in most cases ancient at 50 years plus) and smaller plants(all less than 100MW and most of them around the 10MW and less size) On top of that all that closed total power delivery has been replaced, in more than its totality by Natural Gas fired power.
Wind power has not replaced one large scale coal fired power plant.
If the best wind power is geographically out of the way, then of course part of their cost should include all that infrastructure to get the power to the grid, but hey, leave that out of the cost equation also, and that way, wind power becomes cheap.
Tony.
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It appears I struck deep at the heart of the anti-wind crowd here. It’s a pleasure to cross swords (or words). I’ll ignore the infantile insults about lawyers – I’m a chemical engineer who also practices law.
Wind energy is not designed (yet) to replace any coal-fired plants. I suspect you would not expect a diesel-powered dump truck to compete and win at a Formula One race. The truck is not designed to compete in that arena. Why, then, are wind-energy projects expected to replace a coal-fired plant? The current wind-energy systems do exactly what they are designed to do: they produce power when the wind blows, as efficiently and as economically as their design and location allow. As for requiring fossil-fueled backup, even hydroelectric plants require backup for periods of drought. Should all the dams be torn down and the hydroelectric plants shut down?
The fact is that wind energy is in the teen-ager portion of the life development curve, with unit costs steadily declining as the industry matures, and experience is gained with larger turbines. Capacity Factors are rather good, as I noted above, for recent and future projects.
Costs actually are steadily declining, as Warren Buffett observed when he placed his recent order for $1 billion (US) for wind turbines in Iowa.
Coal may be great (for now), but notice what China’s rapid increase in coal consumption has done to the world reserves. The previous 200-year reserve lifetime has decreased to 90 to 100 years. When China doubles their coal-fired generating capacity, as they intend to, and India also ramps up their consumption, the coal reserves world-wide will decrease to perhaps 40 to 50 years. Sobering, isn’t it? Sure, Australia has much of the remaining reserves, and good on ya for that. Enjoy the sales — for 50 years. After that, what will Australia do for power? Harness kangaroos and make them jump against rubber bands? PETA might have a problem with that.
It would be far, far better to slide off the coal-fired bandwagon and begin cheering for the infinitely renewable side. Those of you who are under 30 years of age will live to see the end of coal. It will not be pretty.
Wind’s problems are already solved. Larger turbines, better sites with stronger and more steady wind, and pumped storage using underwater hollow spheres (the MIT solution) are no pie-in-the-sky, these are realities.
My recent article gives a view of future energy systems, including the integrated wind with storage system:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/long-term-energy-supply.html
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Warren Buffet meant costs to him, not to consumers. He’s very good at making statements that sound like they mean something other that what he is actually saying.
Turbines are not renewables—they are energy from weather. You remember weather—highly unpredictable and uncontrollable. Why would you want a source of energy from something completely unreliable. I also don’t think turbines are in their teenage years. They were going up in Iowa in the 1980’s. That’s over 30 years. Maybe they should have saved all those billions of dollars and environmental damage from turbine manufacture and installation until the energy source grew up? How long does it take to perfect and how many billions should we waste?
Hydro doesn’t fluctuate by the hour. Wind can go from 10 to 50 mph in 2 minutes. The comparison is disingenuous, to say the least.
Pumped storage—where in the real world is it used? A couple of places? That would still be “pie in the sky”.
(I believe you are stating wind is to replace coal. Did I read you wrong? You just are saying “Not today” but you seem to be saying it will happen.)
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Buffett did indeed state the cost to him decreased, I believe it was 28 percent in just a couple of years. As to the cost to the consumers, you will find that Iowa (where Buffett’s turbines are) has one of the lowest electricity prices in the nation. Iowa also has the highest percent of wind-energy on the grid. Funny how that works out: more wind, lower electrical prices.
Next, you argue that turbines are not renewable. The wind is variable, but not unpredictable. The wind has blown forever, and will blow forever. If that is not renewable, then what is?
As for 30 years, yes, sometimes technology takes awhile to make progress. The materials of construction, construction techniques, and computer design techniques have all made great advances in 30 years. We engineers are not magicians, even though the US EPA believes we are. We make our advances one small step at a time. The fact that improved turbine technology has allowed costs to decline is a testament to the ingenuity of the wind turbine engineers. We are very close to not requiring any subsidy at all, and that is part of the main goal. Actually, the main goal is to have a mature, low-cost, reliable technology ready for the day when coal runs out. That day, as I wrote above, is within our lifetime. A grim reality, but true.
Next, you argue hydroelectric not failing by the hour, as wind does. I agree, hydroelectric only fails by the year, or decade, depending on the drought here in the Western USA. I suspect the same is true in Australia. What is the grid supposed to do when the lakes are dry for year after year? At least the wind will blow again tomorrow, or next week.
As for pumped storage hydroelectric, the USA presently has 20 GW installed, more or less, with another 10 GW economically viable. Australia could do this easily, as I understand you have numerous mountains, valleys, and potential for lakes both high and low. Furthermore, Australia could easily install the MIT underwater spheres along the coast. You have plenty of coast, from what I have seen.
Finally, you are absolutely correct that I assert that wind (and other renewables or regenerables) will replace coal-fired power. When the coal runs out, or becomes outrageously expensive, something will be required to replace that power.
Coal experts have identified the world’s coal deposits and determined that at current consumption rates, there is only 90 to 100 years remaining. India will run out in less than 20 years. As I wrote above, as China and India increase their coal usage, the years remaining decreases.
Hard, sobering facts.
As Jo Nova writes, it is far better to stop funding climate change studies and put the money to good use in medical research. Similarly, it is high time to stop building new coal-fired plants because there is not enough coal in the world to run them after they wear out in 50 years. Far better to spend the money improving a never-ending energy resource: wind with pumped storage.
Notice that there is nothing at all in the argument about CO2 emissions. It is a matter of resource availability and consumption rates. Coal is running out, and quickly. If we want the lights to stay on, there had better be a replacement technology very soon for about one-half of the world’s electric power generation.
014
Denmark has a huge amount of wind energy and extremely high electric rates. There is NO correlation, straightline, as you imply. Wind usually increases costs, sometimes by hiding the costs in rewards from our friendly government. Maybe Denmark doesn’t hide the costs?
Second paragraph: If I can convince the US government that in 50 years I can turn dirt into power and I can make a crude version thereof that hobbles along with subsidies and provides 3% of the US power in a year, you’re all for continued pouring of money into the “dirt to energy” theory because one day it will pay off? Thirty years and 3% of US power. In anything other than a government funded flop, that would be called failure. Without the feds, wind would have gone the way of the Elsel, Beta tapes and all those other losing ideas. Check when the subsidies started and when wind started getting foisted upon the public. I think you’ll find a pretty clear correlation. Considering that in Europe, when the subsidies are ending, the industry is dying, I would think causality might even be possible. Of course, we could remove all subsidies and RSP’s here and test the theory. How about It?
When coal runs out, there’s NG, hydro, geothermal and nuclear. All of which, with the exception of hydro, provide electricity on demand and not just when the weather deems us worthy of power.
Let’s see. Lake runs dry, we build new power plant. Wind doesn’t blow for two or three days, we sit in the dark and wait for it to blow again? Really, you turn your lights off in calm wind? Bet you have a power line to your house, don’t you? You don’t trust wind either.
Unless you mean “renewable=whenever we happen to have it”, wind is not renewable. In the energy field, there is no such thing as renewable. It’s a meaningless marketing term.
See above for the “wind to replace coal” statement. Again, three full-time choices already out there to replace coal, two of which work in any part of the world. Geothermal is limited and hydro to some degree (although some places have hydro in excess much of the time so in some locations, it could easily be full-time). That still leaves NG and nuclear.
100 years ago people thought oil and coal would run out in a few decades. We now have oil and gas for decades and decades and just keep finding more and more. Probably true of coal, too. Just in deeper seams. Arguing that in 100 years or so we will run out of something is meaningless and must find a replacement–no matter how useless and expensive–NOW is irresponsible. If you can get 24/7 electricity without government assistance and you can sell it to public, fine. Otherwise, forget it. You’re just robbing people of money that could be used to find a really good source of energy that works all the time.
Wind with pumped storage takes huge amounts of water and the proper terrain. Plus, you are building TWO power plants to gets the energy one NG plant could produce. You have doubled the cost of the project. Right now, in California, you would use water for electricity? Does that really make sense? Seems “fake hydro” is just as subject to drought as “real hydro”. Unless of course you are building the hydro system underground and completely controlling for evaporation.
Again, there ARE replacements for coal. I repeat, again, as you don’t seem to understand this, we have NG and nuclear. We have hydro and geothermal in some areas. Given another 50 years and no government rewards for bad ideas, we’ll have even better replacements.
(I am not in Australia. I was born in Iowa and grew up there. I am still in the US)
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To Sheri, I’ll try again. The basic premise is that coal will run out in 90 years or so. This is the opinion of coal experts. If you believe their assessment is wrong, then please show exactly how it is wrong.
Nuclear is one of the alternatives you propose. Nuclear will not and cannot be the power supply of the future, as my articles clearly show in the Truth About Nuclear Power see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-one.html
Natural gas will last for some decades, that is true. How many is anyone’s guess.
You also seem fixated on the intermittency of wind as it occurs in most places. We already have wind energy tied into pumped storage hydroelectric in California: the Tehachapi wind area is tied to the nearby Castaic pumped storage plant. Another pumped storage plant is under construction at Eagle Mountain near Palm Springs, California. It too will use power from wind at night. Eagle Mountain is 1,300 MW net generation. You also seem to fail to grasp the MIT underwater technology. It works, and makes wind-energy reliable, and dispatchable. Eagle Mountain is a closed loop system, not taking much water at all once the system is filled.
And yes, in California we use hydroelectric with water making electricity. How else should we get the water out of the lakes and down into the water treatment plants? Would you have us bypass the hydroelectric plants? That would be exceedingly dumb.
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http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-08/business/ct-biz-0208-exelon-div–20130208_1_exelon-nuclear-plants-power-plants
You failed to mention it’s wind subsidies that are contributing to putting the nuclear plants out of business. Again, if we cut all subsidies and tax credits for wind and then see if the cost of nuclear is comparable…
Some news sources from California (KCET) are saying that pumped storage requires more energy to pump the water uphill than it gets back flowing downhill through the turbines. The drought seems to be heading toward damaging the hydro, including pumped storage. I am having difficulty verifying how much electricity the Castic project produces and how much of the pumped storage is tied to the turbines. The plant appears to have been in existence for many years and designed to be used in peak energy situations mostly.
As for the coal, my husband worked at a coal mine that had at least 20 years in the seam they were mining at the time and 2 to 3 times as much coal as had been mined in 50 years in the seam below. There was plenty of coal. It was determined to be not economically feasible to continue mining at the time, but in the future, the coal may become a viable business proposition. Just as horizontal drilling made NG retrievable economically, there may be advances with coal.
It’s fine to use water for hydro if there’s good reasons, such as water being sent downhill to treatment plants. Pumping it uphill is where I can’t see the advantage.
From EIA: “The resulting ratio of coal reserves to consumption is approximately 129 years, meaning that at current rates of consumption, current coal reserves could last that long.”
80
This what’s required to produce this energy is one of the most wind prone states of the USA.
Now imagine if they wanted to double or triple that, even in Iowa. YUM !!
Then realise that only in the central N-S corridor do these ‘very good for wind turbines’ exist.
In other places on the eastern 2/5 or western 2/5 the turbine density would need to be several times larger.
Look at this “percentage of nameplate capacity” information and realise just how disingenuous Roger is really being.
Note that the AVERAGE nameplate capacity for the USA is around 5%
31
Then do some research on the production of the rare earths, of which nearly 95% comes from China.
The greenies are NOT going to like the massive pollution that goes with this production when mining and refining has to start in other countries.
(I wonder if Iowa has any rare earths that they could mine and refine?)
Will the greenies turn a blind eye like they do to the mindless slaughter of avian wildlife.?
31
There is a rare earth mine in California. Wyoming has been looking at the possibility of mining the minerals. Greenland and North Korea have the elements. I don’t know if there are any refineries in the US, but there has been talk of putting one in South Dakota, I believe. Not sure how the greenies are going to like the processing and mining, especially the part where rare minerals are often mixed with radioactive substances. The mine in California reportedly had a radiaton leak and that figured into the closing. How Americans will feel about processing radioactive materials remains to be seen. The enviros usually don’t like those kinds of things.
30
Some reminders of rare earth mining in China.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/01/28/article-1350811-0CF36063000005DC-625_634x286.jpg
http://www.mnn.com/sites/default/files/rare_earth_emissions.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGLC59rCCDc
And we have barely touched the number of wind turbines that would be needed to intermittently produce even 5% of world electricity.
21
And of course , all those people PANICING about the Greenland ice sheet, want to mine rare earths in Greenland..
To provide raw material for wind turbines to stop the Greenland icesheet melting.
Quite BIZARRE !!!
21
After 1500 years of development. Evidently slow learners.
Nothing magic is going to make them work much better than what they do already. Wind power capacity is capped by the ability to harvest the solar energy that’s been converted to convective air currents. The close spacing of towers at typical windfarms means that those downwind of the lead ones are encountering turbulent flow, making their nameplate “capacity” even more of a joke.
Moreover, every obstruction to the wind produces a regional change in climate. That includes not only less wind down-stream in the prevailing direction, but also shifts of precipitation and, in coastal regions, insolation at the coast because the wind farms tend to initiate fog via turbulence and a reduction in the air’s internal energy.
While offshore windfarms offer the potential for higher capacity factor, their costs are substantially higher and their maintainability hugely affected by weather; which means that e.g. North Sea wind farms may not see repairs for 6+months if failure occur at the wrong time. One must also “remember” to put in the undersea cables to connect them all, othewise the thing’s just be spinning their blades, powered by offshore diesel generators at the local “substation”.
It also makes no Engineering (or economic) sense to distribute power generation over 2000+ machines when the same electricity could be produced by a single “machine” requiring less than 1% of the area. Especially if the thousands of machines are connected to the same grid.
40
Bernd,
With offshore wind farms, I really wonder if enough research (if any) has been done into the effects of large numbers of large magnetic fields on the navigation of sea creatures, large and small.
Again, the wind sector gets off SCOTT-FREE from doing proper environmental studies to ensure they don’t overly destroy the local wildlife. (And the Greens don’t care if they do.) !!
If wind farms were held to the same environmental standards as other energy system, NONE would exist !!!
They get away with massive avian destruction of often endangered species, who’s to say that they won’t have a similar disastrous effect on sea creatures.
21
Roger, Roger…. where for art thou…..
We need a comment on post #2.6.4.1.4 to #2.6.4.1.10
or do you feel rogered !! 🙂
Pretty poor lawyer you turned out to be, no defence what-so-ever. 🙁
00
“Why, then, are wind-energy projects expected to replace a coal-fired plant? “
Sheesh!! For an intelligent man, Roger, you really come up with some brahmers! Put it this way: if wind is to survice in the market place it has to be able to live with the costs in the market. Wind is soooooooooooo freakin’ expensive compared to coal, not to mention the huge footprint that Watt for Watt a wind-farm takes compared to coal. You are just so wrong on this.
101
Wind technology is progressing just as predicted years and years ago: unit costs continue to decline, and more and more improvements will further decrease the unit costs so that wind with storage will be the go-to power supply.
It’s hard to argue with facts, but there it is.
If one is willing to take the long view, which I take, and consider the alternatives and the timelines, coal is a dead duck and wind energy is already flying.
Of course, any of you can prove me wrong. Show me the undiscovered coal reserves good for the next 1000 years. Show me the increase in wind-turbine unit costs, that make the steady decline up to now a lie. Show me the impossibility of the MIT submerged spheres for wind energy storage.
Show me the low electric power costs to customers in Iowa are a lie, with 25 percent or more wind energy into that grid. Show me that Iowa is alone in this, that several other states with high wind on their grids also have very high customer prices.
Show me that the Dept of Interior’s 2009 offshore renewables assessment of 900 GW from wind is a fat lie. Show me that the wind is really intermittent in the offshore USA and the DOI’s capacity factor (I remember it as 35 to 40 percent), is way off.
Next, show me that nuclear power is economic, and even feasible for running the planet. Prove Professor Abbott is wrong – he maintains there are not enough resources to build nuclear for the long term.
Prove me wrong. I’ll wait.
012
Roger as a lawyer I see you have mastered the art of legal fiction!
By the way do you have a vested interest in renewables?
Can wind power or solar power for that matter power factories which can make wind towers or solar installations? Please point out one factory which is producing renewable infrastructure which is entirely powered by renewable energy; that’s entirely Roger, and I don’t mean hydro, which is the only renewable which match the fossils.
And please stick around; I’m going to enjoy talking to another lawyer.
50
Care to add some facts to the myriad of unsubstantiated statements?
00
That was at Roger.
00
Roger Sowell:
It is true that the intermittency of wind (and solar) cries out for large scale energy storage. Hydroelectricity provides that for balancing conventional means of generation, but loses 25-30% in doing so. Denmark used the Norwegian (and the Swedish) hydro schemes for years, but the result was very costly. I know nothing of the IOWA system but elsewhere in the world the more the percentage of renewables, the higher the electricity cost. Denmark, Germany are on the verge of stopping subsidies to wind (and solar). Denmark has already signalled that it won’t pay for any more off-shore wind farms. Spain, Italy, Greece, Holland have all cut subsidies.
In Germany the rush into renewables has resulted in their pumped storage systems going out of business, along with many gas plants as the lower prices caused by a short term glut of electricity makes these variable systems non viable. The result has been an increase in emissions as old, small and less efficient coal fired plants are kept on standby (by law) to maintain supply. The rush to build new coal fired plants in Germany started to compensate for the variability of wind farms, and subsequent power plants are to replace nuclear.
In passing I note that the French claim that their nuclear plants supply the cheapest electricity in Europe, and are capable of load following. You may be sceptical of these claims (so am I) but they don’t seem to be losing money. The new nuclear plant scheduled in the UK caused an outcry over its guaranteed price for electricity, of £92.5 per MWh, but on-shore wind gets £120 and off-shore wind £155.
You keep saying that wind turbines are coming down in cost. The sales are drying up and the price has dropped to try and maintain the business. I do not believe that once the current over capacity in manufacturing is sorted out by bankruptcies and the end of government subsidies, that they will be any cheaper. As I pointed out, if they get bigger they will become more expensive, because not only will they use more materials but much of that will have to be higher cost types.
Returning to those hollow spheres from MIT, I am not as impressed as you obviously are. How do they work? Will they pump the water out against a vacuum to absorb excess wind supply? Somewhat difficult and certain to strain the hollow spheres. I notice also that they propose to use fly ash from coal fired stations, current known and used technology, but will add $60 per MWH to the cost of wind power. Given that coal fired stations in the USA supply at below $30 it wouldn’t seem competitive; but I was forgetting that coal will run out real soon.
On the question of when coal will run out I refer you to William Stanley Jevons and the coal question -1865!
20
To Cohenite, I have no financial interest in any renewable energy at this time. I had, at one point, a sizable investment in Berkshire Hathaway – B shares, of which a very small percent is the Iowa utility that has substantial wind turbines.
Your hypothetical is without merit, as electrical power flows into the grid. Any factory can pull from the grid.
If you are an attorney, then you will recognize that I do not ask questions without first knowing the answer. I also research my issues very carefully and present facts that can be used as evidence, if required.
I have been in the energy, and specifically renewable energy, business for a long time. I am happy to be proven wrong, but my detractors must bring verifiable facts. My views are a result of facts, not wishes, hopes, or emotions. When the facts change, my views change. However, if facts are due to stupidity (perhaps Denmark did their wind in a stupid manner, I don’t know, or perhaps their accounting is off), I not change my views.
02
To bulldust, everything I wrote is a fact.
What do you wish to challenge?
Prove me wrong.
02
To Graeme No.3, I don’t know the details of European renewable systems, however, I do note that their base potential (wind speed, hours of sunshine) are far from the best. The technology can only do what the resource provides: one cannot produce solar power in Germany like one can in Arizona. Similary, the USA’s Great Plains have some of the best wind in the world.
As to France and their nuclear, I have researched that and written on it. France has far higher electrical prices than the US, a bit lower than much of the EU, and was found guilty of illegally subsidizing their power industry.
see “Following France is Not the Way To Go”
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part.html
You apparently misunderstand what it means for unit costs to decline. The larger turbines will cost more per turbine, but the cost per MW of capacity declines. That economy of scale holds true. However, even for the same size turbine, costs are declining due to greater production – the more one produces of the same item, the lower the cost per item. Wind projects are just now beginning in the USA Great Plains and offshore. The market is robust. See my article on Texas installing offshore wind turbines at
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/offshore-windturbines-in-texas.html
Your final two points are the MIT storage spheres, and running out of coal.
The storage spheres are simply hollow concrete spheres anchored in about 500 feet water, and vented to the atmosphere. A combination pump/turbine allows seawater in to generate power during daytime peak load periods. Wind energy is used at night to run the pump/turbine in pumping mode to pump water out of the sphere and back into the ocean. That’s it. Low tech, simple, proven, reliable, low cost.
Finally, coal reserves are shown by multiple reputable sources as being less than 100 years remaining, including BP Annual Energy Outlook, but more importantly by CalTech Professor David Rutledge at Climate Etc.
see http://judithcurry.com/2014/04/22/coal-and-the-ipcc/
You can, of course, believe whatever you like about remaining coal reserves. Perhaps those experts are wrong. Perhaps there are undiscovered coal deposits that will last humanity 10,000 years. Show me where Professor Rutledge is wrong.
03
“Finally, coal reserves are shown by multiple reputable sources as being less than 100 years remaining”
That has been the case for a very long time.. in fact, over time the known reserves have INCREASED faster than the usage.
40
Only 20 odd years ago they were saying only 40 years supply left.
30
Roger—I am believing people who actually mined coal. The same extremely inaccurate estimates were applied to “peak oil” and “peak gas” and nearly every week another accessible reserve of oil and gas pops up. There are billions of barrels of oil in Alaska that are not counted because people are forced to leave them in the ground to appease environmentalists. The environmentalists are the limit to coal and gas. It’s not about how much there is, it’s about how much can we keep people from getting to and force them into our energy schemes. It’s all about money and insisting the sky is falling.
10
That’s not good enough Roger!
The solution is simple; draw down from just a renewable installation! Now I repeat can electricity from renewables alone power a factory to produce renewable infrastructure.
This is crucial Roger because after all once renewables are the ONLY power source we will need renewables to be able to produce themselves, won’t we?
40
Mr Sowell
I don’t have to prove you wrong, I and any numerate readers just have to ignore you.
00
No ghl, don’t ignore.. follow his facts.
They are “lawyer” facts !!
00
“and wind energy is already flying”
Then bloody well steer clear of those bloody turbines.. They are DEATH !!
(mods.. I hope you expect the term “bloody”. It is purely descriptive of the turbine blades.
00
expect = accept !
00
Gees, saying wind energy at about 25% works in Iowa is a bit like saying Hydro works in Tasmania.
ITS INSIGNIFICANT AND MEANINGLESS
Its sure IS NOT going to work anywhere but the tornado belt !!
00
Its the effing Black Knight!
“Come on. Its only a flesh wound.”
20
One meaningless slash is all RS managed.
And it missed by a non-proverbial mile.
Air swing, air swing. !!!
(In Australia, “having a slash” has a particular meaning)
00
Roger has a go at us here at this link to his Post at his own blog.
He says coal runs out in 50 years and ….. oh be fair Tony, quote him correctly:
Oh dear. Really!
Joanne’s Post – 206 Comments
Roger’s Post – umm, No Comments!
Sorta says it all, eh!
Tony.
30
Roger ???… who is Roger..
I see no Roger..
All gone !!! 🙂
Its as if he was never here. 😉
00
To TonyFromOz, as an attorney, I legally cannot, and therefore do not accept random comments on my blog. It’s a small price to pay for practicing law.
I must heavily moderate the comments to my blog. Most people who read my blog know this, and choose not to comment.
Still waiting for any rational arguments for coal, over wind.
As to those who say that coal is unlimited, show me the new reserves. Rebut Professor Rutledge, if you can. He is a professor at CalTech, not some backwater in Queensland. The man knows his stuff.
Coal is not like oil, nor like natural gas. Even if coal existed in very deep deposits, it is uneconomic to mine it. Geologists have scoured the Earth, looking for coal, and have identified all that can be economically mined. Sure, there may be coal 20,000 feet deep, like there is oil and gas. Or, there may be coal underneath the Antarctic ice cap. But nobody will mine that coal because they cannot sell it for a profit.
So, I repeat: show me the new coal reserves that will extend the life beyond the next 100 years. You cannot, because there are none.
In any event, the major players in the world know the score. Coal is running out, and much more quickly than was the case only 20 years ago. The Chinese and Indian economic revolutions are changing the world energy mix.
When coal runs out, not if, but when, there had better be some way to produce electric power ready to replace it. Sober men are working on it, despite the jeers from jesters (such as you lot) standing on the sidelines.
Perhaps all the hot air from commenters here will suffice to turn the wind-turbines. Please don’t harness the kangaroos.
Fellows, it’s been great fun. Ladies, you too.
11
Roger: It’s really not clear that just because you are a lawyer, you cannot accept random comments. Maybe to you, but there are questions about it—it appears at times to be an excuse to avoid actual interaction with those who read your blog. Not that you would do that, of course…….
I don’t think anyone said coal is “unlimited”. I think that’s called “leading” when you try and inject something that no one actually said.
I ask again, how in the blazes you can type with a straight face that we should be horrified at the prospect of running out of coal in 100 years. My grndfather lived to 90 and saw WWI, WW2, the Korean conflict, the atom split, automobiles become common, air conditioning and electricity in virtually all homes, Americans land on the moon and supersonic flight. He also relates he was punished for reading Jules Verne’s 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea because that was just nonsense. So there is no way in any reality I am going to accept the nonsense that we should worry that in 100 years, coal could run out. It’s absolute idiocy. I have no objection to developing working alternatives to coal and gas as we become able. There’s just no reason to act like chicken little and shout the sky is falling. It makes you look very, very foolish.
The Chinese can’t even attach their turbines to the grid because their grid can’t handle it. That’s the really cool thing about electricity—it’s invisible. So no one has any idea if a spinning turbine is actually producint usable electricity or not. It makes it so easy to misrepresent the whole worthless mess.
It has been fun. Come back some time and see if you learn anything new!
30
“Most people who read my blog know this, and choose not to comment. ”
roflmao. Now that really is a pathetic excuse.
“Fellows, it’s been great fun.”
Masochist !! Do you also practice self-flagellation ?
20
Roger Sowell,
Pity, everyone’s moved on from here now, so, now you think you’ve had your (perceived) fun, there’ll be no one left to read this, probably not even you.
I notice you use the word baseload as an adjective to describe large scale coal fired power plants. Now, while you see the word as a descriptor, are you aware of the absolute physical Base Load (note here this is two words) requirement for electrical power.
That’s what you renewable urgers fail so utterly to comprehend.
I have a simple diagram for you, one of the most neglected things in this whole renewable power debate. It’s called a Load Curve. The horizontal scale shows time from midnight through the day and back to midnight. The vertical scale shows the Nameplate Power in MW. The curve itself shows actual requirements for the day.
That diagram is at this link.
Now while you think this diagram might be just for some
backwater in QueenslandAustralia, the diagram is the same for anywhere in the Developed World, towns, cities, zones, States, and Countries, anywhere a reliable and constant electrical power is generated for consumption. The curve will look the same, and the only variable will be the values on the vertical scale, and that’s for total Nameplate power. So while this has Australian values for daily power consumption, with a Maximum there of 30,000MW. the similar one for the U.S. would be for around 450,000MW.Note the low point of the curve, here 18,000MW, or for the U.S. around 270,000MW, and that is around 3 to 5 AM.
That low point there is 60% of all power generation capability. Actual power consumption NEVER falls below that level, so that is an ABSOLUTE requirement that all that power MUST be there for 24 hours of every day, 7 days of every week, and 365 days of every year. (24/7/365)
Now while I have coloured in the areas on this Australian total diagram, the percentages remain the same throughout the developed World.
That pink area is supplied by coal here in Australia, with a tiny bit of Natural gas power, and a small portion of Hydro.
As power consumption rises throughout the day, the blue shaded area, rolling reserve coal fired is brought on line, as is Natural gas fired power as required.
In the US, that vast pink area is supplied by coal fired power (40%) and Nuclear power (20%) and hey how convenient that adds up to the absolute 60% Base Load requirement.
You can see there a tiny little yellow section rolling along the bottom of the diagram. That’s all the Wind Power, around 3%. Now, that’s the same as for the U.S. as well, and also for other places in the Developed World.
Solar Power, well, that’s a little greater than nothing really, around the thickness of the black line showing the curve itself.
So, adding together all your renewables of choice, and for you Roger, that means Wind power, then you have around 3%.
Roger, until you can find a way to deliver that ABSOLUTE requirement of 60% on a 24/7/365 basis, then you’ve got nothing.
I also notice that you decry Nuclear power as well, so, with no coal fired power, and no Nuclear power, you really do have nothing to offer.
Tony.
31
Tony,
I guess there must have been a few windless days since Roger posted last.
He seems to be missing in action. 🙂
11
California. So much to do. So little time.
6.30PM Monday night. He’s probably at a barbecue.
Tony.
21
Roger it seems makes his own wind, and, having blown over, disappears.
10
Tony,
Roger has not left, he just doing drive-by red thumbs because has no worthwhile data, facts or rational arguments to offer in this debate …
10
“He’s probably at a barbecue.”
How do you bbq using wind energy ?
Image that steak.. you have just got the BBQ hot after a long windy day, ready to cook….
and the wind drops 🙁 🙁
00
“Roger it seems makes his own wind, ”
At what point did he mention eating lots of beans ?
00
Ah Sherri, I don’t know how to break this to you. 10 000 leagues is 55 000 kilometers.
00
Why must you be such a literalist? Go with it, okay.
10
vic,
it’s not meant to be the depth, it’s the distance travelled, and it was actually Twenty Thousand leagues Under The Sea, travelled in a submarine, an outrageous fiction for 1870, and deep in the realms of Science Fiction.
Great novel really.
For my eighth birthday, I received two novels as gifts, parents figuring that now I was at school, I should be reading. Eight years old. Blimey, reading at that age was Fatty Finn, and if I wanted drama, then it was the Phantom.
Those 2 novels were this Jules Verne novel, and Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities.
The Verne novel got read quite quickly, and the Dickens novel took me, umm, 53 years to finish. It’s still on my bookshelf, the Verne novel long since gone.
Got me into Science Fiction though. Love Asimov, (especially the original 3 book Foundation series) Doc Smith, (but only the Lensman Series) Peter F Hamilton and Bob Heinlein, which is basically Fantasy really, but it’ll pass for good reading.
Incidentally, I can thoroughly recommend Hamilton’s Great North Road, even if there are undertones of Climate Change, albeit on a far away World, and artificially manipulated. A truly great read, mixing SF and Crime Fiction, and doing it better than anything I have ever read before.
Tony.
10
I read both of those a long time ago and can’t remember a thing about them except the opening line to A Tale of Two Cities. My brother keeps nagging me to go back and re-read Dickens as an Adult.
00
@Sherri, just being silly. I appreciate where you’re coming from. My father’s uncle was born in 1872, before the motor car and a long lasting light bulb were invented. Dad might even live to see a self-driving car (which he probably needs to keep living).
00
Vic—Sorry, missed the silliness! That was just the first thing that popped into my head when I read your comment! It is amazing what 100 years in history can show us.
00
“…the author does not mention that coal has a very limited supply world-wide, and will likely run out or experience dramatic price increases due to scarcity in only 90 years, more or less.”
Roger, so you really think that in 90 years time we shall still be relying on coal-fired power stations – even less on wind-powered ones? That’s argumentum absurdum (sp?) – in spades.
All Tony has done is compare like with like at the present day. It (wind) does not bear comparison.
50
The only thing renewable about wind power is the renewed alternators, blades, bearings, gearboxes, support poles (yes Virginia there is such a thing as metal fatigue)access roads and power lines that must be maintained etc. Apart from that the fuel is free!
There is also a finite amount of power you can extract from a given cross section of the wind (diameter of blade disc). We are pretty close to that now and I can assure you that there aren’t any aerodynamic breathroughs in the offing, not that the profile drag of the airfoil is that significant on either windmills or propellors, it is the induced drag from the change of direction of the airflow that causes most of the losses.
30
“The only thing renewable about wind power is renewed alternators, blades, bearings, gearboxes, support poles ”
And EVERY one of them requires DECENT REGULAR COAL FIRED ENERGY !!
NONE of them can be manufactured using only wind power.
11
“Next, the author does not mention that coal has a very limited supply world-wide, and will likely run out or experience dramatic price increases due to scarcity in only 90 years, more or less.”
Utter krap. Where do you get told that there is 90 years of coal left.
Read
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/bungling-bbc-get-it-wrong-
again
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Sorry that link is broken, here’s another
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/22/energy_economics_coal/
20
Coal reserves, e.i. known coal that has been found –
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Energy.html
30
There is some truth in what you say, but it is mostly rubbish.
The truth is in the capacity for offshore. The UK – with I believe the World’s largest offshore wind farm capacity – have actual output up to 35% of capacity. There might also be economies of scale with larger turbines.
Now for some alternative views.
First, actual capacity figures are lower that theoretic for coal-fired power stations because they are only generating when required. Potential output is constrained only by maintenance shut-downs. Actual output for wind turbines is constrained by when the wind blows, and is independent of demand.
Second, is wind turbines are more expensive that coal per megawatt of power generated, and offshore wind turbines in the UK cost at least 50% more per megawatt generated than onshore, despite actual output being much higher.
Third, is the location. In the UK the coal fired power stations were mostly located near the coal fields and/or near the centres of population. Further the National Grid evolved around these requirements. Wind turbines require a massive development on extension of the National Grid.
30
In Australia we call it “Gold Plating” the grid, and pretend the cost of connecting turbines is grid Quality Control.
10
Roger, wind turbines have been around for nigh on a century, the most famous was Jacobs, in america, he actually pioneered propellor theory that was taken on by Curtiss to improve aircraft performance. They became almost extinct with the spreading of the grid. The latest incarnation are less efficient than the 1930ties Jacobs and infinitely more complex. In an earlier life I was an aircraft engineer and CSD’s were fitted to all jet aircraft for the AC synchronised busses. Not a very efficient way of transmitting power somewhat like squeezing wet soap as a propulsion system.
Their is no easy way to make them and no easy way to give them a long life ergo not a good idea, especially offshore, big bickies to keep them maintained. Then we have the propellors for the big units, seriously stressed, it is the propellor and its design that has been limiting size. The bigger the prop the bigger the problem with stress as the stress is proportional as the square of the size.
Running out of tougher modern materials to make them out of, remove all the subsidies and in very short order they will all die as the cost of repair will outweigh their usefulness. Strange world of fantasy is the wind turbine world.
00
Great analysis Tony; but my point is it is irrelevant comparing capacity factor for renewables. CF is an average over a period, usually a year. The CF therefore masks the true unreliability of the renewables. That CF may occur in a period of high wind or good sun and ignore long periods with NO power.
The reliability point, RP, is more meaningful. It is defined by Miskelly and Quirk as being:
The RP for wind is 10% or lower. That means the probability of wind producing 90% of its installed or rated capacity at any one time is 10%.
Try and run a nation on that.
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Tony: Thanks for taking the time in summarizing the general costs of these efficient wind farms compared to coal fired. I’m assuming these are basically averages and ballpark numbers, but they do paint a sobering picture of the absolute waste of these monstrosities (and not to mention the solar panels).
Roger Sowell at 2.6 spews on that you didn’t take this or that into consideration. Well, Roger I would assume that Tony didn’t take other things into consideration like the subsidies that these monstrosities exact from governments (paid by the people I might add). Nor is there the costs per kilowatt hour mentioned, which is draining the end user (me and you) of exorbitant amounts of money sucked into the giant pie hole of green energy.
I guess Tony didn’t mention the deaths associates with green power because people just can’t pay these humungus prices and so freeze to death.
And Roger, what about the poor saps who had good paying jobs but because of green energy, the costs became so high that factories closed leaving people without any means to earn a decent living. Take the Province of Ontario Canada, in just 10-short years, the green energy has eliminated 300,000 industrial jobs. What about those cost Roger.
I guess Roger, if you take everything into consideration green energy is really the best deal cost wise in your dillusional world of make believe.
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Hi Tony,
This is not in response to your post,more a comment on a totally B.S. claim made by a caller to 2SM radio overnight, this particular caller is a regular and his calls mainly consist of rubbishing the coalition and singing the praises of Julia Gillard. He is welcome to his own political views, however when he made the statement that a solar plant at Bayswater operates overnight,from the way he spoke he insinuated that it produced the majority of the power from Bayswater in the wee small hours “an absurd claim I know but he got away with it unchallenged”. While I new the previous state governments had introduced pilot solar plants, I was unaware of any substantial installations.
On checking I found that there is a solar plant at Liddell estimated to save 2000 tonnes of Coal and 4000 tonnes of Co2 per annum. I know you have on many occasions stated the hourly consumption of coal at these plants, (I need to start bookmarking these post for reference. In the big scheme oh things what piddling percentage of total Co2 is 4000 tones in a year?
00
P.S. I don’t need to be told that the solar plant only generates steam for the turbines and generates no power itself.
00
P.P.S. how many coal generated turbines can be constructed on (18000 square meters, 4 football fields).
00
I’ve been arguing with an alarmist about increased C02 and its benefit/harm to plants. My knowledge of the harmful effects of C02 in a double or less scenario is limited. The basic fact is that plants using C3 photosynthesis benefit by 30% or so, and for C4 photosynthesis is low – a few %. Over at Skeptical Science the claim is made that certain species have a lower growth rate with increased CO2, but no mention is made of what these species are. What are they?
60
C4 plants are a relatively recent evolution designed to cope with the very low CO2 over the last several hundred thousand years.
Of course they don’t respond as well as C3 plants to proper CO2 levels.
They have extra chemical processed to try to exist in very low CO2 atmospheres during which they recently developed.
These processes use up energy that C3 plant don’t need to use.
That makes the C4 plants very inefficient in CO2 levels that normal plant would like to have and THRIVE in.
ie at least 1000 ppm.
The sooner these idiots realise that CO2 is TOTALLY BENEFICIAL at any possible atmospheric CO2 level, the sooner the whole world can get back to real progress. !!
Maybe even lift many of the third world countries out of the POVERTY that the AGW meme DESTINES them to remain in.
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Thanks The Griss. Any links would be much appreciated.
40
I don’t keep many links.. sorry.
There is more than enough junk on my computer to sink the US navy, already !!
I read, I assimilate. 🙂
But try this for a start
Over 8000 species of angiosperms have developed adaptations which minimize the losses to photorespiration.
30
Its like any environmental adaptation.
It may be very helpful for current conditions, but if conditions change back to what they once were, sometimes that adaptation might get in the way.
30
From what I’ve read, this seems to be the case with C4 plant biology.
30
If you read that link in 3.1.1.1, you can probably see that the C4 cycle can act as limiter in the processing of CO2 through to the Calvin cycle.
It doesn’t matter how much atmospheric CO2 increases, there is still a chemical reaction bottleneck that is not present in C3 plants.
30
Thanks mate.
20
The answer on plant growth is always at CO2Science with Craig Idso.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/b/summaries/biodivc3vsc4.php
“In light of these several observations, we believe it to be highly unlikely that the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content will lead to C3 plants replacing C4 plants in the vast majority of earth’s ecosystems. This would also appear to be the take-home message of the study of Wand et al. (1999), who in a massive review of the scientific literature published between 1980 and 1997 analyzed nearly 120 individual responses of C3 and C4 grasses to elevated CO2. On average, they found photosynthetic enhancements of 33 and 25%, respectively, for C3 and C4 plants, along with biomass enhancements of 44 and 33%, respectively, for a doubling of the air’s CO2 concentration. These larger-than-expected growth responses in the C4 species led them to conclude that “it may be premature to predict that C4 grass species will lose their competitive advantage over C3 grass species in elevated CO2.”
“Further support for this conclusion comes from the study of Campbell et al. (2000), who reviewed research work done between 1994 and 1999 by a worldwide network of 83 scientists associated with the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) Pastures and Rangelands Core Research Project 1, which resulted in the publication of over 165 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles. After analyzing this great body of research, they concluded that the “growth of C4 species is about as responsive to CO2 concentration as [is that of] C3 species when water supply restricts growth, as is usual in grasslands containing C4 species.” Hence, the work of this group of scientists also provides no evidence for the suggestion that C3 plants may out-compete C4 plants and thereby replace them in a high-CO2 world of the future.”
References at the link
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Jo:
This is dreadful news. According to my calculation a 70kg person will only be allowed a measly 12.5Kg of dark (70% cocoa fat) chocolate per week to be safe under the new regulations. Way back in 2010 he could have eaten 29Kg per week, and before that 35Kg per week was the safe level.
BUT IT IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT! Horse kidney should be avoided altogether. Other foods we should restrict in our diet including algal formulations, crustaceans, edible offal, fish and seafood, frogs’ legs, cultivated fungi, wild fungi, oilseeds, seaweeds and water molluscs.
Other sources of cadmium are the broad food categories of grains and grain products (26.9%), vegetables and vegetable products (16.0%) and starchy roots and tubers (13.2%). Looking at the food categories in more detail, potatoes (13.2%), bread and rolls (11.7%), fine bakery wares (5.1%), chocolate products (4.3%), leafy vegetables (3.9%) and water molluscs (3.2%) contributed the most to cadmium dietary exposure across age groups.
Tap water is given a provisional tick of approval.
Makes you wonder how humans ever survived before the new regulations were introduced.
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YEs, there seems to be a lot of interesting work being carried out in this area.
PLANTS LUV CO2, that is for absolute sure.
We know that the C4’s evolved to cope in the harsher, low CO2 atmosphere, by developing extra processing systems..
But it wouldn’t surprise me if the cunning little fellas can actually bypass these systems once CO2 gets up to a reasonable level. Thus avoiding the bottleneck of the extra processes, and putting themselves on an even footing with their C3 ancestors.
Craig and his CO2Science site should be congratulated for doing such a great job in showing just how important CO2 is for all of Life on Earth.
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You’re a legend Jo. Much appreciated.
40
To avoid any misunderstandings, and philosophical arguments, that should read, “… a relatively recent evolution better able to cope …”. Natural selection, and all that.
40
The C4 plant evolution, whoever or whatever caused it, allowed them to stay alive with lower atmospheric CO2 levels.
Is that better ? ;-).
40
Meh, woteva.
20
chuckle 🙂
20
Griss. Admit that you don’t understand evolution
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It seems that you are the one who should admit that you don’t understand.
Are you saying that C4 plants don’t have a system that allows them to cope with low CO2 levels ?
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Dumb silence is the natural Gee Aye response.
11
Silence because your response was about a fact about C4 plants which was not under dispute. My comment was about your needing to admit you don’t understand evolution. If you don’t admit that to yourself you will have no motive or reason to go and find out what it is all about. Admitting ignorance can be a very enriching experience.
02
Loathsome wretch.Ignorant buffoon,do commit “sepuku”forthwith.
00
“Admitting ignorance can be a very enriching experience.’
You should try it some time then, bozo.
00
It isn’t the dumb silence that bothers me. It is the loud dumb that bothers me.
00
I would suggest the species would be Warmist ridiculosis.
A fossilistic incarnation that will, in the scheme of things, leave no impression.
Has been jeer reviewed!
80
I didn’t mean that you needed to start the ironic humour, quite that fast.
30
Please also remind them that we humans are a minor contributer to atmospheric CO2 levels, nature vastly overwhelms all the we human produce.
Also remind them that if all industrial nations turned off all production of CO2, the effect on global CO2 levels would be negligible. So if (as the UN-IPCC think) it’s 0.004% or 0.0045% of the atmosphere is CO2 and is to kill us all, it’s game over.
🙂
40
Turtle of WA
Jo beat me to the CO2 Science site.
For real open air, infield crop growth experience with high CO2 levels I would suggest the AGFACE [ Australian Grain Free Air CO2 Enrichment ] experiment ongoing here in Horsham in west Vic’s grain belt.
AGFACE (Australian Grains Free Air CO₂ Enrichment)
Fact sheets on this experiment;
2011
2014
There are a number of FACE experiments going on around the world such as the vines in Mildura and with trees and fruit trees and etc overseas.
Hawkesbury ; EucFACE
Whole Tree Chambers
Hawkesbury Forest
Aspen FACE [ aspen trees ]
An Evaluation of the Department of Energy’s Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) Experiments as Scientific User Facilities
50
Here’s a bit of info on native grasses:
What are C3 and C4 Native Grass?
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/pastures/pastures-and-rangelands/native-pastures/what-are-c3-and-c4-native-grass
30
Scaper, mate,
In your first post, I misread as –
At last a fossil leaves an everlasting impression.
Peace upon you, friend. Geoff the photographer.
60
What fish is that? Where was fossil found?
40
“Things were looking up for Earth about 12,800 years ago.
The last Ice Age was coming to an end, mammoths and other large mammals romped around North America, and humans were beginning to settle down and cultivate wild plants.
Then, suddenly, the planet plunged into a deep freeze, returning to near-glacial temperatures for more than a millennium before getting warm again.
The mammoths disappeared at about the same time, as did a major Native American culture that thrived on hunting them.
A persistent band of researchers has blamed this apparent disaster on the impact of a comet or asteroid, but a new study concludes that the real explanation for the chill, at least, may lie strictly with Earth-bound events.
The 1300-year big chill is known as the Younger Dryas, so called because of the sudden worldwide appearance of the cold-weather flowering plant Dryas octopetala.
A number of causes have been suggested, including …
Now comes what some researchers consider the strongest attack yet on the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.
… early Americans turned to other forms of stone tool technology as the large mammals they were hunting went extinct as a result of the changing climate or hunting pressure.
Maarten Blaauw, a paleoecologist at Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom, finds the new work convincing.
“It is vital to get the ages right,” he says, which “appears to have been lacking in the case of the [impact] papers”
~ ~ ~
Two-hundred-year drought doomed Indus Valley Civilization
“The decline of Bronze-Age civilizations in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia has been attributed to a long-term drought that began around 2000 bc.
Now palaeoclimatologists propose that a similar fate was followed by the enigmatic Indus Valley Civilization, at about the same time.
Based on isotope data from the sediment of an ancient lake, the researchers suggest that the monsoon cycle, which is vital to the livelihood of all of South Asia, essentially stopped there for as long as two centuries.”
40
A different viewpoint on the Bengtsson scandal.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/the-age-of-unenlightenment/
Pointman
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This is a very astute article, even by Pointman’s standards, and beautifully written, as always.
For an added bonus, people should review the comments in their entirety. Regulars here, will not be disappointed.
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(I noticed this story earlier in the week but it would have been offtopic to mention it.)
Jo, I have some rather bad news. Are you sitting down? Good.
This may be a shock to you, but I have to warn you. The chocolate in your tip jar is… endangered… by global warming.
That may seem hard to believe but
Pravdathe ABC has the truth, they would never exaggerate and will always give you the whole story:What an awful future! It’s beastly, beastly I tell you! Let’s just click that link to the press release and find out how bad it is.
Oh? The cocoa report predicts a 2.3 degree temperature rise? Well this just shows how misinformed all the climate deniers have been. They always accuse modern climate models of being about as accurate as reading tea leaves, but really they are as accurate as reading cocoa beans! Get your facts straight, deniers!
But again, let us follow the
scuttlebuttthe trail of references and click on that link to the actual published paper and see just where the temperature prediction comes from and how bad this is all going to be:Oh! So it wasn’t the cocoa report that predicted the temperature rise, it was the IPCC GCMs. Those models that have worked oh so well thus far.
That’s our first glimmer of good news, but is there any more?
Oh? Areas which were not suitable before will become more suitable? So it’s not necessarily that cocoa is burning up everywhere. It means theoretically, according to failed models, the optimal habitat for cocoa would shift laterally and to higher altitudes.
Moreover, this is a study of only Ghana and the Ivory Coast. If other cooler areas further from the equator, such as Burkina Faso or Angola, could become more suitable, then the global supply problem wouldn’t be so bad, right? No mention of that possibility in the paper or by the ABC.
No mention that Cameroon is closer to the equator than Nigera and gets nearly 2 tonnes of cacao beans per cultivated hectare in their eastern and northern provinces whereas Nigera gets about half tonne/hectare. Cameroon exported almost as much cocoa bean to the Netherlands as Ghana did in 2011. Read around a few sites about Nigeria’s cacao industry and you’ll find “old trees” and pests being mentioned as the main problem holding them back, not climate.
Even if the climate models were reliable, surely this Peak Chocolate event is not inevitable? There must be some actions we can take to avoid it:
This projected chocolate shortage is inevitable because nobody has ever invented irrigation and shadecloth. Did the ABC mention these options? No, no mention of the off-the-shelf solutions, just the cocoa climate crisis.
They don’t even need shadecloth to gain shade management. According to Wikipedia “Cacao trees grow well as understory plants in humid forest ecosystems.” Planting some fast growing tall aspect ratio trees amidst the cacao trees to provide them with natural shade could help, and possibly improve water retention in the soil.
Put that in yer cuppa and drink it, ABC.
I could just leave it there, but my investigative reporting is not finished. Is there any other reason for cocoa production to plummet in the next 20 years? Turns out it’s not the first time Peak Cocoa has been flagged. Back in 2010 the main reasons given were economics and diseases:
The solution in Ghana for the short term was the Fairtrade system of farmer stakeholders, with research into better crop varieties suggested by others. There was one reason for declining cocoa production that was climate-related, but can you guess what it was?
The climate catastrophists are partly to blame for the cocoa crisis. What an own-goal.
150
Andrew I can honestly say I never expected to see a story like this one, thanks 🙂
However I do believe the Cocoa report figures are FUDGED, sorry 🙁
60
Hmm, might have to start getting used to the flavour of that choc substitute – carob. Apparently better for the body but perhaps not for the soul.
http://www.carobana.com.au/carob.html
30
Andrew, I saw the headline (didn’t have to read it) when it came out and immediately sent it too Speedy saying “This is begging to be satirized”.
It’s like the ABC is the New Idea of the cafe latte set.
“7 of your favourite foods affected by climate change”
Substitute: 7 of your favourite XXX affected by climate change.
Send in suggestions, please 🙂 (Cars, pets, household appliances, TV channels, meals…)
PS: The real problem with chocolate is the lead and cadmium contamination. 🙁
80
Sorry: see my misplaced post above. 3.1.1.5.1
00
Lead I can just about get over but that cadmium sits in your system for far too long!
20
As Cadmium is present at an average 0.15ppm in the crust, it takes only a trivial geological concentration to bring its level above the 0.2ppm regulation. It may be only a handful of mountains will have this elevated level if it is from a natural local source. If it is from fertilisers as speculated then again there would have to be only a few sources of phosphate with these higher levels or else all food from fertilised crops would show elevated levels.
I have to wonder if this limit is too low. Maybe the EU are just cadmium yellow bellied.
According to Wikipedia “The absorption of cadmium from the lungs is much more effective than that from the gut, and as much as 50% of the cadmium inhaled via cigarette smoke may be absorbed.”
So you can be quite safe as long as you change one of your dietary habits.
Jo, you’re going to have to eat chocolates instead of inhaling them. 🙂
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Andrew McRae:
“I have to wonder if this limit is too low. Maybe the EU are just cadmium yellow bellied.” Just delete cadmium.
Years ago the EU apparatchiks were convinced that brominated biphenyls would break down in a fire and form brominated dioxins. Theoretically possible, but unlikely as the usual formation method wouldn’t work for the octa or decabromo forms. As these products were used for things such as the cardboard backing on (vacuum tube) TVs, a big investigation was run. It was proved that this reaction did not occur, that there was no bromo-dioxin formed at all. So they banned them anyway.
About 15 years ago when the bisphenol A scare started, the Technical Director told me that he done some calculations on the amount of Bisphenol A that would be available if the entire lining on soft drink cans was decomposed. The coating was an epoxy-phenolic, a formulation used for 60 years without adverse feedback. The epoxy part was alkaline resistant, and the phenolic quite acid resistant. The resulting cross-linked coating was inert. ( I point out that epoxy on its own would be resistant to soft drinks .) To extract the Bisphenol A from epoxy requires very strong acid, conc. HCl won’t do it, and the recommended process uses concentrated hydroiodic acid at 122℃ for several hours.
So when he told me as it would require someone to swallow only 855,000 cans of soft drink in a year, I was a bit sarcastic, but he assured me that “it was a serious problem” as most health scares (e.g. saccharin) involved people swallowing 3-4 millions cans a year.
So next time there is talk of some health problem work out the amounts involved before you change your habits.
40
Graeme as a boilermaker years ago I was warned of the dangers of cadmium in the various welding processes, it was supposed to be removed from products and metals but never was instead a warning is issued to wear a mask, nice handball there I suppose.
Another scare is thorium in tig welding, firstly it was radiation poisoning due to the heat and electric current transforming the thorium radioactive which ended up being so miniscule to no effect, the real risk is grinding/sanding the residue or radioactive dust left on the metal post welding.
I always wear a mask when doing this type of welding including galvanized steel which can give you the “Zinc Chills” and isn’t very nice, in reality during work I’ve probably ingested a decent amount of apparent dangerous fumes/chemicals and appear in good health, maybe just lucky but I’ve never come across another metal worker who’s ill health is directly blamed on their job.
30
Yonniestone:
Natural thorium is present in very small quantities in virtually all rock, soil, water, plants and animals. Where high concentrations occur in rock, thorium may be mined and refined. Usually from beach sands.
Thorium is radioactive but not very much. The main isotope has a half life of about 14 billion years, so it may take quite a long exposure before you glow in the dark. Its first major use was (as the oxide) in Victorian gas lamps, it made the mantle glow much brighter.
Cadmium is a problem, but very often its price is high enough to justify extracting it from zinc. The usual health problems occur either in cadmium pigment production or cadmium plating. In both cases poor hygiene / dust and fumes are there or cavalier dumping of waste as in Japan.
30
Then there is the EU mandated lead free solder in electronics. Seems 1% of the lead that is mined was ending up in electronics so it had to be banned in that use. Lead free solder performs worse in every way than lead-tin solder so the consumer products made with it will likely have shorter lives. One outstanding characteristic is that with normal lead-tin solder a good joint is shiny and a bad one grey, and dull. With lead free they all look grey and dull. Not so much of a problem with automated mass production by large companies so the thought is that this is yet another EU non tariff barrier and/or barrier to entry of small competitors in the market. This goes along with the EU’s ghastly,completely regulated, cradle to grave welfare state. Frankly when it comes to Putin’s Russia vs the EU there is little to choose but I would like to see the EU taken down.
50
As requested.
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
Seven of your favourite __Dwarfs__ are affected by climate change.
Sleepy Dwarf – “Studies have shown that cooler temperatures enhance sleep, while hotter temperatures interfere with it”, so global warming may be associated with decreased sleep quality for Sleepy Dwarf.
Bashful Dwarf – After a Diesel brand global warming-themed advertising campaign sparked a backlash amongst the denim-conscious, and one airline flight carbon offset pioneer closed down for lack of efficacy, this dwarf looks set to be increasingly bashful in both his appearance and carbon footprint reduction efforts.
Happy Dwarf – According to a Pentagon report, global warming will result in widespread rioting and nuclear war, which will really put a frown on Happy Dwarf.
Grumpy Dwarf – According to a 2012 report by the USA National Wildlife Federation, Grumpy Dwarf will be “exposed to serious psychological distress from climate related events and incidents”, and “In the aftermath of events linked to global warming, many of the affected people will experience fears, feelings of guilt, anger, and despair”, which all points to Grumpy Dwarf being much more grumpy in the future.
Dopey Dwarf – After being inundated with global warming alarmism for 20 years including mutually contradictory predictions such as hurricane increases and decreases, the Atlantic become more and less salty, Earth’s spin speeding up and slowing down, and the prospect of opium poppies becoming stronger, the outlook for Dopey is more dopey than ever.
Doc Dwarf – Once considered the wise dwarf of the group, Doc finds his lone voice of reason ignored with greater regularity amid the increased sneezing, grumpiness, sadness, bashfulness, dopiness, and restlessness of his tribe, which is why Doc is switching off and ignoring the whole thing.
Sneezy Dwarf – A report published earlier this month “reaffirmed earlier findings that global warming has likely caused longer and more potent allergy seasons, which have correlated with a rise in asthma diagnoses in the past decade and can also lead to more of the sneezing, itching and eye-watering that returns every spring.” There is clearly a scientific consensus that Sneeze Change is real and man-made!
90
Instead of saying this is caused by climate change / global warming – the warmists should just come out and state everything bad is because of climate change / global warming. This would drastically reduce the number of useless articles appearing in all of the papers all over the world. Would save ink and allow the papers to write about some interesting and factual news (sarc).
50
Andrew,
An excellent summation and tongue in cheek diagnosis of a [ future ? ] diabolical chocolate supply problem as promoted by the our local branch of Правда, the ABC, with the required leavening touch of totally justifiable sarcasm.
Excellent !
40
When controversial global warming computer modeler Gavin Schmidt – who will neither sit on an academic debate panel nor appear on a news program with a scientist that is not associated with the Global Warming Movement – dismisses the McCarthyism analogy I have to laugh.
Climate Scientists Mixed over Controversy Surrounding Respected Researcher – SPIEGEL ONLINE
The scientist said colleagues placed so much pressure on him after joining GWPF that he withdrew from the group out of fear for his own health. Bengtsson added that his treatment had been reminiscent of the persecution of suspected Communists in the United States during the era of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Not all of his fellow climatologists agree. Gavin Schmidt a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA described the “alleged connection to McCarthy” as “ridiculous.” “As someone who has actually been threatened with criminal sanctions by a United States Senator only because of published science, I don’t quite see why Bengtsson’s total freedom to associate with anyone he wants — and let me be clear, he has this freedom — has in any way been compromised,” he said.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-scientists-mixed-over-controversy-surrounding-respected-researcher-a-971033.html
40
From ‘Physicsworld”…
and
and
50
I am not sure what that there thing is Ma, but it sure ain’t science.
20
I found this enjoyable. Comments on an article about memorable sentences in fiction (eg your children may never know what snow is)
A sentence that resonated for me from Oscar and Lucinda that I used in my thesis was
30
Interesting link, though rather predictably full of the more pretentious quotes. My favourite, and perhaps the sentence most apposite for the whole AGW farrago has to be: “The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.” (Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment: The Play.)
Though, as commenter Sharon Bower says, Terry Pratchett is infinitely quotable.
30
a laugh for the weekend, more jokes in the link:
23 May: Free Beacon: Elizabeth Harrington: Taxpayers Paid $5.6 Million for Climate Change Games
‘Voicemails’ from the future warn of doom and gloom
Columbia University’s Climate Center has received $5.7 million from the National Science Foundation for the university’s “PoLAR Climate Change Education Partnership,” to “engage adult learners and inform public understanding and response to climate change.”
Based on the theory that games “motivate exploration and learning of complex material,” the school created “Future Coast,” a website that features hundreds of made up voicemails painting a dire picture of the future as a result of climate change…
The messages are “banal, mysterious, and terrifying,” about “possible climate changed futures” in attempts to convince the public to act on climate change now…
That future, according to Columbia, includes a world with robotic arms, where humans are “like pets,” live underground, and in fear of their lives from climate skeptics…
The capitol of the Neo-luddites appears to be Texas.
“The Neo-luddites are coming up from Texas, the Luddites, they hate everything,” a caller says. “They’re gonna wipe us out.”
Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science Space and Technology, said the game is a waste of taxpayer dollars…
http://freebeacon.com/issues/taxpayers-paid-5-6-million-for-climate-change-games/
30
worth noting:
23 May: UK Independent: Tom Bawden: No gas found in the Weald basin: Does this spell the end of the Government’s dream of a fracking revolution?
The Government’s dream of kickstarting a fracking revolution has suffered a major setback after a survey of one of the UK’s great shale gas hopes found no evidence of gas in the area.
And while the same survey – of the Weald basin, stretching from Wiltshire to Kent – did find an estimated 4.4 billion barrels of oil, the scientist who oversaw the project admitted it would be so difficult to extract that the basin would be unlikely to yield even 0.5 per cent of the oil so far extracted from the North Sea.
Robert Gatliff, director of energy and marine geoscience at the British Geological Survey, which produced the report, said: “It’s not a huge bonanza. But we have to see what happens.” He added: “It is going to be a challenge for the industry to get it out.”
The North Sea has produced about 40bn barrels of oil since the 1970s and is likely to yield between three billion and 24 billion more, according to industry estimates. But Mr Gatliff expects the Weald basin to yield no more than 220m barrels of oil, based on a generous extraction rate of about 5 per cent of the total estimated “resource”. This is less oil than Britain consumes in six months.
Asked if the findings were a let-down for the Government, Energy minister Michael Fallon said: “It’s not a let-down or a let-up. It is what it is.” …
Dr Robert Gross, director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology at Imperial College London, said: “This survey underlines the need to keep a sense of perspective about the prospects for land-based fossil fuel production in the UK. It is highly unlikely that the UK will replicate the US experience in the foreseeable future.”
Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute, said the findings “do not substantiate the continuing hype surrounding the UK’s shale gas and oil resources”…
The UK government is encouraging the industry, which has yet to produce any shale hydrocarbons on a commercial scale, by offering tax breaks to producers and financial incentives to local communities. Today, it proposed changing trespass laws to allow frackers to drill under households without their permission and an extra £20,000 of compensation to affected communities per horizontal well.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-gas-found-in-the-weald-basin-does-this-spell-the-end-of-the-governments-dream-of-a-fracking-revolution-9428918.html
20
23 May: Reuters: Manoj Kumar: India hits U.S., China with solar imports anti-dumping duties
India will impose anti-dumping duties on solar panels imported from the United States, China, Taiwan and Malaysia to protect domestic solar manufacturers, according to a government statement seen by Reuters on Friday.
The order, almost certain to anger India’s trading partners, sets duties of between 11 and 81 U.S. cents per watt and comes after a investigation which started in 2011. The ruling by a quasi-judicial body has to be published by the Finance Ministry before it takes effect…
Local manufacturers have long complained that U.S., Chinese and Malaysian companies enjoy state subsidies and are selling their products at artificially low prices to capture the Indian market.
India also believes that anti-dumping duties imposed on Chinese solar producers by the European Union and the United States have further driven down the price of Chinese solar products, to the detriment of Indian suppliers.
India aims to raise its solar power capacity to 20,000 MW by 2022 from 1,700 MW currently. It imported solar products worth nearly 60 billion rupees ($1.03 billion) last year, according to an industry estimate. Domestic manufacturers got less than 2 percent of that business…
Under the new duties, importers will have to bear additional costs of between 5 percent and 110 percent while importing solar cells and panels from the United States, Malaysia and China.
The U.S. Trade Representative has filed two cases against India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), complaining local content rules discriminate against U.S. solar companies.
A senior USTR official said the United States would look carefully at the new duties given the importance of the U.S. solar industry.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/uk-india-solar-idINKBN0E30YI20140523
20
David Karoly was on ABC 24 this morning with reports that there have been sightings of Man-Bear-Pig in South Eastern Australia. Some gruppies in Melbourne noticed that their chocolate was melting or something. We had a warm April in WA – lovely. We have also had excellent rains in May.
50
Yes I saw his performance this morning and it was as we would expect. Actually gave a good meteorological explanation for the warm weather in SE Australia, i.e. a slow moving high pressure system forcing cold fronts further south than usual at this time of year, then with the encouragement of our ABC presenters got on his hobby horse and started to whip it to death.
It was the usual stuff about number of warm days in a row not seen for 110 years. Funny how he only goes back 110 years! What were those scientists in Sydney and Melbourne doing in the 1800s? Not reading thermometers apparently. He then mentioned ozone depletion in connection to the great warming monster. Has anyone else noticed this term being used by the global warming priesthood a lot in the last month or so? They seem to be trying to link the great ozone scare of the 1980s with the CO2 monster. They make no direct statements of a link of course but seem to be dropping it in to their spiel in hope that the scientifically unaware members of the public, and ABC presenters, will make the link for them.
What really annoys me is that all this media chat is generated by 1 week of warm weather! A few warmer days in a row and they are all over the media telling us the end is nigh while the record low temperatures experienced in SE Australia from late March through April went apparently unnoticed, and certainly unmentioned, by Karoly. I guess it was because the real world refused to fit into the models/liturgy once again.
90
I went home alone from a party in 1990 because I corrected a lovely girl about the hole in the ozone layer and global warming being different issues. She insisted that it wasn’t and I was too stupid to go “Ahha. I see. Right”
70
I feel your pain, man.
70
vic g gallus:
I have been looking at the NASA GISS figures. Not impressed but assuming they are correct we get:
Total rise in World Temperature 1850 to 2012 0.8℃ or 0.049℃ per decade or 408 years to increase the temperature by 2℃
rise in World Temperature 1878 to 2012 0.37℃ or 0.028℃ per decade or 714 years to increase the temperature by 2℃
Temperature rise 1878 to 2012 (after de-fudge) 0.13℃ or <0.01℃ per decade or 2062 years to increase the temperature by 2℃
(the de-fudge means the artificial increase between 1940 and 1980 of 0.24℃ was taken off). The best figures to work on seem to be the second line.
OMG it's worse than we thought!
50
I’m not sure what you’re replying to. I couldn’t get her to understand that the hole in the ozone layer and global warming were two different things. I’m not sure that this would have helped.
If you are referring to this empirical fit, its an estimate of how much of an increase in temp in the adjusted data could be attributed to man’s use of fossil fuel, max. its about the same as the adjustments. I’m convinced that the data has been fudged to make the warming more dramatic. You don’t have to try to convince me.
With that attempt, I should do it again for two reasons. It was fit of a sine function with a period of 60 years, a constant rate for warming from the LIA and an exponentially increasing part that correspond to man’s exponentially increasing use of fossil fuels, to the rate of temperature change. The log dependence on the amount of CO2 means the third term should have been just Ct. I also fitted it to the 15 year moving average or smoothed data so it stops in 2006 (7.5 years ago), instead of just the moving 12 month linear regression. You can see that this overestimated the size of the third term at the end of the plot.
I would love to repeat it without the homogenizing (who uses that term except dairy chemists?) of the data. In fact I would love to analyse the raw data from each station. To do a 12 month moving linear regression for each station, remove any data more than two standard deviations from the mean over the life of the station (outliers due sudden changes due to equipment changes or local environment) then find the average of the stations for each month. I need the data though and someone who can code a program to do all the leg work. I don’t have enough free time to do it in Excel. Like using anomalies, it doesn’t matter what the average temperature is at the site but the “homogenization part is not such a black box.
40
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2013/06/global-warming-caused-by-chlorofluorocarbons-not-carbon-dioxide-new-study-says/
http://www.energycentral.com/generationstorage/environmentalemissionsandcarbonmanagement/articles/2682/Earth-Warming-Effect-Only-Due-to-CFC-Destruction-of-Stratospheric-Ozone
Since I doubt your coworker was reading any of these, my guess is she wasn’t referring to this research. Just wanted to let you know it’s out there.
If you really want to confuse her, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/11/busted-messaging-cfcs-cause-warming-and-cooling/. Personally, I always went with the cooling idea. Closing the hole in the ozone was then the reason for warming, leaving us with the delightful choice of frying from UV or boiling oceans. That was wonderful message for the media to use. 🙂 (/sarc)
20
All the arguments against CO2 being the culprit apply to this hypothesis. I’ll stick with just a coincidence.
10
“Our” ABC went on again in this evening’s news about the melting of Antarctica….GRRR!
20
The ozone layer “scare” and the subsequent Montreal Convention provided the blueprint for the greater ACGW project. The process of constructing the UNFCCC agreement and the Kyoto Protocol followed exactly the test run. The Montreal Treaty “proved ” that a global agreement was possible and executable. This is the greatest obstacle that
the “counter argument” to CAGW has to face – the reluctance to pull back from a GLOBAL agreement – whatever the agendas, duplicity and mendacity of the parties and the political corruption of the actual outcome. Understand that the “science” is of little, or even no, relevance. It will be evoked Only, if it serves a political purpose, which is probable. The whole process has been an ideological struggle and unless you understand the ideology involved you will not understand the conflict taking place.
40
Can someone PLEASE tell me WHO THE HELL Kim Kardashian is. Although I do not watch TV I have been told that she is on some reality TV show. The problem is that I never see anything on the web about this show, which means that SOMEHOW this person’s ‘fame’ has become self-perpetuating beyond the life of the show. If this is so I cannot for the life of me understand WHY. It certainly can’t be for her appearance and I can’t recall ever hearing her saying anything about anything! WHY!!!!
60
Barry,
I also do not know who she is.
However, I do know of Tim Mathieson and Maggie Abbott. They are at opposite ends of the human species spectrum. One is among the nicest people you could ever meet. The other is one of the sleeziest, biggest bag of sh*t you could ever come across. I will leave you to guess which is which.
71
Who the hell is Tim Mathieson??
50
No-one.
40
WHO are Tim Mathieson and Maggie Abbott? And why are we being assailed by endless photos of some underdressed and overmadeup dame..KK? The latter seems to have taken over the MSM while I am trying to find any real news.
11
One is a sloppy, slovenly, ignorant cretin who shared Kiribili House with a red-headed crook.
The other is the sweetest, most lovely, well-mannered and honest, faithful, and hard working spouse of the current PM.
40
Yes.. I see now. I was half asleep when I made that comment. I’d forgotten who TM was (uck) and I didn’t recognise ‘Maggie’; I’d only heard of her as called Margie…yes, a lovely person from what I’ve heard. No wonder I received a red thumb.
I stand by my comment about the over-exposed, in every way, KK however.
00
Trust me in this, you don’t want to know.
71
Rereke,
Hard to believe I know – but some FOOL gave you a thumbs down??
The person that did has demonstrated without doubt that he/she is just as much of a f/t..ool (insert your choice) as Tim Matheson is (yeah – I know it’s spelt wrong – can’t be bothered giving it any more effort)!!
Oh, pity the poor uneducated.
Cheers,
20
One of the resident trolls presumably.
00
Update:
At their pre-wedding party, Kanye West took the microphone as said “Kim’s more beautiful than I am talented”. So that wasn’t too high a bar for her to get over, then.
10
LOL
00
Ah, Kim Kardashian.
There I was last Thursday evening waiting at the Woolies checkout. They have stands at each checkout with the latest mags. The cover of one of them showed an image of KK, and the accompanying text said that she has (so far) spent $1.2 Million just on facial plastic surgery alone.
There’s all I need to know about her.
$1,199,999 for the surgery and $1 to have the remainder of her brain removed.
Tony.
70
Why would you remove what was left of her brain???
It has been proven to be absolutely useless.
40
Pity she didn’t get some of her huge ar** and her overly big pumped-up t**s fixed while she was at it.
40
@Barry
Are you familiar with Paris Hilton? If not, maybe you know just how thick an oil slick on water is. Ms. Hilton and the oil are deep deep deep in comparison to Kim Kardashian. Trust us…the less you know about her the better.
50
The cream of show-business: thick and rich!
40
23 May: WSJ: Tom McClintock: California Drains Reservoirs in the Middle of a Drought
The state desperately needs water, yet federal policy sends huge ‘pulse flows’ into the Pacific to benefit fish
In communities like Sacramento, “water police” go from door to door to enforce conservation measures. There’s even a mobile “app” to report neighbors to city authorities so they can be fined for wasting water.
With the Sierra snowpack at 4% of normal as of May 20, Californians will desperately need what little water remains behind its dams this summer. Authorities have warned some towns like Folsom—home of Folsom Lake—to expect daily rationing of 50 gallons per person, a 60% cut from average household usage.
Yet last month the Bureau of Reclamation drained Folsom and other reservoirs on the American and Stanislaus rivers of more than 70,000 acre feet of water—enough to meet the annual needs of a city of half a million people—for the comfort and convenience of fish…
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304547704579565622649474370?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304547704579565622649474370.html&fpid=2,7,121,122,201,401,641,1009
40
The BOM seems to think there is a fair chance of an El Nino this southern hemisphere summer, which means the rains will return to the southern US.
30
I recall they “think” there is a “fair chance” of about 50/50
Anyone got a coin?
Isn’t it amazing that a single coin could replace all of BOM’s predictions 🙂
70
Unesco complains about massive windfarm off great natural wonder! So even the UN can see straight when presented with its own perfidy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2638335/Wind-farm-dwarf-Isle-Wight.html
60
hmmmmm.. An interesting find..
41
Basically, there is ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF that the slight warming, (if it even exists after removing all the adjustments) in the latter part of last century was in any way ABNORMAL.
There is also ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF that CO2 had anything to do with that slight warming.
The world has WASTED MANY BILLIONS of dollars on trying to combat a TOTALLY NATURAL, and very small, change in the calculated surface temperatures.
101
Too darn interesting –
Who did this graph and where’s the data from?
20
seems to come from here.
Rather busy to check further at the moment
00
New:
Reinterpreting ERSST EOFs 1-4
It’s a technical document targeting an advanced audience, but it includes a simple highlighted alert about Mann’s clever trick to redefine the Atlantic to match Trenberth’s deep ocean “missing heat” narrative. (I think some of you would be quite angry if you understood deeply what’s going on.)
70
Ummm, interesting, much like the information that turns up at https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
20
UKIP seems to be making inroads. 🙂
I guess that’s what happens you put a real conservative party against two left wing parties.
70
Be careful what you wish for, fringe parties can include all kinds of dark forces e.g. The Greens, the same applies to the Right wing,two sides of the same coin?
10
“fringe parties can include all kinds of dark forces ”
As can major parties, if not more so.
30
I cannot see that the Green will be attracked to UKIP as –
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKIP
30
They won because … they had no policy. So the voters had no idea how the promises could be filled.
The Farage Party threw out their policies prior to the election. The Party only has aspirations: Only Farage’s personal aspirations. Vision without ideas.
Keep in mind that it’s an election to EU Parliament which is, by definition, feckless. It has no power to make the EU do anything, except to dole out generous payments to the members of parliament. There is no way to reform the EU from within unless the self-appointed hierarchy of bureaucrats sitting on the Council chooses to do so. The EU parliament is a facade of democracy.
The only practical way for the UK (or any other EU member state) to force the EU to negotiations is to invoke Article 50 of the treaty; i.e. initiating a departure from the union.
00
Joann, and others,.+ Can someone please explain the concept of “back radiation”, i.e. electromagnetic radiation (power transfer) in a direction of more intense electromagnetic field strength, at any frequency? Such concept is in opposition to all of Jimmy Maxwell’s equations. Such concept is also in defiance of Gus Kirchhoff’s laws of thermal radiation.
In addition such flux, (power transfer) has never been observed, detected, or measured. Where does such fantasy originate and why?
73
Back radiation is a discovery by Nobel Peace Prize winners by which heat flows one way only. It requires the presence of a poison called ‘carbon’. It is a sibling of Maxwell’s Daemon, the way of getting free energy out of stochastic movements of molecules in a gas by allowing only higher energy ones to pass thus segregating them. The resultant temperature difference can be used to extract energy. It turns out that the Daemon must use more energy in detecting and segregating than could be recovered. Fortunately, the globe can be saved if poor people are prevented from using energy produced by carbon emissions. Some millions will freeze and starve but that will help the globe back to the era of log cabins (but no live trees to be felled) or the stone age.
61
You guys may have a Uda Yagi on you roof as a receiver. Why do you have it there if it can only work as a transmitter? Try taking off the PARASITIC elements to test your theory.
Now if the “at any frequency?” bit becomes the excuse try replacing it with a broadband log periodic or discone and measure broadband noise reception levels instead of those nasty sinewaves.
20
Forgot to add. All us radio comms people get Maxwell’s equations and Kirchhoff’s laws as well as all sorts of resonance stuff rammed down our throats until we puke and then they all get rammed in again. You will need them to understand how a Uda Yagi works just as the inventors(Uda and Yagi)did.
30
@ Siliggy #22.2
I use a Poynting broadband log periodic antenna for my cell-phone booster, works fine. I no longer design RF antennas.
Now I do broadband IR optics, same thing, reflectors and directors (lenses) but at different wavelengths. All electromagnetic radiation, not heat! All conforming to Maxwell’s equations, Kirchhoff’s Laws, and also the Laws of thermodynamics, if need be. Gus was most specific, every antenna has exactly the same antenna gain, for transmitting or receiving, “at every (individual)frequency and in every (individual) direction”, nothing is averaged or lumped together!
Amplitude modulation of an electromagnetic “signal” may occur at the tranmitter, receiver, or both. Both ends can modulate opposing field strength and antenna gain. All have measurable signal effect at the opposite end. These signals travel independently in both directions at the speed of light! The modulation does not affect overall field strength, just the what spread of frequencies.
The power carrier may be in either direction or none, but not both. The modulation can be affected by the thermal “time constant” of any dispersive mass for that frequency band, in the transmission path.
Another of a law from Gus says “an intervening mass at thermodynamic equilibrium affects the (power transfer) not at all”. It is the amplitude modulation of the electromagnetic “signal” that insists on a lack of thermodynamic equilibrium over the modulation cycle and some attenuation of that modulation. Please read the works of Maxwell, who did understand, not the spoutings of arrogant academics.
I wish your climate alarmists could get their science correct. See more at my #25.1
00
Check out http://scienceofdoom.com/roadmap/back-radiation/. That is the best explanation I have found, though I don’t claim to agree with it or fully understand why the whole mess matters to AGW. Without it, we deal in net energy and that does not seem to please the AGW crowd. I am still trying to understand the whole idea. (I don’t yet see that these claims violate any laws of thermodynamics, however. They just seems unecessary to the real world—or more precisely, they are necessary to dress up a theory that is not well presented.)
10
The important thing to remember is that CO2 re-radiates in all directions not just down as the religious zealots falsely proclaim. This means that more heat can move horizontally with increased CO2. Thus the decrease in extreme weather and why the little ice age had very extreme weather including huge floods and heatwaves.
So while Will and Lucky chase phantoms, one real problem for AGW is that CO2 re-radiation (as proven by the Uda Yagi) IS directional! The planet is a near sphere so slightly more goes up than down (Unobstructed horizontal re-radiation does not hit the surface again).
All of the above being irrelevantly small compared to the solar downturn but as usual showing that CO2 is benificial in every way. We just need more of the stuff.
20
Siliggy: Okay, I obviously do not understand the Uda Yagi connection and how that proves radiation is directional. Any more clues for those of us who remain clueless in this?
10
Sheri. Context is important. The challenge was made by Will Janoschka to explain how there can be “(power transfer) in a direction of more intense electromagnetic field strength, at any frequency? “.
Skip the Yagi for the moment.
Two same frequency identical transmitters aimed at each other with identical antennae but slightly uneven power output will and do affect each other. This oocurs as standing waves and can be measured easily on both antenna feeds (although a large number in dB lower than the primary signals). If this were not true Kirchhoffs Voltage and Current laws would be contradicted in one direction but not the other. Kirchhoff’s laws combined with the existance of standing waves prove back radiation rather than disprove it.
More relevant to your question is simple geometry. A CO2 molecule in the atmosphere radiates in all directions. Less of those directions hit the planet than the number that miss the planet. Up and all four horizontal directions miss the planet. only a cone shaped combination of downward directions hit the planet. The higher the molecule is, the longer and thinner the cone. Thus more power is radiated away from the planet than toward it giving an overall upward directivity due to the planet being nearly spherical.
30
I found comments by Will on the Sophistry blog and Digging in the clay blog. This comes back to radiation, flux, is there or is there not a GHE, etc. For now, I made note of what you have told me. I appreciate it. For now, I am just backing away for a bit—it took me well over a week of research to figure out why “The energy from the sun hits an effective 2d disc with area = πr2” when we all know full well the Earth is not 2d. After a week, I finally found the actual calculation and yes, it does give the same answer that the original statement did, but in reality it’s meaningless shortcut by people who are not willing to actually explain what happens outside their models. I suspect this is similar. I fully believe that CO2 cannot emit in one direction, even though it appears in some models as if it does. So your comment got me wondering again. I’ll revisit the issue later. Thnak you.
10
@ Sheri May 26, 2014 at 11:42 am #22.4.1.1.1
Many different concepts here. I will leave alone antenna gain and 1PI vs. 4PI steradians in a sphere. Both require a comfortable understanding of both solid geometry and vector mathematics. Most folk have some knowledge of both, but are unconfortable with either let alone fliping back and forth. Let me try:
“I fully believe that CO2 cannot emit in one direction, even though it appears in some models as if it does.”
A CO2 mass can emit at a wavelength of 14.6 microns in every direction. It can also absorb in every direction. The question is what does it do in each direction? The answer depends on the environment at the other end of each direction. The alarmists want you to believe that mass must radiate in all direction proportional to its temperature^4. This is a deliberate lie and FRAUD.
14.6 microns is close enough to the peak radiance of 270 Kelvin that T^4 can be used for specular radiance or radiant intensity, a radiative potential, but never radiation. In each direction there is an opposing radiant intensity (potential) determined by the envronmential temperature raised to some positive power depending on wavelength. Any transfer of radiant power is always proportional to the difference in intensities, and always in the direction to the lower intensity. No difference in radiative potential, no radiation in either direction. There is nothing to cause such power transfer.
No thermal electromagnetic radiation (power transfer) other than that above has ever been detected, observed, or measured. The concept of the hot surface radiating a fixed power outward, then the colder atmosphere some of this energy back to the hot surface, “is” the deliberate FRAUD. Because of all the different directions, with variable potential differences, any layered Global Circulation Model, can never represent this earth.
More at #25.1
01
“The answer depends on the environment at the other end of each direction.”
If that is 400 light years away then what happens?
10
Thank you. I will still have to think this through and study further. I have to be able to see the whole picture and that takes a while. I do appreciate your responses. (This is very complex and as you note, there is lot of misdirection and deception in it.)
10
Siliggy: We have to wait 400 years to find out! 🙂
10
Sheri if the heat from our CO2 molecule heads off toward a star that has not been formed yet would it be 800 years later that the tree it is now part of gets awful hot due to 800 years of heat suddenly all coming back marked “Return to sender”?
10
Oh—now I get it!
10
@ Siliggy
May 26, 2014 at 8:11 pm
“The answer depends on the environment at the other end of each direction.”
If that is 400 light years away then what happens?
Likely there is little or no opposing radiant intensity, so no change in nearby space impedance so all wave packets, photons or whatever can be fully detached from that source of radiant energy and speed off at near the speed of light. any modulation of that intensity does travel at the speed of light in either direction!
00
@ Sheri May 26, 2014 at 11:42 am #22.4.1.1.1
You may want to check joanne’s latest about peer review.
@turnedoutnice May 26, 2014 at 5:12 pm #5
Identifies the person that started the hoax that thermal electromagnetic flux eminating in opposite directions. He also stated the whole CO2 thing with this one mistake, way before jimmy Hansen. I think.
00
A well matched but more powerful source presents no change in “space impedance” either.
10
So is man made global warming the result of man made radiation now coming back from warmer destinations?
10
Hi Siliggy,
Excellent explanation!
There’s just one point I wonder if you might consider rewording, or at least elaborating on.
“… is that CO2 re-radiates in all directions not just down …”
“… is that CO2 re-radiation (as proven by the Uda Yagi) IS directional!”
I think I know what you mean, but maybe these phrases, at first glance, could be considered as contradictory.
10
MaxL
Yes you are right. The re-radiation is proven by the Yagi but that it is directional is not. Infact it would be nothing like a Yagi because the distances and phases etc would be random. Directivitiy is as per the explanation given to Sheri.
10
Its analogous to heat being transferred by conduction from a hotter object to a colder object. Heat flows both ways and the net rate of heat flow from one object to the other is difference between the rate of energy transfer in the two directions.
My gripe is that the higher concentration of CO2 means that the change in concentration per volume with altitude is larger in magnitude. Simply saying that the upper troposphere is emitting more DLR all the way down to the surface is wrong.
20
I do trust that all readers have by now seen the fascinating photo of Nessie,courtesy of the Apple satellite.
20
hell yeah. 😉
20
It looks like a close-up of a small fish!!!
10
That picture looks like a relative of the fish I had for dinner last night. Makes me wonder where the stores are getting their fish these days. 😉
10
@Will #22
Radiation of electromagnetic energy in the direction of a more intense field is common. A mirror does this for example. Absent any changes in the transmission medium, radiated electromagnectic energy travels outward in a straight line regardless of existing field intensity: the electric and magnetic components of the radiated and existing fields add linearly. Sunlight in the day causes Rayleigh scattering generating intense fields that swamp out starlight so we cannot see it, but starlight energy is coming in just the same as when it is dark.
“Backradiation” is the idea, I think, that a greenhouse gas molecule can absorb energy at one wavelength and re-emit it at a difference wavelength (flourescent colors and phosphors do this). When the molecule re-emits the energy at a different wavelength, it is a point energy source and the energy can go in any direction, including down, regardless of what is coming up.
If we assume a greenhouse gas layer aborbs all upcoming energy at a given wavelength, a portion of that energy will be reradiated down and we have more energy coming down than what would come down without the gas. This assumes the earth is generating and radiating up the particular wavelength the gas absorbs. If the source is from above, less energy gets to the earth. I think it is fairly well established that the warmed earth, not the sun, generates the specific infrared energy wavelength CO2 gas can absorb so we have a net heating effect.
The scientific problem has always been all the other factors in the climate (especially clouds) and the incredibly poor performance of the models.
21
@ Glenn D #25
“Radiation of electromagnetic energy in the direction of a more intense field is common.”
Please show any demonstration of any electromagnetic radiation (power transfer) in a direction of more intense electromagnetic field strength, at any frequency. This is but an alamist fantasy!
If the fools measure at all, they only measure radiant intensity (power per steradian) from some direction. and at some frequency, they drop the per steradian and call that power (watts), nonsense! The radiant intensity is only a potential for electromagnetic radiation. Only after all such radiant intensities any frequency (Poynting vectors), are correctly summed can any radiative power thansfer be determined in each direction.
If my surface intensity (Poynting vector) at any frequency and direction is greater than an opposing vector, my surface never absorbs, but may emit proportional to the difference in the two intensities.
It is only the fraud that claims radiant intensity “is” radiation (a means of power transfer), that allows the alarmists to fool folk into thinking that the cold atmosphere can transfer power to the higher temperature surface in any way.
21
Point a torchlight at the sun and think of Oblers paradox.
00
A peltier effect device moves heat from the cold side to the warm side.
00
Thermal,far field electromagnetic radiation is always spontaneous, in thermodynamics always a way of discarding “entropy” out of this closed system. Your refrigerator is hardly spontaneous!
00
A night vision camera can see things that are cooler than it is.
00
Indeed, wich way is the power going?
01
Hmm, that would be from the cooler object to the warmer photographic plate, sufficient to cause a chemical reaction on the plate?
If not, then maybe you could explain how a camera works.
10
Again: Anything that reflects or partially reflects energy does this.
You seem to be fixated on the idea that an electromagnetic energy source somehow divines what is out there already before it radiates. Of course, there is no way to do this.
Because of this fixation I don’t think a rational discussion is possible.
20
@ Glenn D May 27, 2014 at 12:45 am
When a source of electromagnetic radiant intensity, at each frequency encounters a higher opposing radiant intensity at that frequency in any direction that source is absorbing not emiting in that direction at that frequency.
@ Siliggy May 27, 2014 at 7:39 am
All you have to do is demonstrate electromagnetic “flux” of any amount at any frequency going in opposite directions! This is not a thought problem. It is an impossibility!
@ Both Get a copy of Maxwell’s “a treatise on electricity and magnetism” read and understand every word, every sketch. then you may understand. Trust no arrogant academic, trust nothing in any text published since 1970. All has been trashed by Nuevo science!
01
@ Siliggy May 27, 2014 at 7:39 am
All you have to do is demonstrate electromagnetic “flux” of any amount at any frequency going in opposite directions! This is not a thought problem. It is an impossibility!
http://sing.stanford.edu/fullduplex/
00
@ Siliggy May 29, 2014 at 2:37 am
Here is a video from a thermal imaging camera. Colder and warmer objects on vehicles drive by. Light from them takes time to travel to the camera. light traveling back from the camera along the same path will not hit the same place on the moving target. Thus heat from cooler parts of the vehicles than the camera is displayed on the camera but if some how rejected by a mystery decision making process may return from the camera to a warmer part of the vehicle than the camera. Will, your theory ignores the time light takes to travel and thus fails!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRg6ORx7wow
This is perhaps the most outrageous fantasy from Siliggy
The instrument in that video has IR detectors cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen (77 Kelvin). There is no flux from the cold detectors to the higher temperature scene. One wide angle detector measures the average irradiance from the whole scene, as an computed BB temperature of the whole. the individual pixels, by intensity or color, only he spatial variance (modulation) of that paticular location. The whole thing has no indication of energy transfer in any direction. That instrument has high temporal resolution (30 Hz per frame). Costs between $30,000 and $120,000, and cannot be purchaced without the explicit permission from the USDOD. The LAPD has ten for their helicopters. SCOUTUS has determined that such an instrument cannot be used “even” for the detection of pot farms!
Siliggy, could have called any engineer at FLIR systems, to politely ask how such a device operates, and receive a competent answer. Instead he spouts of his personal fantasy only!
If such as Siliggy, with his ignorant arrogant attitude, called me when I worked for FLIR Systems, I would not have not politely hung up, I would have ripped the phone cord from the wall. I do not need such shit!
01
Thank you Joanne,
I wish you had more on Climate Nuremberg.
It seems that Brad is the “pearfect” issurer of equal opportunity sarcasm, quite independent of race, religion, color, creed, sexual orientation, political preference, or view on CAGW. Sarcasm sent in every direction seems to be the only thing left! Polite discussion is not!
00
It’s Flir E4 $1443.30 AU on ebay. So a great fathers day gift for dad if he is a “Slayer”.
Here is another video from the same YouTuber naming it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD8DEm3PukI
And here is what is really inside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtqUE67BUDI
Get em as an iPhone attachment too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MSnxEt2FiI
10
Indeed that puppy works at 9 seconds per frame with uncooled microbolometers! Nice if you want to futz around and learn nothing.
At $3500 US you can get twice the spatial resolution and something to futz with and still learn nothing! A good fathers day gift if your father is an idiot! Any active 0.9 micron trail camera can get better pictures of deerszies, raccoons, squirrels, and even fat armadillos! All for $87.95 plus tax. Can you not go somewhere and buy a clue?
01
Well, we did spend some time and effort to acquire one from you, but it seems you never stocked them.
00
“Please show any demonstration of any electromagnetic radiation (power transfer) in a direction of more intense electromagnetic field strength, at any frequency.”
Every demonstration of standing waves between two well impedance matched sources.
Now you answer a question. If these standing waves are not radiation travelling in both directions what are they?
10
+1
00
They are a demonstration of near stationary electromagnetic field strength they supply no power in either direction.
00
Will,
Plain old analog telephone transmits power in two directions, often at the same frequency, on a single pair of wires. The electronics at both ends are able to discern power received from power it is sending, regardless of the relative power of the two signals. On the wire, the two powers travel in opposite directions coexisting with no problem. Superposition, you know.
Have fun with that…
Sillggy:
I fear Will’s explanation of SWR (and his continual misuse of technical terms such as calling a Poynting vector a measure of surface intensity) shows any discussion is a hopeless cause…
I had to laugh at Will’s recommendation of Maxwell’s treatise. He obviously has not cracked that incredibly arcane tome. Better to study Heaviside.
10
“Plain old analog telephone transmits power in two directions, often at the same frequency, on a single pair of wires. The electronics at both ends are able to discern power received from power it is sending, regardless of the relative power of the two signals. On the wire, the two powers travel in opposite directions coexisting with no problem. Superposition, you know.”
Oh Jesus, signaling requires power but never a transfer of power in any direction. NYC can comunicate in both directions with Texas over the same conductors that are supplying 400 megawatts of power in the direction of NYC.
Signaling and power transfer via electromagnetic radiation through space or wires are always two independent concepts. You insist on conflating the two which are independent. All scientifically understood by all except for your Climate Scientologists who can obviously understand nothing.
@ Sillggy:
“I fear Will’s explanation of SWR (and his continual misuse of technical terms such as calling a Poynting vector a measure of surface intensity) shows any discussion is a hopeless cause…”
I have never tried to explain your arcane usage of the acronym “SWR” (trying to remember), that was “standing wave ratio”, an additional restriction on any radiative exitance.
A Poynting vector is exactly the cross product of “in phase” electromagnetic “e” and “h” fields. in each direction. It is precisely called radiative field strength, or radiative intensity of that vector.
Can you kids not go some where and buy a clue?
01
“Signaling and power transfer via electromagnetic radiation through space or wires are always two independent concepts.”
Umm, really?
So what does the electromagnetic field surrounding a current carrying wire depend on?
10
Will,
A telephone carbon microphone drives the earpiece at the other end without any intervening amplifiers. This happens in both directions simultaneously on the same wire. The signal driving the earpiece is measured in watts and is most certainly a transfer of power. ALL signals require a transfer of power to be detected.
10
@ Siliggy May 29, 2014 at 1:24 am
All flux (power) is in the direction toward the lower temperature surface.”
“Oh how silly of me to use an undemodulated glass thermometer.”
What do you think your thermometer measures besides temperature?
If you would ever try to measure anything at all, rather than getting your fantasy from wikipedia, you might actually learn something of thermal radiative heat transfer.
Even in a reflective vacuum chamber, eliminating all heat transfer, except the radiative, a careful measurment of the temperature response of each of two unpowered thermal masses, initially at a difference in temperature will measure the sensible heat energy transfer, and the rate of such energy transfer (flux) from the higher temperature mass to the lower temperature mass.
The rate of energy transfer depends on the geometry between the objects, on the effective emissivity of both masses, the specific heat of both masses, and on the difference in radiative intensity of the two masses. If the geometry, specific heat, and emissivities are constant this radiation, transfer of energy, power transfer, flux, is one way, and directly proportional to the difference in radiative intensity of the two masses. As the difference in intensity, a function of temperature, approches zero, all power transfer also approches zero. There is no T^4 finite flux in both directions, only zero flux.
This is quite apart from the 60s-70s Carl Sagen fantasy of flux in opposing directions. Such fantasy of a perpetuum mobile of the second kind, was falsified in the late 1970s. Your Climate Clown, gate keepers of the faith, will never allow such clear falsification to appear on wikipedia! Their income depends on that.
Your fantasy continues unabated. You have been thoroughly scammed.
01
@ Siliggy May 29, 2014 at 1:06 am
Only if you have some power to demodulate such a signal.
“So don’t forget to change the batteries in your microwave cookware!”
If you would even try to measure the the average brightness tempetrature of the 2.3 GHz magnetron (cavity even modulated at 60 Hz), you would find a temperature of several thousand Kelvin! The only reason your cup of coffee does not ‘splode’ is that the Magnetron is limited in power transfer to 600 watts to the water. All coming from the wall plug. None of your stupid batteries are required. Can you not afford to buy a clue?
01
No. Not right at all. The carbon microphone does not “drive” anything. It is only a variable resistor in series with a DC battery (the real source of energy).
Fact is none of you know much about telephone
10
Ooh I dunno Mark, that seems a bit harsh to me.
Here’s an example from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/drive
“The output is regulated by a single pulse width modulating controller which drives the boost switch and buck switch simultaneously.”
So surely, the microphone “controls” or “drives” the speaker to produce a sound. Certainly the energy is supplied by the battery, but without the “driver”, the speaker would remain silent.
As for none of us knowing about telephones, sometimes when confronted with other “unusual” explanations, often the language gets slightly less formal. After all, none of us are here to write a textbook.
00
“the language gets slightly less formal.”
Yes no need to show how Will’s admission of “modulation” is an admission that power is transfered from cooler to warmer as the cooler modulation power is added to warmer carrier power. Someone else has typed in all the brackets and 2πfc’s etc here.
http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/rf-technology-design/am-amplitude-modulation/theory-equations.php
Just notice that the modulating power causes the sideband power which adds to the total. It is not just forgotten as Will would like it to be. So it can be seen that amplitude modulation is a transfer of power.
As for knowing much about phones. I have modified and coupled enough two-way radios to land lines to do it in my sleep. As a teenager my home phone had a crank handle and a single wire going into town. This single wire was also parralel connected to other houses. Audio modulated DC power from our two big 1.5V batteries crossed paths with the audio power coming from the batteries at the other end as well as any of the neighbours on the party line if they picked it up. Our ring was a morse code letter.
10
I agree MaxL that did come off as harsh I thought I added a softening word like “seem to” but as I read it today it still would be harsh. I must have been having a bad day…..or trying badly for some levity.
In my understanding, a “driver” would have to be an active component but carbon types are not, they are passive devices. They are controls.
Carbon mics were used in standard telephone designs because the design of equipment was kept simple. Other mic types would have required more electronics to work and probably been more prone to generating noise.
Telephone circuit design is actually very brilliantly simple but I don’t think it is a good example for the argument going on above. That is what I was trying to get at.
30
Hi Mark, yeah I figured that’s what you meant, but I thought I’d throw my 2c worth to support what Glenn said. Word choice can be a tricky game.
I agree that telephone circuits and radio transmissions, whilst valid references, are actually distracting from the REAL argument that Will wants to espouse.
I say that because of his first comment at #22, where he starts off with asking for help to understand back radiation, yet finishes with declaring that back radiation is a fantasy.
I thought then, that he wasn’t here to gain information, nor was he here to discuss any differences in opinion that may arise, he was here, on his soapbox, to tell us everything he “knows”.
Although it’s not really important, I wonder why none of my questions to him have been answered or even acknowledged? I know I may seem like an idiot to some here, but I’d have thought that there was some level of decency that would apply regarding responding to a simple question.
20
MaxL May 30, 2014 at 12:54 am #25.1.5.2.9
I agree that telephone circuits and radio transmissions, whilst valid references, are actually distracting from the REAL argument that Will wants to espouse.
I say that because of his first comment at #22, where he starts off with asking for help to understand back radiation, yet finishes with declaring that back radiation is a fantasy.
I thought then, that he wasn’t here to gain information, nor was he here to discuss any differences in opinion that may arise, he was here, on his soapbox, to tell us everything he “knows”.
I do not “know” I measure then question.
#22 Can someone please explain the concept of “back radiation”, i.e. electromagnetic radiation (power transfer) in a direction of more intense electromagnetic field strength, at any frequency? Such concept is in opposition to all of Jimmy Maxwell’s equations. Such concept is also in defiance of Gus Kirchhoff’s laws of thermal radiation. In addition such flux, (power transfer) has never been observed, detected, or measured. Where does such fantasy originate and why?
All I ever get is some signaling concept powered the RMS of the signaling process. I never had any explanation of the process of power or energy “transfer”, to a higher potential. Consider a truck with 6 yards of coal delivering all that chemical energy, up a gravitational potential of one kilometer. No increase in power or total energy is ever delivered. The fuel and entropy of thay uphill work can only decrease the total power, work, or energy available. Your back radiation is just as ridiculous, and has no basis in science!
MaxL May 26, 2014 at 11:58 am
Hi Siliggy, Excellent explanation!
There’s just one point I wonder if you might consider rewording, or at least elaborating on.
“… is that CO2 re-radiates in all directions not just down …”
“… is that CO2 re-radiation (as proven by the Uda Yagi) IS directional!”
I think I know what you mean, but maybe these phrases, at first glance, could be considered as contradictory.
What does this have to do with any power (energy) transfer between two locations?
MaxL May 29, 2014 at 10:25 pm
Can you not go somewhere and buy a clue?
Well, we did spend some time and effort to acquire one from you, but it seems you never stocked them.
What does this have to do with any power (energy) transfer between two locations?
MaxL May 29, 2014 at 5:17 pm
Ooh I dunno Mark, that seems a bit harsh to me.
Here’s an example from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/drive
“The output is regulated by a single pulse width modulating controller which drives the boost switch and buck switch simultaneously.”
So surely, the microphone “controls” or “drives” the speaker to produce a sound. Certainly the energy is supplied by the battery, but without the “driver”, the speaker would remain silent.
As for none of us knowing about telephones, sometimes when confronted with other “unusual” explanations, often the language gets slightly less formal. After all, none of us are here to write a textbook.
What does this have to do with any power (energy) transfer between two locations?
, yeah I figured that’s what you meant, but I thought I’d throw my 2c worth to support what Glenn said. Word choice can be a tricky game..
Endless repetition of garbage.
What does this have to do with any power (energy) transfer between two locations?
00
Gosh Will.
All that copy/pasting and you still didn’t manage to find the two questions I asked of you.
Congratulations on finding the one time when I commented on your repetitive rudeness regarding how we should go somewhere to buy a clue. Hopefully you’ll stop using that childish retort in future.
00
MaxL May 31, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Gosh Will. All that copy/pasting and you still didn’t manage to find the two questions I asked of you.
Sorry, please repost any question for witch I did not respond.
What does this have to do with any power (energy) transfer between two locations?
00
Ha ha, that’s pretty funny Will.
One of them is just below your comment where you clicked on “Reply” in order to make your comment above.
The other one is at #25.1.3.1.1
Just below your comment #25.1.3.1
00
That witch rather than which, was only to really piss you off.
What does this have to do with any power (energy) transfer between two locations?
00
@ Will Janoschka in past history,
“Signaling and power transfer via electromagnetic radiation through space or wires are always two independent concepts.”
@ MaxL May 27, 2014 at 2:39 pm
“Umm, really?
So what does the electromagnetic field surrounding a current carrying wire depend on?”
I considered this as a troll rather than a real question.
That “magnetic” field is generated by that current. With a pair, carrying opposing current the two magnetic fields oppose and cancel. Try it with a compass, and see! They did that in the late 1600s.
If that current is alternating at some frequency that circular reactive magnetic field generates an orthogonal AC electric field alined with the direction of the current. If there is little or no opposing EM field at that frequency, energy can detach from that EM field and travel near the speed of light in any direction of lower opposing EM field at that frequency. The power so directed, is always limited to the difference of the two opposing EM fields and always and only in the direction of the lesser EM field.
@ Siliggy May 26, 2014 at 8:35 pm
“A night vision camera can see things that are cooler than it is.”
Will Janoschka May 27, 2014 at 12:25 pm
“Indeed, which way is the power going?”
MaxL May 27, 2014 at 1:35 pm
“Hmm, that would be from the cooler object to the warmer photographic plate, sufficient to cause a chemical reaction on the plate? “If not, then maybe you could explain how a camera works.”
Again just a troll!
Try taking a picture with your photographic plate in a coal bin, with no source of radiative energy field exceeding that of the thermal radiative field of that plate. You try to explain how your old fasioned camera works, please, it is your camera!
A night vision camera has no photographic plate. The very expensive fast ones use an array of photodetectors cooled to 77 Kelvin and are completely noise limited by the temperature variance of any scene above 250 Kelvin. The energy (power) transfer, thus is always in the direction of the cold detector.
The inexpensive ones (less than ten kilobucks) use an array of bolometers that change temperature and resistance depending on the magnitude and direction of any power flux.
They are limited by there own thermal noise (Ktb noise).
Since they can detect and measure thermal radiant flux in either direction, they can display any variation of that flux even if all radiant flux is outward to the lower temperature scene.
Please show any measurable thermal radiant flux in a direction of a higher temperature. You have been thoroughly scammed! Sorry if you were truly asking for “information” previously.
00
Will,
I’m glad you were finally able to find the questions that you deliberately chose to ignore.
I’m also glad you finally seem to be able to admit that the electromagnetic fields surrounding the current carrying wire are dependent on that current flow. I.e., they are NOT “independent concepts”.
It’s unfortunate that you seem unable to explain the operation of a simple pinhole camera with respect to the flow of electromagnetic radiation from a colder object to a warmer photographic plate.
However, I concur with many others, this thread is old, and is of no further interest. Those who may be scrolling through these archives may find your “comments” of interest.
10
Glenn D.
Will may be a lost cause but other readers are not.
Time to relax though. A bit of name calling and abuse can not cover up his biggest blunder. Nor will piles more confused gobbldy gook.
He has agreed that the cooler source can “Modulate” the stronger source.
I suspect you and MaxL both know where the power in AM sidebands comes from and anyone else who is reading along from that simple pearl can see it all clearly for what it is.
01
I agree with Siliggy. A rational discussion may not be possible with the person making claims, but answering the claim in a calm, reasoned manner may help other readers understand. It’s never a waste answering a question if more than the questioner are present. Even the most annoying questions. Someone can always learn from the exchange.
10
“Plain old analog telephone transmits power in two directions, often at the same frequency, on a single pair of wires.”
Lets repeat that… on a single pair of wires.!!!!!
You probably need to do some research on telephone hybrids, frequency and time duplexing etc.
Have fun 🙂
10
Griss it is you that needs to do the research Glenn D is doing just fine.
Plain old analog telephone transmits power in two directions, often at the same frequency, on a single wire. Thats right just one! Earth as the return/reference.
As AM Modulation can be shown by use of Mr “Heaviside’s formulae to be an addition of up to 1/3rd of the weaker source power to the stronger source Glenn D has helped to show how radiation from the cooler to the warmer is acheived in accordance with Will’s admission of modulation.
Mr Heaviside was a poor man with a patent on coax in 1880. Imagine what a patent on coax would be worth now!
01
Siliggy May 27, 2014 at 10:14
“Plain old analog telephone transmits power in two directions, often at the same frequency, on a single wire. Thats right just one! Earth as the return/reference.”
You may want to buy a book and notice that a POTS always uses two wires and if well twisted, radiates no electromagnetic power at all! The whole system has no more electromagnetic radiative flux than a crank up victrola.
For more nonsense the wall plug in your house has an rms potential. What does it take to transfer power “from” that wall plug, how about “to” that wall plug?
“As AM Modulation can be shown by use of Mr “Heaviside’s formulae to be an addition of up to 1/3rd of the weaker source power to the stronger source Glenn D has helped to show how radiation from the cooler to the warmer is acheived in accordance with Will’s admission of modulation.”
The signal (modulation) from a lower temperature surface can be detected at the higher temperature surface by using a reference flux from the higher temperature surface to the lower to demodulate that (modulation) and recover that signal. All flux (power) is in the direction toward the lower temperature surface.
If the two surfaces are at the same average temperature, with one sinusoidally varing in temperature slightly about the mean (same average), that signal cannot be detected at the opposite surface as there is no carrier flux.
Additional power would be required at that opposite surface to demodulate the modulation and recover the signal.
The signal and the flux are completely independent. Both comply with with the original Clausius statement of the second Law of Thermodynamics.
My interpretation of that Law is “Spontaneous energy transfer occurs only in the direction of lower total potential”.
Others can theorize why such Law “is” a law, or try to falsify!. I only observe!
“Mr Heaviside was a poor man with a patent on coax in 1880. Imagine what a patent on coax would be worth now!”
Absolutly nothing. Twisted pair, or waveguides always are superior. Please do not go into “coax is but a waveguide with a center having a high index of refraction at the center! That is a gradiant index fiber.
01
Wow a multi billion dollar industrial product made worthless in a puff of sideband defying “interpertantion” logic. just like that and its all over.
“The signal (modulation) from a lower temperature surface can be detected at the higher temperature surface by using a reference flux from the higher temperature surface to the lower to demodulate that (modulation) and recover that signal. All flux (power) is in the direction toward the lower temperature surface.”
Oh how silly of me to use an undemodulated glass thermometer.
11
You also might like to consider that a pair of walkie talkies set to the same frequency cannot talk to each other at the same time.
10
Griss you should get a same frequency duplex walkie talkie built like this instead … Cheapskate!
http://www.stanford.edu/~skatti/pubs/mobicom10-fd.pdf
01
Of course your theory does not make you a cheapskate and that thing looks hardly portable. I am a cheapskate and think i can see several cheaper ways to get practical single channel RF full duplex(single antenna). Also with off the shelf bits. So a bit of quiet bench dabbling in my near future.
01
digital switching speeds are now so rapid it allows things like time and frequency sharing pseudo-duplexing over the same frequency with ease.
00
@ the Griss May 28, 2014 at 4:54 pm
“digital switching speeds are now so rapid it allows things like time and frequency sharing pseudo-duplexing over the same frequency with ease.”
Only if you have some power to demodulate such a signal. If there is a flux you can borrow power from that one way flux to sometimes demodulate signals in either direction. Current cellphone technology uses no such flux. The cellphone does not transfer power in the form of sensible heat (flux) to the tower, nor does the tower transfer sensible heat to the cellphone. This demonstrates the independence of signaling, with power transfer (flux). This also demonstrates that masses at the same temperature have no power transfer at any frequency. They can chat both ways by wiggling many things with no need for transfering power in either direction. The variation in electromagnetic field strength by intensity, frequency, phase, or any combination, is sufficiant, with no-power transfer in either direction.
This has been known from 1968, but never by Climate Clowns!
01
“digital switching speeds are now so rapid it allows things like time and frequency sharing pseudo-duplexing over the same frequency with ease.”
Oh yes. Fast enought to use up the entire bandwith bottleneck with switching protocol exchange.
01
“Only if you have some power to demodulate such a signal.”
So don’t forget to change the batteries in your microwave cookware!
11
Here is a video from a thermal imaging camera. Colder and warmer objects on vehicles drive by. Light from them takes time to travel to the camera. light traveling back from the camera along the same path will not hit the same place on the moving target. Thus heat from cooler parts of the vehicles than the camera is displayed on the camera but if some how rejected by a mystery decision making process may return from the camera to a warmer part of the vehicle than the camera. Will, your theory ignores the time light takes to travel and thus fails!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRg6ORx7wow
11
This thread is now old and I will not post further. Mr. Janoshka has been presented with more than a half dozen examples of energy radiation into a stronger field. He even unwittingly produced an example himself when he said a signal could be sent in the opposite direction on a line supplying gigawatts of power.
I personally like the mirror and telephone examples. Note that with the telephone Mr. Janoshka had to change the direction of power transfer from going from one telephone to another, into going out into space. The pair of wires he mentions do of course transfer power in both directions simultaneously (look up differential pair for more info) and are twisted to keep external fields (fields from space as Mr. Janoshka calls them) from causing noise on the line (another example of a weaker energy radiating into where stronger fields exist).
We could, of course, go on. If the weaker source is not radiating where does the energy (which we can measure exiting the source) go?
It is interested that, regarding the global warming meme Mr. Janoshka and I are both skeptics. But it hurts the cause when obviously wrong concepts are argued as has been done here. Mr. Janoshka is probably beyond hope, but I encourage anyone still reading to refrain from making our side look stupid by propagating the idea that you cannot radiate energy into a stronger field..
30
Hear Hear!
Thank you Glenn for your advice, information and assistance.
Don’t be such a stranger, talk to us often. 🙂
10
So the whole global warming scar is predicated on CO2 levels correlating with global temperature. Here’s a few more spurious correlations.
http://www.tylervigen.com/
30
Via notrickszone:
According to the report, climate change has lead to the Nullarbor Plain of southern Australia to be the greenest it has ever been in 30 years.
Video: The disappearing desert
50
Sad that we have to read about the greening of the Nullabor in the Swiss newspapers.
And that vegetation coverage in Australia has increased by 6% since 1981.
20
The bloody minded hypocrisy of the warmist cabal never ceases to amaze.
They have willingly and deliberately lie, deceive and corrupt for a couple of decades to promote their “cause:, their catastrophic climate ideology, their dogma and all for what?
In the end and in spite of their catastrophic climate hype, their real and true intent is to follow the money, preferably where it leads to bucket loads of money.
They are quite prepared to sell their so called ethics, their so called integrity and their so called science along with their absolute and unchallengable, the science is in, belief in catastrophic global warming in exchange for money, bucket loads of money from the highest bidder.
There you have the true state of climate alarmist science and all the hype and deliberate misinformation and deliberate attempts to frighten the populace to support their nefarious “cause” that goes with that climate alarmist science.
Woods Hole allies with energy firms
Federal funds slip, but researchers remain confident of independence’
[ Quoted ]
But now the nonprofit institution, facing a severe budget crunch as federal research funding is slashed, has a very different sort of venture in the offing: helping oil and gas companies identify new sources of the very fossil fuels believed to be damaging the environment.
The potential that Woods Hole’s world-renowned expertise in deep water exploration could become a new tool for oil firms — through its newly established Center for Marine Robotics — is troubling to some environmental groups and others who worry the institution’s scientists could be co-opted by private interests if they are forced to rely too heavily on their support for research.
“It is a real problem,” said Walter H. Munk, a professor of oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., which is part of the University of California, San Diego. His university has received money from corporate sponsors. “You have to be quite sure you are getting the money in circumstances that don’t limit your [scientific] freedom,” Munk said.
In the coming days, according to officials at Woods Hole, the institution is set to sign agreements with Saudi Aramco, the primary oil company owned by the Saudi government, to study the potential for “hydrocarbons” in the Red Sea. It is also preparing to ink a deal for a “simulation study” on behalf of the Italian oil company Eni, while it has half a dozen other proposals in the works with unnamed corporations,the officials said.
Yet earlier this month, Woods Hole coauthored the Obama administration’s National Climate Assessment, which partly blamed hydrocarbons for causing climate change and damaging oceans.
“In addition to causing changes in climate, increasing levels of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities have a direct affect on the world’s oceans,” the report found, particularly an increase in levels of acidity, which it said are a threat to marine life.
Woods Hole has historically received most of its funding from federal research grants, which has helped ensure its independence. But cutbacks at a variety of agencies — and a near-halving of its Pentagon research dollars in the last three years — has prompted it to seek new sources of funding.
[ more ]
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Re: Philip Shehan,
He has similar form elsewhere. Remember the fiasco of the Marcott et al paper which showed a classic NH hockey stick for the SH using proxy data using a definition of 300 years? (much finer definition is required). In the following blog thread the name shehan is search-matched 70 times, and it is gobsmacking stuff from him:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/31/quote-of-the-week-bad-eggs-in-the-marcott-et-al-omelete-recipe/
Maybe 3/4 of the way down, Anthony Watts responded to Shehan:
Shehan’s persistence continued unabashed; provoking additional moderation actions until he was banned from the site.
He also has form here at Jo’s in a different vein where he was an “expert” in statistics, (80 matches to shehan), e.g.:
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/05/abbott-needs-to-be-more-pro-science-and-cut-funding-to-models-that-dont-work/
On the other hand maybe he just enjoys providing entertainment which we should share?
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Sorry,
Posted on wrong thread,
Should be on,(done):
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/05/the-university-of-queenslands-diabolical-dilemma/
@ #27
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Bwaahaahahahaha.
Thanks Bob, a sensational read. I especially like the bit where Brian (aka Philip Shehan) does his na-na with the following paragraph,
Then he wonders why he gets banned. Go figure!
—————————-
Heywood — what evidence is there that Brian is Philip? Just wondering.- J
UPDATE: Thanks to Heywood see here.OK. – Jo
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Heywood,
I’d forgotten about this thread and upon return am amused that Shehan has at least one other unobvious nom de blog.
Elsewhere he is upset that someone he describes as odious has used more than one handlebar:
Erh, I think Brian/Shehan should try and find a nice serene spot somewhere and listen to Beethoven’s sixth symphony, (The pastoral), particularly the second movement subtitled “Scene by the brook”.
Well, D. Boehm Stealey has done it in full and with abbreviations. Big deal!
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The abominable and pernicious Green watermelon cabal just keep right on giving with the usual sad level of human sacrifice of living standards needed to justify their far leftist ideologically imposed policies.
From Forbes
Surprise! Fairtrade Doesn’t Benefit The Poor Peasants
[quoted ]
This will come as a surprise to those who have bought into the marketing malarkey about Fairtrade products and not as a surprise to any of those who have really looked at the issue. Which is that there doesn’t seem to be any great benefit in the system for the poor peasantry that it’s supposedly designed to help. In fact, it actually seems to make people worse off, not better off. This isn’t I hasten to add, the result of a study done by some hateful neoliberal like myself. No, this is the result from a four year long research program by the impeccably liberal (and veering over into Marxian third world nonsense at times) School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
Their report is here and they’ve an article explaining matters here.
What did surprise us is how wages are typically lower, and on the whole conditions worse, for workers in areas with Fairtrade organisations than for those in other areas.
Careful statistical analysis allowed us to separate out the possible effects of other factors, such as the scale of production. Still, the differences were in most cases, and especially for wages, statistically significant. Explaining why it should be that workers in areas dominated by Fairtrade organisations are so often worse off than workers in other areas is a complex and challenging task. Our full report explores some possible reasons.
It was also surprising to learn that many people do not benefit from the “community” projects supported with funds generated by the “social premium” consumers pay for Fairtrade products. Researchers at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) found that many of the poorest are unable to use these facilities. In one Fairtrade tea co-operative the modern toilets funded with the premium were exclusively for the use of senior co-op managers.
[ more ]
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MSM still trying to associate Ukip with racism in the first link:
Ukip storms European elections
The UK Independence Party has won a national election for the first time,
taking the most votes and seats in the European Parliament elections.
The Ukip victory came as anti-establishment parties advanced across the
European Union, with the racist National Front winning in France…
The result was the first time since 1910 that a national election was not
won by either the Conservatives or Labour…
***The Liberal Democrats were left in a humiliating fight for fourth place with
the Greens and narrowly averted the “shattering” loss of all their MEPs.*** …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10855972/Ukip-storms-European-elections.html
European Elections: UKIP Top British Polls
UKIP have topped the European polls in the UK, with the Labour Party vying
with the Conservatives for second place.
Sources from the other main parties have conceded Nigel Farage’s party will
win, with the leader hailing an “earthquake” in British politics.
The Lib Dems look on course to lose all but one of their 11 MEPs, with the
party coming in fifth place – after the Greens – in every region so far.
With 10 of 12 UK regions having declared, UKIP has 31.3% of the vote, the
Conservatives 24.9%, Labour 23.3%, the Greens 7.8% and the Lib Dems 6.9%.
There was a turnout of 36%.
http://news.sky.com/story/1268952/european-elections-ukip-top-british-polls
Ukip wins European elections with ease to set off political earthquake
For the first time in modern history, neither Labour nor Conservatives have
won a British national election
Farage said the result justified the description of an earthquake because
“never before in the history of British politics has a party seen to be an
insurgent party ever topped the polls in a national election”…
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/ukip-european-elections-political-earthquake
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Mark Steyn (he whom Mann is suing) has parodied the establishments reaction to the UKIP:
http://www.steynonline.com/6363/david-cameron-says-he-shares-voters-frustration
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Inconveniently flat as a pancake….
From WUWT
On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 16 and 21 years.
The details for several sets are below.
For UAH: Since February 1996: CI from -0.043 to 2.349
For RSS: Since November 1992: CI from -0.022 to 1.867
For Hadcrut4: Since October 1996: CI from -0.033 to 1.192
For Hadsst3: Since January 1993: CI from -0.016 to 1.813
For GISS: Since August 1997: CI from -0.008 to 1.233
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Just had to sit through a rather comic interview on the radio with someone from Bloomberg.
The argument was that renewables are driving down energy prices and that lowering the RET in OZ will drive them up.
2 small facts that the ABC presenter of course colluded with the interviewee to obfuscate.
1. Renewables drive energy prices up not down. A very simple test, look at the percentage of renewables in the market 10 years ago and now, look at the prices 10 years ago and now. Its observational evidence, not hard to find or understand.
2. Renewable generation systems and their owners do not operate with a motivation to offer discount power. 6 Years in wind energy with 2 of the world’s biggest providers I have a little tiny insight into how this works. AGL for example does not offer a discount to provide you so called green energy, in fact all you have to do is read an AGL bill to see the clear statement that you are being charged an extra and separate premium for it. Windfarms generally return the cost of their investment (especially the massively tax payer funded Australian ones) in about 3-7 years. After that its all gravy for the asset owner, do you think they are passing those savings on? You do? Well I can sell you a bridge in Sydney if you like.
Renewables…. the corrupt leading the stupid.
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And some folks are even waking up to the notion that paying through the nose for your power is not in fact a good idea.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-21/ohio-poised-to-break-from-u-s-push-for-renewable-energy.html
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When I voted for sitting Liberal MP Martin Hamilton-Smith at the recent SA State election I thought I was not voting Labor. Silly me.
Now he has accepted a post in the SA Labor Government as Minister for Various Things.
Another Peter Lewis no less. Who would have thought?
00
You might enjoy this read.
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